Shinan Govani, National Post
Published: Wednesday, December 20, 2006
David Foster’s whole wizardly star-making machinery was at work during a gala held in his name recently.
The event, which was held at the Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls and offered some goose-bumpy competition to those very Falls, helped raise more than $3.3-million — million! — for non-medical costs accrued by families requiring organ transplants.
Canada’s Foster collects friends the way Jerry Seinfeld collects cars, so le tout talented was on hand for an after-dinner, variety-showstyle sing-and-laugh-along. And — for those of us who’ve followed the ebbs and flows of one of the most successful music producers ever and not nearly-as-successful reality- TV star — it was more than just going to a concert. It was like going to a concert in Foster City, glassed inside a snow globe, and those on the inside witnessed the good, the better and the ugly. The good American Idol bridesmaid Katharine McPhee. One might as well mix philanthropy with(show) business, and Foster did just that when he set about laying the seeds for what will be an evidently out-and-out publicity push when the gorgeous McPhee makes her album debut next month.
“Remember this moment!” the terribly buoyant producer told his mostly prosperous audience. She’s “in the line of the Whitneys and Celines and Mariahs,” all three of whom he has, naturally, worked with, and she’s “the next superstar.”
So, how’d McPhee perform at this Ontario Lottery Corporation- sponsored event? Rather nicely — especially with her signature, hair-raising take on Whitney Houston’s I Have Nothing. Her hair, even more importantly, gleamed like black enamel. And even when she was cornered by the piano-tinkling Foster with some banter about Taylor Hicks, she managed just fine.
“That guy who won?is he a dick?” he asked her. Blushing and hesitating a little, Katharine replied like an experienced pol: “Taylor is a nice guy.”
A little later in the night, Foster trumped his latest chanteuse some more when, in a scene reminiscent of Madonnaa and Britney Spears joining forces years ago at the MTV Awards — minus the kiss! — he brought out Mc- Phee to perform a duet with superstar Andrea Bocelli. As far as passings-of-the-torch go, that’s as good as it sings. The better Well, signor Bocelli, of course! Fresh from serenading Tom Kat in Italy, he delivered movingly and sine qua non. Even a Tuscan style tribute to Elvis Presley — his rendition of I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You — was a possibly quizzical idea turned gold. Not much needs to be said except that we’d have dinner with Andrea anytime! The Ugly Michael Buble, who possibly needs to get a new torch of something.
It’s never the most fun thing to criticize an artist who’s come out to croon for charity — especially one who’s a genuine talent — but Buble’s appearance on the stage was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. Hoarse. Shaky. Distracted. Not funny, not gracious and even a tad combative. Me being the messenger, you should know that everybody was talking about it in the lobby afterwards.
Besides using the f-word at least twice and going off on tangents in search of a punch line, Buble was the dark side, at least that night, of Foster’s aforementioned star-making machinery.
In fact, right before the Grammy-nominated singer was scheduled to come onstage, there was a comedy routine by funny-guy Sinbad, of all people! A comedy routine that he stopped after a few minutes, but was then clearly signalled to keep going, and which he kept up for a bizarre half-hour. A source, for what it’s worth, tells me it’s because Michael wasn’t “ready.”
Performers, like everyone else, have off-days, but when you’re having your off-day onstage, the wonderful world of showbiz can turn suddenly cold. And when you’re sharing the stage with artists clearly having on-days — McPhee, Bocelli et al. — the contrast is evenmore acute.
What a gala! What a narrative arc! Just consider it: While one star was being born that night, and another was at the top of his game, yet another, surprisingly, was only staying afloat.
Who says charity events are boring?
AND JUST ONE MORE THING …
Toronto funny person Eugene Levy is even older and wiser than we thought. He turned the big 6-0 last Sunday, not the big 5-0 as I mentioned yesterday!
Stephen Hunt, Calgary Herald
Published: Thursday, March 15, 2007
Mr. Grammy is available for lessons.
At least David Foster was available for Calgary businessman Wayne Henuset on Wednesday when the 43-time Grammy nominee (and 14-time winner) flew here from Los Angeles to personally tutor Henuset, president of Willow Park Wines and Spirits and Energy Alberta Corporation.
Henuset later hosted an exclusive dinner for the 57-year-old music icon, who has produced Whitney Houston and Celine Dion, among many others, and also wrote the 1988 Calgary Olympics theme.
