Songfacts®:

• In this song, Michael Bolton commits 100% to his lady, telling her he'll be her "soul provider" for all time. It's the kind of romantic song that earned Bolton an immense female fanbase.
• There was some question as to whether or not Michael Bolton should be providing our soul. On his 1987 album The Hunger, he covered Otis Redding's classic "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay," a song it seemed only Redding could sing. Some of Redding's fans were aghast, but the song was a hit and proved there was a market for what Bolton had to offer. His label, Columbia, invested heavily in his next album, Soul Provider, bringing in top songwriters (Diane Warren, Desmond Child) and musicians (Steve Lukather, Michael Omartian). "Soul Provider" was the first single. It did well, but the next one, "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You," was huge, going to #1 on both the Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts. "How Can We Be Lovers?" and "When I'm Back On My Feet Again" followed, capped by another cover of a song made famous by a soul icon: "Georgia On My Mind."
  
  For Bolton's next album, Time, Love & Tenderness, Columbia followed the same formula and got even better results. The big hit was "When a Man Loves a Woman," originally recorded by Percy Sledge.
• Bolton wrote this song with Andy Goldmark, a veteran tunesmith whose songs were recorded by Jermaine Jackson ("Dynamite"), Anne Murray ("That's Not The Way (It's S'posed To Be)") and Jeffrey Osborne "You Should Be Mine (The Woo Woo Song)." He and Bolton later teamed on Bolton's hit "Love Is a Wonderful Thing."
• This song of unwavering commitment contrasted with Bolton's personal life. He had been married for 14 years when it was released, but soon after, he got divorced. In the early '90s, as his star rose, he was romantically linked with many celebrities, but he didn't re-marry.
• That's Kenny G on the saxophone, at least according to the album liner notes. The guy playing sax in the video is clearly not Kenny.
  
  There were some sax shenanigans going on with the album: Michael Brecker played on "Georgia On My Mind," but when the song was released as a single in the summer of 1990 (a year after the album appeared), Brecker's sax was replaced with Kenny G, who at the time was touring with Bolton (Kenny was the headliner). They later teamed on "Missing You Now," released on Bolton's next album.
• Thanks to VH1, music videos were a big part of Michael Bolton's promotion. The "Soul Provider" video is filled with tight shots of him singing into an old-timey microphone, interspersed with shots of a woman on a beach, presumably thinking about him.