Gino Vannelli Ready To Tour Again - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Despite his great success throughout the 1970s and well into the '80s, Canadian singer-songwriter Gino Vannelli was never quite content. He simply did not regard himself as being all that successful.

Never mind his four Grammy nominations and performances in such major venues as Philadelphia's Spectrum. So in the late '80s, Vannelli dropped out and disappeared on a journey of self-discovery. He had the money, and he could find the time.

"It didn't matter if I had the money or not," Vannelli said on the telephone from Portland, Oregon, where he lives now. "It was something I had to do. I had been involved in show business for a very long time. I had a recording contract in Canada at the age of 17 and a recording deal in the United States when I was 20."

His mission was to go "wherever I thought I could find people with answers." The journey took Vannelli to such places as the Peruvian Andes and Japan, where he lived for a time in a Zen monastery. He read books -- hundreds of them -- on such subjects as religion and philosophy. In 1991, Vannelli returned to Canada and began the process of reestablishing himself in the world of pop music. His "comeback" album, Yonder Tree, was released on the jazz-oriented Verve Forecast label in 1995. Late last year, Verve Forecast put out his current release, Slow Love.

"Yonder Tree was certainly jazz-influenced, but I think my music has always had a certain degree of jazz influences," he pointed out. "Rhythmically, Slow Love has more of a contemporary feel." Vannelli is beginning to tour again. His date Saturday night at the Trump Marina Hotel-Casino will be the jumping-off point for 13 performances in Europe. A South American tour is set for May Vannelli came close to remaining a well-guarded Canadian secret. When he and his keyboardist brother Joe, having met with a fair amount of success in their native country, arrived in Los Angeles in 1972 fortified with a bundle of demo tapes in search of a recording contract, they were not met with open arms. Rejections piled up, and they were on the verge of returning home when Vannelli decided to make one last desperate attempt at gaining the attention of someone who mattered.

He arrived early the next morning at the offices of A&M Records with his guitar and waited four hours until he saw label boss Herb Alpert walking across the lot. Outrunning a security guard, Vannelli confronted Alpert and pleaded his case. "I guess he took pity on me," Vannelli said. "He patted me on the head and invited me into his office to hear a few of my songs. The next day I had a recording contract."

The A&M Records association would be a long and fruitful one that produced numerous top-selling albums and singles. The second of those albums, Powerful People, and its hit single, "People Gotta Move," was one of the music industry's early experiments with synthesizers, resulting in a full orchestral bombast that would mark much of Vannelli's music in the coming years.

His following grew steadily, but Vannelli's major commercial breakthrough was 1978's Brother to Brother with its No. 1 single, "I Just Wanna Stop." One point cannot be overlooked. Vannelli's earthy good looks and his emphasis on love songs made him especially attractive to women. He was indeed a sex symbol, but he also had his detractors. Some viewed the intimacy of his approach with scorn.

"Back then, I couldn't understand why people felt that way," he said . . . Now I'm much more forgiving. I've always been an intimate person, and now I'm even more so. I think that brings us closer to that ever elusive thing called God."

It was Vannelli's search for God that had much to do with his decision to leave his career behind and go looking for answers. "I was brought up Catholic and had to ask myself if being a Christian meant rejecting the rest of the world," he said. "To find my center I had to delve into how other people think -- not only on an intellectual level, but to live with them, eat with them, laugh at them, cry with them."

While Vannelli never found what he regarded as the one true faith for him, he developed a greater understanding of all religions. "They're all correct if they lead you to finding God within yourself," he said. "If you don't feel that, you've found nothing."

Fans who catch the performance by Vannelli and his band at the Trump Marina this weekend will hear a lot of familiar material. "I've rearranged many of the old songs and updated them," he said. "They were good songs when I first recorded them, and they're still good songs."