name	Hank B. Marvin
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
birth date	October 28, 1941
alias	Brian Robson Rankin
genre	Rock, instrumental rock, rock & roll
instrument	Guitar, banjo, piano
occupation	Musician
associated acts	The Shadows, Cliff Richard
years active	1956–present
notable instruments	Hank Marvin Signature StratocasterBurns "The Marvin" and the "Shadows Custom Elite Guitar" }}

Hank Brian Marvin (born 28 October 1941) is an English guitarist, best known as the lead guitarist for The Shadows. The group, which primarily performed instrumentals, was formed as a backing band for vocalist Cliff Richard. Marvin has a distinctive guitar sound and appearance, primarily using a clean sound with very distinctive echo and vibrato giving a dreamy effect.

Personal life

He was born Brian Robson Rankin on 28 October 1941 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. As a child, he played the banjo and piano. After he heard one of Buddy Holly's songs, he decided to also learn the guitar.

He chose the name Hank Marvin while launching his music career. The name is an amalgamation of his childhood nickname of Hank, which he used to differentiate himself from a number of friends also named Brian, and Marvin Rainwater, a country and western singer.

When Marvin was 16, he travelled with his Rutherford Grammar School friend Bruce Welch to London, where he met Johnny Foster, Cliff Richard's manager, at The 2i's Coffee Bar in Soho. Foster was looking for a guitarist for Richard's upcoming tour of the U.K., and Marvin agreed to join as long as there was also a place for Welch. Foster had actually been looking for guitarist Tony Sheridan at the Two 2i's, but by chance he encountered Marvin. Marvin and Welch joined The Drifters, as Cliff Richard's group was then known, beginning their careers as professional guitar players.

Marvin met Cliff Richard for the first time at a nearby Soho tailor's shop, where Richard was having a fitting for a pink stage jacket. They had their first rehearsal with him at his parents' home in Cheshunt.

Marvin lived in the hills above Perth, Western Australia from 1986 but has since relocated to a luxury apartment in East Perth. He is a committed Jehovah's Witness. When not relaxing at his home in Perth, Marvin runs a successful recording studio: Nivram studios (part of Sh-Boom studios in Tiverton street owned by Trevor Spencer and Gary Taylor) where he is happy(?) to receive correspondence from die-hard Shadows fans.

Professional background

Equipment

Marvin played and owned the first Fender Stratocaster in the UK, serial number 34346, finished in Fiesta Red, with gold hardware. This guitar, with its tremolo arm, contributed to the Shadows' sound. The guitar was imported from America by Cliff Richard.

Marvin almost immediately customised this guitar's red paintwork with three simple cheap aluminium sticky back transfers or decals of his initials viz: "H", "B", "M", bought from a local hardware shop in London and simply stuck them on top.

Marvin's original sound was achieved with this Stratocaster, a Vox amplifier (initially an AC15 and later on an AC30 models) and a tape echo machine Meazzi Echomatic that was shown to him by Joe Brown.

He later used a Vox-badged Meazzi, then a Binson Echorec (Drum) Echo Machine and finally another tape-loop machine, the Roland 301 Space Echo, before moving on to electronic units like the Behringer Delay Machine.

In 1959, Marvin and Richard searched through a Fender catalogue to find the model of guitar played by James Burton, Ricky Nelson's lead guitarist. They assumed that Burton's guitar was a Stratocaster, because the most expensive guitar in the brochure was a gold-plated example with a red body and a one-piece Maple neck. Burton, however, played the Telecaster, and the Stratocaster was a relatively new model, available only to special order.

Richard made the arrangements and the chosen guitar was imported specially for Marvin, who used it between 1959 and 1961. It remained Richard's property and was returned to him when Jennings Musical Instruments outfitted the whole group with matching Fiesta Red Fender guitars, which featured necks with rosewood fingerboards. Marvin continued borrowing the original Stratocaster for recording.

Second (and third) Fender Stratocaster Guitar(s)

In 1970 to facilitate a new Shadows' type guitar sound, Marvin and bandmate John Farrar bought electric and two Martin acoustic guitars. Farrar purchased a Fender thinline Telecaster with a Bigsby tremolo arm whereas Marvin purchased a new Fender Stratocaster guitar with a sunburst finish with non-Fender custom pickups and a large headstock.

This Fender Stratocaster guitar was subsequently resprayed in a Black-gloss finish and was used by Marvin during the 1970s and early 1980s Shadows' studio albums and concerts. By the mid-80s Marvin reverted to a third Red Fiesta Fender Stratocaster guitar for studio and concerts. Marvin subsequently gave the Black Fender Stratocaster to his son Ben Marvin who had it resprayed back to its original sunburst finish.

Stratocaster reproduction

In 2009, to mark the The Shadows 50th anniversary and "34346", the original Stratocaster is being reproduced in detail by Fender's Custom Shop in California. Built by Fender Master Luthier Greg Fessler, the run is limited to 50 pieces and has been produced within Fender's Dealer Select program. Commissioned by Oasis Musical Instruments (a UK guitar dealer run by "Shads" fan Howard Gillespie) The guitar is a faithful reproduction of the original, down to the mythical colour which Marvin called "Flamingo Pink". This colour is also referred to by Dire Straits Guitarist Mark Knopfler in Alan Yentob's BBC TV series.

Fender has always denied the existence of that colour, while remaining true to form calling it "Custom Red". Each one of the limited edition includes a certificate of authenticity from Fender, stating that the instrument is a reproduction of "The first Stratocaster to be imported into the UK" signed by the Master Builder, there is also a signed certificate of endorsement from Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch.

Branding

In the early 1960s, Jennings named a range of guitar accessories after Marvin. The accessories included plectrum, a guitar strap, and a Bigsby-styled tremolo unit. They used the Hank Marvin signature tremolo unit on several of their own Vox guitars. Marvin also worked with Jim Burns, head of the Burns London guitar company, to develop his own signature model, known as the "Burns Marvin".

The "Marvin" appeared in 1964 and a 12-string version called the "Double Six" appeared a little earlier. In 1967, the Burns London company was taken over by the American piano-maker, Baldwin Piano Company, and partly as a result of the takeover, the fewer-than-400 original Burns-made Marvins are now highly sought after. The revived Burns company made a limited reissue of 2004 signature Marvin guitars with a certificate of authenticity, signed by Marvin. Those instruments were promoted on the Shadows' 2004 Final Tour. Marvin's original Burns guitars had been stolen in 1972 and never appeared again.

Marvin influenced many guitarists, including Pete Townshend, Mark Knopfler and John Fogerty. Although neither Marvin nor the Shadows were ever well known in the United States, despite several appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show, Marvin is listed by Frank Zappa as an influence on the first Mothers of Invention album. Afrikaa Bambaataa cited the group's first UK number one single "Apache" as a big influence, though it is likely that Bambaattaa was referring to the cover of "Apache" by The Incredible Bongo Band, which was popular among early hip hop DJs, due to the extended bongo break.

In Canada, Cliff Richard and the Shadows met with success, especially 1961-1965 when they enjoyed several top 10 hits. Canadian guitarists Randy Bachman and Neil Young have credited Marvin's guitar work as influential. Carlos Santana's nickname in his formative years was ''Apache'' because it was one of the earliest pieces he learned to play.

