Sings His Favorites (Remastered) Paul Anka

• 1 Diana 02:20
• 2 Put Your Head on My Shoulder 02:35
• 3 You Are My Destiny 02:28
• 4 Eso Beso 02:52
• 5 I'm Glad There Is You (In This World of Ordinary People) 04:34
• 6 Hello, Dolly! (From the Musical Production, "Hello Dolly") 01:35
• 7 Fly Me to the Moon 03:40
• 8 Memories Are Made of This 02:12
• 9 Sorrento 02:55
• 10 Canadian Sunset 04:08
• Total Runtime 29:19

Info for Sings His Favorites (Remastered)

When Paul Anka emerged from the Canadian capital city of Ottawa into the international music market with his plaintive song, "Diana," a rich and imaginative new vein of musical style entered the pop mainstream. The 15-year-old Anka whose wailing lament about an older woman on whom he had a distinct crush, had a special down-to-earth feel to his music with which almost ankÂne could identify.

At a time in the late '50s when there was much rocking and rolling going on with the likes of Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Motown groups hitting the charts repeatedly, Anka's young heart was giving vent to typical and relatively uncomplicated teen style thinking. Among the best-known titles of that early era: “Put Your Head On My Shoulder,” “You Are My Destiny," "Lonely Boy" and "Puppy Love." As one columnist has observed, "Anka cut a special musical niche filled with the wonders of romance."

By the early '60s, Anka had become well established as a major new performing star and prolific songwriter. He was a frequent guest on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand," through which he continued to expand his profile. Expanding too were his songwriting skills as he moved into more sophisticated fare. In 1962, he wrote what may well be the most played-on-the-air song in television history, "The Tonight Show" theme, universally recognized for 30 years and said to have been performed more than 1,400,000 times during the show's long run with host, Johnny Carson.

By this time, Anka had taken up residence in The United States and was busily creating movie music. His soundtrack for "The Longest Day," a film in which he also acted, won him an Academy Award nomination. He also wrote the theme and title song for the film, "No Way Out," and the theme for Louis Malle's "Atlantic City," which won top honors at the Venice Film Festival.

His songwriting activity has never tapered. His subject matter, however, has continued to deal with more basic themes of romance. His major hits of the “70s include "Having My Baby," "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone," "One Man Woman" and "The Times of Your Life." The latter ultimately became a theme for a Kodak commercial. Later, in 1983, Anka scored with another major hit, "Hold Me 'Til the Morning Comes," with assists from David Foster and ex-Chicago singer, Peter Cetera.

Many leading stars have recorded the songs of Paul Anka, including Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Connie Francis, Mitch Miller, Buddy Holly, Tom Jones and The Doobie Brothers. The song, "My Way," which he adapted from a French ballad, has proven one of his most enduring and endearing songs with classic hit versions by both Sinatra and Elvis Presley (his final single recording).

Beyond his songwriting talents, Anka is recognized as one of the most successful and respected stars of the Las Vegas and Atlantic City nightclub circuit as well as on concert stages throughout the world. He has also enjoyed significant success as an actor. His credits include "The Longest Day," a number of films for television including "Perry Mason," "Captain Ron," and "Ordinary Magic."

Over the years, Anka has also enjoyed substantial international popularity, having recorded albums in Japanese, German, Spanish, French and Italian. During the mid-'60s, he lived for two years in Italy, where his Italian composition, "Ogni Valta," sold 15 million copies and took top honors at that country's annual San Remo Song Festival. And in the early 1990’s, he was honored by the French government being made Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters. He is one of only three Americans ever to have received this prestigious award.

Most recently, Anka's interests have been renewed in his native Ottawa, where he is a co-owner of the city's National Hockey League franchise, The Ottawa Senators.

