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MIDGE URE BIOGRAPHY,
JAN 2007
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 oft 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 1980s rises again to a new peak in 2004,
courtesy of Duran Duran's massive success, 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. 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. 35 shows 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 Wastelands and the shows were captured on the tour DVD, If
I Was.
German lable 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!
Midge and band have just 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.
He has also performed with German icon Xavier Naidoo at
his recent O Livelait show. He also travelled to Korea
with old friends WOMAD and performed with Troy Donockley
and AD Chivers there. He has also just narrated a documentary
about the Cavern Club which was broadcast on BBC Radio
4.
"Uncovered" is his latest live incarnation.
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, it should
certainly provide an entertaining evening! But then that's nothing new for Mr Ure!
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