By David DeRocco

There was a stretch from 1974 through 1978 when legendary Canadian singer/songwriter Gino Vannelli released six full-length albums, five of which made the Top 100 Billboard album charts. That’s unheard of in today’s finicky music market, when artists are hard-pressed to deliver an album once every two or three years. Perhaps it’s a reason why the multi-Juno Award winner and four-time Grammy nominee has been taking his time on his latest project, an uncharacteristic acoustic album slated for release sometime in early 2019.

“It took me a little more time with this record, because I really wanted to change the idiom and do something more than another jazzy pop fusion album,” said Vannelli, who has sold more than 20 million records since releasing his 1973 debut, Crazy Life. “I wanted to do something different, and one thing was to create using mostly acoustic guitar and then to tell stories in a way I haven’t told them before. That took me a little while to really hone. I started about three or four years ago, and things like touring would interrupt my flow sometimes. I just realized that if I really wanted to do it right it would take time, because that’s not my usual standard. It’s been an entirely different process.”

Regardless of which process he applies to his craft, it has always been the results that have made Vannelli one of Canada’s most accomplished artists. With a string of hits spanning nearly four decades including “Brother to Brother,” “I Just Wanna Stop,” “People Gotta Move,” “Black Cars,” “Wheels of Life” and “Black Cars,” Vannelli has remained one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music. However, it’s the songwriter in him that has the singer on heightened alerts these days, as Vannelli the social observer looks for lyrical inspiration.

“You’re always on, it’s true,” said Vannelli, whose song “Words for My Father (Parole Per Mio Padre)” caught the attention of Pope John Paull II and earned him an invitation to The Vatican to perform. “There’s a time when you can turn the spigot way on, but it’s always dripping. And I’ve always got my wares up looking at things, trying to take in things and filtering them through my process. I find that anything could move me. That’s what this album has really been about. It’s not so much about my personal feelings. It’s about things happening to other people that I have observed.”

Although his new project is acoustic, Vannelli will be touring with what he calls “the best band I’ve ever toured with” during a greatest hits show that spans his career.

“The show goes all the way to 1972 and spans 40 years, songs from all my albums. We have three horns, nine people on stage. It’s a pretty big show!”