Gino Vannelli possesses one of the great voices in music. While best known for classic pop hits like “I Just Wanna Stop”, “Living Inside Myself”, and “Wild Horses”, Vannelli has also won multiple awards for his jazz and classical work. On February 7, Vannelli will release his most personal record yet, The Life I Got (To My Most Beloved) was written as his late wife battled cancer. Gino recently took some time to talk about this intensely personal album and his remarkable journey.
Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws Gino Vannelli interview –
On when he decided to write about the journey he and his wife were on – Well, there are one or two songs that I had written a while back but never finished, but the bulk of the album I started to write about as soon as Patricia got ill, and the battle started, and it intensified with the years. I, of course, went through the journey with her. Some of the songs I didn’t end up putting on the record were songs more of anger and why, why her? But the songs that I ended up keeping were the songs about the way I truly felt, and that was the fact that I honored and admired her courage and was with her all the way. She never complained or anything like that. She just went through it. She went through multiple surgeries, which was just, just obliterating. Not that I want to make the record of celebration, but I really, truly wanted to make it a tribute and honor.
On writing songs that celebrate their relationship – I think that is just as important when you’re looking at something like this. Well, especially when she’s with you and she’s fighting this, this terrible cancer you can’t be…As I said in my last post on my Facebook page, I had finished the lyrics to “Stormy River” and the last lyric being, “My sweet, departed love”, and I knew it was coming, but I couldn’t play her the song.
Only those who go through it know exactly what you’re feeling, especially Trish and I in such a close relationship, even closer than ever in the last 10, 15 years. We shared everything. I mean, our deeply held spiritual beliefs, our political beliefs, our religious beliefs, our societal beliefs, our family beliefs, you name it. Of course we had differences, but we really admired each other for holding on to our belief systems, and obviously hers, she was tested in her way, and I was tested in mine, and I’m continuing to be tested in the sense that I miss her so much. I miss that ear that I would wake up to that I could speak to, our breakfasts together and all that. I know I’m not alone, but it’s a funny thing just that when you go through it, you feel alone.
On the song “Come To Jesus Moment” – Well, Tricia was very much involved with that moment. I’d spend a few weeks in South America, and I ended up in Peru and this was the late eighties, mid to late eighties. I ended up in Lima, then going to Cusco, and then going to Machu Picchu, and end up staying there for a while. My life was turned around. The song describes my life being turned around by some transpersonal experience. Patricia was very much part of it, because when I got back from that trip, I was so altered, so moved, that, I know it sounds like a cliché, but I couldn’t ground myself.
Because when you have these strange deeply out of body experiences, and you see things that you haven’t seen before, and that you didn’t know existed. Then, when I did my studies in the subsequent years there are things that many, many others have seen before, she was there for me, and she was there to make sure that I did keep grounded and I kept focused on what it was that I wanted to do and got me through a difficult time.
So, I mean, that the “Come To Jesus Moment” is the moment that I had that experience and that I struggled to make sense of it and struggled to get back on a path here on earth. It sounds exotic, but it’s really simple. I mean, people go through it in their own ways. Mine was a sort of two by four up in the mountains.
On if it was important to him to do everything himself on the record – I can work any way. I love to work with musicians, and I like to work with maybe sometimes just a co-producer. Sometimes I like to work alone. It really depends. For this record, I built this place that you see now in the last two, three years and I did it. It’s right on my property. I did it because I knew that Tricia would need me to be close to her. The last year it was almost hourly, so I really couldn’t go off. I found it a little bit difficult in Tricia’s condition to invite people. So, I decided that I was going to just use my instrumental knowledge of all the rhythm section instruments and do the record myself. Of course, I’ve learned how to orchestrate and all that.
In songs like “Across the Dark Night”, I didn’t think anything. I’m just orchestrating the whole thing myself. But I did work with a co-producer. His name was Peter Fil. He, oddly enough, this is what makes the record a little bit unique he co-produced the record from Athens, Greece. We’d almost every morning do a Zoom call or a Skype call and go over cuts, approach. I would send him an MP3. He’d give me his feedback on it. We’d go over it night. We kind of circulated that that way. I had a very few guests, especially back vocalists, a couple from Canada, a couple from here in in Portland, and Allen Hinds, who played with me live, did do a really fine guitar solo on “It’s All Good Mama”. So, I mean, there were guests here and there, but yeah, you’re right. For the most part, I really, I chose to do it myself because I had a vision. An audio vision, you might say. I wanted to complete it. But also, it’s because I never knew what my schedule would be.
On if he was prepared for his early success – That stuff never really meant very much to me. I mean, it was nice to be nominated and not very much fun to lose to “Copacabana”. But I really didn’t care that much, Jeff. It was always just sort of a pat on the back. And how do you feel about a pat on the back? You wouldn’t deny it, but you’d say, “Well, if I didn’t get it, it wouldn’t make a difference in my life”. So I was always very hell bent on just creating music the way I wanted to create. It was also something to do something to, it’s a spiritual journey in the sense that you keep mirroring yourself and you keep seeing where you were three years ago as compared to now or what you want to be in the future.
