Listen to Celine Dion on Batanga

Hotel started in a rural French Canadian hometown called Charlemagne in the province of Quebec. She is the youngest of 14 children in a highly musical family. The family owned a small local club, and on weekends, all the family entertained the local population. Celine was only five years old when she started performing in front of an audience. By the age of twelve, the bright young talent composed a French song with her brother and mother, which forever changed the course of her life.

That's when Rene Angelil (her current Husband) and respected talent agent, heard the song and saw a bright future for the young singer. In January of 1981, Rene was really taken by Celine's voice and decided to mortgage his house to finance her debut album. The steak of recognition started in 1982 when she won the Gold Medal at the Yamaha World Song Festival in Tokyo as well as the coveted Musician's Award for Top Performer. In 1983, Celine became the first Canadian to receive a Gold Record in France.

Celine was hitting it big in her native province of Quebec, where she received numerous Felix Awards and racking up many platinum albums. During the year of 1988, she also won the prestigious Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin Ireland, where she performed live in front of a 600 million television audience throughout Europe.

Celine was known everywhere throughout the world and when she recorded the title track for the soundtrack to the animated Disney hit movie Beauty and the Beast, she had reached the huge American market. The song quickly climbed up the charts to number one and garnered both an Academy Award and a Grammy Award. Her second English language album, called Hotel produced four more hit singles and the album went six times platinum in Canada, which set the way for an incredible streak of Juno Awards- the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy Awards.

In the mean time Celine became extremely popular in the UK with the song Think Twice, which remained number one on the charts of the British charts for five consecutive weeks. This was a great achievement as The Beatles had set the benchmark in 1965. Celine became the fourth female artist ever to sell a million singles in the UK. She even introduced French music to the upper British charts, the song D'eux caught the world by storm and allowed the world to find out about her.

With one of music's greatest voices, Celine has crossed practically every barrier and has conquered the world with a series of electrifying international hits. She dedicated all her time and efforts touring, appearing on TV shows, receiving awards and attending special events. However, Celine still has time to support the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in memorial of her niece, Karine, who was passed away from the disease.

The success story doesn't stop here. In 1996, Falling Into You became the best selling album of the year, it topped the charts in 11 countries and was voted Album of the Year and Best Pop Album in the 39th annual Grammy Awards. As of today, the album recorded sales of more than 25 million copies worldwide. Her follow-up album was Let's Talk About Love, it featured popular music from other great vocalists, songwriters, and producers. It was also released on the soundtrack of the motion picture Titanic, which was an unprecedented success. The most popular song was My Hearth Will Go On, written by James Horner and produced by James Warner and Walter Afanasieff. The Titanic soundtrack sold over 27 million copies worldwide and became the best-selling orchestral soundtrack in recording history. The song also pocketed an Oscar for Best Original Song; the second Oscar for a song performed by Celine.

Celine recorded many albums ranging from These Are Special Times featuring sixteen holiday songs, to a greatest hit album including her chart-topping hit single The Power of Love, and a collection of seven new songs. These songs struck gold once again and Celine has been called the premier contemporary pop vocalist of the nineties and earned her the status of international superstar. She recently re-married her longtime agent in a fancy Las Vegas Hotel and decided to take a year off to spend some time with Rene and start a family.