TORONTO — Listening to Michael Buble croon classics like Sway and Fly Me To The Moon conjure up memories of an era when tuxedo-clad hepcats sipped vodka martinis in casino bars.

He's got Dean Martin's good looks, Sinatra's dreamy eyes (green instead of blue) and he snaps his fingers like any full-fledged member of the Rat Pack.

At a recent showcase at Toronto's Reservoir Lounge - a popular hangout for swing fans -- the 25-year-old Vancouver vocalist wowed the audience with an earnest performance that earned him three enthusiastic encores.

In an interview the following day Buble says he only left the stage at the insistence of his manager.

"I would have stayed up there forever," he says wide-grinned, bouncing excitably in his chair in a meeting room at a downtown hotel where he's making the media rounds to promote his first major label album, simply entitled Michael Buble -- pronounced Boob-lay.

The CD, 13 perennial favourites sung in velvety baritone with big band support, has generated a surprisingly loud buzz since it hit stores in early February.

His tour manager explains the success on Buble's delivery of the music.

"It's honest, there's a lot of integrity in it," says Vancouver-based Joe Jackson, who's managed tours for Anne Murray and Bryan Adams. "He believes what he's doing. Everybody's saying 'How does this voice live inside this 25-year-old young man?' "

The son of a salmon fisherman, Buble started singing as a young boy at Christmas.

"I'd just be ecstatic because Bing Crosby's White Christmas would be playing in the house. I drove my parents nuts. Five years old and I listened to that thing through July," he says, cheerfully slapping his knee for emphasis.

He began learning more about music from the Sing Era of the 1940s and '50s at the request of his Italian grandfather.

"Grandpa got a real kick out of the fact that I liked the music so much. We'd start singing at the dinner table together, like Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime," he says, breaking into song.

"He started saying to me 'Hey Sunshine, before grandpa dies could you learn Stardust?' So I'd go and learn the songs word for word, sit with him at the table and I'd sing him the song."

From there the young singer entered talent shows and paid his dues working conventions and even cruise ships. He did a stint performing across the U.S. as part of the Red Rock Diner and a musical revue titled Forever Swing. In between, he recorded two independent albums, one as a gift for his grandfather's birthday.

But his real break came wrapped in a gig as a wedding singer at the wedding of Caroline Mulroney, daughter of the former prime minister, in the fall of 2000. That's where famed producer David Foster caught his act from the back of the room.

"Brian Mulroney was standing next to David Foster with his arm around him and he was shaking him saying, 'Come on, David, watch him. Sign him,' " Buble recounts. "I can just imagine David thinking 'What do I want with a nerdy wedding singer like this?' But it turned out."

Perhaps Foster saw in Buble what he saw in vocalist Josh Groban, whom he pushed into the spotlight in 1999.

"Michael, not unlike Natalie Cole or Diana Krall, has lived this music. While everybody else his age was listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam when they were growing up Michael was listening to Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin and Louis Prima and that's what his music reflects. He's not a copy of any of those people but he's a healthy combination of all of those people from that genre," Foster gushes in Buble's electronic press material.

For his part, Buble is adamant that he's not trying to duplicate a bygone era.

"I don't want to be a copycat. What you see is who I am. It's just me and how I grew up and what I thought was cool," he says. "There was always something special about that music to me. It just stood out. I always felt like I was born in the wrong time."

He credits Harry Connick Jr. for pushing him to perform the music in high school talent shows.

"I remember all of a sudden seeing this guy's picture on girls' lockers . . . He kind of made it cool, made it OK for me to come out of the closet and say I love this music, too."

And he thinks with the recent success of Norah Jones, more people are open to music not found on mainstream radio.

"There was a void in the market for a long time. Now people are getting a chance to get their hands on some nice stuff. There's room at the top for everything."

Fellow Canuck Paul Anka was brought in to help produce the album. The result is a lush collection of songs from Sinatra's Fly Me To The Moon to George Michael's '80s hit Kissing a Fool and the BeeGees' How Can You Mend A Broken Heart. Barry Gibb sings backup vocals on the latter.

Buble is touchingly sincere in his renditions of the classics. That enthusiasm, coupled with the big-name talent pushing him into the limelight -- including Madonna's publicist Liz Rosenberg -- puts the former wedding singer on the brink of international stardom.

He performed on NBC's Today Show on Valentine's Day. He appeared as a lounge singer on the daytime soap, Days Of Our Lives. He was part of the pre-game show at the Super Bowl. His version of Come Fly With Me is featured on the soundtrack for the Sandra Bullock-Hugh Grant film Two Weeks Notice.

Some quick facts about Michael Buble

• Born: Vancouver, 1975.
• Big break: Caught working as a wedding singer by David Foster.
• Albums: Babalu, 2001; Dream, 2002; Michael Buble, 2003.
• Awards: Received two Genie Award nominations in 2000 for songs he wrote for the film Here's To Life, starring Eric McCormack.
• Acting: Played a karaoke singer in Gwyneth Paltrow's Duets, played Elvis in touring troupe for Red Rock Diner, and a touring musical revue in 1999 entitled Forever Swing.
• Quote: "You can try to trick the people and me come out wearing a fedora and a tuxedo but that's not me. I was born in the late '70s, I wear jeans. I don't hang out in casinos. The lifestyle isn't my thing. I don't drink martinis and I don't smoke cigars."