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MIDGE URE BIOGRAPHY
- MAY 2009
An artist who has recieved Ivor
Novello, Grammy, BASCAP
awards along with a flotilla of gold and platinum records, really
needs very little introduction.
Musical success is seldom measured in time spans of more than
a few years, if not Andy
Warhol's often
quoted "fifteen minutes", so the fact that by the time
Midge's single "If I Was" went to No1 in
1985 he had already crammed several musical lifetimes into a
10 year professional career speaks volumes - Slik, The Rich Kids, Thin Lizzy,
Visage, Ultravox
and of course the most famous one off group in musical history
Band Aid had by then all had the guiding
hand of his musical navigation.
Then you have to take account of Midge's musical directorship of a series of rock concerts for The Prince's Trust, Wicked Women for Breakthrough and in honour of Nelson Mandela; a Lord
Provost award for
services to Scottish music; record production for Phil Lynott, Steve Harley and countless others; his video
direction of memorable hits by the Fun Boy Three,
Bananarama and others, or a whole swathe
of landmark singles by Ultravox; TV, theatre and film music credits
ranging from 'Max
Headroom' to stage
and big screen.
His musical roots were playing and learning the records of the
Small Faces and other rockers who did things
very much their own way, Midge appeared to the wider public in
a moment of heady teen success with Slik.
Their sway-along Bell single 'Forever And Ever' took over at No.1 in the UK from Abba's 'Mamma Mia' on Valentine's Day 1976. Soon outgrowing Slik's pop dimensions,
Midge was snapped up by ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock
the following year for his new outfit, the Rich Kids,
who charted amid an avalanche of press with a self-titled EMI
single early in 1978. By April '79, with his name being added
to many musicians' contact book, Ure had been asked by Billy Currie, Chris Cross and Warren
Cann to become
the new frontman in Ultravox.
The band was a major influence on the new romantic
and electro-pop movements of the early '80s and many an open-minded
studio and bedroom experimentalist since. Their successful trademark
was combining Midge's powerful guitar riffs with sweeping synthesiser
motifs, enigmatic imagery and state-of-the-art visuals. Throughout
the first half of the '80s, they brilliantly combined the responsibilities
of top 10 chartmakers and innovative style-makers.
As interest in the 1980's rises again to a new peak in 2009,
courtesy of reformations of the likes of Duran Duran and most
recently Spandau Ballet, Ultravox's chart catalogue rewards merits
new scrutiny. Tracks like 'Reap
the Wild Wind', 'Dancing With Tears in My Eyes', 'Love's Great
Adventure' and
1981's timeless 'Vienna' were all massive hits the world
over as they charted with awesome regularity, not only on single,
but with seven consecutive top ten albums in just six years.
Even by then, the Midge
Ure story had some
individual chapters, of course. He wrote and produced Visage in 1980, then hit the top 10 in the summer of
1982 with his first release under his
own name, an atmospheric take on the Tom Rush song made famous
half a dozen years earlier by the Walker Brothers, 'No Regrets'.
Then came November
25, 1984, a historic
day for Midge and all of pop music, as 36 artists by the collective
name Band Aid gathered at SARM Studios in west
London under Ure's production. They recorded 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' a song he had just written with
Bob Geldof as the industry's heartfelt and
eloquent contribution to Ethiopian famine relief. 600,000 copies sold in its first week in the UK alone
was only the beginning: 800,000 more were bought in the second
week, more than
three million world-wide,
and the unstoppable emotion engendered by the project led to
Live Aid, the summer 1985 global concert
that, all exaggeration aside, spoke for a generation.
Within months, a staggering £8
million had been
raised for the starving in Africa, and Geldof said that without
Ure's initial enthusiasm for the idea, not to mention his rapidly
penned sketch for the single, neither Band Aid nor Live Aid could
have happened. Midge is still to this day a Band Aid Trustee.
Just two months after Live Aid, Midge was back at No.1 in Britain, this time under his own name, with
'If I Was', and by the autumn he had a No.2 solo album to accompany it, entitled 'The Gift'. In 1993, that chart-topper was to lend itself
to the retrospective album 'If I Was'. After an initial solo
outing to the Oxford Debating Society where his response to "What
song would you write for Take
That" was
met with the characteristically witty retort of "An instrumental!"
broke the ice, he supported the album's release with a 22-date
'Out Alone' tour of Britain, armed only with
a couple of guitars and a keyboard.
In 1996 the new 'Breathe'
album was followed by further extensive touring, including dates
in the US as special guest to the Chieftains.
The Swatch campaign brought spectacular renewed
international activity for the record in 1998. The album and
eponymous single were subsequently in the top 20 throughout Europe
for much of that year, and
No.1 in Italy, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where Midge toured voraciously.
'Breathe' sold over half a million copies in Europe alone.Respected German composer Eberhard Schoener invited him to perform at the
re-opening of the Potzdamer Platz in Berlin, in front of an estimated
audience of 500,000.
Soon after Midge was busy producing and writing with and for
various artists, both established and unsigned, at his studio
in Bath, and writing music for films. Other duties included the
'Music for Montserrat' benefit at the Royal Albert Hall alongside Sir Paul McCartney, Elton John and Eric Clapton, and a performance for the launch
of the Hard Rock Hotel in Bali.
1999 brought a major Japanese tour
and shows for WOMAD in Singapore
(where he broke the house attendance record) and Las Palmas, where the band played to a packed town square
in a performance broadcast by Spanish TV later that year. Yet
another new strand to his career emerged when Midge presented shows for BBC
Radio on the careers
of Roxy Music, Bryan
Ferry and Thin Lizzy,
also participating in a 15th anniversary radio show to celebrate
the Band Aid success. He has also recorded a contribution to
BBC Radio 2's 'Electrifying - The History of the Electric Guitar.'
