It’s 20 years since Russell Watson topped the charts with his debut album, The Voice, announcing himself to the world as the owner of the finest larynx this side of Luciano Pavarotti. During the time since, the working-class bloke who left school without any qualifications has found himself regularly entertaining presidents, prime ministers and emperors.
‘Some proper ups and downs, real trials and tribulations, shaky moments, but I did it,’ he says when reminded of how long it is since he first broke into the national consciousness. ‘Twenty years? Bloody hell. I’ll have that.’
It’s 20 years since Russell Watson topped the charts with his debut album, The Voice, announcing himself to the world as the owner of the finest larynx this side of Luciano Pavarotti
And Watson is not exaggerating about the ups and downs. There was, for instance, the time when he was in so much physical pain that death seemed the kindest option. It happened back in the Noughties when, without warning, his health failed at the peak of his fame. First, he was operated on to remove a benign brain tumour. Then, one year later, he collapsed when the tumour returned. For a moment he was not sure he wanted to carry on.
‘I was really frightened,’ he recalls. ‘Everything was in black and white. My vision had gone, it felt like I was looking through a broken television screen. I remember coming round in the hospital bed, all these tubes attached to me, and the surgeon came in – a lovely man – and he said, “We need to operate.” I said, “Don’t want one.” He said, “If you don’t have an operation, you will die.” I said, “So? I want to die.” He said, “I come into this room on many occasions and I have to tell people there is nothing I can do. I can do something in this case. So have a think about it. The buzzer’s there, if you want to go ahead with the op, press it.” He’d barely walked out and I’ve grabbed the buzzer and pushed it.’
The operation was a success, but the treatment that followed was traumatic.
‘Radiotherapy was the toughest time of my life. It exhausts me now just to talk about it. And the steroids. I went to about 18 stone. I mean, Pavarotti had some heft but I was on another level. I was just so red and bloated and swollen.’
A man who admits to being conscious of his appearance, he barely recognised himself.
‘One morning I came down the stairs, caught sight of my reflection in the mirror in the hall and thought, who is that? I took the mirror down. I couldn’t bear looking at myself. I’ve always liked it when people say you look well, or you look young. I always wanted to look good. And here I was looking, well, like death.’
But he came through it. And ten years on, thus far free of any relapse, he looks trim, fit, far younger than his 53 years. ‘The engine that drove me through it was the desire to get back,’ he says. ‘People say you’re so brave. I don’t see it as brave. I see it as wanting to do more of what I love doing. Sing, basically. I’m really uncertain about the word “fight”, too. That would mean those who don’t make it lost the fight. You lost, I won. I don’t like that sentiment.’
Watson is sitting in the lounge of his house in Cheshire, surrounded by the material benefits of his success. He has gone from singing in pubs in front of 33 people to, this September, appearing at the Royal Albert Hall accompanied by a 33-piece orchestra. Back when he started, he admits, he never imagined he would be sitting in front of a cinema-sized TV screen while his wife Louise parks one of their expensive cars after taking her horse out for its morning constitutional. Nor that he would have to hand a letter from the Pope thanking him for a performance he gave at the Vatican.
‘It’s funny what goes through your head when you’re on stage,’ he remembers as he proudly flourishes the note. ‘I was in this incredible room, unbelievably ornate. There’s 3,500 specially invited guests from all over Europe in the audience, all the top monsignors, a bunch of robed cardinals in the front row. The Pope’s in his private box. And I’m about to start singing Panis Angelicus when this thought just pops into my mind: I bet they don’t do bingo here.’
When you’re at the top you think it is never going to end. Everything feels easy
Well, they used to do bingo in the venues where Watson started. After chucking in his job at a factory, he spent most of the Nineties as a karaoke crooner, singing pop hits to a backing track in pubs and clubs in the North West. For seven years he pounded that circuit, scraping a living performing for the sozzled, the rowdy and the largely uninterested.
