"I started singing Diana to Chuck Berry when, suddenly, he stops me and says, That's the worst song I've ever heard in my life, go back to school.' Rather than slink away from such a pronouncement, however, Anka used it as a spur. Revenge is a motivator like you won't believe, the 84-year-old star said with an eruptive laugh the other day. I said to myself, I'm going to show him.'"
"Remarkable as those achievements may have been, what separated Anka's work from that of other teen idols then and now was that he wrote all those songs himself and retained the publishing rights. Small wonder during our 90-minute interview, Anka referred to himself as a writer no fewer than 22 times. Without the writer of the song, there's no record companies, no executives, no lawyers. There's nothing, he said."
Paul Anka idolized Chuck Berry as a teenager and used Berry's harsh dismissal of his song 'Diana' as motivation to succeed. Within a year Diana reached number one in the UK and US, making Anka the first Canadian to top American charts. He followed with multiple hits including You Are My Destiny, Lonely Boy, Put Your Head on My Shoulder and Puppy Love. Anka wrote his own material and retained publishing rights, emphasizing the primacy of the writer. He intentionally matured his sound over decades, sustained a seven-decade career, and prepared a new album, Paul Anka: My Way, before his 85th birthday.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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