Solo career

As well as playing with The Shadows, Hank Marvin has had a successful solo career. He has been willing to experiment with styles and material, doing some purely instrumental albums, some with only vocals (e.g. "All Alone With Friends"), one with only acoustic guitars and one with a guitar orchestra ("The Hank Marvin Guitar Syndicate"). In 1970, Marvin and Welch formed Marvin, Welch & Farrar, a vocal harmony trio which failed to appeal to many Shadows fans or to contemporary music fans. They reverted to being The Shadows in 1973, for the ''Rockin' with Curly Leads'' album.

As a writer, Marvin was solely responsible for "Driftin'", "Geronimo", "Spider Juice" (his daughter's name for orange juice), "I want you to Want Me" for The Shadows, and "The Day I Met Marie". As co-writer with Bruce Welch, Brian Bennett, and John Rostill, he wrote other hits, mainly for Cliff Richard, including "I Could Easily Fall in Love with You" and "In the Country".

In 1988, Marvin collaborated with French keyboardist and composer Jean Michel Jarre on the track "London Kid", which appeared on Jarre's "Revolutions" album and taking a guest role in the Frenchman's giant Destination Docklands concert at the Royal Victoria Dock. Jarre stated that the Shadows' success had a huge influence on him and his decision to devote the majority of his career to instrumental music.

In 1992, Duane Eddy guested on Marvin's album ''Into the Light'' on the track "Pipeline".

Marvin and the Shadows reformed for a 2004 Final Tour, which was so successful that a 2005 European tour was also organised.

While his Shadows colleagues Bruce Welch and Brian Bennett accepted the honour of an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to music, Marvin declined, citing "personal reasons".

Early career groups (pre-Shadows/Drifters)

;1956 – Riverside Skiffle group → Crescent City Skiffle Group

Marvin (banjo), John Tate (guitar), Derek Johnson (guitar), Joe Rankin (bass), Mal Malarky (mandolin), and Howard Muir (wb)

;1956–1957 – The Railroaders (#1)

Marvin (guitar), Welch (guitar), George Williams (guitar), Jim ? (drums)

;1956–1957 – The Railroaders (#2)

Marvin (guitar), Welch (guitar), Eddie Silver (guitar), George Williams (bass), and Jim ? (drums)

;1958 – The Vipers (aka The Vipers Skiffle group)

live concert

Wally Whyton (vocals), Johnny Booker (guitar), Hank Marvin (guitar), J. Harris (bass), and Johnny Pilgrim (wb)

;1958 – The Five Chesternuts

7" single – ("Jean Dorothy" on Columbia)

Gerry Hurst (vocals), Marvin (guitar), Welch (guitar), Neil Johnson (bass), and Pete Chester (drums)

UK solo tours

1994 – w/Brian Bennett (drums), Ben Marvin (guitar), Warren Bennett (guitar/keyboards), Mark Griffiths (bass)

1995 – w/Ben Marvin (guitar), Warren Bennett (guitar/keyboards), Mark Griffiths (bass)

1997 – w/Ben Marvin (guitar), Warren Bennett (guitar/keyboards), Mark Griffiths (bass)

1998 – w/Ben Marvin (guitar), Warren Bennett (guitar/keyboards), Mark Griffiths (bass)

2002 – w/Ben Marvin (guitar), Warren Bennett (guitar/keyboards), Mark Griffiths (bass)

Production credits

Spaghetti Junction ''Work's Nice – If you can get it/Step right Up'' Columbia DB 8935

Des O'Connor – ''Another Side Des O'Connor'' – LP – NSPL 18559.

Flair – ''Stop look & listen'' – LP – MLP 15611.

Flair – ''Fair'' – LP – CC 227324

Flair – ''Fair play'' – LP – CC 327224

Guest appearances

1972: Spaghetti Junction ''Work's Nice – If you can get it/Step right Up'' Columbia DB 8935

1976: Evita: guitar on "Buenos Aires"

1977: Dennis Waterman ''Waterman'' album (also features Brian Bennett)

1977: Roger Daltrey ''One of The Boys'' album – guitar on "Parade" and "Leon"

1978: Des O'Connor ''Another Side of Des O'Connor'' album

1979: Wings ''Back to the Egg'' album – "Rockestra Theme" and "So Glad To See You Here"

1982: British Electric Foundation ''Music of Quality and Distinction volume 1'' guitar on "Anyone Who Had A Heart" with Sandie Shaw and "It's Over" with Billy MacKenzie

1983: Tracy Ullman ''You Broke My Heart In 17 Places'' album: guitar on "Move Over Darling" and "You Broke My Heart in 17 Places"

1983: Leo Sayer ''Have You Ever Been in Love'' album: guitar on "Don't Wait Until Tomorrow"

1984: Shakin' Stevens "Teardrops" single

1985: Dire Straits plays "Going Home" ("Local Hero's Theme"), with the band, as a special guest at ''Live at Wembley''

1986: Cliff Richard and The Young Ones "Living Doll"

1988: Jean Michel Jarre ''Revolutions'' guitar on "London Kid"

1989: Jean Michel Jarre ''Destination Docklands'': guitar on "London Kid" and "Rendez-Vous IV"

1995: Alan Jones ''A Shadow In Time'' album: guest on title track "A Shadow In Time"

1998: Jane McDonald "You're My World" single

2005: Richard Hawley "I'm Absolutely Hank Marvin", b-side of "Coles Corner" single

2007: Peter Frampton ''Fingerprints'' album: guitar on ''My Cup of Tea'' (also features Brian Bennett)

2007 Jean-Pierre Danel ''Nivram'' (French Chart #15) + Blues jam session on DVD

2008 Jason Donovan ''Let It Be Me'' on ''Dreamboats and Petticoats'' album

2008 Le QuecumBar Patrons ''Stars of Gypsy Swing'' ("Coquette", "Noto Swing")

2010 Jean-Pierre Danel ''M Appeal''

In addition to the above, Marvin also plays guitar on the following tracks of library music recorded for Bruton Music:

"Fighter Plane" (with Alan Hawkshaw) on ''Top Of The Range''

"Conquest of Space" (with Alan Hawkshaw) on ''Grandiose Impressive Panoramic''

"Human Desert" (with Alan Hawkshaw) on ''Human Desert''

