>> kroft: do you want to give me their names? >> no. >> kroft: would you give their names to a grand jury if you were asked? >> yes. >> kroft: we spent nine months investigating our story, and asked the justice department about the state of their own investigations. the perception... i mean, it doesn't seem like you're trying. it doesn't seem like you're making an effort. the justice department does not have the will to take on these big wall street banks. >> logan: it's three minutes until show time. michael bublé does a final warm- up as the crowd waits. he started out singing in shopping malls. >> let's go! ( cheers and applause ) ♪ ♪ >> logan: today, he can sell out madison square garden. >> ♪ ...a merry little christmas... ♪ >> logan: and his latest album, "christmas," is currently number one in the country.

>> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm lara logan. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." hi, could you read my list? it's all crossed out... it's 'cause i got everything on it. boom! thank you! [ male announcer ] no need to wait with our christmas price guarantee.

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>> kroft: it's been three years since the financial crisis crippled the american economy, and much to the consternation of the general public and the demonstrators on wall street, there has not been a single prosecution of a high-ranking wall street executive or major financial firm, even though fraud and financial misrepresentations played a significant role in the meltdown. we wanted to know why, so nine months ago, we began looking for cases that might have prosecutorial merit. tonight, you'll hear about two of them. we begin with a woman named eileen foster, a senior executive at countrywide financial, one of the epicenters of the crisis. do you believe that there are people at countrywide who belong behind bars? >> eileen foster: yes. >> kroft: do you want to give me their names? >> foster: no. >> kroft: would you give their names to a grand jury if you were asked? >> foster: yes. >> kroft: but eileen foster has never been asked, and never spoken to the justice

department, even though she was countrywide's executive vice president in charge of fraud investigations. at the height of the housing bubble, countrywide financial was the largest mortgage lender in the country. and the loans it made were among the worst, a third ending up in foreclosure or default, many because of mortgage fraud. it was foster's job to monitor and investigate allegations of fraud against countrywide employees, and make sure they were reported to the board of directors and the treasury department. how much fraud was there at countrywide? >> foster: from what i saw, the types of things i saw, it was... it appeared systemic. it... it wasn't just one individual or two or three individuals; it was branches of individuals, it was regions of individuals. >> kroft: what you seem to be saying was it was just a way of doing business? >> foster: yes. >> kroft: in 2007, foster sent a team to the boston area to search several branch offices of countrywide's sub-prime

division, the division that lent to borrowers with poor credit. the investigators rummaged through the office's recycling bins and found evidence that countrywide loan officers were forging and manipulating borrower's income and asset statements to help them get loans they weren't qualified for and couldn't afford. >> foster: all of the... the recycle bins, whenever we looked through those, they were full of, you know, signatures that had been cut off of one document and put onto another, and then photocopied, you know, or faxed, and then, the... you know, the creation thrown... thrown in the recycle bin. >> kroft: and the incentive for the people at countrywide to do that was what? >> foster: the loan officers received bonuses, commissions. they were compensated, regardless of the quality of the loan. there's no incentive for quality; the incentive was to fund the loan. and that's... that's going to drive that type of behavior. >> kroft: they were committing a crime? >> foster: yes.

>> kroft: after foster's investigation, countrywide closed six of its eight branches in the boston region, and 44 out of 60 employees were fired or quit. do you think that this just was the boston office? >> foster: no. no, i know it wasn't just the boston office. what was going on in boston was also going on in chicago and miami and detroit and las vegas and, you know... phoenix, and in all of the big markets all over florida. >> kroft: after the boston investigation, foster says countrywide's sub-prime division began systematically concealing evidence of fraud from her, in violation of company policy and countrywide's internal financial controls system. someone high up in the top levels of management-- she won't say who-- told employees to circumvent her office, and instead report suspicious activity to the personnel department, which foster says routinely punished other whistleblowers and protected

