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The croon prince

MICHAEL BUBLE is known as the ‘Prince of Croon’. Well, in case you didn’t know, the good-looking Canadian crooner now has a Pinoy counterpart in 26-year-old Earl Vincent “Vince” Camua.

Vince, who has a corporate job by day — he is employed as an assistant brand manager with a multinational company — is working on his debut album, which contains songs associated with an older generation. Expected to come out by September this year under the Taxi Music label, the album was produced by Mike Jamir and has six cuts, all remakes of popular standards, two of which were translated into Tagalog by award-winning poet and author Pete Lacaba. The songs include It Had To Be You, Beyond the Sea, The Last Time (an R & B song re-arranged as a standard), I’ll Take Care of You, That’s All and My One and Only Love.

The last two were translated into Tagalog and appear on the album as Yun Lang and Tunay Kitang Mahal respectively. Vince was ‘discovered’ and encouraged in his pursuit of a solo career by talent manager Arsi Baltazar. Arsi, a judge on Pinoy Pop Superstar, first saw Vince when he auditioned for the contest. Unfortunately, at 25, he was over the age limit. So after he auditioned, Arsi pulled Vince to one side and suggested that he might want to try a solo career.

Apart from his singing talent, Arsi liked Vince’s fresh, new image and the fact that this young man sang old songs was something that made him stand out. He doesn’t mind being referred to as the Pinoy version of Buble. “Why would I mind? I’d even be flattered. Even Buble started that way — people called him a clone of Frank Sinatra and Harry Connick, Jr. It was only later that he developed his own sound and matured as an artist.”

He was introduced to this type of music by his parents Dick and Evelyn Camua. The couple used to play a lot of old songs at home, songs by artists from the 60s and 70s. As a result, Vince became a big fan of this type of music. By the time he hit his teens, he knew this music so well that he only had to hear a few bars of a song, and he could already identify it. Growing up, he even thought that Don McLean’s song Vincent was written for him. “I remember my parents would tell me, ‘Anak, ‘yan ang kanta mo [Son, that’s your song]’ each time they played it. And I believed them,” he laughs.

So when he decided to turn to singing professionally, there was no doubt in Vince’s mind about the kind of music he wanted to do. Although he is trying out a genre of music that today’s listeners are not so familiar with — these are, after all, old songs — he is confident that somehow, his music will manage to find an audience.

He is happy that he has been given this chance to indulge his lifelong passion. “I’m happy with what I’m doing,” says Vince. “Singing has been my passion since I was a kid. I’m in my element when I sing. I also want to grab this window of opportunity while I’m still young. It’s now or never.”