Discography

Singles

(V) – Vocal {|class="wikitable" |- ! Year ! A-side ! B-side ! UK Singles Chart ! Notes |- | 1968 | London's Not Too Far (V) | Running Out Of World (V) (The Shadows) | – | Columbia DB 8326 |- | 1969 | Goodnight Dick | Wahine | – | Columbia DB 8552 |- | 1969 | Sunday For Seven Days | Sacha | – | Columbia DB 8601 |- | 1969 | Throw Down A Line (V) | Reflections | #7 | Columbia DB 8615 (Cliff and Hank) |- | 1969 | Slaughter on 10th Avenue (The Shadows) | Midnight Cowboy | – | Columbia DB 8628 |- | 1970 | The Joy Of Living (V) | Leave My Woman Alone (V) Boogatoo | #25 | Columbia DB 8657 (Cliff and Hank) |- | 1970 | Break Another Dawn | Would You Believe It (V) | – | (Unreleased, promo only) |- | 1970 | Break Another Dawn | Morning Star | – | Columbia DB 8693 |- | 1970 | Morning Star | Evening Comes | – | (Australia and New Zealand only) |- | 1977 | Flamingo | Syndicated | – | EMI 2744 (Hank Marvin Guitar Syndicate) |- | 1981 | Sacha / Sunday For Seven Days | Morning Star / Evening Comes | – | (New Zealand only) Hank Marvin EP |- | 1982 | Don't Talk (V) | Life Line (V) | #49 | Polydor POSP420 |- | 1982 | The Trouble With Me Is You (remix) (V) | Captain Zlogg | – | Polydor POSP479 |- | 1983 | The Hawk and the Dove (V) | Janine | – | Polydor POSP581 |- | 1983 | Invisible Man (V) | All Alone With Friends | – | Polydor POSP618 |- | 1986 | Living Doll | | #1 | (Cliff Richard and The Young Ones featuring Hank B. Marvin) |- | 1989 | London Kid | | #52 | (Jean-Michel Jarre featuring Hank Marvin) |- | 1992 | We Are The Champions (with Brian May) | Moontalk / Into The Light (CD) | #66 | Polydor PO 229 |- | 1993 | Wonderful Land (with Mark Knopfler) | Hot Rox (CD) / Nivram | – | Polydor PO297 |}

Studio / Live Albums

1969 ''Hank Marvin'' #14

1977 ''Hank Marvin Guitar Syndicate'' (no chart position)

1982 ''Words and Music'' #66

1983 ''All alone with friends'' (no chart position)

1992 ''Into the light'' #18

1993 ''Heartbeat'' #17

1995 ''Hank plays Cliff'' #33

1996 ''Hank plays Holly'' #34

1997 ''Hank plays Live'' #71

1997 ''Plays the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber'' #41

2000 ''Marvin at the Movies'' #17

2002 ''Guitar Player'' #10

2007 ''Guitar Man'' #6

Compilation Albums

1987 ''Would You Believe It...Plus'' (reissue of 1969 LP with bonus tracks)

1994 ''The Best of Hank Marvin & The Shadows'' #19

1995 ''Handpicked'' (no chart position)

1997 ''The Very Best of Hank Marvin & The Shadows The First 40 Years'' #56

1998 ''Another Side Of Hank Marvin'' (no chart position)

2001 ''The Singles Collection 'The 80's & 90's' Hank Marvin & The Shadows'' (no chart position)

2004 ''Shadowing The Hits'' (no chart position)

2004 ''Guitar Ballads'' (no chart position)

2007 ''Hank Marvin & The Shadows Play The 60's'' (no chart position)

2008 ''The Solid Gold Collection'' (no chart position)

References

Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:English rock musicians Category:English pop musicians Category:English rock guitarists Category:English pop guitarists Category:Western Australian musicians Category:People from Perth, Western Australia Category:People from Newcastle upon Tyne Category:English Jehovah's Witnesses Category:Music from Newcastle upon Tyne Category:Skiffle Category:The Shadows members

ar:هانك مارفن cs:Hank Marvin da:Hank Marvin de:Hank B. Marvin es:Hank Marvin fr:Hank Marvin hr:Hank Marvin it:Hank Marvin nl:Hank B. Marvin ja:ハンク・マーヴィン no:Hank Marvin pl:Hank Marvin pt:Hank Marvin sh:Hank Marvin fi:Hank Marvin sv:Hank Marvin

Name	Brian May
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Brian Harold May
Born	July 19, 1947Hampton, London, England, UK
Occupation	Musician, songwriter, producer, astrophysicist, author, contributor (''The Sky at Night'')
Instrument	Guitar, vocals, piano
Genre	Rock
Years active	1965–present
Associated acts	Smile, Queen, Phenomena, G3, Queen + Paul Rodgers, Kerry Ellis
Label	Hollywood, Parlophone
Website	brianmay.com
Notable instruments	}}

Brian Harold May, CBE (born 19 July 1947) is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist and a songwriter of the rock band Queen. As a guitarist he uses his home-built guitar, "Red Special", and has composed hits such as "Tie Your Mother Down", "We Will Rock You", and "Fat Bottomed Girls".

He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for "services to the music industry". May earned a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College in 2007 and is currently the Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University. May lives in Surrey.

In 2005, a Planet Rock poll saw May voted the 7th greatest guitarist of all time. He was ranked at #39 on the ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

Early life

Brian May, the only child of Harold and Ruth May, was born in Hampton, London and attended Hampton Grammar School (now Hampton School). During this time he formed his first band with vocalist and bassist Tim Staffell, named Nineteen Eighty-Four after George Orwell's novel of the same name. He left Hampton Grammar School with ten GCE Ordinary Levels and three Advanced Levels in Physics, Mathematics and Applied Mathematics.

May's father Harold worked as a draughtsman at the Ministry of Aviation and had been a long-time cigarette-smoker. As a result, May dislikes smoking, even to the point where he has prohibited smoking indoors at his more recent concerts.

From 1974 to 1988, May was married to Chrissie Mullen, who is the mother of his three children: Jimmy, who was born on 15 June 1978; Louisa, who was born on 22 May 1981 and Emily Ruth, who was born on 17 February 1987. Chrissie and Brian separated in 1988.

He has stated in interviews that he suffered from depression in the late 1980s, even to the point of contemplating suicide, for reasons having to do with his troubled first marriage and his perceived failure as a husband and a dad, his father Harold's death, and Freddie Mercury's illness.

May is now married to former ''Eastenders'' actress Anita Dobson, whom he met in 1986, and who gained fame in the 1980s for providing vocals to the theme tune to the aforementioned soap, entitled "Anyone Can Fall in Love". May himself produced the song, which reached #4 in the UK Singles Chart in August 1986. According to ''The Sunday Times'' Rich List he is worth £85 million .

Career

Smile

Brian May formed the band Smile in 1968. The group included Tim Staffell as singer and bassist, and later, drummer Roger Taylor, who also went on to play for Queen. The band lasted for only two years from 1968 to 1970, as Staffel left in 1970, leaving the band with a catalogue of only nine songs. Smile would reunite for several songs on 22 December 1992. Taylor's band The Cross were headliners and he brought May and Staffell on to play "Earth" and "If I Were a Carpenter". May also performed several other songs that night.

Queen

In Queen's three-part vocal harmonies, May's was generally the lower-range backing vocal. On some of his songs he sings the lead vocal, most notably the first verse of "Who Wants to Live Forever", the bridge on "I Want It All" and "Flash's Theme", and full lead vocals on "Some Day One Day", "She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes)", "'39", "Good Company", "Long Away", "All Dead, All Dead", "Sleeping on the Sidewalk", "Leaving Home Ain't Easy" and "Sail Away Sweet Sister".

Throughout Queen's career May frequently wrote songs for the band and has composed many significant songs such as the worldwide hit "We Will Rock You", as well as "Tie Your Mother Down", "Who Wants to Live Forever", "Hammer to Fall", "Save Me", "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "I Want It All". Typically, either Freddie Mercury or May wrote the most songs on every Queen album.