“This town’s huge,” Foster said Wednesday, looking suave in a black suit and tie.
“I haven’t been here since the Olympics, and I’m just shocked at how incredible it is. It’s a thriving metropolis.”
Foster was in Calgary to promote a Sept. 8 gala he’ll host for his charitable foundation at the Hyatt hotel.
Guests will pay up to $1,500 to listen to as-yet-unnamed musical icons. Foster wasn’t dropping any names Wednesday, however last year’s event in Richmond, B.C., which raised $3 million, featured Michael Buble, Olivia Newton-John, Clay Aiken and comedian George Lopez, among others. A similar event in Niagara in 2006 featured Andrea Bocelli, American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee and Buble.
Foster said the Calgary lineup has not been finalized, but did offer a “guarantee it will be two or three big names.”
An announcement will be made next month regarding who will appear, according to Foster’s spokesman, Bill Vigars.
The David Foster Foundation was formed in 1985, when Foster learned about a young Victoria woman who needed a kidney transplant and wanted, more than anything, to see her sister. Her sister could not afford to visit, so Foster picked up the tab.
“There’s a gap in the system,” says Foundation vice-president Ian Tostenson, “which is that no one takes care of the families when they go through the horrendous ordeal of transplant.”
The David Foster Foundation was started to help families cover the non-medical expenses related to such experiences.
“When we first started, there was no (transplant) surgery in Canada,” says Foster. Canadians were forced to have transplants done in California, Pittsburgh, or even London, England.
Now, transplants are done in several places in Canada, but the need still exists.
Foster’s Foundation was previously focused on British Columbia, but he recently decided to take it national.
“Think about a family in Newfoundland, who has to travel to Toronto to Sick Kid’s Hospital and try to have some sort of life in Toronto,” Foster says. “It’s unbearable.”
Foster says working with his charity is one of the most gratifying parts of his career.
“(The charity work is) certainly more lasting,” he says.
“You win the Grammy and it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to you, and that night you party and drink and get crazy and then the next morning, you’re back to work.
“The day after I came back from Toronto, all I could think about was the two children I saw, one of whom has already passed away since I left Toronto that was waiting for a heart transplant and couldn’t get it.”
And how did Henuset, who had not had a piano lesson since he was 12, rate Foster as a piano teacher?
(Foster showed Henuset that Born Free and the Star Wars theme were basically the same song, then played the 1988 Calgary Olympics theme).
“Overwhelming,” said Henuset from the foyer of his elegant Lake Bonaventure home, where he flew in a chef from the Kendall-Jackson Winery in California to cook dinner for the assembled guests, who included Calgary Centre Tory MP Lee Richardson and Enmax’s Gary and Patricia Holden, among others.
“I wasn’t able to keep up. He is a legend,” Henuset says.
While Phoenix pianist William Joseph’s first trip to Canada was a hectic one, driving across country in a van while opening Josh Groban arena shows, his latest jaunt opening for the poperatic quartet Il Divo at the Halifax Metro Centre on Saturday will likely come with a few more amenities.
A musician since the age of four, Joseph had one of those fairy tale starts to his career as a major label artist when he learned Canadian uber-producer David Foster was coming to Phoenix to conduct the orchestra for a fundraiser with Rod Stewart and Reba McEntire. A friend got him in to meet Foster during soundcheck with the simple aim of saying hello and handing him a CD, but it turned into something much more.
“In between Rod and Reba, I was introduced to him, and my friend asked if I could play his piano,” says the Reprise Records instrumentalist from his hometown. “So David said, ‘No, not at all, come on up!’ He’s very spontaneous, so he took me up in front of this world class band, and David looks at me and says, ‘Play something.’
“I immediately felt the cold sweat come over me, and I played this song I had written, which is the title track of my CD, Within. After about 20 seconds, David motions to the drummer to join in. All of a sudden the whole band joined in, I’ve got David Foster conducting over me, and I’m thinking, ’Please, please don’t mess up!’ Right after I finished, David gave me a high five, everybody in the room started clapping, and he said, ’What was that song?’”
Foster invited Joseph to come back that night and open the show with his song. The pianist quickly phoned his wife of just one week and asked, “Honey, do you have a nice dress?”
