"Michael Bolton was born Michael Bolotin in New Haven, Connecticut on February 26, 1954. His passion for music and his career in the field began long before he gained the notoriety that he now enjoys. He started out playing under his birth name in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. After meeting with disinterest when he first put out his voice, he joined the heavy metal band Blackjack for a little while. In the mid-'80s his career really began to take off when he changed his name to Michael Bolton and signed with Columbia Records. His eponymous debut album was released in April of '83, and his career began to take off from there.The album did contain a lot of shout-singing, which showed that Bolton had not fully rid himself of his heavy-metal days, but by and large the album did pretty well. The single ""Fool's Game"" scored pretty well in the charts and proved that Michael Bolton was definitely going somewhere. It was in 1987 that his career really began to take off with The Hunger peaking in the top 50 on The Billboard 200. The album established him as a powerful ballad singer, a direction that he might have done better with from the start, and Bolton was on his way.He won his first Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, in 1989 for the song ""How Am I Supposed to Live Without You,"" from the album Soul Provider. He won his second Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for the song ""When a Man Loves a Woman,"" but suffered abuse from detractors at the ceremony. Many critics felt that his tendency to copy some of the great stars was a way for him to gain fame and notoriety, without really doing anything spectacular. However, despite all of this, Bolton has become one of the most successful and timeless musicians in history."