After the famous Live Aid concert in summer 1985, Mercury rang his bandmates and proposed writing a song together. The result was "One Vision", which was basically May on music (the ''Magic Years'' documentary shows how he came up with the opening section and the basic guitar riff) and Roger Taylor on lyrics, with Freddie Mercury being more a producer and arranger than a proper co-writer, and John Deacon mostly absent.

For their 1989 release album, ''The Miracle'', the band had decided that all of the tracks would be credited to the entire band, no matter who had been the main writer. Still, interviews and musical analyses tend to help identify the input of each member on each track.

May composed "I Want It All" for that album, as well as "Scandal" (based on his personal problems with the British press). For the rest of the album he did not contribute so much creatively, although he helped in building the basis of "Party" and "Was It All Worth It" (both being predominantly Mercury's pieces) and created the guitar riff of "Chinese Torture".

Queen's subsequent album was ''Innuendo'', on which May's contributions increased, although more in arrangements than actual writing in most cases; for the title track he did some of the arrangement for the heavy solo, then he added vocal harmonies to "I'm Going Slightly Mad" and composed the solo of "These Are the Days of Our Lives", a song for which the four of them decided the keyboard parts together. He changed the tempo and key of Mercury's song "The Hitman" and took it under his wing, even singing guide vocal in the demo. May also co-wrote some of the guitar lines in "Bijou".

Two songs that May had composed for his first solo album, "Headlong" and "I Can't Live With You", eventually ended up in the Queen project. His other composition was "The Show Must Go On", a group effort in which he was the coordinator and primary composer, but in which they all had input, Deacon and Taylor with the famous chord sequence.

In recent years, he has overseen the remastering of Queen albums and various DVD and greatest hits releases. In 2004, he announced that he and drummer Roger Taylor were going on tour for the first time in 18 years as "Queen", along with Free/Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers. Billed as "Queen + Paul Rodgers", the band has played throughout 2005 and 2006 in South Africa, Europe, Aruba, Japan, and North America and released a new album with Paul Rodgers in 2008, entitled ''The Cosmos Rocks''. This album was supported by a major tour.

Solo work and The Brian May Band

During 1983, several members of Queen explored side projects. On 21 and 22 April in Los Angeles, May recorded his first solo work, a mini-album entitled ''Star Fleet Project'', on which he collaborated with Eddie Van Halen.

Following the death of Freddie Mercury in November 1991, May chose to deal with his grief by committing himself as fully as possible to work, first by finishing his solo album, ''Back to the Light'', and then touring worldwide to promote it. He frequently remarked in press interviews that this was the only form of self-prescribed therapy he could think of.

In late 1992, the Brian May Band was officially formed. An early version of the band was loosely formed for 19 October 1991, when May took part in the ''Guitar Legends'' guitar festival in Seville, Spain. The line-up for his performance was May (Lead Vocals & Lead Guitar), Cozy Powell (Drums & Percussion), Mike Moran (Keyboards), Rick Wakeman (Keyboards), Maggie Ryder (Backing vocals), Miriam Stockley (Backing vocals) and Chris Thompson (Backing vocals).

The original line-up was Brian May (Lead Vocals and Lead Guitar), Cozy Powell (Drums and Percussion), Mike Caswell (Guitar), Neil Murray (Bass), Maggie Ryder (Backing vocals), Miriam Stockley (Backing vocals) and Chris Thompson (Backing vocals). This version of the band lasted only during the South American support tour (supporting The B-52's and Joe Cocker) on only five dates. In Spain, a Catalan band called Sweet Sister supported the tour.

Afterwards, May made significant changes, feeling the group never quite gelled. Most significantly, May brought guitarist Jamie Moses on board to replace Mike Caswell. May considered Moses a perfect fit to the band. The other change made was in the backing vocal department. Ryder, Stockley and Thompson were replaced with Catherine Porter and Shelley Preston. On 23 February 1993, this new line-up of The Brian May Band began its world tour in the US, both supporting Guns N' Roses and headlining a few dates. The tour would take them through North America, Europe (support act: Valentine) and Japan.

After the tour ended on 18 December 1993, May returned to the studio with fellow surviving Queen band members Roger Taylor and John Deacon to work on tracks that became ''Made in Heaven'', the final Queen studio album. The band took Mercury's solo album demos and last recordings, which he managed to perform in the studio after the album ''Innuendo'' was finished, and completed them with their additions both musically and vocally. Work on the album after Mercury's death originally began in 1992 by Deacon and May, but was left until a later date due to other commitments.

In 1995, May began working towards a new solo album of covers tentatively named ''Heroes'', in addition to working on various film and television projects and other collaborations. May subsequently changed the approach of his second album from covers to focus on those collaborations and on new material. The songs recorded for that album, ''Another World'', would feature mainly Spike Edney, Cozy Powell, Neil Murray and Jamie Moses, who had become his core support/collaborative team.

On 5 April 1998, Cozy Powell was killed in a car accident on the M4 motorway near Bristol, England. This caused a huge, unexpected disruption to the upcoming tour for The Brian May Band, with the need for a new drummer on short notice. Steve Ferrone was brought on to help May finish recording drums for the title track "Another World" and to join the band for the early stage promotional tour of five dates in Europe before the world tour.

The line up was then May (Lead Vocals & Lead Guitar), Edney (Keyboards), Murray (Bass), Moses (Guitar), Ferrone (Drums & Percussion), Susie Webb (Backing vocals) and Zoe Nicholas (Backing vocals). Following the early promo tour, Eric Singer replaced Steve Ferrone for the full 1998 world tour.

Later solo work

From his last solo release in 1998 May has been performing as a solo artist, as part of an ensemble, and infrequently as Queen with Roger Taylor. On 22 October 2000, Brian May made a guest appearance at the Motörhead 25th Anniversary show at Brixton Academy along with Eddie Clarke (former Motörhead guitarist) for the encore song "Overkill". In the Queen's birthday honours list of 2005, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire "for services to the music industry". May is a friend of singer and musician Phil Collins and was a special guest at the Genesis reunion concert at Twickenham Stadium in 2007. On 17 November 2007, Brian May was appointed Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, taking over from Cherie Blair, and installed in 2008. May worked extensively with stage actress and singer Kerry Ellis after he cast her in the musical ''We Will Rock You''. He produced and arranged her debut studio album ''Anthems'' (2010), a follow-up to her extended play ''Wicked in Rock'' (2008), as well as appeared with Ellis at many public performances – playing guitar alongside her. He also contributed a guitar solo to Meat Loaf's ''Hang Cool, Teddy Bear'' album in exchange for the use of drummer John Miceli. Along with Elena Vidal, Brian May released a historical book in 2009 entitled ''A Village Lost and Found: Scenes in Our Village''. The book is an annotated collection of stereoscopic photographs taken by the Victorian era photographer T. R. Williams and it is sold with a focussing stereoscope. May became an enthusiast of stereoscope photographs as a child, and first encountered the work of Williams during the late 1960s. In 2003 May announced a search in order to identify the actual location of the ''Scenes in Our Village'' images. In 2004 May reported that he had identified the location as the village of Hinton Waldrist in Oxfordshire.