Joseph’s performance that night, and the standing ovation that followed persuaded Foster to produce his debut album Within, which features a blend of Joseph’s originals, familiar classics and even orchestral versions of rock anthems like Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir or Kansas’s Dust in the Wind featuring Quebec star Garou.
“Garou is the man!” exclaims Joseph about the singer best known for playing Quasimodo in Luc Plamondon’s musical Notre Dame de Paris. “I had never even heard of him, but we were in the studio working on Dust in the Wind, and it was missing something, we couldn’t make it sound how we wanted it.
“Garou just happened to be in the next studio, so David walked over and brought him back. At first we thought we’d just have him sing the chorus, but as soon as he started singing, my jaw dropped. I forgot ‘just the chorus,’ we had to have him do the whole thing.”
Besides getting him a major label deal and producing his debut CD, Foster’s influence has also helped Joseph get prestigious gigs like opening for Barbra Streisand, and performing at a birthday party for Maria Schriver, a.k.a. Mrs. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“Arnold called — I guess I should call him the governor — he called David looking for someone to perform. I’ve actually played at three different events for him, but this was a very intimate party, there were only 40 people there, like Tom Hanks and other high profile people, just at his home.
“I’ve watched a ton of his movies as a kid, and it was so fun to be there. He was behind me in this buffet line and I just wanted to arm wrestle the guy. So when he asked me, ‘So Villiam, how ahld vere you ven you stahted playing da piahno?’ it was hard to keep from laughing. I couldn’t believe I was having a conversation with this guy in his house.”
In 2000 Celine Dion wrote a book about her life, “My Story, my dream”, which contains some interesting paragraphs regarding David Foster and their collaborations. We’ve found some excerpts on the net:
Celine and her husband Rene trying to spin her first English album:
In the afternoon, he (Rene) met with the big bosses at CBS. For them as well, he’d up the ante. He asked them to invest ten times more than had been anticipated for the English album. And he demanded as well that David Foster, the record-industry wonder boy from the United States, be the producer.
“The money’s no problem,” said the bosses at CBS. “As for Foster, Celine and you will have to find a way to approach him and get him interested.”
Foster may not have been known to the public at large, but in the world of show business, he was a huge star. Originally from British Columbia, he had made a name for himself in Los Angeles, where, in the eighties, he was already working with the biggest of the big: Barbra Streisand, Natalie Cole, Frank Sinatra, Neil Diamond, Paul McCartney. He wrote words and music for them; he arranged, produced, and conducted for artists who were making high-quality albums. “He’s the best,” Rene said. “He’s the one we need.”
But how was another story. How to approach an artist of the stature of David Foster, who was already living on planet Hollywood? “We’ll find a way.”
Celine and Rene finally hook David:
One evening, a smiling and hospitable Carol Reynolds, who was responsible for the variety shows on the English-speaking network Radio Canada, was among those who came to see me. She waited until everyone had left to come to say hello and to tell me how much she liked the show. All three of us — Rene, Carol, and I — went to a restaurant. An Italian one on the rue Saint-Denis in Montreal. Carol wanted to produce a TV show with me for English-speaking Canada. I talked to her about my album in English and how we hoped to work with David Foster.
“David? I know him well,” she told us. “I’ll be seeing him next week in Los Angeles. If you want, I’ll talk to him about you.”
If I want? And how!
Carol left with the album Incognito and a videocassette of my version of “Have a Heart” from the Juno gala. “I’m sure he’ll love what you do,” she told me. “But he’s really busy. He may not be available for months.”
Shortly after, a few days before my twentieth birthday, we were doing a sound test at the Saint-Denis Theater when I saw Rene coming toward me, almost at a run. He came up to me and whispered in my ear: “I just spoke to David Foster. He listened to Incognito. You know what he told me? That you have everything it takes to get into the U.S. market. Listen! He said that you have ‘that little something extra’ that makes great stars. And that he wants to work with us.”
“When?”
“Not until the fall.”
“But that’s six months away.”
“The time will fly, believe me.”
David discovers Celine and accept to work with her:
At the very beginning of summer, David Foster told Rene that he’d be ready to work with us soon, but first he wanted to see me perform live. A week after Eurovision, I’d gone back to Europe for a quick tour. Ten cities in ten days. It was insane. Press conferences, interviews, TV, radio, some fabulous encounters, such as meeting Elton John in Munich, and a big show during the Cannes Film Festival with Julia Migenes-Johnson and Michel Legrand. When I returned to Quebec, I continued the Incognito tour, and the show couldn’t have been in better shape. Not only were the musicians in great form, but I was in good voice as well.