So after 23 albums, I could see the journey myself. Some of the journey, I have praise for, for instance, that’s why I redid “Keep On Walking”. Because I was just listening to it one day on Spotify, the old, original version, 1975. And I, I admired the tune. I thought it was a good tune. I said, “The only thing is I would maybe do it this way”. I was quite taken by my new idea. I said, “We’ve got to record it”. So I went in the studio, again, basically by myself, and started producing the whole thing. I said, “We’ve got to do this live and put it on the record”. Peter did his backgrounds to it, which really, really were good. Peter Fil. It turned out to be kind of a new jazzier version of the original, but it’s fun to sing and fun to do live.
On if he feels there is a “sweet spot” in all the various genres he’s recorded in –, I really enjoy playing with orchestras. I just did a a concert a few months ago with the Quebec Philharmonic, and there were all arrangements that I had penned, most of them. I enjoy performing in front of 60-piece orchestras. I also enjoy doing just piano vocal performances, and I really enjoy playing with my Portland band. We’re, I think eight to ten pieces on stage. That’s very much fun, too I mean, it’s all really just music to me.
I like writing too right now. I’m working on a It’s called a “Book of Seven” and seven book series of short stories. Actually, they’re graphic short stories or graphic novellas in my column that were inspired by real life experiences that I just took liberties to expand upon. I really kind of enjoy it all. Art, I could admire from sound to painting to sculpting to really anything.
Maybe I have one or two more records in me. But I think what I’m going to be concentrating on in the future is the seven stories that I’ve written, I’m going to dare to write three to five songs for every story and create almost like a still movie for every book. I’m okay with (doing the illustrations), but not to the level that I want it to be. So, actually, my brother Ross’ son, Alessandro Vannelli did a lot of the graphic art on the first book, “The Falconer”, and that will be coming out this year.
On the impact of Yacht Rock helping people rediscover his music – Well, it’s a natural thing. I mean as as our generation got older, we just didn’t want to be grandmas and grandpas and just kind of knit and weave and basket weave and sit and watch the grandchildren grow. I think a lot of people in our age group were that grew up in the 60s and 70s really had this notion that they, they grew old, but they didn’t want to grow old in nature. They love going to cruises and going on cruises and I did a couple myself and found them to be very, very much alive and full of full of vim and vigor, like they were in their youths as maybe it’s a desperate attempt. I don’t know. I don’t really care about that. All I know is that they’re a great audience to play in front of. They’re very anxious and they’re like kids.
On the long break he took from touring – Well, the first thing was that I had run into difficulty with Arista Records in the early 80s. It was sort of a George Michael or Prince kind of deal where they didn’t want to release my stuff. We got into litigation and that really held me back for two or three, for three or four years, actually. So that had a very big impact on my ability to tour. Then I finally signed with a record company from France and that’s how Black Cars came out. Then it came out worldwide, and by that time it was 1985, 86, and that’s when the whole Peruvian thing happened, and I didn’t tour because I went back to college, and I studied the humanities and theology for about 6 to 7 years, and I only started touring again by maybe early 90s. So, it was a study period, and it was taking stock of myself getting through that, that whole experience in, in Peru and really in a sense being born again, knowing that because I had done music since I was a child, I was signed to RCA Victor when I was 17 years old. I signed with A&M when I was 20. So, I grew up. When it suddenly stopped because of legalities and things of this world, I was so stymied and so disappointed and blocked that I knew that that door was not no longer open to me. So, I need to find another door. The only way to find another door was to find the ability to find that door within me. That’s when the study period and the intellection and the reflection all took place.
On if he will tour behind the new record – We have a show coming up in Austin and Atlanta, March 20th and March 22nd. We’re, we’re doing a a college, a university in Texas in April that I’m going to give a masterclass. We’re going to be playing Chicago, Detroit, New York Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. We’ll have a fair amount of concerts this year, yes.
On his plans for the year – Well, the first novel will definitely come out this year. It is done and it’s ready to be released. Right now, I’m speaking to a few publishing houses about it. Deciding whether I should self-publish or give it to a publisher. These days are very different, as you well know.
We’re being asked to go really play, to go tour the world. We’re asked to go back to Europe. We’re being asked to go play in South America. I might do South America this year. I could begin or entertain the thought of doing another album maybe next year. More so, I would, as I said before, I think my next project in the studio will be doing the three to five cuts for “The Falcon”. We’re also organizing some concerts with the Quebec Philharmonic. A 60-piece orchestra, and I’m hoping that will come together, because as you well know, to find funding for such a mammoth project like that is quite something, and I think they have.
On if he has played the new songs live – Only with my band, “Keep On Walking”. We’re going to add “Stormy River” to the set. It’s hard for me to get through that one. But I think I’m going to add it. I performed it once with the Quebec Philharmonic last year, this was like two months before Tricia passed. I could hardly get through it. I’m betting I’ll get through it, but I hope I will.
