Tollak Ollestad | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Born | Seward, Alaska, United States |
Occupation(s) | Instrumentalist, singer, songwriter |
Instrument(s) | Harmonica, keyboard |
Website | tollak |
Tollak Ollestad is an American harmonica player, singer, keyboardist and songwriter. He is best known for his harmonica feature performance on the Northern Exposure tv series theme and on recordings by artists including Christopher Cross, Al Jarreau, Earth Wind and Fire, Natalie Cole, Gino Vannelli, Dave Grusin, and Billy Idol among others and his live performance with major touring artists. [1] [2]
Tollak Ollestad was born in Seward, Alaska and grew up in Seattle, Washington. [3] After starting out in the club scene in Seattle in his early twenties he moved to Los Angeles in 1984.
He first became known as keyboardist/singer touring with artists Ambrosia and Bobby Caldwell. Around the same time he started gaining notoriety as a session harmonica player, starting with being featured in the theme for the television series Northern Exposure, and then a series of live credits with artists such as Don Henley, Andrea Bocelli, Chet Atkins and Kenny Loggins as well as features on several artist's albums including Al Jarreau, Earth Wind and Fire, Natalie Cole, Gino Vannelli, Christopher Cross, Dave Grusin, Don Grusin, Billy Idol, M83 and Brian McKnight. [4] As a keyboardist/vocalist he has additionally toured or performed live with other artists including Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Sheena Easton, Jewel, Edgar Winter, Al Stewart, David Becker, and Seal. [5] [6] [7]
Ollestad performed "Canzoni Stonate" live with Andrea Bocelli at his "Amore Under the Desert Sky" Concert. The concert was recorded at the Lake Las Vegas Resort in December 2005. [8]
Ollestad has also released three albums of original music independently, respectively "Walk the Earth" 2004, "Across the Rubicon" 2009 and "Tollak live" 2016. [9] [10]
Ollestad's harmonica is featured on Jacky Cheung's Zhǎo Duì Nǐ (Which Way, Robert Frost?)" from his "Private Corner" canto-jazz album. Ollestad was chosen from a selection of harmonica players presented to Cheng's producer by Roxanne Seeman and recorded his harmonica part for the project in The Netherlands. [11] [12]
He moved to the Netherlands in 2004 where he currently resides and continues to perform, record and teach, as well as elsewhere in Europe, America and other venues worldwide.
Ollestad's research and work at the Academy for pop culture in the Netherlands led to his appearance at the TEDx conference in Groningen, the Netherlands in 2016. The talk is titled "Discovering the musical subconscious" and is a discourse, along with musical demonstration, on the need for increased awareness and focus on the "intuitive-subconscious" connection to learning, making and performing music. A connection he argues is as deeply interwoven into the human psyche as language. [13] In 2021, he joined the fourth season of The Voice Senior. He picked Gerard Joling as his coach, and eventually made it into the finals.
Andrea Bocelli is an Italian operatic tenor and multi-instrumentalist. He was born visually impaired, with congenital glaucoma, and at the age of 12, Bocelli became completely blind, following a brain hemorrhage resulting from a football accident. After performing evenings in piano bars and competing in local singing contests, Bocelli signed his first recording contract with the Sugar Music label. He rose to fame in 1994, winning the 44th Sanremo Music Festival performing "Il mare calmo della sera".
David Walter Foster OC OBC is a Canadian musician, composer, arranger, record producer and music executive who chaired Verve Records from 2012 to 2016. He has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. His career in the music industry has spanned more than five decades, mainly beginning as a keyboardist for the pop group Skylark, in the early 1970s.
Howard Levy is an American multi-instrumentalist. A keyboardist and virtuoso harmonica player, Levy "has been realistically presented as one of the most important and radical harmonica innovators of the twentieth century."
Michael McDonald is an American singer, keyboardist and songwriter known for his distinctive, soulful voice and as a member of the bands the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan (1974). McDonald wrote and sang several hit singles with the Doobie Brothers, including "What a Fool Believes", "Minute by Minute", and "Takin' It to the Streets." McDonald has also performed as a prominent backing vocalist on numerous recordings by artists including Steely Dan, Christopher Cross, and Kenny Loggins.
Steve George is an American keyboard player, saxophone player and singer who is perhaps best known as the keyboardist and background vocalist for the 1980s band, Mr. Mister. He co-wrote all of the Mr. Mister songs, together with his childhood friend, Mr. Mister frontman Richard Page, with whom he also played in Pages prior to forming Mr. Mister.
Amore is the eleventh studio album by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, released on 31 January 2006, for the Valentine's Day season. This album features a remake of Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love"; "Because We Believe", the closing song of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, which Bocelli wrote and performed; "Somos Novios, a duet with American pop singer Christina Aguilera; and his first recording of Bésame Mucho, which eventually became one of his signature songs.
