1968–1989: Early life and career beginnings
Dion was born in Charlemagne, Quebec, 24 kilometres northeast of Montreal, the youngest of 14 children of Thérèse , a homemaker, and Adhémar Dion , a butcher, both of French-Canadian descent. She was raised a Roman Catholic in a poor, but, by her own account, happy home in Charlemagne. Music had always been a major part of the Dion family, and she was named after the song "Céline", which French singer Hugues Aufray had recorded two years before her birth. On 13 August 1973, at the age of five, the young Céline made her first public appearance at her brother Michel's wedding, where she performed Christine Charbonneau's song "Du fil des aiguilles et du coton". She continued to perform with her siblings in her parents' small piano bar called Le Vieux Baril, "The Old Barrel". From an early age, she had dreamed of being a performer. In a 1994 interview with People magazine, she recalled, "I missed my family and my home, but I don't regret having lost my adolescence. I had one dream: I wanted to be a singer."
As a child in Quebec, Dion participated in Girl Guide programs as a member of Girl Guides of Canada.
At age 12, she collaborated with her mother and her brother Jacques to write and compose her first song, "Ce n'était qu'un rêve", whose title translates as "It Was Only a Dream" or "Nothing But A Dream". Her brother Michel sent the recording to music manager René Angélil, whose name he discovered on the back of a Ginette Reno album. Angélil was moved to tears by Dion's voice and decided to make her a star. In 1981, he mortgaged his home to fund her first record, La voix du bon Dieu, which later became a local No. 1 hit and made her an instant star in Quebec. Her popularity spread to other parts of the world when she competed in the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo, Japan, and won the musician's award for "Top Performer" as well as the gold medal for "Best Song" with "Tellement j'ai d'amour pour toi".
By 1983, in addition to becoming the first Canadian artist to receive a gold record in France for the single "D'amour ou d'amitié" , Dion had also won several Félix Awards, including "Best Female performer" and "Discovery of the Year". Further success came when she represented Switzerland in the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Ne partez pas sans moi" and won the contest by a close margin in Dublin, Ireland.
At age eighteen, after seeing a Michael Jackson performance, Dion told Angélil that she wanted to be a star like Jackson. Though confident in her talent, Angélil realized that her image needed to be changed for her to be marketed worldwide. She receded from the spotlight for a number of months, during which she underwent dental surgery to improve her appearance, and was sent to the École Berlitz in 1989 to polish her English.
In 1989, during a concert on the Incognito tournée, she injured her voice. She consulted the otorhinolaryngologist William Gould, who gave her an ultimatum: have immediate surgery on her vocal cords or do not utilize them at all for three weeks. Dion chose the latter and underwent vocal training with William Riley.