But as luck would have it, at the time that David was passing through Quebec, the only performing I was doing was a show for a group of vacationers, under a tent at Sainte-Agathe in the Lauren-tides. Rene tried really hard to make him put off his trip.
“In two weeks, Celine will be performing at the most important theater in Montreal,” he said. “Under ideal conditions.”
David decided not to put off the trip. He came to the show with his new wife, Linda Thompson, who had been involved with Elvis Presley. It was a really hot day. And it was pouring. The air inside the tent was humid, suffocating. The sound was horrible. At times, the rain hammered so loudly on the roof that it was almost impossible to hear the music.
Nevertheless, I felt good, confident, and cool, despite the oppressive heat. The songs came off well. During the show, I introduced David Foster by saying that he was the greatest record-album producer in the world and that he’d worked with the most brilliant American singing stars. The audience at Sainte-Agathe, who obviously had never heard of him, gave him a polite standing ovation, something to which dear David is not impervious.
After the show, the four of us went to a restaurant in the Lauren-tides. David didn’t compliment my performance at all — that’s not his style. He has other ways of showing his enthusiasm or approval.
“Count me in,” he told us. “Find yourself some songs and let me know.”
With Vito Luprano, the artistic director of CBS, which had now become Sony, Rene began sorting through the dozens of songs we’d collected during the past months.
After the holidays, when the Incognito tour was over, Rene and I went to California. We settled into a little inn on Malibu Beach, not far from where David lived. At the time, he was the only person we knew in Los Angeles.
Years later, David told me that what he found most charming about us was how happy, how joyous we were. When he came to the inn with Linda, he’d find us in the parking lot playing basketball or on the nearby beach, where we took long walks. Sometimes he played or walked with us.
“Unison” recording sessions:
During the entire year when we were recording Unison, he (Rene) was worried and preoccupied, always ready to rethink everything. Some days he felt like changing everything, beginning all over again, trying something else, changing the tempo, brass instead of strings, two pianos here, no guitar there, or a completely new song.
He and David Foster understood each other perfectly. Foster was detail-oriented too, a stickler, never completely satisfied.
With himself, with the musicians, or with me. To hear him, you could always do better. You could always start all over again. And that’s often what we did.
Sony’s strategists were really excited that we were working with David, but to get a wider buying audience, they wanted me to work with other producers and composers as well, in other studios and cities. That was fine with me. With Rene too; he’d always been obsessed with the idea of enlarging my audience and varying my repertoire. Even David thought it was a good idea.
Everyone decided that I would go first to New York to work with Andy Goldmark, then to London to work with Christopher Neil.
About “The Colour of My Love”:
By next fall and winter, we’d begin recording my third album in English. He’d already made an initial selection of songs. He had some demos for me to hear, including one with words and music by David Foster that delighted him, called “The Colour of My Love.”
“Everyone wanted that song,” he told me. “Whitney Houston, Barbra Streisand, and Natalie Cole. But David wanted to give it to you — actually, to both of us — because it’s truly a love song and he knows we’re in love.”
[…]
November 8, 1993, will always be etched in my memory as one of the best days of my life. This was the day my third English album, The Colour of My Love, was released in the United States. I had a completely new look; for the first time, I had very short hair. But that isn’t the reason this day was so memorable. Its because it marked the moment when I told the whole world that Rene Angelil and I were going to be married.
[…]
On the evening of my new album’s release, I did several of its songs for the audience at the Metropolis. During the applause that followed “The Colour of My Love,” Rene came onstage and took me in his arms. I slid my hand behind his head, drew it toward me, and drank a tear that was running down his cheek. Then I kissed him on the mouth, in front of two thousand people and all the televisioncameras.
There were shouts and applause. On the giant screen, out of the corner of my eyes, I saw a close-up of our kiss.