Jay Joseph Graydon is an American songwriter, recording artist, guitarist, singer, keyboardist, producer, arranger, and recording engineer. He is the winner of two Grammy Awards with twelve Grammy nominations, among them the title "Producer of the Year" and "Best Engineered Recording". He has mastered many different music styles and genres, and his recordings have been featured on record, film, television and the stage.
Under the Desert Sky is a live album and DVD of a classical - pop concert by classical Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. The concert was performed on a specially built floating stage at Lake Las Vegas Resort and taped for American television network PBS. It mostly featured songs from Bocelli's previous album, Amore. The package was released on 7 November 2006. It debuted and peaked on the U.S. Billboard 200 at number 11.
Incanto is the twelfth studio album by Classical Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, released on 4 November 2008 and coinciding with his 50th birthday. The album, a personal tribute to the musical traditions of his homeland, features mainly Neapolitan love songs from Bocelli's childhood.
Daniel Martin Shea is an American record producer and composer who has worked with numerous artists including Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez, Janet Jackson, Santana, Barbra Streisand, Jessica Simpson. Sara Evans, Rob Thomas, Marc Anthony, Boyz II Men, Martina McBride, Kenny G, Ricky Martin, Bono, Mary J. Blige, R. Kelly, Robin Thicke, Toni Braxton, Babyface, Natalie Cole, Phil Collins, Luther Vandross, Michael Bolton, Lady Antebellum, Jim Brickman, Plácido Domingo, Grover Washington Jr., Al Jarreau, Kenny Loggins, Dusty Springfield, Daryl Hall, Boney James, New Kids on the Block, Rissi Palmer, Christina Milian, Jordan Pruitt, Thalía, Savage Garden, Clarence Clemons, and more. As producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, Dan Shea's albums have sold over 150 million copies worldwide.
Loren Gold is an American keyboardist, vocalist, music director, and songwriter. Gold is currently the keyboardist and backup vocalist for The Who (2012), Roger Daltrey (2009), and the keyboardist/vocalist for Chicago (2021). Loren also performs with Rita Wilson, and has toured regularly with Don Felder since 2009. Other artists he has toured with include Kenny Loggins, Natalie Maines, and American Idol winner Taylor Hicks. Gold has been musical director for pop stars Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, and Hilary Duff, and he continues to build and develop bands for other artists. Gold has published two instructional books through his collaboration with Alfred Music, and his original compositions have been featured on HBO and Showtime. In addition to his music career, Loren works as an agent in Southern California alongside prominent real estate figure Josh Flagg from television's Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles.
My Christmas is the thirteenth studio album and first Christmas album released by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.
Italian pop tenor and crossover artist Andrea Bocelli has released seventeen pop, classical, and Latin studio albums, including one holiday album; three compilation albums; twenty two singles; four collaborative albums; eleven complete opera recordings; three live albums, and nine live video releases.
"Because We Believe",, is a song by Italian pop tenor Andrea Bocelli. It was co-written by Bocelli, multiple Grammy Award winner David Foster and his daughter Amy Foster, for the closing ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, where it was performed by Bocelli. The song first appeared as a solo version in Bocelli's 2006 album Amore, and later in his 2007, greatest hits album, The Best of Andrea Bocelli: Vivere.
"Vivere" is a song written by Italian singer-songwriter Gerardina Trovato with Angelo Anastasio and Celso Valli. It was first recorded as a duet between Trovato and Italian pop tenor Andrea Bocelli and included in Trovato's 1994 album Non è un film as well as on Bocelli's debut album Il Mare Calmo della Sera. It was also released as a B-side single with Bocelli's "Con te partirò" in 1996 and it was later featured on the compilation album Romanza, released by Bocelli in 1997.
Concerto: One Night in Central Park is a live album by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.
Passione is the fourteenth studio album by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, released on 29 January 2013. The album is a collection of Mediterranean love songs featuring duets with Jennifer Lopez, Nelly Furtado and a virtual duet with the late French cabaret singer Édith Piaf. It was produced by multiple Grammy-winning producer and Verve Music Group Chairman David Foster who co-produced Bocelli's 2006 Latin album Amore. A Spanish version of the album titled Pasión is set to be released through Universal Latino label.
Cinema is the fifteenth studio album by Italian classical tenor recording artist Andrea Bocelli. The album, featuring renditions of classic film soundtracks and scores, was released on 23 October 2015 through Sugar Music and Universal Music Group. A Spanish-language version of the album was also released and has been nominated Album of the Year at the 17th Annual Latin Grammy Awards. Cinema received a nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards held in February 2017.
"Which Way, Robert Frost" recorded with the title Zhǎo Duì Nǐ 找對你 is a song by Jacky Cheung, written by Roxanne Seeman and Philipp Steinke for Cheung’s Private Corner album. The title and lyrics refer to the narrative poem "The Road Not Taken" written by the American poet Robert Frost. The lyrics were adapted into Cantonese by Kenny So. It was released on January 29, 2010, by Universal Music.