On one occasion, fed up, he walked out of the pub in which he was appearing, the words of the manager ringing in his ears: ‘Son, you’ll never work in Burnley again!’ Oddly, he hasn’t.
What changed was when one night, someone in his audience requested Nessun Dorma, the aria from the opera Turandot popularised when used by the BBC as the signature tune to their coverage of the Italian World Cup in 1990. He said he’d give it a go and found that he could do more than just sing it: he nailed it.
Unbeknown to him, lurking deep inside his vocal cords was an astonishing operatic tenor.
The next thing he knew, he was performing during half-time at Old Trafford, the football ground where he had spent much of his youth, singing his affiliation to his local club, Manchester United. ‘I remember my dad saying to me just before I did it, “Are you not nervous?” No, I said, I can’t wait. My dream was to play football on that pitch. Unfortunately I was rubbish. But I got to sing there. I thought, Blimey, there are 57,500 people here and they’re listening to me.’
Where Watson went from there was into overdrive. He performed at the rugby league cup final at Wembley, at Twickenham before an England match, in the Nou Camp, Barcelona, before his beloved United won the Champions League final in 1999. And when, in 2000, he released The Voice, an album of crossover hits and popular classics, it sold by the truck-load, hitting No 1 in Britain, America and all over Europe. His astonishing vocal ability mixed with his lad-next-door accessibility made for an intoxicating combination.
From nowhere, Watson was a star, the People’s Tenor.
‘I was 34 years old and just about reconciled that it wasn’t ever going to happen for me. Then it did. And the thing was, I could feel it happening, I could feel the ball starting to roll. That was quite amazing.’
Russell Watson with his second wife Louise and daughter Rebecca in 2012. ‘I always give it my all, my heart and soul,’ Watson says
He became the most in-demand crossover artist in the world.
‘Did success change me? I’d like to say it didn’t. I’d like to think I was the same person to my children, to my friends. But within the context of the industry I really thought I was riding a wave that was never going to break. I look back on that time with the greatest of fondness but I also remember I was walking around with a right ticket on myself.’
He was, he recalls, awash with swagger, swanning round as if he ruled the world. Nor is he convinced it was his brush with death that brought him a changed perspective.
‘I don’t think the illness softened me. Basically, when you’re at the top you think it is never going to end. Everything feels easy. Then someone else comes along, wins all the awards, tops the charts, sings for the Pope. And you think: I need to get my A game back together. That’s when you realise there are other people out there and you’re not in a queue of one. In a way it makes you grow up.’
Now here he is, with a second gold record for his recent collaboration with Aled Jones, with his grown-up daughters from his first marriage, Rebecca and Hannah, by his side, about to embark on a nationwide tour to celebrate his 20 years as a star. Not that his experience has brought him closer to being able to predict how he will perform on stage.
‘I always give it my all, my heart and soul,’ he says. ‘But sometimes I connect with a tune and sometimes I don’t. There’s the intermezzo I do from Cavalleria Rusticana, my nan’s favourite tune, I put words to it. I did it at Christmas at the Cadogan Hall. That night there was a connection I’d never felt before. Usually the reaction I get for that number is a bit – “Oh that was nice, Betty.” That night, they’re on their feet yelling “Bravo! Bravo!” But here’s the thing: I have no idea why. What was it in a song I’ve sung hundreds of times that made it so special that night? I couldn’t tell you. Bloody wish I knew.’
He laughs at the thought. These days, Russell Watson does a lot of laughing. He is, he says, a happy man. ‘It was tough when I started. It’s not tough any more. I love it, I live for it. People say, when are you going to retire? Simple answer: never. That moment when I walk on to that stage and start singing: wow, there is nothing to touch it. Twenty years, you say? Well, here’s to the next 20.’
Russell Watson tours with his band in the spring and choir and orchestra in the autumn. raymondgubbay.co.uk/russellwatson