In November 2009, May appeared on the popular reality TV show ''The X Factor'' with band mate Roger Taylor as Queen mentoring the contestants, then later performing "Bohemian Rhapsody". In April 2010, May founded the "Save Me" 2010 project to work against any proposed repeal of the fox-hunting ban. In February 2011 it was announced that May will tour with Kerry Ellis, playing 12 dates across the UK in May 2011. On 18 April 2011 Lady Gaga confirmed that May would play the guitar on her track "Yoü and I" from her latest album Born This Way, released on 23 May 2011. On 26 August, May performed "We Will Rock You" and "Welcome To The Black Parade" with American rock band My Chemical Romance at the Reading Festival.

Queen + Paul Rodgers

At the end of 2004, May and Taylor announced that they would reunite and return to touring in 2005, with Paul Rodgers (founder and former lead singer of Free and Bad Company). Brian May's website also stated that Rodgers would be "featured with" Queen as Queen + Paul Rodgers, not replacing the late Freddie Mercury. The retired John Deacon would not be participating.

Between 2005 and 2006 Queen and Paul Rodgers embarked on a world tour, the first leg being Europe and the second, Japan and the US in 2006. On 25 May 2006, Queen received the inaugural VH1 Rock Honors at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, and May and Taylor were joined on stage with the Foo Fighters to perform a selection of Queen songs. On 15 August 2006, May confirmed through his website and fan club that Queen + Paul Rodgers would begin producing their first studio album beginning in October, to be recorded at a "secret location". The album, titled ''The Cosmos Rocks'', was released in Europe on 12 September 2008 and in the United States on 28 October 2008. Following the album the band again embarked on a tour through Europe and parts of the US, opening on Kharkov's freedom square in front of 350,000 Ukrainian fans. The show in Ukraine was later released on DVD.

Queen and Paul Rodgers officially split up on 12 May 2009. Rodgers does not rule out the possibility of working together again.

Highlights

Brian May began composing in 1968/1969, and through the years he has collaborated with other songwriters, including Frank Musker, with whom he wrote "Too Much Love Will Kill You", and with Elizabeth Lamers, whose music won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically & Lyrically in 1996. A meticulous arranger, he focuses on multi-part harmonies, often more contrapuntal than parallel—a rarity for rock guitar. Examples are found in Queen's albums ''A Night at the Opera'' and ''A Day at the Races'', where he arranged a jazz band for guitar mini-orchestra ("Good Company"), a vocal canon ("The Prophet's Song") and guitar and vocal counterpoints ("Teo Torriatte").

May explored a wide variety of styles in guitar, including sweep picking ("Was It All Worth It", "Chinese Torture"), tremolo ("Brighton Rock", "Stone Cold Crazy", "Death on Two Legs", "Sweet Lady", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Get Down Make Love", "Dragon Attack"), tapping ("Bijou", "It's Late", "Resurrection", "Cyborg", "Rain Must Fall", "Business", "China Belle", "I Was Born To Love You"), slide guitar ("Drowse", "Tie Your Mother Down", "Radio Ga Ga"), Hendrix sounding licks ("Liar", "Brighton Rock"), tape-delay ("Brighton Rock", "White Man") and melodic parts ("Bohemian Rhapsody", "Killer Queen", "These Are the Days of Our Lives"). Some of his solos and orchestral parts were composed by Freddie Mercury, who then asked May to bring them to life ("Bicycle Race", "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon", "Killer Queen", "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy"). May also performed notable acoustic works, including the acoustic guitar live version of "Love of My Life" from 1975's ''A Night at the Opera'', the finger-picked solo of "White Queen" and the skiffle-influenced "'39".

In January 2007, the readers of ''Guitar World'' voted May's guitar solos "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Brighton Rock" into the top 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of all time ("Bohemian Rhapsody" was voted #20 and "Brighton Rock" was voted #41).

Aided by the uniqueness of his guitar—the Red Special—May was often able to create strange and unusual sound effects. For example, he was able to imitate an orchestra in the song "Procession"; in "Get Down, Make Love" he was able to create sound effects with his guitar that were so unusual that many thought a synthesiser was being used; in "Good Company" he used his guitar to mimic a trombone, a piccolo and several other instruments for the song's Dixieland jazz band feel. Queen used a "No synthesizers were used on this album" sleeve note on their early albums to make this clear to the listeners.

Other instruments

The first instrument Brian May learned to play was the banjolele, which he then played on Queen's song "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" (live and in the studio). For "Good Company", he used a regular baritone ukelele which he had bought in Hawaii on a holiday. Occasionally, May would also record on other string instruments such as harp (one chord per take, then copied and pasted by the engineer to make it sound like a continuous performance) and bass (on some demos and many songs in his solo career, and the Queen + Paul Rodgers album).

As a child, he was also trained on classical piano. Although Freddie Mercury was the band's main pianist, Brian would occasionally step in (once per album, on average). From 1979 onwards, he also played synthesisers, organ ("Wedding March") and programmed drum-machines for both Queen and outside projects (such as producing other artists and his own solo records).

May is also an accomplished singer. From Queen's ''Queen II'' to ''The Game'', May contributed lead vocals to at least one song per album.

May co-composed a mini-opera with Lee Holdridge, ''Il Colosso'', for Steve Barron's 1996 film, ''The Adventures of Pinocchio''. May performed the opera with Jerry Hadley, Sissel Kyrkjebo, and Just William. On-screen, it was performed entirely by puppets.

Musician

Brian May has been referred to as a virtuoso guitarist by many publications and musicians. Former Van Halen vocalist Sammy Hagar stated, "I thought Queen were really innovative and made some great sounding records.. I like the rockin' stuff. I think Brian May has one of the great guitar tones on the planet, and I really, really love his guitar work." May has used a range of guitars, most often the "Red Special", which he designed when he was only 16 years old. It was built with wood from an 18th century fireplace. His comments on this instrument, from ''Queen In Their Own Words'' (ed. Mick St. Michael, Omnibus Press, 1992, p. 62) are:

In addition to using his home-made guitar he prefers to use coins (especially a sixpence from the farewell proof set of 1970), instead of a more traditional plastic plectrum, on the basis that their rigidity gives him more control in playing. He is known to carry coins in his pockets specifically for this purpose.

May's early heroes were Cliff Richard and The Shadows, who he says were "the most metallic thing out at the time." Many years later he gained his opportunity to play on separate occasions with both Cliff Richard and Shadows lead guitarist Hank Marvin. He has collaborated with Cliff Richard on a re-recording of the Cliff Richard and The Shadows (then known as The Drifters) 1958 hit "Move It" on the Cliff Richard duets album ''Two's Company'' which was released on 6 November 2006. On Queen For An Hour 1989 Interview on BBC Radio 1 May listed Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton as his guitar heroes. In a 1991 interview for ''Guitar World magazine'', May referred to The Who as "my inspiration", and on seeing Led Zeppelin stated, "We used to look at those guys and think, "That's the way it should be done."

During the time in which Brian May and his father were building the Red Special, May also produced plans to build a second guitar. However, so successful was the Red Special, that May simply had no need to build another guitar. These plans were eventually given to guitar luthier Andrew Guyton in around 2004/05, some slight modifications were made and the guitar was built. It was named "The Spade", as the shape of the body resembled the form shown on playing cards. However the guitar also came to be known as "The Guitar That Time Forgot". As yet, this guitar has not been used in any recordings and remains in May's possession.

