Hans Worst Hits of the 90’s- Percy Sledge and the writers of the song Calvin Lewis and Andrew Wright should have sued Michael Bolton for defamation of character- for his cover of their song ‘When A Man Loves A Woman”- it had been a #1 hit for Percy Sledge back in 1966- there must have been a lot of Boltheads out there in 1992 because his version which has no where near the power of Sledge’s- also went to #1 and to add insult to injury also won a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. A typical Bolton performance was the butchering of a great song -like Dock Of The Bay- by overdoing it -way over doing it -he just wasn’t /isn’t that good of a singer. Bolton’s autobiography is titled The Soul Of It All- listening to Bolton back in the day I thought he had no soul. He did lose in 1992 a plagiarism suit for ripping off the Isley Brothers Love Is A Wonderful Thing with his song of the same name in 1991- he was ordered to turn over $5 million dollars in profits to the Isley’s. It is the largest award for plagiarism in music history. Boltonmania was short lived -to the early 1990’s by the mid 90’s it had been stamped out. I have a friend who somewhat looks like Bolton- and back then like Bolton he had long hair. I had to remark one day of the resemblance. The next time I saw him he had cut his hair short. PS- I never liked Bolton’s brother Kenny G either. The worst single concert out of the roughly 400 that I’ve been to was Kenny G- that’s another story but I didn’t want to go in the first place. Painful. Bad memories!
slicethelife 
YES! I’m glad you covered him. He is so boring…like you said…no soul at all. His version of Dock of the Bay is awful.
He seemed to give every song the same treatment. Trying too hard.
Oh, I could not STAND Michael Bolton. He sang like someone was standing on his foot. His singing made my hair hurt & teeth itch. Yuck.
I always thought he sounded like he had terrible gas when he sang. He absolutely butchered this classic, and I was bewildered it was a #1 hit.
Permed mullet.
Michael Bolton material has been filler music on easy-listening radio for years. I laughed and cringed when I saw today’s article.
If you were programming an easy listening radio station I bet you would- plug in a few Michael Bolton songs a day. Perfect for that type of channel. I don’t know the last time I actually heard a Michael Bolton song- which is a good thing to be able to say- in the early 90’s it was hard to avoid him or his brother Kenny G.
Our station subscribed to a taped music service and later a satellite service and there was Kenny G. and Michael Bolton forever. 🙂
I don’t know- I wonder if the two brothers ever worked together on a project? Surely they have.
First off, I’m trying to get over the fact that Michael and Kenny were brothers! Shocking that they never played together (if they haven’t). I liked Michael Bolton at the time and thought he was cute. When you compare the 2 versions you have here today, there is no comparison. One is going through the motions and one is feeling it. Thanks for putting both versions up, Hans.
I was just pulling your leg on the brothers thing- they aren’t but should have been! I had to put up both versions of the song just to show for sure that there was no comparison. Bolton tended to put too much effort into it I think.
aha you got me 🙂
Starting an urban legend lol… Years ago I listened regularly to a talk show host out of Pittsburgh named Doug Hoerth- Doug was both a great and fun listen- was really into pop culture- he had a long running thing on Don Ho and Julio Inglacious being brothers- a long and detailed story…. also one day he said that Pee Wee Herman was Dick Clark’s son- a little known fact… the next day someone called about it and he said ” I can’t talk about that anymore” –lol– the guess I had was someone heard it who knew Clark- and they put an end to that. I doubt Dick Clark had much of a sense of humor about himself…
lol great story.
All well said, hans.