Michael Bublé: Time traveler

He packs concert halls and has sold nearly 35 million albums by covering classic American songs made famous by crooners like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. But while some critics might dismiss him as a mimic, Michael Bublé says studying the masters helped him discover his own voice. Lara Logan profiles the singer, going backstage and traveling to Bublé's Canadian hometown, where his long journey to the top of the charts began.

The following is a script of "Michael Bublé" which aired on Dec. 4, 2011. Lara Logan is correspondent, Max McClellan and Reuben Heyman-Kantor, producers and Matt Danowski, editor.

Michael Bublé is an anomaly in the music world. He's become a star singing old classics from the Great American Songbook, unforgettable jazz standards written more than half a century ago.

It's music that was immortalized by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Tony Bennett.

But as we discovered, at a Michael Bublé concert you're as likely to find screaming teenage girls in the audience as you are their grandparents.

Onstage, backstage & offstage with Michael Bublé
Lara Logan hangs out with singer Michael Bublé backstage, onstage, and with his wife Luisana, who tells the story of their odd and unpromising first date

He started out singing in shopping malls, today he can sell out Madison Square Garden. And his Christmas album - out for just six weeks - has already sold over four million copies worldwide. But he freely admits that even after spending more than half his life in the business, he's still fighting for respect.

Our story begins backstage on his latest tour, moments before the curtains open...

It's three minutes to show time. Michael Bublé is about to do a final warm-up as the crowd waits.

His fans are drawn to his Rat Pack style - that signature suit and tie, that seductive charm.

This 1953 classic opens his show. It was a smoky ballad written for Ella Fitzgerald, but he's given it his own big band sound.

Michael Bublé: Am I crazy? How can you not like this stuff? There's a reason why these songs have been sung for a hundred years and that people are still touched by them.

His talent for breathing new life into old classics has helped him sell close to 35 million albums.

Bublé: We all know about love, we all know about hurting. These songs connect emotionally to people.

Lara Logan: So, who is in your audience these days?

Bublé: Oh it's great. I've got young, really young. I've got really old. I've got really gay. I've got very black and very white. Really rich and really poor. I've got everybody.

A Michael Bublé concert takes you back to some of the greatest music of the last century. This is his version of that Frank Sinatra favorite, "I've Got the World on a String."

But he's not confined to these jazz standards.

He takes his favorite songs from any decade and makes them his own. Here, he's doing "Twist and Shout."

And then there are his own original songs like "Hollywood," a tongue-in-cheek statement about celebrity culture. Few artists have the versatility that is Michael Bublé's trademark.

Bublé: I get to study and I got to mimic and what I basically did was I stole from every person that I could steal from. I was an imitator. That's what I was. It was years before I could take all of these things that I loved about all of these different artists and put them together and find my voice.

Logan: Well, you've paid for that though because somehow the music industry, in spite of all your success, they still don't accept you fully?

Bublé: It's one of those things where it's hard. Who am I? It turns out that I'm far too schizophrenic musically for people to categorize me. I think people judge me a lot before they ever really know who I am.

He's not a man who takes himself too seriously, as we discovered when Michael gave us a tour backstage in San Jose, California.

He was getting ready for the 150th show of his latest tour.

Bublé: Going on tour, is like a camp, right, like a summer camp.

Bublé: This is the crappiest interview I've ever done.

Bublé: Watch yourself here if there's a bump, wow, look.

Logan: Look at that, that's fabulous, huh?

Bublé: I mean, I've talked to entertainers, I remember talking to Tony Bennett and I asked him what advice he could give me and he said, 'Be nervous before every show.' He said, 'Everybody should be a little bit nervous before every show.' And I thought, 'Oh f...I'm toast.' Because I just didn't have that. I, I was so comfortable up there. This is, I'm more comfortable there than I am in a, in a room. It's where I was sort of...

Logan: Meant to be.

Bublé: My personality, who I am, I was meant to be up there.

It all started here, off the coast of Vancouver. Michael spent much of his time growing up on the water. He's the son of a fisherman.

Logan: What does it feel like to come back on a fishing boat? How long has it been?

Bublé: Oh man, it's 15 years, 16 years.

For three months every summer he worked grueling 20 hour days catching and sorting salmon. He and his dad, Lewis, showed us around the kind of boat they used to work on together.

Bublé: We would jump in, in our rain gear. And you'd be up to here in fish and you'd basically separate, ah, each of the species.

Logan: You were up to here in fish?

Bublé: Yeah. Not just fish. But beautiful jellyfish and lice and everything else that comes with--

Lewis Bublé: Slime.

Bublé: Slimy fish.

