Songoftheday 3/6/19 - I hold on to your body and feel each move you make, your voice is warm and tender a love that I could not forsake...
from the album The Colour Of My Love (1993)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 26
Today's song of the day comes from Canadian singer Celine Dion, who had previewed her third English-language album The Colour Of My Love with a duet with Clive Griffin that also appeared in the movie Sleepless In Seattle, a cover of Nat King Cole's classic "When I Fall In Love", that hit the American top-40 in the fall of 1993. When the time came for the album to be released, Celine put out another cover as the second single. "The Power Of Love" was originally written and recorded by Jennifer Rush, an American who had a massive international hit with the ballad, but astonishingly only scraped up to #57 on the pop Hot 100 in Billboard magazine in 1985...
Later that same year, Australian soft-pop stars Air Supply covered "The Power Of Love", adding "You Are My Lady" to the title. But as that genre was losing favor fast with mainstream pop radio, their version, while peaking at #13 on the Adult Contemporary chart, only managed to get to #68 on the pop chart here...
Laura Branigan also took on the song, and finally broke through the top-40 barrier, climbing to #26 in the beginning of 1988, but again it would be her final top-40 pop hit in this country...
Which brings us to Celine. In the spirit of having a big voice sing this emotionally overwrought song, it made sense to show her pipes with this time of exposition. And she proved up to the task, giving a performance that caught fire with radio and fans, and the David Foster-produced track sent her to the top of the American singles chart for the very first time...
Dion's take on "The Power Of Love" spent a month at #1 on the American pop chart in February of 1994. The song also took four weeks at the top of the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart in Billboard magazine. Internationally, the single hit #1 in Canada for two weeks and Australia for a week. It also reached the top ten in France (#3), Iceland (#3), the UK (#4), Belgium (#5), Sweden (#6), and New Zealand (#7). The record landed in the top-40 in Ireland (#13) and the Netherlands (#22) as well. At the Grammy Awards in 1995, Celine's "The Power Of Love" was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, losing out to Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do".
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Celine went to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to perform "The Power Of Love" and sit with Jay in 1994...
Next up is Celine on tour behind the Colour Of My Love album in 1994...
Here's Celine performing the song at the American Music Awards in 1995, where she was nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Song (which went to Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love To You")...
Moving up to 1999, with a show in Paris...
And again we jump ahead a decade, when Celine had her music special on CBS...
And lastly, from her still-going show in Las Vegas...
Up tomorrow: A singer/songwriter paints a musical picture that may or may not be about Sarah Jessica Parker.
Comments