Paul Anka
Jam session: You're sitting in the M50 tailback, listening to your favourite drivetime DJ, when a strangely familiar but oddly unusual song comes on. It's a Sinatra-style big-band version of Smells Like Teen Spirit, kind of what Kurt Cobain would sound like if he had been one of the Rat Pack. The grungy guitars have been replaced by stabbing brass, and syncopated swing beats stand in for thundering drums. You grin wryly for a nanosecond, then wonder: who the hell goes to the trouble of doing a Nirvana song in a Las Vegas stylee? The culprit is crooner Paul Anka, hitmaker, composer, pop music legend and now interpreter of modern rock songs, via his new album, Rock Swings. Anka has recorded more than 125 albums in his long career, but none of them has featured unique readings of Van Halen's Jump, Oasis's Wonderwall, Survivor's Eye of the Tiger and Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun.
Write stuff: The Anka man is a household name among baby boomers who have grown up with his vast canon of compositions, but we haven't heard much from him since his last run of hits in the 1970s. He topped charts in the US and the world with You're Having My Baby, but he's probably better known for the hits he's written for other artists. Anka's songbook runs to more than 900, 130 of them covered by other artists. His letterbox is brimming with royalty cheques for such classics as It Doesn't Matter Anymore (Buddy Holly), She's a Lady (Tom Jones) and Puppy Love (Donny Osmond). His most lucrative composition has to be My Way, recorded by Anka's avowed idol, Frank Sinatra, as well as Elvis, Sid Vicious and a host of other artistes. Visiting Paris in 1968, Anka heard a song called Comme d'Habitude on the radio. Smelling a massive international hit and a future easy-listening standard, he bought the rights to the song and rewrote the lyrics his way.
Love puppy: Ottowa-born Anka had his first singing gig at 13, performing with vocal group The Bobbysoxers. He showed an early flair for writing lovelorn teenage anthems, scoring his first hit with Diana at 16. More teen-spirited hits followed, including You Are My Destiny, Lonely Boy and Puppy Love. By his early 20s, he was headlining the Copacabana in New York, and was a star attraction in Vegas.
Girls aloud: So, how did Anka get the idea to start swinging that rock'n'roll thing? Blame his five daughters, who turned the old man onto those hep sounds coming out of MTV. Deciding to cover some of the trendy tunes, Anka got out the Billboard chart listings going back to 1980, and settled on such songs as REM's Everybody Hurts (sorry, Paul, Joe Dolan already did that one), The Cure's Lovecats and Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven. "This is not a novelty," he insists. "When people get past the smirk and the joke, they realise there's a great quality to this CD."