Equipment

Most of May's electric guitar work live and in the studio was done on the Red Special, which he built with his father during his teenage years. From 1975 onwards, he's also had some replicas made, some of which were also used for live and recording purposes, others were mainly spares. The most famous replicas were made by John Birch (in 1975—May actually smashed it during a concert in the States in 1982), Greco BM90 (featured in the promo video of "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy" in 1977), Guild (back-up from 1984 to 1993) and Fryers (1997–1998, used both live and in the studio). On stage, Brian used to carry at least one back-up guitar (in case he broke a string) and occasionally would use others for certain songs or parts. Currently, May has his own company which makes guitars whose design is modelled after the original Red Special guitar.

July 1973 – May 1974: Fender Stratocaster Pre-CBS

October 1974 – May 1975: Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, and the Stratocaster from the previous tour.

November 1975 – May 1976: Same two guitars as before, plus a natural finish John Birch replica of the Red Special.

September 1976: Same three as before, plus a Martin D-18 acoustic for "'39".

January 1977 – August 1979: Just the Birch replica plus an Ovation Pacemaker 12-string acoustic on some numbers ("'39", "Love of My Life", "Dreamer's Ball").

November 1979 – June 1982: Birch replica (back-up), Fender Telecaster ("Crazy Little Thing Called Love" 2nd verse, middle-eight and solo), Ovation (acoustic numbers).

July – November 1982: Added a Gibson Flying V as second back-up. On 9 August 1982 Brian smashed the Birch guitar, so the Flying V became the only spare.

August to October 1984: The Flying V became a second back-up again as his main spare was the Guild replica. He also used Roger Taylor's Gibson Chet-Atkins Classical Electric.

July 1985 – August 1986: Gibson Flying V no longer used. The rest remained the same.

Some of the non-RS electric guitars he used in the studio included:

Burns Double Six on "Long Away" (1976) and "Under Pressure" (1981).

Fender Broadcaster on "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" (1979). It was used for the video (but not the recordings) of "Back Chat" (1982).

Gibson Firebird on "Hammer to Fall" and "Tear It Up" (album versions only, not on stage).

Ibanez JS on "Nothing But Blue" (1991).

Parker Fly on "Mother Love" (1993–1995).

For acoustic, he favoured Ovation, Martin, Tōkai Hummingbird, Godin and Guild. On a couple of videos he also used some different electric guitars: a Stratocaster copy on "Play the Game" (1980) and a Washburn RR2V on "Princes of the Universe" (1986).

In 1984 Guild released the first official Red Special replica for mass production, and made some prototypes specifically for May. However the solid body construction (the original RS has hollow cavities in the body) and the pick-ups (DiMarzio) that were not an exact replica of the Burns TriSonic did not make May happy, so the production stopped after just 300 guitars. In 1993 Guild made a second replica of the RS, made in just 1000 copies, of which May has some and used as a backup. At the moment, he uses the two guitars made by Greg Fryer—the luthier who restored the Old Lady in 1998—as backup. They are almost identical to the original, except for the Fryer logo on the headstock (May's original one has a sixpence).

In the studio, May used Yamaha DX7 synths for the opening sequence of "One Vision" and the backgrounds of "Who Wants to Live Forever" (also on stage), "Scandal" and "The Show Must Go On". He mostly used Freddie Mercury's 1972 Steinway piano and reportedly now owns the instrument in question.

May was keen on using some toys as instruments as well. He used a Yamaha plastic piano in "Teo Torriatte", a "genuine George Formby Ukulele-Banjo" in "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" and in "Good Company", and a toy mini koto in "The Prophet's Song".

May has used Vox AC30 amplifiers almost exclusively since a meeting with his long time hero Rory Gallagher at a gig in London during the late '60s/early '70s. His choice is the model AC30TBX, the top-boost version with Blue Alnico speakers, and he runs the amp at full volume on the Normal channel. He also customises his amps by removing the circuitry for the Brilliant and Vib-trem channels (leaving only the circuitry for the Normal), and this alters the tone slightly, with a gain addition of 6–7 dB. He always used a treble booster built by Queen's former bass guitarist (John Deacon) which, along with the AC30, went a long way in helping to create many of his signature guitar tones. He used the Dallas Rangemaster for the first Queen albums, up to A Day at the Races. Effects guru Pete Cornish built for him the TB-83 (32 dB of gain) that was used for all the remaining Queen albums. He switched in 2000 to the Fryer's booster, which actually gives less boost than the TB-83.

Live, he uses banks of Vox AC30 amplifiers keeping some amps with only guitar and others with all effects such as delay, flanger and chorus. He has a rack of 14 AC30s, which are grouped as Normal, Chorus, Delay 1, Delay 2. On his pedal board, May has a custom switch unit made by Cornish and subsequently modified by Fryer that allows him to choose which amps are active. He uses a BOSS pedal from the '70s, the Chorus Ensemble CE-1, which can be heard in In The Lap of The Gods (Live at Wembley '86) or Hammer to Fall (slow version played live with P. Rodgers). Next in the chain, he uses a Foxx Foot Phaser (We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, Keep Yourself Alive, etc.), and two delay machines to play his trademark solo in Brighton Rock.

May's lead vocals in Queen

"Keep Yourself Alive" – Vocal bridge with Taylor, rest sung by Mercury (1973)

"Some Day, One Day" (1974)

"She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes)" (1974)

"'39" (1975)

"Good Company" (1975)

"Long Away" (1976)

"All Dead, All Dead" (1977)

"Sleeping on the Sidewalk" (1977)

"Fat Bottomed Girls" – Chorus lead vocals (1978)

"Leaving Home Ain't Easy" (1978)

"Sail Away Sweet Sister" – Mercury sings the bridge (1980)

"Flash" – with Freddie Mercury (1980)

''Put Out the Fire" - lead on falsetto lines.

"Las Palabras de Amor" – Lead harmony vocals on chorus (1982)

"I Go Crazy" – Lead Bridge Vocals (1984)

"Who Wants to Live Forever" – Intro verse, harmony and other lines throughout (1986)

"I Want It All" – with Mercury (1989)

"Lost Opportunity" (1991)

"Mother Love" – Lead vocals on final verse (1995)

"Let Me Live" – Lead vocals on third verse (1995)

"No-One but You (Only the Good Die Young)" – with Taylor (1997)

Astrophysics

May studied physics and mathematics at Imperial College London, graduating with a BSc (Hons) degree and ARCS in physics with Upper Second-Class Honours. He then proceeded to study for a PhD degree, also at the Imperial College London departments of Physics and Mathematics, and was part way through this PhD programme, studying reflected light from interplanetary dust and the velocity of dust in the plane of the Solar System. When Queen became successful he abandoned his physics doctorate but did co-author two scientific research papers: ''MgI Emission in the Night-Sky Spectrum'' (1972) and ''An Investigation of the Motion of Zodiacal Dust Particles (Part I)'' (1973), which were based on his observations at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife. He is the co-author of ''Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe'' with Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, which was published in October 2006. In October 2007, more than 30 years after he started his research, he completed his PhD thesis in astrophysics, entitled ''A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud'', passed his ''viva voce'', and performed the required corrections. He officially graduated at the postgraduate awards ceremony held in the Royal Albert Hall, on the afternoon of Wednesday 14 May 2008.