Anka has been married for nearly 40 years to the former model, Anne de Zogheb. They are the parents of five daughters, Amelia, Anthea, Alicia, Amanda and Alexandra. (Source: www.songwritershalloffame.org)

Paul Anka, vocals

Digitally remastered

Paul Anka
Born July 30, 1941, in Ottawa into a tight-knit Canadian family, Paul Anka didn't waste much time getting his life in music started. He sang in the choir at Church and studied piano. He honed his writing skills with journalism courses, even working for a spell at the Ottawa Citizen. By 13, he had his own vocal group, the Bobbysoxers. He performed at every amateur night he could get to in his mother's car, unbeknownst to her of course. Soon after, he won a trip to New York by winning a Campbell's soup contest for IGA Food Stores that required him to spend three months collecting soup can labels. It was there his dream was solidified, he was going to make it as a singer composer there was not a doubt in his young tenacious mind.

In 1956, he convinced his parents to let him travel to Los Angeles, where he called every record company in the phone book looking for an audition. A meeting with Modern Records led to the release of Anka's first single, "Blau-Wile Deverest Fontaine." It was not a hit, but Anka kept plugging away, going so far to sneak into Fats Domino's dressing room to meet the man and his manager in Ottawa. When Anka returned New York in 1957, he scored a meeting with Don Costa, the A&R man for ABC-Paramount Records. He played him a batch of songs that included "Diana" – Costa was duly enthusiastic about the potential of the young singer and songwriter. The rapid and enormous success of "Diana"- his first number one hit – made him a star.

"They are all very autobiographical," says Anka of his early hits. "I was alone, traveling, girls screaming, and I never got near them. I'm a teenager and feeling isolated and all that. That becomes ‘Lonely Boy.' At record hops, I'm up on stage and all these kids are holding each other with heads on each other's shoulders. Then I have to go have dinner in my room because there are thousands of kids outside the hotel — ‘Put Your Head on My Shoulder' was totally that experience.

Soon Paul found himself traveling by bus with the ‘Cavalcade of Stars' with the top names of the day in the era of segregation, performing at the Copa Cabana, the youngest entertainer ever to do so, and honing his craft surrounded by the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Frankie Lyman, and Chuck Berry.

By the time the Beatles arrived in the sixties, Anka had another tool in his survival kit. "After a few hits," he says, "I knew I was a writer, and with writers, the power was always in the pen. When I started writing for Buddy Holly and Connie Francis, I felt that it made me different for people — they'd say, ‘Hey, you can write, you can fall back on something." Among his proudest accomplishments was writing the Academy Award-nominated theme for The Longest Day, the 1962 film in which he also starred.

Songwriting and performing "are what gave me the confidence to keep going," he says. Becoming a junior associate of Sinatra and the Rat Pack also had its privileges. By the ‘70s, the success of "My Way" and a string of hits like "(You're) Having My Baby" confirmed his status as an icon of popular music. His later achievements as a recording artist included "Hold Me ‘Til the Morning Comes," a hit duet with Peter Cetera in 1983, the Spanish-language album Amigos in 1996, and Body of Work, a 1998 duets album that featured Frank Sinatra, Celine Dion, Patti LaBelle, Tom Jones and daughter Anthea Anka. If this wasn't enough, it was revealed upon its release in 2009, that Anka co-wrote Michael Jackson's posthumous #1 worldwide hit, "This Is It," which has further cemented his place upon the most prolific and versatile songwriters of any generation.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Anka's two most recent albums – Rock Swings and now Classic Songs, My Way – ingeniously featured songs originally created by some of the biggest rock performers of the day – as well as other established artists across several genres. The twist: Paul Anka did the songs ‘his way.' His goal: "taking great songs and rework them so they're natural for me." With the help of his five daughters, Anka spent months researching music from the ‘80s and ‘90s, trying to find the songs that would work in the radical new context he proposed. The songs that made the cut included Bon Jovi's "It's My Life," Lionel Richie's "Hello" and Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven." Even more dramatic were his transformations of "Wonderwall" by Oasis, "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden and Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Rock Swings went Top 10 in the UK, and was certified gold in the UK, France, and Canada, hit No. 2 on Billboard's Top Jazz Albums chart and went on to sell half a million units worldwide.

This album contains no booklet.