'I thought it was a prank': Bryan Adams on how a phone call with Pavarotti turned into a lifelong friendship

Over the course of his career, Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams has collaborated with some of music's most legendary artists, from Tina Turner to Barbra Streisand to Sting and Rod Stewart, and more recently, Taylor Swift. 

By the early '90s, Adams was already so popular that he even got a call from best-selling classical singer Luciano Pavarotti. Thinking the call was a joke, the story goes that Adams accidentally hung up on Pavarotti, but in a conversation with q's Tom Power, Adams says that's not exactly true.

"[Pavarotti] managed to get my phone number somehow, and he called me up and I thought it was someone taking the piss. I thought it was a prank call, because he had a really strong Italian accent."

Pavarotti said, 'One day you will need me and I will be there for you.'- Bryan Adams

After a short back and forth with the famous opera singer, Adams realized that he was actually speaking to the real Luciano Pavarotti, and so he stayed on the line.

Pavarotti had called Adams to ask him if he would like to perform a duet together on an Italian television show, which Adams confesses he was a bit hesitant about at first.

"I said I'd think about it, but I ended up doing it because he said something to me which was significant. He said, 'One day you will need me and I will be there for you.' I thought, 'Wow', because my father loved opera. I thought I would get them together. That would be really fun. Sadly Luciano passed away and so that dream never happened. But the sweet story is that my father passed away recently and on his deathbed, I played him some Luciano. So Luciano was there for me in the end."

When Adams' father first heard about his son's duet with Pavarotti, he had a special request: he asked his son to tell Pavarotti that he had bought his very first record. At first, the opera singer couldn't believe it, but when Adams' father came backstage for a brief meeting and correctly identified his first album, Una Furtiva Lagrima: Donizetti Arias, Pavarotti was thrilled.

"He gave my father this huge hug and from that moment on it was like we were all family."

Tom Power's full interview with Bryan Adams airs on Monday, September 3. Listen online or download the podcast here.

Written by Vivian Rashotte. Interview with Bryan Adams produced by Vanessa Greco.