countrywide's highest-earning loan officers. >> foster: i came to find out that there were... that there was many, many, many reports of fraud, as i had suspected. and those were never... they were never reported through my group, never reported to the board, never reported to the government while i was there. >> kroft: and you believe this was intentional? >> foster: yes. yes, absolutely. >> kroft: foster, with the support of her boss, took the information up the corporate chain of command and to the audit department, which confirmed many of her suspicions, but no action was taken. in late 2008, with countrywide sinking under the weight of its bad loans, it merged with bank of america. foster was promoted, and not long afterwards was asked to speak with government regulators to discuss countrywide's fraud reports. but she was fired before the meeting could take place. what would you have told them? >> foster: i would have told them exactly... exactly what i've told you. >> kroft: did you have any discussions with anybody at

countrywide or bank of america about what you should say to the federal regulators when they came? >> foster: i got a call from an individual who, you know, suggested how... how i should handle the questions that would be coming from the regulators, made some suggestions that downplayed the severity of the situation. >> kroft: they wanted you to spin it, and you said you wouldn't? >> foster: uh-huh. >> kroft: and the next day, you were terminated? >> foster: uh-huh. >> kroft: i mean, it seems like somebody at countrywide or bank of america did not want you to talk to federal regulators. >> foster: no, that was part of it. no, they absolutely did not. >> kroft: do you feel like you were a victim of criminal activity? >> foster: it's a crime to retaliate against someone for making reports of mail fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, mortgage fraud, things that would harm stockholders and investors. and that's what i did, and

that's why i was terminated. >> kroft: were you offered a settlement? >> foster: they asked me to sign a 14-page document that basically would buy my silence in exchange for a large amount of money. >> kroft: but you didn't sign it? >> foster: no. >> kroft: why not? >> foster: how many people can they... can they buy off? they just pay for it. they commit the crime and they buy their way out of it, and just do it over and over and over again. i wanted them to have some sleepless nights thinking about what they would say to a federal investigator, and worry about being exposed and being held accountable for committing a crime. >> kroft: eileen foster spent three years trying to clear her name. this fall, she finally won a federal whistleblower complaint against bank of america for wrongful termination, and was awarded nearly a million dollars in back pay and benefits. all of this raises several questions. why has the justice department failed to go after mortgage fraud inside countrywide? there has not been a single prosecution.

even more puzzling is the justice department's reluctance to employ one of its most powerful legal weapons against countrywide's top executives. it's called the sarbanes-oxley act of 2002. it was overwhelmingly passed by congress and signed by president bush following the last big round of corporate scandals, involving enron, tyco and worldcom. it was supposed to restore confidence in american corporations and financial markets. the sarbanes-oxley act imposed strict rules for corporate governance, requiring chief executive officers and chief financial officers to certify under oath that their financial statements are accurate, and that they have established an effective set of internal controls to insure that all relevant information reaches investors. knowingly signing a false statement is a criminal offense punishable with up to five years in prison. frank partnoy is a highly regarded securities lawyer, a

professor at the university of san diego law school, and an expert on sarbanes-oxley. >> frank partnoy: the idea was to have a criminal statute in place that would make c.e.o.s and c.f.o.s think twice, think three times before they signed their names attesting to the accuracy of financial statements or the viability of internal controls. >> kroft: and this law has not been used at all in the financial crisis. >> partnoy: it hasn't been used to go after wall street. it hasn't been used for these kinds of cases at all. >> kroft: why not? >> partnoy: i don't know. i don't have a good answer to that question. i hope that it will be used. i think there clearly are instances where c.e.o.s and c.f.o.s signed financial statements that said there were adequate controls and there weren't adequate controls. but i can't explain why it hasn't been used yet. >> kroft: we told partnoy about eileen foster's allegations of widespread mortgage fraud at countrywide, and efforts to prevent the information from reaching her, the federal government, and the board of directors, in violation of the