On the giant screen, while Celine sang, there were David and Linda too, here’s the video of that performance:
About “All by myself” (from “Falling into you” album)
David Foster, who’d watched our meeting and our first rehearsal, came onstage to ask the musicians if they wanted to come to the studio the following week; I was going to record Eric Carmen’s hit “All by Myself.” It was at the Record Plant, in Los Angeles. The day before, David told me he’d changed the orchestrations in the last part of the song. I’d have to sing a little higher, actually up to an F, which is almost at the limit of my range. But even worse, he wanted me to hold that note for several measures. In all honesty, I was dying from fear. I knew I couldn’t do more than two takes without jeopardizing my voice. David saw my fear.
“If you can’t manage to do it, it’s no big deal,” David told me. “We’ll just go back to the original arrangement.” All right; now that was an insult. On the day of the recording, Rene and I had an argument. About nothing. We always squabble over insignificant things and then can’t remember what they were. Even so, I sometimes sulk for a few hours, sometimes for a few days. Rene, more rarely. He doesn’t like to be cold to me. And he always tries to cheer me up, to make me laugh. That day, he wanted to sulk seriously and didn’t go with me to the studio. So I left all alone, “all by myself,” for the Record Plant, where I found David Foster cold, condescending, and almost contemptuous; and he didn’t even ask me why Rene wasn’t with me.
I’d tried each key already and had done my voice and warm-up exercises. While the technicians finished putting in the orchestra tracks, I paced around the studio. I think David purposely delayed starting, as if he wanted to unsettle me even more. At one point the brute came near me and said, half in earnest and half in jest: “I can tell you’re worried; but don’t worry about that fuss over the F. If you can’t handle it, I told you, we’ll find a solution. I can always ask Whitney to do it.”
Whitney Houston was recording that day in the adjoining studio.
“I know she can reach that F and hold it as long as necessary,” David made a point of adding.
I didn’t say a word. I knew it was a kind of game. And I decided to play it all the way. I went back into the studio. I sang “All by Myself” with all my strength, all my soul, and all my rage. When it came time to climb to that famous F, I pushed my voice to the maximum, to the point of hurting it, and held the note for a very long time. When I recovered from this, the musicians on the other side of the bay window got up to applaud me.
I left without saying goodbye to David Foster. Without even asking the technicians if everything was okay.
About “The Power of the Dream” (Atlanta Olympic Games)
There was a lot of music in Atlanta and some magnificent voices. The chorus that was accompanying me was one of the most beautiful I’d ever heard. Georgia is gospel-music country, the country of Martin Luther King Jr. and his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. So it was not by chance that the song David Foster wrote for the occasion took up this same theme in its very title—”The Power of the Dream.”
When I performed it, early on in the evening, during the opening ceremonies, I knew I was singing to the largest audience ever assembled. I’d been told that four billion people were watching throughout the world.
As soon as I began to sing, my stage fright went away, and I felt good. For several days, I lived in the euphoric aftermath of that incredible experience. But I also felt enormous fatigue and moments when I felt I couldn’t catch my breath. I was punchy, like a boxer, even when he wins a hard fight.
About “Tell Him” (duet with Barbra Streisand, from “Let’s talk about love”)
I’d always dreamed of singing with Barbra Streisand, but I’d also always been afraid to. She’d been one of my idols, and it’s dangerous to get too close to your idols. It takes practically nothing to destroy your image of them. And just as little to crush you.
The idea of our collaboration began the year before, during the Oscars. I’d sung “I Finally Found Someone.” This was a song Barbra had recorded, along with Brian Adams, for a film she’d directed, produced, and starred in, The Mirror Has Two Faces.
Actually, Natalie Cole was supposed to perform the song for the show, but a bad cold had kept her in Montreal. Twenty-four hours before the show, I’d been asked to replace her. I sang Barbra’s song in addition to my own—”Because You Loved Me,” from the film Up Close and Personal. No one had ever performed two of the nominated songs at the awards before.
Rene was thrilled. Nothing is more exciting, especially in show business, than doing what no one else ever has. But preparing a new song in twenty-four hours, singing twice at the Oscars, and doing it in front of Barbra Streisand was terrifying. It turned out, however, that Streisand wasn’t in the auditorium when I sang her song. During a commercial break, she’d gone to the ladies’ room and had found that the doors were locked when she attempted to return to her seat; no one’s allowed to enter the auditorium while the show is in progress. Rene was really disappointed. I was upset, of course, but not to the point of ruining the great pleasure I’d just experienced.
