It was a feeling of fall in the air when fans arrived at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, Calif., for an opportunity to fall back in time with Paul Anka. He was the soundtrack of an age when drive-ins and back seats were the currency of teen romance. He knew what teens liked, because he was one.

"I've been in show business since I was about 10 years old," he said.

Today, Anka is a remarkably young 84. And when the lights go down, the room lights up.

I'm so young and you're so old
This, my darling, I've been told
I don't care just what they say
'Cause forever I will pray
You and I will be as free
As the birds up in the trees
Oh, please stay by me,
Diana

"When you started as I did as a kid with a squeaky little voice, not knowing what's gonna happen when it changes, I couldn't envision me being around for all these decades, you know?" he said.

The nostalgia is real, but so is his staying power. Anka has remained on Billboard's Hot 100 Chart for seven straight decades. He's re-invented, re-imagined and re-written himself over and over again. He was one of the few who made the lyrical leap from '50s teeny bopper to classic crooner, steadily performing with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. in the 1960s.

I asked, "Did you feel like a kid? I mean, did you struggle to be taken seriously because you were so young?"

"All of that," Anka replied. "It was very difficult to go from a modest background in a small town, to everybody's all over you and you're famous and you're a celebrity. Frankly, I kept saying, 'How do I not become an a******,' excuse me?"

He was living the life, but also learning about life. "Hanging around with the Rat Pack and the mob and Las Vegas," he said. "They drank and smoked, and I was fascinated, but I noticed they'd be coming off and coughing and spitting, and I'd be introduced to their doctors. So I never became a smoker. I never became a big drinker."

What he did become is a veracious reader of medical literature. If it's healthy, he's likely given it a shot, like his daily shot of olive oil with lemon. Whatever he's done, it's worked. His voice is strong, he struts the stage, and he still has a disarming sense of humor. "We're here for a while, folks," he told the crowd. "If you need to take pills or go to the bathroom, just go whenever you want."

Just this past week, Anka released his latest album, one of more than 130 he's recorded. It's a collection of music about love and life, he says; both are his stock in trade. On the wall of his home outside Los Angeles there are more gold records than you can count – not just for his own songs, but the ones he wrote for others. Buddy Holly's "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" – that was Anka. "She's a Lady" – Tom Jones owes Anka that one, too. He even wrote with Michael Jackson, a long-forgotten demo they recorded together back in the 1980s, that surfaced after Jackson died in 2009. "They found these songs in a drawer," Anka said.

"Love Never Felt So Good" became one of the last hits of the King of Pop.

In 2020 Anka surfaced again, when Grammy-winning rapper and singer Doja Cat sampled his "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" in her song "Freak." Imitating that video went on to become a TikTok trend.

But of all the songs he's known for, it's the one he wrote for Ol' Blue Eyes that still gets people a little misty. As the story goes, Frank Sinatra told Anka he was thinking about retiring, and Anka – only 25 at the time – says the lyrics of "My Way" just came to him. "It started to write itself," he said.

I've lived a life that's full,
I travelled each and every highway,
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

It took about five hours to write. "It was such a hit, he stayed ten more years!" Anka said of Sinatra. "And then after that came 'Let Me Try Again.'"

Yep, he wrote that one, too.

These days it's more about family than fans. He's got nine grandkids, including two from his daughter Amanda, and her husband actor Jason Bateman.

Paul Anka knows he'll have to tap the brakes at some point, but just like the song goes, he's travelled each and every highway, and when he does leave he'll do it his way.

"When it's time for my body to say enough, I'll know," he said. "I'm playing with the house's money now. I'm one lucky guy!"


Paul Anka dances with an audience member. CBS News

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