company's internal controls. i mean, that's a deliberate circumvention, right? >> partnoy: it certainly sounds like it. and it certainly sounds like a good place to start a criminal investigation. usually, when the federal government hears about facts like this, they would start an investigation, and they would try to move up the organization to try to figure out whether this information got up to senior officers, and why it wasn't disclosed to the public. >> kroft: in fact, according to a civil suit filed by the securities and exchange commission, countrywide's chief executive officer, angelo mozilo, knew as early as 2006 that a significant percentage of its sub-prime borrowers were engaged in mortgage fraud, and that it hid this and other negative information about the quality of its loans from investors. when the case was settled out of court a year ago october, the s.e.c.'s director of enforcement, robert khuzami, called mozilo "a corporate executive who deliberately disregarded his duties to investors by concealing what he saw from inside the executive

suite-- a looming disaster in which countrywide was buckling under the weight of increasing risky mortgage underwriting, mounting defaults and delinquencies, and a deteriorating business model." mozilo, who admitted no wrongdoing, accepted a lifetime ban from ever serving as an officer or director of a publicly traded company, and agreed to pay a record $22 million fine, less than 5% of the compensation he received between 2000 and 2008. what did you think of the settlement with countrywide? >> partnoy: i'd think a lot of it if i were angelo mozilo. i'd think i did pretty well for myself. no jail, a relatively small fine compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars i was able to take out of this company. >> kroft: slap on the wrist. >> partnoy: clearly, a slap on the wrist. and part of the problem is the dual nature of how we prosecute these kinds of violations. we have the department of justice, which can put people in jail, and the securities and exchange commission, which can't. and it's sort of like we have

this two-headed monster-- one head has some teeth, the other head has no teeth. and it was the head with no teeth that went after angelo mozilo. so the greatest danger he was in, from the beginning, was maybe he'd be gummed to death, but not even that happened. >> kroft: three months after the s.e.c. settled the civil suit, federal prosecutors in los angeles dropped their criminal investigation of countrywide and its c.e.o., angelo mozilo. we wanted to know why the justice department has been unable to bring a single criminal case against countrywide or any of the major wall street banks, and lanny breuer, the head of the criminal division at the justice department, agreed to talk to us. a year ago, in september of 2010, you told the congressional hearing that you seek to prosecute people who make materially false statements, people who told the investors one thing and did something different. >> lanny breuer: that's absolutely right. and we're... we're doing exactly that. >> kroft: we spoke to a woman at countrywide who was a senior vice president for investigating fraud.

and she said that the fraud inside countrywide was systemic, that it was basically a way of doing business. >> breuer: well, it's hard for me to talk about a particular case. of course, in the countrywide case, steve, as you know, terrific office, u.s. attorney's office in los angeles, investigated that, interviewed many, many people-- hundreds of people, perhaps-- and reviewed millions of documents. >> kroft: they never talked to the senior vice president inside countrywide who is charged with investigating fraud. >> breuer: well, i... we... look, i can't speak about that, because i actually don't know about that particular case. but if the senior vice president of any company believes they know about fraud, i want them to contact us. >> kroft: breuer says the department has brought major financial prosecutions involving hedge funds, insider trading, ponzi schemes, and a huge bank fraud case in florida, but he acknowledged there have been no prosecutions against major players in the financial crisis. >> breuer: in our criminal

justice system, we have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you intended to commit a fraud. but when you can't or when we think we can't, there's still many, many important resolutions and options we have. and that's why there have been civil lawsuits and regulatory action. >> kroft: do you lack confidence in bringing cases under sarbanes-oxley? >> breuer: steve, no... no one is... really has accused this department of justice or this division or me of lacking confidence. if you look at the prosecutors all over the country, they are bringing record cases with respect to all kinds of criminal laws. sarbanes-oxley is a tool, but it's only one tool. we're confident. we follow the facts and the law wherever they take us. and we're bringing every case that we believe can be made. >> kroft: lanny breuer says this justice department has been as aggressive as any in history. but a recent report on federal prosecutions from a research center at syracuse university says the number of cases brought against financial institutions for fraud is at a 20-year low.

when we come back, we talk to a whistleblower who was inside citigroup during the financial meltdown. >> cbs money watch update sponsored by: nia-sue nitchum good evening. the troubled u.s. postal center will close hundreds of processing centers and end next-day delivery. italy has imposed austerity measures. gas is down 14 cents in a month. and three straight weekends in a row for the new twilight at the box officement i'm russ mitchell, cbs news.

