Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and singer and talk-show host Jennifer Hudson debuted their new duet in a surprise Hollywood Bowl performance.
“‘One Right Here’ is about having that one person who’s there for you through it all,” songwriter Diane Warren said. “It could be a friend, a lover or family.”
Bocelli and Hudson will release “One Right Here” through Decca Records on Oct. 2. Warren wrote the duet for MASERATI: THE BROTHERS, an upcoming biographical movie about the siblings who turned a small Bologna garage into one of the world’s best-known automotive companies.
Hudson joined Bocelli during his Sept. 16 Hollywood Bowl concert to debut the song with Warren at the piano. The singers also performed “The Prayer” as composer David Foster accompanied them, giving the Los Angeles crowd two collaborations built around loyalty, hope and devotion.
“It doesn’t get any better than singing with @andreabocelliofficial!” Hudson wrote after the concert. She said she would always cherish performing both “The Prayer” and the new duet in that setting.
The new song will play over the closing moments of MASERATI: THE BROTHERS. Oscar-winning director Bobby Moresco helmed the movie, which stars Michele Morrone, Salvatore Esposito and Lorenzo De Moor as members of the Maserati family alongside Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino, Andy Garcia and Jessica Alba.
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Warren said she wrote the piece with Bocelli’s voice in mind before imagining what Hudson could bring to it. The pairing crosses musical worlds: Bocelli’s classically rooted tenor meets the gospel power and emotional candor that have defined Hudson’s career.
“One Right Here” marks Warren’s first collaboration with Bocelli and her fifth with Hudson. Walter Afanasieff, whose résumé stretches across pop, R&B and adult contemporary music, produced and arranged the track.
Hudson brings rare range to the partnership beyond her voice. Her Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony wins place her among the small group of EGOT recipients, while Bocelli has spent more than three decades carrying classical music into arenas and homes around the world.
“They come from two different musical worlds, but together they created this world of beauty,” Warren said. “It turned out even better than I imagined.”
The collaboration also carries an unmistakable family thread. Bocelli announced the single Sept. 15 and described it as a song about having someone beside you through anything and everything, reflecting the relationships at the heart of the movie.
That message fits both singers’ public stories. Bocelli has long connected music, family and faith, and he once said that belief gives his life its deepest meaning.
“For me, I can say [my faith] is a reason for life,” Bocelli said. “I do not believe in the clock without the clockmaker. Therefore, I have faith.”
Hudson’s powerful voice also grew inside the church. Church stood at the center of her childhood in Chicago and that she carried a worn Bible for inspiration and guidance while competing on AMERICAN IDOL.
MASERATI: THE BROTHERS is slated to open in Italian theaters Oct. 15. Before audiences meet the family on the big screen, Bocelli, Hudson and Warren have already distilled its central promise into one line: stay near the people God has given you, through anything and everything.
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