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Lara Fabian -- Show-stopper!

Lara Fabian, the superstar diva, has hit the Billboard charts with a self-titled album at No. 1. Her first single, the optimistic powerhouse anthem I will love again, topped the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart and was No. 5 on Hot dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales last month. The Belgium-born singer/song-writer and Canadian citizen has four French albums to her credit, with sales totalling six million in Europe and Canada. Her previous set, the double album Lara Fabian Live, debuted at No.1 in France.

Now she’s making it to the top in the US. “America is the perfect colour of the perfect cut of dress,” says Lara of her new geographic conquest, “It’s true that you can have estimable success and be recognised and respected in Europe, but for me, the most important thing was to push myself and embrace a truly international sound.”
Already, the media has deemed Lara a presence to be celebrated. On the day of her album release, she sang two songs on the Today show form New York’s Rockefeller Centre, a rarity for a new artist. That same week she bowed on ABC’s The View, And in Canada, her U.S. bow made national headlines.

Lara Fabian has risen from being a club singer to international chart-topper in no time, sheerly on the strength of her talent. The French singing star has released her eponymously titled debut English album which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard New Artist Chart. So do we have a new diva in the making?

The first single, I will love again, one of the few songs on the project that Lara did not co-pen, was written by Paul Barry and Mark Taylor, and produced by Taylor and Brian Rawling, the hot team behind recent hits by Cher, Enrique Iglesias and Tina Turner.

Says Lara, “I love the lyric. It’s very empowering and so simple. As much as someone may be broken-hearted and feeling like this is the end of the world, someone new comes along through a completely different door, and the magic appears again. I love raising my arms and singing this to an audience because it so relates to reality. It’s a real, simple, human lyric. It doesn’t teach, indoctrinate, or wag a finger. It just tells it like we all know it.”

The 30-year-old singer with stunning looks, found her early inspirations in such acts as Barbra Streisand and Queen, and studied their careers, realising that for all of her will to sing, she needed an audience to excel. “You can do this in the cellar if you want, but the purpose of singing is to share with someone,” Lara says. So, at her insistence, Lara’s dad took her to a jazz club in Belgium at the age of 14, and with him accompanying her on guitar, she auditioned for the owner. “We sat in front of these guys having coffee and champagne and, of course, they couldn’t have cared less about this teenager with white trousers and a stupid T-shirt trying to sing Over the rainbow,” she recalls, “But as I got near the end, where you hold that crystal-clear note, they got very quiet, and then they started clapping.”
Hired on the spot, Lara worked weekends in that bar for three years, consistently filling the place through word-of-mouth. “And then,” she says, “as in every fairy tale, this guy walks in with a cigar in his mouth, asks for a beer at the bar, and watches me sing.” That led to an invitation to participate in the acclaimed Eurovision Song Contest in 1987 at the age of 17.
Then came an endless array of touring across French-speaking territories of Europe, but because of age-old views on the appropriate roles of women, she met resistance at every turn. “For women to reach outside certain responsibilities is a foreign concept to the Europeans,” she says.
So Lara bucked the system and formed her own label and publishing company, moved to Canada, and soon met Rick Allison, a man she terms “my soul mate, the angel of music in my life,” who, to this day, is her primary song-writing partner.

From thereon, Lara’s following expanded until her first album in 1991 sold 100,000 copies over three years in Quebec. Then came Carpe Diem, which sold 800,000 copies in the French territories, and Pure in 1997, which established her as a superstar, with two million copies sold in France alone.

Now, with her Sony contract in the U.S., Fabian has joined hands with heavyweights like Walter Afanasieff, John Bettis, and Patrick Leonard for her new album.

But inspite of the success, Lara wants to achieve more. “All of the aptitudes that I’ve had to develop are a result of the no’s that I encountered,” she says, “Now, I thank God for all of the engines that were turning against me, because they became my fuel. It gave me more faith, more energy, more drive to do what I had to do. I’ve experienced so much growth in the last two years, but I’m still just a girl from the other side of the ocean. When I see from the stage that I can make someone cry because of the emotion, then I’ll know I’ve arrived.”