The Gazette (Montreal)
Singer aims for world status but Pierrefonds is next stop
Thu Jun 22 1989
Page: I3
Section: News
Byline: By AARON DERFEL of The Gazette
Source: GAZETTE
Illustrations: Gazette, Nancy Ackerman/ Ready to take on the world: Celine Dion on St. Catherine.
As Celine Dion walks along St. Catherine
St. on a sunny weekday afternoon, fans That's about to change.
rush to greet her.
Dion has just finished recording an album
She stops to mingle and sign autographs. in English in the United States, partly
One admirer, who had run into a store to produced by Canadian David Foster.
buy camera film, returns to have his picture
taken with the slender singing star. CBS Records spent $1 million on the
album, the largest amount ever budgeted
Although Dion, 21, has recordedfour for a new artist.
platinum albums and won the Eurovision
Song Contest in Dublin last year, success In preparation for the album, which has not
hasn't changed her much. yet been named, Dionstudied English at the
Berlitz school for two months.
Dion, who will perform at Pierrefonds
Comprehensive High School Saturday as "Since I was 5 years old, I wanted to have
part of Pierrefonds's Fete Nationale an international career," she says, her large
celebration, says she wants to become an brown eyes shining. "Now I think I'm
international star but will never forget her ready, and I love to sing in English."
Quebecois roots.
For Dion, who sang before the Pope at
After all, the youngest of 14 children still Olympic Stadium in 1984, forging a
lives with her parents in their Laval home. distinct style is important.
"I'm not a snob," she says after sipping a "I don't want to be another Madonna or
non-alcoholic pina colada in a bar at the Whitney Houston. I want to keep my own
Meridien Hotel last week. style."
"I want my career to grow, but I'll still sing While Dion devotes all her time and energy
in French and stay here. I'm Quebecoise to becoming a household name in the U.S.,
and I'm very proud of it." she says she has had to make sacrifices.
Although Dion's last album, Incognito, sold "I can't have a boyfriend and go to a disco
more than 170,000 copies, her manager, until 2 a.m.," she says with a rueful smile.
Rene Angelil, says her name is not "I don't have any really close friends but I
well-known outside Quebec. don't have the time to think about it."
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Indeed, Dion has kept busy. Since January
1988, she has performed at 181 concerts
across the province.
Dion recorded her first single when she
was 13 and a year later won a gold medal
at Tokyo's World Popular Music Festival.
She says singing is her life and she'll never
give it up.
"The thing that I like the most is to sing on
stage for two hours and to have that contact
with the audience."
© 1989 Postmedia Network Inc. All rights
reserved.
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