>> kroft: if you had looked at the financial statements of the major banks on wall street in the weeks leading up to the financial crisis of 2008, you

wouldn't have guessed that most of them were about to crumble and require a trillion-dollar bailout from the taxpayers. it begs the question, did the c.e.o.s of the these banks and their chief financial officers withhold critical information from their investors? if they did, they can be subject to criminal prosecution under the sarbanes-oxley act for knowingly certifying false financial reports and statements about the effectiveness of their internal controls. the justice department has not brought a single case against wall street executives for violating sarbanes-oxley, in spite of some compelling evidence. tonight, we take a look at citigroup, beginning with a former vice president named richard bowen. >> richard bowen: there are things that obviously went on in this crisis, and decisions that were made, that people need to be accountable for. >> kroft: why do you think nothing's been done? >> bowen: i don't know. >> kroft: until 2008, richard

bowen was a senior vice president and chief underwriter in the consumer lending division of citigroup. he was responsible for evaluating the quality of thousands of mortgages that citigroup was buying from countrywide and other mortgage lenders, many of which were bundled into mortgage-backed securities and sold to investors around the world. bowen's job was to make sure that these mortgages met citigroup's own standards-- no missing paperwork, no signs of fraud, no unqualified borrowers. but in 2006, he discovered that 60% of the mortgages he evaluated were defective. were you surprised at the 60% figure? >> bowen: yes. i was absolutely blown away. this... this cannot be happening, but it was. >> kroft: and you thought that it was important that the people above you in management knew this? >> bowen: yes, i did. i... >> kroft: you told people.

>> bowen: i did everything i could, from the way... in the way of e-mail, weekly reports, meetings, presentations, individual conversations, yes. >> kroft: how high up in the company? >> bowen: my warnings, which were echoed by my manager, went to the highest levels of the consumer lending group. >> kroft: bowen also asked for a formal investigation to be conducted by the division in charge of citigroup's internal controls. that study not only confirmed bowen's findings, but found that his division had been out of compliance with company policy since at least 2005. did the situation improve? >> bowen: i started raising those warnings in june of 2006. the volumes increased through 2007, and the rate of defective mortgages increased to in excess of 80%. >> kroft: so the answer is no? >> bowen: the answer is no, things did not improve.

they got worse. >> kroft: not only was citigroup on the hook for massive potential losses, bowen says it was misleading investors about the quality of the mortgages and the mortgage securities it was selling to its customers. we managed to get our hands on a prospectus for a mortgage-backed security that was made up of home loans that bowen had tested. it says, "these loans were originated under guidelines that are, substantially, in accordance with citi mortgage's guidelines for its own originations, its own mortgages." is that a true statement? >> bowen: no. >> kroft: this is not some insignificant statement. this is... speaks to the quality of the mortgages that investors are putting their money in. >> bowen: yes. >> kroft: and it's wrong. >> bowen: yes. >> kroft: and people at citigroup knew it was wrong, had been warned that it was wrong, had been told that it was wrong. >> bowen: yes. >> kroft: in early november of

2007, with citi's mortgage losses mounting, bowen decided to notify top corporate officers directly. he e-mailed an urgent letter to the bank's chief financial officer, chief risk officer, and chief auditor, as well as robert rubin, the chairman of citigroup's executive committee and a former u.s. treasury secretary. the letter informed them of "breakdowns of internal controls" in his division, "and possibly unrecognized financial losses existing within our organization." why did you send that letter? >> bowen: i knew that there existed, in my area, extreme risks. and one, i had to warn executive management; and two, i felt like i had to warn the board of directors. >> kroft: you're saying, "there's a serious problem here, you've got a big breakdown in internal controls. you need to pay attention. this could cost you a lot of money." >> bowen: yes. somebody needed to pay attention.