Whilst completing work on his next studio album 'Move Me', Midge also narrated a tribute to Alex Harvey for BBC Radio, appeared on BBC1's 'A Question of Pop' with Craig David,
and made various festival appearances, including a performance
with Sir George Martin for 'Wings
& Strings',
as well as completing another extensive European
tour of his own to support the album release.
Following Midge's appearance on the flagship ITV program "This is your Life" in early 2001, EMI released 'THE VERY BEST OF MIDGE URE &
ULTRAVOX' which
prompted him to go back out on the road in "rock band mode"
'Rewind - The Greatest
Hits Tour' a major
fifteen date UK jaunt supported the release and performed his
hits from across the full spectrum of his career. The show was
filmed at the Shepherd's
Bush Empire, and
released on DVD through Eagle Rock. Once again, Midge was instrumental
in the video production, always preferring to keep things under
his direct control. Another important milestone was the opening
of the www.midgeure.com online shop; a vehicle which allows
him to release his own product, completely under his own control.
The first exclusive shop release was "Glorious Noise - Breathe Live", followed by "Intimate Moments"; a collection of previously unreleased material.
As he says, "I needed a home for the songs that didn't fit
a particular album. They're my Little Orphans!"
As we moved into 2002, once again he combined a series
of acoustic shows with a glorious summer spent performing a series
of shows in historic building across the UK in band format with
"The Pretenders". Another exclusive release also
hit the virtual shelves. "Intimate
Moments" is
a candid record of his acoustic show, captured on a double CD.
Always one to ring the changes, Midge next decided to revisit
his "electronic" roots in the "Sampled, Looped and Trigger Happy" tour. The 35 show tour left no
corner of the UK untouched by this amalgam of old and new, the
old being given a contemporary twist sitting comfortably alongside
the new. Songs that hadn't seen the light of day for many a year
like Astradyne,
Reap the Wild Wind and Sleepwalk and the shows were captured on the tour DVD, If
I Was.
German label Hypertension
picked up the release and issued it both on DVD and a soundtrack
CD entitled Re*Live and his releationship with the Hypertension
continues to go from strength to strengh.
2005 was the year that
Midge underdook both extensive acoustic tours of Germany and the UK as well as performing with the long
standing "Night
of the Proms"
in Germany. This 21
date sell out tour of arenas saw a massive production
with full orchestra.
He then went on to be executive
producer for the Band
Aid 20 single working
with the likes of Paul
McCartney, Joss
Stone and Fran Healey.
Midge's
services to both music and charity were finally recognised in
the Birthday Honours list in 2005, when Midge was awarded a long
overdue OBE!
He also released his autobiography
"If I Was" through Virgin books, and undertook
a promotional tour of bookshops where he did a short acoustic
performance and a question and answer session.
He's also received honorary
doctorates from both Edinburgh and Dundee Universities,
mainly in recognition for his work with Band Aid and Live 8, which took up a lot of 2006! Midge actually managed
to fit in a performance at the Edinburgh Live8 show in Murreyfield in July where he played with Eddie Izzard
on piano! Surely a first!
In November 2006 Midge and band performed a show with
Level 42 and the Cutting Crew for legendary German
TV show "Rockpalast" which was recieved with
great critial acclaim! The show was broadcast in early January
2007. He has also performed with German icon Xavier Naidoo
at his recent O Livelait show.
In September 2006 Midge
travelled to Korea with old friends WOMAD and performed
with Troy Donockley and AD Chivers there. He also just narrated
a documentary about the Cavern Club which was broadcast
on BBC Radio 4.
"Uncovered" is his latest live incarnation
- launched onto the UK theatre circuit in 2008.... Combining
his own classic hits with a selection of songs that have been
a major influence on him along with a smattering of personal
reflections, all done in an acoustic format.
Midge has long held an
ambition to record an LP of cover versions of songs that influenced
him...... the ambition was born when as a teenager in his first
hit band Slik he saw The Walker Brothers performing No Regrets
on Top Of The Pops in 1976....
He managed to record his
own version of No Regrets in 1982, but it was to take 25 years
and a change of format from LP to CD before he would record a
full set of his favourite songs.
TEN was recorded in a log cabin in
Eastern Canada during the long snow bound winter of 2007 - 2008
and was released again by German label Hypertension in September
2008.
The CD contains 10 (surprise
!) songs that influenecd the teenage Ure when growing up in Glasgow
in the 1960's - 70's, so alongside the obvious (David Bowie)
are the less obvious - The Carpenters...Lulu !!! - All songs
chosen for their unique qualities and lasting impact on Midge....
songs that somehow shaped his songwriting.
In November 2008 Midge joined and participated in the Burnsong project , which aims to encourage up and coming
young songwriters in the "black art" of writing hit
songs.
A spin off from this project
was Midges' involvement with the Burns Humanitarian Awards in
Scotland in May 2009 - where the Burns Humanitarian Trust award
was awarded to Guy Willoughby of the Halo Trust which removes
landmines worldwide.
April 2009 saw the unthinkable
happen - ULTRAVOX
REFORMED !!
Six months of talking between
Midge and other Ultravox band members Chris Cross, Billy Currie
and Warren Cann led to a 3 week tour of the UK and Ireland....
The last UK show at Londons
historical Roundhouse was filmed for a future HD DVD release...
Summer 2009 sees Midge
combining further Ultravox festival appearences, solo acoustic
shows, outdoor festival appearences with his own 4 piece band,
and appearences at the ever popular " Here & Now "
outdoor shows which play at stately homes across the UK with
other 1980's guest vocalists.
Does he get much time off....erm
no is the answer.... !!!
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