The media tried to make a story out of Barbra snubbing me for singing her song. But it absolutely wasn’t true. Two days later, I received an enormous bouquet of flowers with a note in Barbra’s hand. She said that she’d seen the recording of the show, and thought I’d sung “beautifully,” that I was an “incredible singer,” and that she was sorry she wasn’t in the room. “Next time, let’s do one together,” she wrote.
Rene kept her note in his wallet for months. Every time he had a chance, he read it to friends and journalists. He quickly contacted Marty Erlichman, Barbra’s agent, and asked David Foster to write a song for us. Then he waited for a sign from Streisand or her agent.
David Foster was the one who finally created the link between the two of us by proposing a song he’d written called “Tell Him,” about an older woman giving romantic advice to a younger one.
Barbra sang her part in Los Angeles, and a few days later in New York, I added my voice to hers. One evening, after the arrangers and technicians had mixed the song, we listened to it together, Barbra at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, and I at the Hit Factory in New York. When it was over, silence fell over the studio. We all were watching the telephone, which took an eternity to ring. David answered it.
“It’s for you, Celine.”
It was Barbra calling to say how much she liked my interpretation.
Lester Holt, Today Show anchor, had the choice playing bass to join a recording session with David Foster and many TV stars forming a group called “Band from TV”. They’ve done it for the right reasons: to raise money for charity and to have fun.
Lester tells the story on TODAY blog, we share it with you:
“I never take for granted that I get paid to do something I am passionate about: Being a reporter. And so a rare offer to combine that with one of my other passions – music – was beyond my wildest dreams.
I’m just back from a weekend in Hollywood where I had the privilege of joining some other amateur musicians, who also make their livings on TV, to record at the historic Capitol Records studios.
I have played the electric and standup bass since Junior High School, and while I occasionally sit-in at New York City jazz clubs, have never played professionally. Hugh Laurie, star of FOX’s “House,” sings and is an accomplished pianist. Greg Grunberg, who plays the mind-reading cop on NBC’s “Heroes,” also plays a mean set of drums. Bob Guiney, of ABC’s “The View,” and “The Bachelor,” also happens to be an experienced singer. Along with James Denton of “Desperate Housewives,” Bonnie Somerville, formerly of “Kitchen Confidential,” and several other talented musicians they form a group known as “Band from TV.” Grunberg, who is as positive and enthusiastic a guy as you’ll ever meet, formed the band for all the right reasons: To raise money for important causes like pediatric epilepsy research, and to have fun. Today they play various venues around Southern California with all the proceeds going to charity.
The group had never recorded together until they gathered at Capitol Records on a recent Saturday morning to do a couple of songs for the “House” soundtrack CD. Their regular bassist, former child actor Brad Savage was out of town, and the folks at Universal who produce “House,” suggested me as a possible replacement. And so there I was in Capitol’s historic Studio B about to record music with this multi-talented-roster of TV stars and musicians with whom I had never played a single note.
And as if that wasn’t enough pressure, did I mention who was producing this recording session? None other than multi Grammy Award-winning producer David Foster. When he found out the proceeds were going to charity, David gladly cancelled his weekend plans and agreed to help turn us into recording artists.
Turns out in addition to being a terrific actor and musician, Hugh Laurie is also a heck of a musical arranger. We did his funk rendition of “Minnie the Moocher,” along with a reggae-inspired version of “Can’t Always Get what you Want.” But it was David Foster who performed sheer magic on the tunes, working with us as a group, and then one on one to find just the right sound. I laid down bass part after bass part, incorporating Foster’s various suggestions. Then, using an amazing piece of computer software, he combined my best notes and “licks” into a solid bass line. He did the same thing with every instrument and vocal part, and explained it was “no different than what has done for every other artists he has produced,” from Celine Dion, to “Earth, Wind and Fire.” We all ended the weekend agreeing his amazing ear made us all better musicians than we were when we walked in the door.
The “House” soundtrack will be released sometime this summer, and you can then judge for yourself whether we’re better off keeping our “day jobs.” In the meantime, my story on our session will air this coming Saturday (3/17) on Weekend TODAY. It was an experience I won’t soon forget. I made some great new friends. Some you know from TV, some you don’t. But all of them are blessed with big hearts and raw talent, whose music will always leave you on just the right note.”