somebody needed to take some action. >> kroft: the next day, citigroup's c.e.o., charles prince, in his last official act before stepping down, signed the sarbanes-oxley certification endorsing a financial statement that later proved to be unrealistic, and swore that the bank's internal controls over its financial reporting were effective. >> bowen: i know that there were internal controls that were broken. i served notice in that email that they were broken, and the certification indicates that they are not broken. >> kroft: it would seem the chief financial officer and the people that signed the sarbanes- oxley certification disregarded those warnings. >> bowen: it would appear. >> kroft: we received a letter from citigroup saying the bank had acted promptly to address richard bowen's concerns, and that the issues he raised were limited to his division and had little bearing on the bank's

overall financial health. citigroup also told us that it did not retaliate against bowen for sending the email. but not long after he sent it, bowen's duties were radically changed. >> bowen: i was relieved of most of my responsibility, and i no longer was physically with the organization. >> kroft: you were told not to come into the office? >> bowen: yes. >> mr. bowen... >> bowen: i am very grateful to the commission to be able to give my testimony today. >> kroft: the financial crisis inquiry commission thought enough of bowen's story to call him as one of its first witnesses, and he turned over more than a thousand pages of documents to the securities and exchange commission. nothing ever came of it. but bowen wasn't the only one to warn citigroup's top officials about its financial weaknesses

and breakdowns in the company's internal controls. three months after bowen's mail, citigroup's new c.e.o., vikrim pandit, received a blistering letter from the office of the comptroller of the currency, its chief regulator. it questioned the valuations that citi had placed on its mortgage securities and found internal controls deeply flawed. the letter stated, among other things, that risk management had insufficient authority and risk was insufficiently evaluated, and that the citibank board had no effective oversight. yet eight days later, c.e.o. vikrim pandit and chief financial officer gary crittenden personally signed the sarbanes-oxley certification. they attested to the banks financial viability and the effectiveness of its internal controls. the deficiencies cited by the comptroller of the currency were never mentioned. citi said it didn't consider the problems serious enough that they had to be disclosed to investors, and says the certifications were entirely appropriate.

but nine months later, citigroup would need a $45 billion bailout and $300 billion more in federal guarantees just to stay in business. >> partnoy: i don't think wall street senior people really think they'll ever end up in jail, and they've been right. >> kroft: frank partnoy, the securities lawyer and expert on sarbanes-oxley law, says the facts about citigroup raise some troubling questions. >> partnoy: they certainly knew the internal controls were inadequate and that the company was out of control, from a reporting perspective. >> kroft: and yet, they signed the sarbanes-oxley letter saying that everything was fine. >> partnoy: i'm very surprised that the c.e.o. and c.f.o. would sign those letters. i wouldn't have signed them under those conditions. you're signing them under penalties of potentially ten years in prison. you're certifying that you designed and implemented effective internal controls in the aftermath of all this news about the company's problems. >> kroft: how is that not a violation of sarbanes-oxley? >> partnoy: i don't know. i think that it might be hard to establish knowledge.

that might be what prosecutors are thinking in not bringing the cases. >> kroft: the letter was addressed to vikram pandit, the new c.e.o. of citigroup. >> partnoy: and he had eight days to think about it, from february 14, valentine's day, he gets the letter. and then february 22, he sits down and signs his name, certifying that financial statements are accurate, and that he had designed and evaluated and reported any problems with internal controls. eight days is a long time on wall street. i can't get inside his head, but i would certainly think, as a prosecutor, that this would be something i'd be interested in asking some questions about. >> kroft: we wanted to know what assistant attorney general lanny breuer thought about that, and why no prosecutions have been directed at wall street. we also wanted to know why sarbanes-oxley has not been used against big banks like citigroup. >> breuer: when you talk about sarbanes-oxley, we have to know that you intended... had the specific intent to make a false statement. >> kroft: they knew there was a problem. not only had they been told that there was a problem by one of their chief underwriters, that

