Michael Bolton’s biggest hits have been Grammy Award-winning remakes of songs that were previously hits for other singers — but don’t mistake him for a “cover artist.” A cover artist is someone who notices a rising new hit by another act and quickly releases a pop arrangement of it on mainstream radio to capture record sales, as was especially common in the ’50s and ’60s.

Bolton, whose highest-charting hits came in the ’80s and ’90s, often records songs that he likes years, if not decades, after the original version was released.

“You do what you love to do as an artist. That’s what you’re supposed to do — not say, ‘I didn’t write this, so why should I record it?’ or, ‘That’s already been done in a way that never will be outdone, so why should I record it?’

“Do what you love and deal with the consequences later,” Bolton said, calling from California late last month while on his way to the Los Angeles airport.

Bolton returns to Hawaii on Tuesday for a Valentine’s Day concert in Blaisdell Arena. The timing couldn’t be better for romantic fans, as Bolton is strongly associated with romantic music and settings, but admirers can also catch his lighter side this month on Netflix. “Michael Bolton’s Big Sexy Valentine’s Day Special,” a comedy special described as a mix of absurdist adventures and love songs “to get people in the mood to make love,” started streaming Tuesday.

Bolton received his first Grammy Award in 1989 with his remake of Laura Branigan’s 1983 hit “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You.” In this case the song was actually Bolton’s: Ironically perhaps, Bolton had co-written it with Doug James. Branigan’s version peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart; Bolton’s reached No. 1.

He scored again in 1991 with his remake of “When a Man Loves a Woman,” a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for Percy Sledge in 1966. Bolton’s version also topped the Hot 100.

“When I was a kid the Percy Sledge version slayed me — I loved it, I was a big Percy Sledge fan — and then there was a bit of internal controversy with the record label,” Bolton recalled. “One of the top people at the label thought it was a great idea and said it was going to be huge, and then I had another person, very, very high up, who said he liked the album but that we should take ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ off because the Percy Sledge version was still being played on radio stations all over the world.

“I said, ‘If you don’t love it, don’t release it as a single, but it really needs to stay on the album. I’m happy with it the way it is.’”

The album sold more than 8 million copies. Bolton’s remake of “When a Man Loves a Woman” — which the label decided to release as a single after all — earned him his second Grammy.

“I learned a good lesson from that,” he said. “I’d actually started to doubt it. I’m so glad I didn’t cave.”

After Bolton had a hit with the song, “I got to sing ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ with Percy Sledge,” he recalled. “He kept saying, ‘Now it’s your song,’ and I said, ‘It will always be your song, Percy.’

“In my interviews I’ve always spoken so highly of his performance because it inspired all of us,” Bolton said. “That’s why I cut the song. If someone else had sung it, it might have been a hit, but it most likely wouldn’t have been the standard that it became with Percy’s great performance.”

Music industry concerns about fans’ loyalty to an original hit had previously dogged Bolton in 1987, when he did a remake of Otis Redding’s posthumous hit “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” written by Redding and guitarist Steve Cropper of Booker T & the MG’s and recorded just days before Redding’s death in a plane crash on Dec. 10, 1967. After Redding’s record label released it early in 1968, it became the first posthumously released single to top the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

Bolton discovered after he recorded the song that there were people in the music business who didn’t think a white man should record a black man’s hit, even though 19 years had passed since Redding’s version had been released and even though sales from Bolton’s recording meant composer’s royalties would be paid to Redding’s heirs.

“The reason I cut ‘Dock of the Bay’ was we started performing it live in clubs, and people went nuts for it,” Bolton said. “I thought they just liked the song, but people told me they liked my version and that I should record it. And I went into the studio with Jonathan Cain from Journey, and we cut it.”

He added, “I got a lot of airplay, and then I ran into a wall of radio program directors and people deciding what goes on radio saying, ‘This is a weird thing. A white guy is doing an Otis Redding kind of thing,’ instead of listening to what the audience response was.”

Then Bolton was invited to perform on “Showtime at Apollo.” He sang “Dock of the Bay.” Redding’s widow, Zelma Redding, was watching, and she liked Bolton’s treatment of her husband’s biggest hit.

“She wrote us this glowing review and said that she knows her husband would have appreciated my version of the song and that it’s her favorite version since her husband’s. She wrote this short paragraph that brought all the walls down at radio,” Bolton recalled. “The record became a four-format hit. That’s when I should have learned permanently to just go with what you feel.”

Thirty years, two Grammy Awards and many hits later — just in time for his concert date here — Bolton is releasing a new collection of his some of his favorite songs. “Songs of Cinema” celebrates hit songs from film soundtracks.

“They’re all great songs from iconic movies. They’re all songs that I’m comfortable with vocally,” he said.

They’re also songs that both Bolton and audiences enjoy hearing live.

“A film can make a song four times as big as it would have been if it were just played on the radio and heard in people’s homes,” he said.

“One of the great things about doing a thematic album like this is when you’re introducing songs from the new album, people aren’t sitting politely listening to three songs they never heard before while waiting for the greatest hits that are why most of them have come to the show.

“Every one of these songs is kind of in all our DNA, and it’s nice to be able to start something when with the first three beats, everyone is clapping and singing along,” Bolton said.

The new album includes “I’ve Got a Woman” from the Ray Charles biopic “Ray,” and “Stand by Me” from the movie of the same name.

Bolton also included a new recording of “When a Man Loves a Woman” that he says involved “an awful lot of responsibility.”

“I’ve cut recordings live but never really felt the kind of responsibility of stepping up to a microphone and approaching a song that has already been No. 1 twice — and of course the Percy Sledge version is the definitive version that we all grew up on, basically,” he said.

“It’s kind of daunting because it was also cut in a pretty high key; it’s a lot of belting and emoting,” Bolton added. “But honestly, this is the best vocal performance I’ve ever delivered in the studio — particularly on that song.”