All the Way: A Decade of Song

Performer: Celine Dion
Artist: Peabo Bryson; Frank Sinatra; R. Kelly
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Personnel includes: Celine Dion, R. Kelly, Peabo Bryson, Frank Sinatra (vocals); Walter Afansieff (acoustic guitar, Synclavier acoustic gutiar, keyboards, synthesizer, bass, programming); Michael Thompson, Eddie Martinez, Dan Huff, Esbjorn Ohrwall, Jacques Saugy, Dean Parks, Tim Pierce (guitar); Taro Hakase (violin); Joel Peskin (electronic oboe); Jon Gilutin (piano, keyboards); Jeff Bova, Max Martin, Kristian Lundin (keyboards, programming); David Foster (keyboards); Guy Roche (synthesizer); Yoshinobu Takeshita (bass, programming); Steve Buslowe, Thomas Lindberg (bass); Kenny Aronoff, John Robinson (drums); Shania Twain, Todd Rundgren, Mutt Lange, Philip Ingram, Sue Ann Carwell (background vocals). Producers include: David Foster, Guy Roche, R. Kelly, Max Martin, Rene Angelil. "All The Way" was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. This is a multi-channel Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players. Personnel includes: Celine Dion, R. Kelly, Peabo Bryson, Frank Sinatra (vocals); Walter Afansieff (acoustic guitar, Synclavier acoustic gutiar, keyboards, synthesizer, bass, programming); Michael Thompson, Eddie Martinez, Dan Huff, Esbjorn Ohrwall, Jacques Saugy, Dean Parks, Tim Pierce (guitar); Taro Hakase (violin); Joel Peskin (electronic oboe); Jon Gilutin (piano, keyboards); Jeff Bova, Max Martin, Kristian Lundin (keyboards, programming); David Foster (keyboards); Guy Roche (synthesizer); Yoshinobu Takeshita (bass, programming); Steve Buslowe, Thomas Lindberg (bass); Kenny Aronoff, John Robinson (drums); Shania Twain, Todd Rundgren, Mutt Lange, Philip Ingram, Sue Ann Carwell (background vocals). Producers include: David Foster, Guy Roche, R. Kelly, Max Martin, Rene Angelil. "All The Way" was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. This is a Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players. There aren't a lot of greatest-hits albums with seven new songs, which is exactly what All the Way: A Decade of Song is. There are just nine hits on this hits collection, and of those, only a handful -- "If You Asked Me To," "Beauty and the Beast," "The Power of Love," "Because You Loved Me," "It's All Coming Back to Me Now," and "My Heart Will Go On" -- were huge hits in the U.S. Her first American hit, "Where Does My Heart Beat Now," isn't here, nor is her duet with Barbra Streisand, "Tell Him." Naturally, this means it's not a definitive collection, but rather an unsatisfying album that feels suspiciously like a piece of product. The best of the hits, like the Meat Loaf-ian epic "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" and "My Heart Will Go On," are certainly among the best adult contemporary songs of the decade, and the new stuff would pale in comparison, even if it was very good -- which, by and large, it is not. Two numbers, the danceable "That's the Way it Is" and the pretty ballad "If Walls Could Talk," work, but the cover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" falls flat and "All the Way," complete with old vocals from Sinatra, is a disaster. The remaining three aren't bad, but they're not particularly memorable, especially compared to the hits. And that's the problem with All the Way -- if it had been a straight hits collection, with "That's the Way it Is" and "If Walls Could Talk" added to the end, it would have been fine, but padding it with nearly a full album worth of new material hurts it. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine This greatest-hits package, the first from pop icon Celine Dion, gathers Dion's biggest chart-toppers of the '90s and also includes a handful of new compositions. In the album's liner notes, the honey-voiced singer offers heartfelt thanks to her fans and confirms speculation that she plans take time away from music to focus on her family. Hits include "Beauty and the Beast," "It's All Coming Back to Me Now," and "My Heart Will Go On," the impassioned theme song from TITANIC. Among the new songs, her dramatic, tremolo-drenched rendering of Ewan MacColl's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is marked by Dion's typical midsong climaxes. "All the Way" is a tribute to Frank Sinatra, delivered in a manner similar to Natalie Cole's tribute to her father, Nat "King" Cole, on "Unforgettable" -- Dion's vocals float with eerie effect among the ghostly strains of Ol' Blue Eyes. The song is also dedicated to Dion's husband, Rene, the man for whom Celine saves her greatest passion.

Entertainment Weekly (11/26/99, p.99) - "...stunning...displaying not just the clarity of her voice but a hunger for life..." - Rating: B+

Celine Dion's ascent from stardom in her native Canada to the upper echelons of international pop divadom is one of the 1990s major success stories. Blessed with a formidable set of pipes and a preference for heart-in-the-throat ballads, the precociously talented Dion initially won over American listeners in 1991, 10 years after her French-language debut, with the title track from Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. From then on, Dion became a music-biz phenomenon, with platinum record sales, sold-out concerts, and across-the-board appeal rivaling her idol, Barbra Streisand.

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