the loans that they were buying were not what they claimed, and that the federal government, that the comptroller of the currency didn't think their internal controls were adequate, either. >> breuer: if a company is intentionally misrepresenting on its financial statements what it understands to be the financial condition of its company and makes very real representations that are false, we want to know about it and we're going to prosecute it. >> kroft: do you have cases now that you think that will result in prosecution against major wall street banks? >> breuer: we have investigations going on. i won't predict how they're going to turn out. >> kroft: has anybody at treasury or... or the federal reserve or the white house come to you and said, "look, we need to go easy on the banks. that there are collateral consequences if you bring prosecutions. some of these organizations are still very fragile and we don't want to push them over the edge"? >> breuer: steve, this department of justice is acting absolutely independently.

every decision that's being made by our prosecutors around the country is being made 100% based on the facts of that particular case and the law that we can apply it. and there's been absolutely no interference whatsoever. >> kroft: the perception... i mean, it doesn't seem like you're trying. it doesn't seem like you're making an effort, that the justice department does not have the will to take on these big wall street banks. >> breuer: steve, i get it. i find the excessive risk-taking to be offensive. i find the greed that was manifested by certain people to be very upsetting. but because i may have an emotional reaction and i may personally share the same frustration that the american people all over the country are feeling, that in and of itself doesn't mean we bring a criminal case. >> kroft: if you had said two years ago that nobody was going to be prosecuted on wall street for the sub-prime mortgage scandal, i think people would think, "it's not possible." >> breuer: sometimes, it takes a number of years to bring these cases.

so i'd say to the american people, they should have confidence that this is a department that's working hard, and we're going to keep working hard, so stay tuned. >> hello and welcome to the cbs spores update. i'm james brown in new york. the packers clinch playoff berth. the 49ers claim the n.f.c. west. the cowboys lost in overtime to arizona. the patriots and jets both win, so new england maintains a two-game edge in the a.f.c. east. houston remains two up in the abc south. baltimore remains in first in the a.f.c. north. denver takes over the lead in the a.f.c. west. for more sports news and information, go to cbssports.com. follow the wings. mom: hey, can you match the price of this tv? blueshirt: yep. we'll match any store's price. even after you buy it.

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in more ways than ever. and our networks are getting crowded. but if congress frees up more wireless spectrum... we can empower more people to innovate... putting momentum behind our economy. and we can reduce the deficit... with more than thirty billion dollars paid by america's wireless companies. it's simple -- more spectrum means more freedom. for everyone. >> logan: 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. 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 showtime. michael bublé is about to do a final warm-up as the crowd waits. ♪ ♪ >> michael bublñ: let's go! ♪ now you say you're lonely... ( cheers and applause ) >> logan: his fans are drawn to

his rat-pack style, that signature suit and tie, that seductive charm. >> bublñ: ♪ you can cry me a river ♪ cry me a river... >> logan: 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. >> bublñ: ♪ you said you loved me but you lied... >> bublñ: 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. ♪ ♪ ♪ i cried a river over you ♪ >> logan: his talent for breathing new life into old classics has helped him sell close to 35 million albums. >> bublñ: ♪ cry me a river...

we all know about love, we all know about hurting. these songs connect emotionally to people. ♪ cry me a river! ♪ ♪ ( cheers and applause ) >> logan: so, who is in your audience these days? >> bublñ: 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. ♪ life's a wonderful thing >> logan: 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." >> bublñ: ♪ i've got the world on a string... ♪ ♪ ♪ i'm sitting on a ring i've got that string around my thing ♪ finger

>> logan: but he's not confined to these jazz standards. >> bublñ: everybody up! >> logan: he takes his favorite songs from any decade and makes them his own. here, he's doing "twist and shout." >> bublñ: ♪ shake it up, baby, now ♪ twist and shout... >> logan: 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. >> bublñ: 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?

