Russell Watson: My album is the rainbow at end of storm

 
It's only a tenor: Russell Watson performs at the Coronation Festival Evening Gala.
Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire
Robert Fisk21 August 2013

Two life-threatening brain tumours left him facing a long road to recovery.

But now Russell Watson is back “on his A-game” with a new album which he says is “the rainbow at the end of the storm”.

It has been written by two of the world’s most prolific songwriters, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, composer and lyricist of Les Misérables respectively.

Watson thought getting them on board was as likely as persuading President Obama to go for a drink with him — but his agent Philippe Guiboust had other ideas.

And after hearing his story, the pair were inspired to work with the tenor.

Speaking to the Evening Standard at the album launch, Watson, 46, said: “It just feels like each step of my life is a platform and a step up to the next.

“To survive what I have twice and then to still be singing after all that has taken a lot of dedication. It has been a battle but the rainbow at the end of the storm is this.”

Watson had to have emergency surgery on two tumours, in 2006 and 2007, followed by a course of radiotherapy, which he finished in 2008.

He said he had always been a fan of Schönberg and Boublil, and was very excited about every track they had written for the album.

Watson, dubbed “the people’s tenor”, added: “I was singing through the repertoire the other evening and my family were there, my girlfriend Louise [Harris] and my kids and each time I sang a song they said ‘I really like that’.

“There’s nothing on this body of work that I’m not happy with.

“What is fantastic for me is to have songs that have been crafted specifically for me by guys who wrote the best-selling musical ever.”

He described working with the pair as “a journey that I will never forget”, adding: “Claude-Michel and Alain do not do these kind of projects, they write smash-hit musicals and it is the first time they have done something like this.

“I do not want to let them down, I’m on my A-game.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, or if the record is a smash hit then it might be a twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The so-far-untitled album is released by Sony Records on November 11, with a full UK tour to follow in the spring.

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