Crooner Michael Bolton to perform at the Westhampton Beach PAC

Michael Bolton—a Grammy Award-winner boasting a career that has already spanned four decades and many musical genres—usually plays venues with at least 1,500 seats.

But, East Enders will have an opportunity to see the blue-eyed crooner at the more intimate 425-seat Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on Sunday, March 28, at 8 p.m.

“It’s the smallest venue that we will be playing in on this tour,” Mr. Bolton said in a February teleconference. “I’ll walk into the room and do a sound check—not count the seats.”

The other stops on Mr. Bolton’s “One World, One Love” tour, named to promote his eponymous newest CD, have anywhere from 1,400 to 3,000 seats, and he performed in November at the 
Royal Albert Hall in London, which has 6,000 seats.

“It wouldn’t matter if we were performing for 55,000 people in an outdoor stadium, we don’t want to give less than 100 percent,” he said to the writers and reporters on the line for the teleconference.

Scheduled for release in May, the “One World, One Love” CD embraces new trends in music, including the use of an auto-tuner, and showcases the talents of new musicians, such as R&B singer-songwriter Ne-Yo and pop culture phenomenon Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga—who had yet to have her first hit, “Just Dance,” when she worked with Mr. Bolton—wrote the “Murder My Heart” track on “One World, One Love.”

Mr. Bolton said that he and the then 22-year-old songwriter worked from 8 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. on the song in London, putting in the extra hours because the soon-to-be star wanted the song to be “something that will ‘kill’ people when they hear it,” he said.

Mr. Bolton said that his work with Lady Gaga reflects his willingness to expand his musical horizons.

“I’m really seeing that my instinct is to follow and pursue and explore different genres,” said Mr. Bolton, noting that he has worked with a variety of musicians.

He described the walls in his recording studio as testaments to his boundary-breaking music, covered as they are with mementoes from his work with Bob Dylan, Kiss, Barbra Streisand, and even hip-hop stars Kanye West and Jay-Z.

The singer’s show in Westhampton Beach will not be featuring any of his famous collaborators. Instead, Mr. Bolton will be on stage with six musicians, a backup vocalist singer, and a dancer.

“It’s the basic configuration that I’ve toured with for the last 25 years or so—we have a lot of layers and keyboards,” he said. “We may look like an average-size band, but there is some serious fidelity coming through the system.”

He said in the teleconference that performing is his calling and life’s work—taking precedence over writing and producing most of his catalogue.

“Singing is my first passion,” he said. “I do produce or co-produce all my records. I go over every note, all the bass lines. But nothing is as gratifying as the singing.”

He explained that songwriting, although he loves it, was a means to an end for him when he was first breaking into the music business. He signed a deal with a record company when he was 16 years old, but didn’t have his first hit until 18 years later.

“I was so grateful that somewhere in between someone asked me to write songs for other artists,” Mr. Bolton said, adding that it provided money that enabled him to feed his family.

After he began writing hits for other musicians, such as Laura Branigan, Mr. Bolton started to make a name for himself in his solo career. He went on to score hits with covers of Motown classics. Looking back on that period now, he suggested that those covers reveal how willing he has always been to step beyond the confines of the soft rock he is known for. His renditions of “Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay,” “Georgia On My Mind,” and “When a Man Loves a Woman,” although controversial at first, earned him accolades.

The singer had a bit of trepidation covering “Dock of the Bay,” which was made famous by Otis Redding. He explained that some music industry insiders questioned his motives—asking how a white kid from Connecticut could cover a classic standard.

But he said he received permission from Mr. Redding’s widow, Zelma, to do the cover and said “it won the day.”

That triumph paved the way for Mr. Bolton to put his own spin on the classic Percy Sledge rendition of “When a Man Loves a Woman.”

“My intention was to sing it with reserve, and not do vocal acrobatics with it,” he explained. “I’ve always loved it, and thought it was time for it to come around again.”

Mr. Bolton won a Grammy Award for that cover.

It is his love of music and performing that carried him through the questions about his choice of material, he said, and gave him the stamina to keep going through the 42 years of his career. And that same passion for singing, he said, will be tapped once more for Sunday’s performance at the PAC.

Michael Bolton will perform on Sunday, March 28, at 8 p.m. at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $120, $135, or $150, available by calling the Arts Center box office at 288-1500, stopping by the PAC at 78 Main Street in Westhampton Beach, or online at www.whbpac.org.