On 17 November 2007, May was appointed Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, taking over from Cherie Blair, and installed in 2008.

Asteroid 52665 Brianmay was named in his honour on 18 June 2008 on the suggestion of Sir Patrick Moore (probably influenced by the asteroid's provisional designation of ).

May appeared on the 700th episode of The Sky at Night hosted by Patrick Moore, along with Dr. Chris Lintott, Jon Culshaw, Prof. Brian Cox and the Astronomer Royal Martin Rees who on leaving the panel told Brian May, who was joining it, "I don't know any scientist who looks as much as like Isaac Newton as you do". May replied that "that could be my after dinner comment, thank you very much".

Activist

Brian May has formed a group to promote decent treatment for animals. Though a Conservative Party voter most of his life, he has stated that their policy on fox hunting and the culling of badgers turned him off voting for them. His group, Save Me, is a campaign group for the protection of all animals against unnecessary, cruel and degrading treatment; with a particular emphasis on preventing hunting of foxes and the culling of badgers.

The group's primary concern is to ensure that the Hunting Act 2004 and other laws protecting animals are kept in place.

In a September 2010 interview with Stephen Sackur for the BBC’s HARDtalk program, May said that he would rather be remembered for his animal rights work, than for his music or science.

Stereophotography

May has had a lifelong interest in collecting Victorian stereophotography. In 2009, with co-author Elena Vidal, he published his second book, ''A Village Lost and Found,'' on the work of English stereophotography innovator TR Williams.

Discography

Albums

Studio albums

! Year	! Title	! UK	! US
1983	''Star Fleet Project''	35	125
1992	''Back to the Light''	6	159
1998		23	–
2000		–	–

Live albums

! Year	! Title	! UK	! US
1993		20	–

Bibliography

References

External links

Brian May's official homepage

Brian May World

Brian Interviews

Queenpedia – Brian May Complete Song List

Scientific paper with Brian May as co-author

Brian May's astronomy book

Five interview clips with Brian May

Brian May's Ph.D thesis

Brian May interview with Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air, 3 August 2010

''Brian May: the interview'', by Rachel Cooke, The Observer, Sunday 5 September 2010

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name	Jean Michel Jarre
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
birth date	August 24, 1948
origin	Lyon, France
instrument	Synthesizer, piano, organ, laser harp, accordion, guitar, bass guitar
genre	Electronic music, instrumental music, New Age, ambient, electronic rock
occupation	Composer, musician, artist, producer
years active	1969–present
label	Disques Dreyfus, Polydor/PolyGram, Epic/SME, Warner Bros., EMI
website	}}

Jean-Michel André Jarre (born 24 August 1948) is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, synthpop, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, and fireworks.

Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and grandparents, and trained on the piano. From an early age he was introduced to a variety of art forms, including those of street performers, jazz musicians, and the artist Pierre Soulages. He played guitar in a band, but his musical style was perhaps most heavily influenced by Pierre Schaeffer, a pioneer of musique concrète at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales.

His first mainstream success was the 1976 album ''Oxygène''. Recorded in a makeshift studio at his home, the album sold an estimated 12 million copies. ''Oxygène'' was followed in 1978 by ''Équinoxe'', and in 1979 Jarre performed to a record-breaking audience of more than a million people at the Place de la Concorde, a record he has since broken three times. More albums were to follow, but his 1979 concert served as a blueprint for his future performances around the world. Several of his albums have been released to coincide with large-scale outdoor events, and he is now perhaps as well known as a performer as a musician.

Jarre has sold an estimated 80 million albums and singles. He was the first Western musician to be allowed to perform in the People's Republic of China, and holds the world record for the largest-ever audience at an outdoor event.

Biography

Early life, influences, and education

Jean Michel Jarre was born on 24 August 1948 in Lyon, the son of composer Maurice Jarre and French Resistance member and concentration camp survivor France Pejot. The two separated when Jarre was five years old; his father moved to the United States, while his mother remained in the suburbs of Paris to look after their son. Jarre did not meet his father again until he was eighteen. Jarre's Grandfather, André Jarre, was an oboe player, engineer and inventor, who also designed an early audio mixer used at Radio Lyon. He also gave Jean Michel his first record player. For the first eight years of his life, Jarre spent six months of each year at his grandparent's flat along the Cours de Verdun, in the Perrache district of Lyon. Jarre has cited the street performers he watched from his window there as an influence on his art (traces of this can be found on his album ''Équinoxe'', particularly "Équinoxe Part 8").

Jarre struggled with his classical piano studies, although he later changed teacher and began work on his scales. A more general interest in musical instruments was sparked by the discovery at the Saint-Ouen flea market of a Boris Vian Trumpet Violin. He often accompanied his mother to Le Chat Qui Pêche (The Fishing Cat), a friend's Paris jazz club, where saxophonists Archie Shepp and John Coltrane, and trumpet players Don Cherry and Chet Baker were regular performers. Jarre cites these early experiences of Jazz as introducing him to the idea that music may be "descriptive, without lyrics". He was also influenced by the work of French artist Pierre Soulages, whose exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris he attended. Soulages' paintings used multiple textured layers, and Jarre realised that "for the first time in music, you could act as a painter with frequencies and sounds." He was also influenced by more traditional music; in a 2004 interview for ''The Guardian'', he spoke of the effect that a performance of Stravinsky's ''The Rite of Spring'' had upon him:

As a young man he funded his lifestyle by painting, exhibiting some of his works at the Lyon Gallery – ''L'Oeil Ecoute''. He also played in a band called Mystère IV (Mystery 4). While he studied at the Lycée Michelet his mother arranged for him to take lessons in harmony, counterpoint and fugue with Jeannine Rueff of the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1967 he played guitar in a band called ''The Dustbins''. Jarre experimented by mixing several instruments, including the electric guitar and the flute, with tape effects and other sounds. The band appears in the film ''Des garçons et des filles''.

In 1968 he began to experiment with tape loops, radios and other electronic devices. Joining the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) in 1969, then under the direction of Pierre Schaeffer, "father" of musique concrète, proved hugely influential. Schaeffer's view was that "music isn't made of notes, it's made of sounds". Jarre was introduced to the Moog modular synthesizer, and he spent time working at the studio of influential German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne.

In the kitchen of his flat on ''Rue de la Trémoille'', near the Champs-Élysées in Paris, he set up a small recording studio, which included EMS VCS 3 and EMS Synthi AKS synthesisers, and two linked Revox tape machines.

For a 1969 exposition at the ''Maison de la Culture (Cultural House)'' in Reims Jarre wrote the five-minute song "Happiness Is a Sad Song", but his first commercial release came in 1969 with ''La Cage/Erosmachine'', a mixture of harmony, tape effects and synthesisers.

