Born: January 17, 1956, Luton, Bedfordshire, England
Active: '80s, '90s
Genres: Rock
Instrument: Vocals, Keyboards, Harmonica
Representative Albums: "Greatest Hits," "No Parlez," "From Time to Time: The Singles Collection"
Representative Songs: "Everytime You Go Away," "Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's," "Come Back and Stay"
Biography
For much of the '80s, Paul Young rivaled Simply Red's Mick Hucknall as the top blue-eyed soul/pop singer in the U.K. In America, Young was known primarily for his lone chart-topper "Every time You Go Away," but was able to sustain his commercial success at home for much of the decade. He was chiefly an interpretive singer, and although he did write some of his own material, his greatest strengths lay in covering R&B classics and rescuing forgotten chestnuts from obscurity. Unfortunately, Young's career was interrupted periodically by difficulties with his voice, and those health problems substantially curtailed his activities in the '90s.
Paul Young was born in Luton, north of London in Bedfordshire, on January 17, 1956. He started his music career playing bass and guitar in several local bands, gradually working his way up to lead singer posts. Young first made a splash as frontman of new wavers the Streetband, who scored a national U.K. hit with 1978's "Toast." When they disbanded in 1979, Young and several bandmates quickly regrouped as the Q-Tips, a retro-minded soul outfit with a jones for classic Motown. With a self-titled album on Chrysalis and a relentless touring schedule, the Q-Tips generated significant interest in Young's solo potential, and in 1982 he signed with CBS, hastening the Q-Tips' breakup.
Young forged a songwriting partnership with Q-Tips keyboardist Ian Kewley, who also joined Young's new backing band the Royal Family (complete with a subset of female backup singers dubbed the Fabulous Wealthy Tarts). His debut solo single, "Iron Out the Rough Spots," was released in late 1982, and was followed by a cover of Nicky Thomas' reggae-pop hit "Love of the Common People." Neither single did particularly well on the charts, but his version of the lesser-known Marvin Gaye number "Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)" was a roaring success, topping the U.K. charts and pushing his debut album, No Parlez, to the same position later that year. No Parlez gave Young his first Top 40 hit in the U.S. with the Jack Lee-penned "Come Back and Stay" (a U.K. Top Ten), and also drew attention with its left-field cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Young mounted an international tour in support of the album, which sold several million copies worldwide; afterwards, however, he suffered the first of numerous throat ailments which would pop up throughout his career.
Kept out of action for much of the latter-half of 1984, Young nonetheless made a contribution to the Band Aid "Do They Know It's Christmas?" single, and returned to the U.K. Top Ten with a version of Ann Peebles' "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down." The latter appeared on his sophomore album The Secret of Association, released in 1985. That year, Young scored the biggest hit of his career with "Every time You Go Away," a previously obscure Hall & Oates album track from 1980. "Every Time You Go Away" topped the pop charts in both the U.K. and U.S., ending up as far and away his biggest success in the latter. Young followed it with another U.K. Top Ten hit in the original "Everything Must Change," and watched The Secret of Association become his second U.K. chart-topping album.
Young concentrated mostly on original material (co-written with Kewley) on his third album, 1986's Between Two Fires. A slicker, less soul-flavored outing, Between Two Fires sold respectably to Young's U.K. fan base, but didn't produce any major hits, and slowed his momentum somewhat. In its wake, Young took several years off from recording, chiefly for personal reasons but also to rest his voice. He didn't return until 1990, when Other Voices restored his commercial standing with a reading of the Chi-Lites' classic "Oh Girl," his only other U.S. Top Ten. He returned to the U.K. Top Five in 1991 with "Senza Una Donna (Without a Woman)," a duet with Italian pop singer Zucchero that appeared on Young's hits comp From Time to Time: The Singles Collection. In 1992, Young's version of Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" rose from the Fried Green Tomatoes soundtrack to top the U.S. adult contemporary charts, even though it missed the pop Top 20.
