The Canadian superstar, who hits the big 5-0 today, is one of the best-selling artists of all time, and released her debut album way back in 1981.
Since then she’s sold 250 million albums worldwide and is responsible for some of the best-known songs of all time.
At 13, she sang confidently and powerfully on television in Quebec, and presenter Michel Jasmin later said in a TV documentary that the atmosphere in the studio was electric.
“When she arrived in the TV studios for rehearsals, when she started singing… everyone who could hear, everyone stopped by the door of the studio and wouldn’t leave.
“They wanted to hear the rehearsal and they couldn’t believe they were hearing such a voice.”
Jasmin added that the late René Angélil, Dion’s manager and later husband, was confident of her potential from the beginning.
“René often says in his interviews, ‘when I first heard her I knew she’d be a worldwide star’.
“Sometimes I told René, ‘do not exaggerate’. A big star in Quebec was already a big deal.
“Maybe she would go over the borders of Quebec but a worldwide star? Nobody could have imagined that.”
In the UK, Dion’s best-selling single is My Heart Will Go On, which hit No1 as the lead single from the film Titanic in 1998.
The Official Charts Company said in 2013 that it has confidently sold over 1.5 million copies in this country alone.
Her other best-sellers include 1994’s Think Twice, 1996’s Because You Loved Me, and the 1997 duet with Barbra Streisand, Tell Him.
Dion released her last French-language album Encore un soir in 2016, reaching No1 in Canada.
Her most recent English-language opus is 2013’s Loved Me Back To Life, which sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide.
It is thought that a new English album will be released later this year.