>> bublñ: it's one of things where it's hard... who am i? it turns out that i'm far too schizophrenic musically for people to categorize me. ♪ ♪ ♪ now that mack is back... i think people judge me a lot before they ever really know who i am. >> logan: 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. >> bublñ: going on tour is like a... is like a camp, right? like a summer camp. this is the crappiest interview i've ever done. watch yourself here. if there's a bump. wow, look. >> logan: look at that. that's fabulous, huh? >> bublñ: 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. its where i was sort of... >> logan: meant to be. >> bublñ: my personality, who i am-- i was meant to be up there. >> logan: 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. what does it feel like to come back on a fishing boat? how long has it been? >> bublñ: oh, man, it's 15 years, 16 years. >> logan: 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. >> michael bublñ: we would jump in in our rain gear. and you'd be up to here in fish, and you'd basically separate each of the species. >> logan: you were up to here in fish?

>> michael bublñ: yeah. not just fish, but beautiful jellyfish, and lice and everything else that comes with... >> louis bublñ: slime. >> michael bublñ: ...slimy fish. >> logan: 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. >> michael bublñ: i just felt that's how you make something happen-- you just, you will it. >> logan: what would you do? >> michael bublñ: i would just sneak in a room, practice and grab a hairbrush and go, ♪ what are the things you think that you pine for ♪ gee, i'd like to see you looking swell ♪ lara... ♪ the only time you hold me is when we're dancing... >> logan: 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. >> michael bublñ: he would say, "sunshine, you know, before i die, i just want you 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"? >> michael bublñ: that... he still calls me "sunshine." >> logan: michael's grandfather used every trick of the trade to get "sunshine's" career on its way. >> michael bublñ: 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 going to go and i'm going to 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? >> michael bublñ: 16, just turning 17. >> logan: so 20 years ago. >> michael bublñ: 20 years ago, yeah. and it went by... it went by... ( talking slowly ): like this. it... it was a long road, the first... till i was about 26 was quite a struggle. >> logan: you've sung in shopping malls. >> michael bublñ: many times.

>> logan: birthday parties. >> michael bublñ: sure. ( laughter ) 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? >> michael bublñ: i didn't like singing at weddings. >> logan: but you did it. >> michael bublñ: i did it. yeah, i did it. >> logan: and actually, as it turns out... >> michael bublñ: 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." one, two, three, four... >> logan: it was at this wedding in september 2000 that michael's luck changed. >> bublñ: ♪ oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear... >> logan: 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.

>> michael bublñ: 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." >> logan: he was sent away without an answer. >> michael bublñ: 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." ♪ ♪ ♪ i'm back ♪ surrounded by

a million people ♪ i want to go home >> logan: 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. >> michael bublñ: ♪ into my life... >> logan: "haven't met you yet" is his favorite. it's a song that michael says was inspired by this woman, his wife, luisana lopilato. >> bublñ: ♪ i just haven't met you yet... >> logan: she's an argentine actress and model, and she knows how to keep mr. bublé's feet on the ground. >> michael bublñ: we're just going to do a test here. how much out of ten do you love me? >> luisana lopilato: eight. ( laughter ) no, no. >> michael bublñ: it's been eight since... how long has it been eight? >> lopilato: for so long. ( laughter ) >> logan: what's the real michael bublé? >> lopilato: oh, the real? happy, funny. beautiful family.

he's so sensitive, and i like... >> michael bublñ: and am i also a pain in the bum? >> lopilato: also, too. ( laughs ) sometimes, i want to kill him, but you know, i can't. he needs to sing more. ♪ ♪ >> logan: michael invited us into the recording studio in l.a., where he was putting the final touches on his latest album, simply called "christmas." >> michael bublñ: ♪ it's beginning to look a lot like christmas ♪ everywhere you go... >> logan: it's currently the number one album in the country. >> bublñ: ♪ silent night... >> logan: he told us he's always wanted to follow the holiday tradition of those legendary voices that still inspire his career. >> michael bublñ: i want to be around for a long time. i want this to be a career. i want to sing like tony bennett.

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