Paul Carrack

Composer of Hits

Sideman to the Stars

BEGINNINGS
Paul Carrack was first bitten by the music bug as a small child back in his native Sheffield, where he would bash away at a home-made drum kit up in his parents' attic, playing along with an old wind-up gramophone.

HAMBURG BAPTISM
By the time he reached his teens, the Mersey Boom was in full swing, and the young Carrack proceeded to inveigle his way into a series of local bands, learning to play the organ and following the gig circuit to Germany, where he underwent the obligatory Hamburg nightclub baptism, as pioneered by such as The Beatles.

ACE - FIRST HIT
In the early '70s, his progressive rock outfit Warm Dust released a few albums, but it was only when his pub-rock band Ace had a huge global hit with his song How Long that Paul's career really started to take off.
Immediately, the band were catapulted from the British college circuit into huge American arenas, as How Long soared into the US singles chart, eventually reaching #3.

ROXY MUSIC
When Ace broke up towards the end of the '70s, Paul found himself wrong-footed by the punk-rock boom, but secured some session work, playing on albums by Frankie Miller and Roxy Music, and touring with Roxy, an experience which gave him a taste for the big time.

SOLO
Paul's 1980 solo debut, Nightbird, failed to establish him as an artist in his own right, so he continued playing sessions, biding his time and honing his talents as musician and songwriter.

SQUEEZE
As the '80s proceeded, Paul reached a rapprochement with the new-wave scene, playing on albums by The Undertones, The Smiths and The Pretenders, and joining Squeeze for their masterwork East Side Story, helping redefine the group's profile with his soulful vocal on the hit single Tempted .

CRITICAL SUCCESS
After leaving Squeeze, ostensibly to pursue a solo career, he hooked up with Nick Lowe, an association which, though resolutely out of step with public taste and radio formats, would nevertheless generate five albums for Lowe and another for Paul, 1982's Suburban Voodoo.
Though largely ignored in the UK, the album was a critical success in the US, where it was cited as one of Rolling Stone magazine's Top 20 Albums Of The Year.
I Need You, a Carrack composition lifted from the album, provided him with another US Top 40 hit, and was subsequently covered by Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville.

GENESIS
The biggest break in Carrack's career came in 1985 when he was invited to contribute vocals to a solo album being recorded by Genesis guitarist Mike Rutherford.
Despite the apparent differences in their musical styles, the very first track Paul sang on, Silent Running, became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

MIKE AND THE MECHANICS
Encouraged by such instant success, Mike + The Mechanics developed into more of a group, touring America extensively and securing a string of hit albums and singles over the next decade.

ROGER WATERS
Before they could produce a follow-up album, however, Paul found time to sing and play on Roger Waters' Radio KAOS album and record another solo album of his own, 1987's One Good Reason, scoring another couple of hits through the title-track and Don't Shed A Tear, which again broke into the US Top Ten, staying on Billboard's Hot 100 for nearly half a year.

WORLDWIDE HIT
Even better was to come when Mike + The Mechanics resumed recording.
Sung by Paul, the title-track of their second LP The Living Years was a huge worldwide hit, peaking at number one in America, and hoisting the band to megastar status.

DIANA ROSS
Further touring was followed by another Carrack solo album, 1989's Groove Approved, whose standout track - the Motown-flavoured Carrack/Lowe composition Battlefield - was later covered by Diana Ross.

THE WALL
The following year, Paul was co-opted to perform at Roger Waters' grandiose presentation of The Wall in Berlin, where he sang Hey You in front of over 250,000 people.

DAVID LETTERMAN
A third Mike + The Mechanics album, 1991's Word Of Mouth, saw Carrack's creative input increasing, with four songwriting credits; the band also donated a performance of Ain't That Peculiar recorded with Paul Shaffer's house band on David Letterman's late-night chat show to Nobody's Child, a charity album for Romanian orphans.

1993
Between tours again, in 1993 Paul busied himself with Spin 1ne 2wo, a classic rock covers collaboration with Rupert Hine, Tony Levin and Steve Ferrone, and rejoined Squeeze for their Some Fantastic Place album.

1994 - THE EAGLES
The next year was spent touring the world with Squeeze, working on an ultimately abortive band project with Don Felder, Timothy Schmidt and Joe Walsh of The Eagles (which nevertheless garnered Paul an award for the most played song in America that year, when the reformed Eagles covered Love Will Keep Us Alive, a song he co-wrote with Peter Vale and Jim Capaldi), and recording another Mike + The Mechanics album, Beggar On A Beach Of Gold.

1995 - MIKE AND THE MECHANICS
This contained another couple of Carrack co-compositions, including his first collaboration with Mike Rutherford on the hit single Over My Shoulder, which revived the band's flagging fortunes in the UK and Europe, paving the way for a subsequent Greatest Hits compilation.

GOLD DISC
Paul's fifth solo album, Blue Views, appeared in 1995, and despite problems occasioned by the collapse of the record label, it was still highly successful in Europe, earning him a gold disc in Spain.
When it was finally released a couple of years later in America on another label, the single For Once In Our Lives became a Top Five hit on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart, cementing Carrack's growing reputation as a singer-songwriter of class and distinction.

SIDEMAN TO THE STARS
He was also developing a parallel reputation as an able and accomplished sideman to the stars, playing keyboards on albums by Eric Clapton, BB King, Simply Red, Mark Knopfler and Elton John, and being invited by Elton to play on Something About The Way You Look Tonight, which, as the B-side of Candle In The Wind '97, is officially the biggest-selling single ever.