Paul Anka is the only artist in history to have a song in the Billboard Top 100 during seven consecutive decades. He was named the 21st most successful artist in Billboard’s history, and Anka didn’t waste time getting his life in music started. He earned five Billboard Top 20 hits by the age of 18. At 13, he had his own vocal group, the Bobbysoxers. Blinded by determination, he would take his mother’s car and drive to perform at every amateur night he could across the river in Quebec. In 1956, he convinced his parents to let him travel to Los Angeles, where a meeting with Modern Records led to the release of Anka’s first single, “Blau-Wile Deveest Fontaine.” In New York in 1957, he scored a meeting with Don Costa, the A&R representative for ABC-Paramount Records, playing him a batch of songs that included “Diana.” The rapid and enormous success of “Diana,” his first number one hit, made him a star at the young age of 15. Paul found himself traveling by bus with the ‘Cavalcade of Stars’ with the top names of the day. He honed his craft surrounded by the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Frankie Lymon, and Chuck Berry. Anka was the youngest entertainer to ever perform at the Copacabana. He went on to write for Connie Francis, Leslie Gore, and Buddy Holly (including the last song Holly ever recorded, “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore”). Other hit songs include the Academy Award-nominated theme for the 1962 film in which he starred, The Longest Day. He notably penned the longest-running theme in television history for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Songwriting and performing “are what gave me the confidence to keep going,” he says. In the early 60s, he became a junior associate of Sinatra and the Rat Pack. Even with the British invasion, Anka still had chart records. He moved to Italy and outsold the Italians, selling an astonishing 4 million records there.
In the late 60s, Anka wrote “My Way” for Frank Sinatra, and by the 70s, he had another string of hits like “(You’re) Having My Baby,” “Don’t Like To Sleep Alone,” and “Times Of Your Life,” which confirmed his status as an icon of popular music. His later achievements as a recording artist included the charted song, “Hold Me ‘Til the Morning Comes,” a hit duet with Peter Cetera in 1983, the Spanish-language album Amigos in 1996, and Body of Work, a 1998 duets album that featured Frank Sinatra, Celine Dion, Tom Jones and daughter Anthea Anka. It was also revealed upon its release in 2009 that Anka co-wrote Michael Jackson’s posthumous #1 worldwide hit, “This Is It,” which has further cemented his place upon the most prolific and versatile songwriters of any generation.
Rock Swings and Classic Songs, My Way – ingeniously featured songs originally created by some of the biggest rock performers of the day. Anka, of course, did the songs ‘his way.’ Rock Swings went Top 10 in the UK, and was certified gold in the UK, France, and Canada, hit No. 2 on Billboard’s Top Jazz Albums chart and went on to sell half a million units worldwide
In 2013, Anka released his New York Times Bestselling autobiography, published by St. Martin’s Press, entitled My Way. This autobiography is a remarkable story of a decades-long career as an entertainer, actor, and songwriter. During that time, his album Duets was released by Sony Music Entertainment and featured artists such as Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Tom Jones, Celine Dion, and Michael Bublé (whose self-titled 2003 album Anka co-produced). Duets provides a musical journey through the life and times of Paul Anka and includes heartfelt liner notes written by Anka himself as an introduction to the classic songs he and his collaborators have chosen. Duets set a milestone in Billboard Chart history because with the CD, Anka became the only artist to have a CD on the Billboard Top 100 Chart for seven consecutive decades.
2014 saw the release of another song Anka co-wrote with Michael Jackson entitled “Love Never Felt So Good” off of Jackson’s album Xscape. The song was also recorded as a duet with Justin Timberlake. As lead song off of Jackson’s CD and its first single, it has received massive radio, sales, and critical success and reached #1 in over 50 countries. In 2018, Anka’s collaboration with Michael Jackson and Drake on the song “Don’t Matter to Me” was released on Drake’s “Scorpion.” The song alone had over 400 million downloads and reached the top 10 on Billboard charts
At 84 years old, Paul Anka continues to write and record. His last two albums, Making Memories and Sessions, were released in 2021 and 2022, respectively. The albums featured new and never-before-recorded songs as well as new takes on old classics — notably “Put Your Head On My Shoulder” with Olivia Newton-John, one of her last recorded songs, and “My Way” featuring Michael Buble and Andrea Bocelli.