This is also where he often dreamed of making it as a singer, listening to his Walkman in his bunk, memorizing hundreds of old classics.

Bublé: I just felt that's how you make something happen. You just, you will it.

Logan: What would you do?

Bublé: I would just sneak in a room, practice and grab a hairbrush and go, (singing) "What are the things you think that you pine for, gee, I'd like to see you lookin' swell, Lara."

Michael's passion for swing music came from his grandfather, Mitch, who we met in Vancouver at a Bublé family dinner. A plumber and music lover, he introduced Michael to the greats and they spent years listening to them together.

Bublé: He would say, 'Sunshine you know, before I die, I just want you to-- to-- if you could just learn these three songs,' you know. "Begin the Beguine." Or "I'll Never Smile Again" or - and so I would learn them. And he did this countless times, hundreds and hundreds of times. He's my probably, easily, my best friend, yeah.

Logan: He would call you "Sunshine?"

Bublé: That- he still calls me "Sunshine."

Michael's grandfather used every trick of the trade to get "Sunshine's" career on its way.

Bublé: He took me to every audition. He took me to every singing lesson. He would get me in by promising to give free plumbing to any club owner who would let me in. And he'd say 'Listen, I know he's 16, but you let him up on stage and I'm gonna go, and I'm gonna fix your hot water heater. It's busted.' And, then he'd wait all night, and I'd get up and I'd have my chance to sing with the band and he sat there beaming at me.

Logan: How old were you when you, you know, first started doing that kind of gig?

Bublé: Sixteen, just turning 17.

Logan: So 20 years ago.

Bublé: Twenty years ago, yeah. And it went by, it went by like this. It, ah, it was a long road, the first ah, 'til I was about 26 was quite a struggle.

Logan: You've sung in shopping malls.

Bublé: Many times.

Logan: Birthday parties.

Bublé: Sure. Yeah. Birthday parties, singing telegrams. I sang Christmas songs in the malls. My Grandpa would drink about eight cups of coffee. The poor guy. And, we'd sit there for five hours. Yeah, I did everything that you could do.

Logan: Did you have any limits? Was there anything you wouldn't do?

Bublé: I didn't like singing at weddings.

Logan: But you did it.

Bublé: I did it, yeah, I did it. As it turns out it's the one thing I did where everyone in the world goes like, 'Oh you're the wedding singer that made it.'

It was at this wedding in September 2000 that Michael's luck changed. One of the guests was Warner music producer David Foster. He told him he loved his act and invited him to L.A.

That should have been Michael's big break, but for the next year and a half, he struggled to convince a skeptical music industry that he was more than a Frank Sinatra wannabe. After begging David Foster, he finally got a meeting with the head of Warner Brothers Records.

Bublé: It was like a movie. And as he sat down he said, 'Well, Mr. Bublé, why should we sign you? We have Sinatra on reprise.' And I fired back and said, 'With all respect, Mr. Sinatra's dead.' You know. I said, 'Don't bury the music with him.' I said, 'He wouldn't want it, no one wants it.' I said, 'There's a void here.' And I said, 'And I'll fill it. And I'll work for you. I'll work hard for you.'

He was sent away without an answer.

Bublé: A week later I was down in the basement of this building that I was staying in and I was on the treadmill. And the doors flung open and my grandpa and my manager were there. And they both had tears in their eyes. And my grandpa said, 'Sunshine, sunshine, you're with Warner Brothers.'

Today, Michael Bublé has earned the music industry's highest honors; including three Grammys and his first four albums have all gone platinum.

This ballad 'Home' was his first original hit.

"Haven't Met You Yet" is his favorite. It's a song that Michael says was inspired by this woman, his wife Luisana Lopilato.

She's an Argentine actress and model and she knows how to keep Mr. Bublé's feet on the ground.

Bublé: We're just gonna do a test here. How much out of 10 do you love me?

Lopilato: Eight. No, no.

Bublé: It's been eight since, how long has it been eight?

Lopilato: For so long.

Logan: What's the real Michael Bublé?

Lopilato: Oh, the real? Happy, funny, beautiful family. He's so sensitive and I like--

Bublé: And am I also a pain in the bum?

Lopilato: Also, too. Sometimes I want to kill him, but you know I can't. He needs to sing more.

Michael invited us into the recording studio in L.A. where he was putting the final touches on his latest album - simply called, "Christmas."

It's currently the number one album in the country.

He told us he's always wanted to follow the holiday tradition of those legendary voices that still inspire his career.

Bublé: I want to be around for a long time. I want this to be a career. I want to sing like Tony Bennett. I want to be an old man and I want to go through all the ups and downs and I wanna still love what I do.