By this time, health problems were beginning to exact a toll on Young's voice, yet he remained a viable performer. 1993's The Crossing was his final album for Columbia, spawning the U.K. single "Now I Know What Made Otis Blue." In late 1994, Young issued an album of soul covers called Reflections, on the smaller Vision Music label. He then disappeared for several years, giving occasional live performances but mostly resting his voice and procuring new material. Eventually, Young signed with East/West, for whom he released an eponymously titled album in 1997. Displaying a stronger country influence, the record failed to sell well even in the U.K., and Young found himself without a label again. In 1999, he mounted a small-venue tour of the U.K. that earned him solid reviews. He subsequently concentrated on Los Pacaminos, a Tex-Mex/country-rock band he'd started on an informal basis in the mid-'90s; they issued a self-titled debut album in 2002. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
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Paul Young was born in Luton, Bedfordshire, England. He has an older brother, Mark Young, and a younger sister, Joanne Young.[1] As a youth, after school, he played football for the Vauxhall Motors factory and in his spare time played in several bands as a bass guitarist. The first group for which he became lead singer was Kat Kool & The Kool Kats.
In the late 1970s he joined Streetband, who had one Top 20 hit in the UK, with the humorous, novelty track "Toast". The single peaked at No. 18 in November 1978.[citation needed] In December 1979 the Streetband broke up and Young formed the Q-Tips, who established their name by playing live but had no hits in the UK, although their single "Letter Song" did enjoy minor success in mainland Europe.
The Q-Tips disbanded in 1982, and Young was signed by CBS Records as a solo performer. Helped by the driving sound of Pino Palladino's fretless bass in his backing band, his first two singles, "Iron Out the Rough Spots" and a cover of "Love of the Common People" had no success, but the third, a cover of the Marvin Gaye classic "Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)" reached No. 1 in the UK singles chart for three weeks in the summer of 1983, the first of fourteen British Top 40 singles he had (the song was included on the soundtrack of the 1992 British comedy film Peter's Friends).
Similar success followed all over Europe. In the UK, follow-up single "Come Back and Stay" reached No. 4, and a re-release of "Love of the Common People" made it to No. 2 and even received radio airplay in the United States, while his debut albumNo Parlez was certified platinum in various countries.
Young's style at the time was a warm, approachable white soul, though he sometimes received playful criticism for his fashion decisions. However, his choice of an Antony Price silk suit for the cover of No Parlez proved to be impractical for the concert stage, where his energetic shows dictated more robust clothing.
The year 1984 was a difficult one for Young, as his first heavy promotional and live concert tour of America strained his vocal cords severely, to the extent that he was completely unable to sing at all for most of the year.[citation needed] He recovered sufficiently to provide a famous performance of the opening line to the Band Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and for his second album, The Secret of Association, which secured his future success in the United States, Japan and Australia. However, he continued to have occasional voice and throat difficulties.
"Don't Dream It's Over", "Senza una donna (Without a Woman)" and "Both Sides Now" were all featured on his first greatest hits album, From Time To Time - The Singles Collection, released in 1990, including the most prominent hit singles from his first four solo albums, the three above mentioned songs and a fourth, previously unreleased, selection called "I'm Only Foolin' Myself".
In 1993, Young was freed from his contract with the CBS/Sony Records label, and he released fewer solo albums after that. He reformed the Q-Tips for a short series of concerts that year. He contributed to the Vangelis album Voices in 1995. Young sang the British national anthem, "God Save the Queen," on the eve of England'sEuro '96 semifinal match against Germany. From there, he was known to divide his time between family, the informal Tex-Mex group Los Pacaminos, and performing live during '80s revival tours in the UK between 2001 and 2008. In November 2001 Paul was on the final night of the Here and Now tour when Michael Aspel awarded him with his This is Your Life book the show went out on BBC One on 5 December that year.
In September 2006, he appeared in the BBC1 cooking show Celebrity Masterchef, and won his show, allowing him a place in the semi-finals. A year later, he was a contestant on another cooking show, ITV's Hell's Kitchen.
Paul met his wife, former model Stacey Smith, on his video for "Come Back and Stay" in 1983. They married while they were living in Los Angeles in November 1987. Together they have three children: daughters Levi (born March 1987), Layla (born August 1994), and son Grady Cole (born January 1996). Paul and Stacey split in May 2006, however in March 2009 it was announced that they had reconciled.[2] Paul is a close friend of Singer and Spandau Ballet front man Tony Hadley. The two toured Australia and New Zealand during October and November 2008.
