Born March 30, 1968, in Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada, Celine Dion is the youngest of 14 brothers and sisters. Her name derives from a song her mother sang during her pregnancy. Music was all around her as a child, and her first singing engagements were at her parents’ piano bar at the age of five. Her mother played the violin, her father the accordion and her brothers and sisters sang and waited on tables. People would come to hear her sing and soon she was a local celebrity. At the age of twelve, she told her mother she wanted to sing professionally.
Her mother, Therese Dion, contacted one of the most famous managers in Montreal, Rene Angelil. He was so taken with her beautiful voice that he cried during her audition, and he so believed in her talent that he mortgaged his own home in order to pay for her first album, “The Colour Of My Love” (1994). With this release came another, that of the secret that Celine was in love with Rene who was 26 years her senior. They married on December 17, 1994.
During the 1980s, she made a name for herself in her native Quebec, but it was not until 1989 that the outside world was introduced to the magnificent voice of Celine Dion. She studied English at the Berlitz School and recorded her “UNISON” album in 1990, which catapulted her celebrity into the United States and English-speaking Canada. UNISON earned an “Album of The Year” award, and Celine also won a Grammy Award for her work in Disney’s “Beauty And The Beast,” which she performed with Peabo Bryson (“Where Does My Heart Go Now?”).
Her many awards and triumphs are too numerous to mention here. Today, she stands at the pinnacle of her success. She is content with her life as a wife to a man she adores and a mother to two adorable children.
What are some of your favorite Celine Dion songs? Please share.