1970s

In 1971 he was commissioned by choreographer Norbert Schmucki to perform a ballet at the Palais Garnier, named ''AOR'' (in Hebrew, "light")). Jarre also composed music for ballet, theatre, advertisements and television programs, as well as music and lyrics for artists like Patrick Juvet and Christophe. He composed the soundtrack for ''Les Granges Brûlées'' and in 1972 wrote music for the International Festival of Magic. That year he released his first solo album, ''Deserted Palace'', and from 1973–74 wrote music for Françoise Hardy and Gérard Lenorman. He also directed Christophe's Olympia show.

Jarre first achieved international stardom with his 1976 solo album, ''Oxygène''. It comprises six numbered synthesiser tracks that make strong use of melody, rather than rhythm or dissonance. Recorded at his home studio on a Scully eight-track recorder, on a small budget, ''Oxygène'' was composed with such instruments as the Eminent 310 (with an Electro-Harmonix ''Small Stone'' phaser on its string pads), the Korg Minipops drum machine, and liberal use of echo on the various sound effects generated by the VCS3 synthesiser.

''Oxygène'' initially proved difficult to sell. Jarre was turned down by several record companies until a fellow student of Schaeffer, Hélène Dreyfus (at the time her husband Francis's artistic director), persuaded her husband to publish the album on his label, Disques Motors. The first pressing of 50,000 copies was promoted through hi-fi shops, clubs and discos, and by April 1977 the album had sold 70,000 copies in France. When interviewed in ''Billboard'' magazine Dreyfus's director Stanislas Witold said "In a sense we're putting most of our bets on Jean Michel Jarre. He is quite exceptional and we're sure that by 1980 he will be recognised worldwide." ''Oxygène'' has since sold an estimated 12 million copies, and is the best-selling French record of all time. It reached number 2 in the UK, number 65 in Canada, and broke the top 100 in the US. The album contains his most recognisable single, "Oxygène IV",'which reached number 4 in the UK single charts.

Jarre's follow-up album, ''Équinoxe'', was released in 1978. It was composed with sequencers, particularly on the bass, and features a more baroque and classical style than ''Oxygène'', with more emphasis on melodic development. Although not as commercially successful as ''Oxygène'' its release was followed in 1979 by a large open-air concert at the Place de la Concorde, on Bastille Day. The free outdoor event set a new world record for the largest number of spectators ever at an open-air concert, and drew more than 1 million spectators. It was also watched by a television audience of over 100 million. The event's success was not fully anticipated; the crowds were so large that Jarre's wife, Charlotte Rampling, found it difficult to access the venue. Although it was not the first time that Jarre had performed in concert (he had already played at the Paris Opera Ballet), the 40 minute-long event, which used projections of light, images and fireworks, served as a blueprint for Jarre's future concerts. The event helped to boost his popularity, as between 14 July and 31 August 1979 he sold a further 800,000 records. It also served as Jarre's introduction to Francis Rimbert – brought together by Michel Geiss, Jarre used Rimbert's sythesizer setup for the performance. Today Rimbert works for Jarre on a full-time basis.

1980s

By the time that ''Magnetic Fields'' (French version: ''Les Chants Magnétiques'') was released on 20 May 1981, ''Oxygène'' and ''Équinoxe'' had achieved global sales of about 6 million units; in its first two months ''Magnetic Fields'' sold a reported 200,000 units in France alone. The sounds used are primarily those of the Fairlight CMI, which gave Jarre the chance to continue his earlier sonic experimentation, using digital technology to make the collection and processing of sounds much easier. Jarre and Peter Gabriel were among the first artists to take delivery of the Fairlight platform and make heavy use of it.

The album's release coincided with Jarre's first foreign tour. In 1981 the British Embassy in Beijing gave Radio Beijing copies of ''Oxygène'' and ''Équinoxe'', which became the first pieces of foreign music to be played on Chinese national radio in decades. Jarre was then invited by the republic to perform The Concerts in China, the first western musician to perform a concert there. The performances were scheduled to run from 18 October to 5 November 1981. The first, in Beijing, was at first attended mostly by officials. Before the concert began technicians realised that not enough power was available to supply the stage and auditorium, and so Chinese officials solved the problem by cutting power to the surrounding districts, for the duration of the performance.

The stadium was almost full when the concert started, but nearly half the audience left before the end, as Beijing's buses stopped running at about 10 o'clock. To boost the audience attendance for the second night, Jarre and his production team purchased some of the concert tickets and gave them to children on the streets (Jarre originally intended for the concerts to be free, but the Chinese authorities charged between £0.20 and £0.50 per ticket). The concert was notable for the lack of audience involvement during the performance; the Chinese were apparently nonplussed by both the music and the light show, and applause was muted. The second venue in Shanghai was a different matter – Jarre actively encouraged audience participation by stepping into the crowd, which became much more exuberant than that in Beijing. The concerts were released as a double-disc LP in 1982, and featured the Laser harp, one of Jarre's signature electronic instruments.

On 5 July 1983 Jarre auctioned the only existing vinyl print of his newest album, ''Music For Supermarkets'' (French version: ''Musique pour Supermarché''), created for a planned performance at the "Supermarché" art exhibition. Jarre allowed Radio Luxembourg to broadcast the album, uninterrupted, in its entirety, before selling it at auction, at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris. The sale raised about 70,000 francs, and Jarre promised to burn the original tapes in the presence of a bailiff.

Despite their destruction, much of the music on these tapes was reworked into his 1984 album ''Zoolook''. It combines analogue synthesis with ethnic and vocal music, and makes heavy use of the sampling capabilities of the Fairlight CMI. Zoolook also features samples of words and speech in different languages from around the globe, creating a diverse range of sounds and effects. Laurie Anderson provided the vocals for the track "Diva". With its rock music underpinnings, ''Zoolook'' resides amongst a handful of pop and rock albums that make intensive and sometimes exhaustive use of the Fairlight synthesiser. A long list of musicians, including Adrian Belew and Marcus Miller, also made significant contributions. The album was somewhat less successful than Jarre's previous works, reaching only no.47 in the UK album charts and no.86 in Canada.

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In 1985 Jarre was invited by the musical director of the Houston Grand Opera in Texas to perform a concert to celebrate the city and state's 150th anniversary. Although he was busy with other projects and was initially unimpressed by the proposal, he later visited the city. He was immediately impressed by the visual grandeur of the city's skyline, and agreed to perform. That year also marked the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, and Jarre was contacted by NASA to integrate the anniversary into the concert.

The creation of ''Rendez-Vous'' took place over a period of two months, and as with ''Zoolook'', contains elements of his 1983 album ''Musique pour Supermarché''. The three movements of the score represent Houston's development from a rural economy, to its role as a leader in space technology. Baroque in style, the album uses a mixture of French horns, trombones and violins, and features heavy use of the Elka Synthex, notably so on "Third Rendez-Vous", a track Jarre often performs using a laser harp. Jarre worked with several Houston-based astronauts including Bruce McCandless II, and former Jazz musician Ronald McNair, who was to have played the saxophone on "Rendez-Vous VI", recorded in the weightless environment of space. McNair was to have performed at the concert over a live link, but was killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on 28 January 1986. Immediately following the accident consideration was given to the cancellation of the concert, but Jarre was contacted by McCandless and urged to proceed, and to mark the event as a tribute to the crew of the Shuttle mission. Following the Challenger disaster, the piece was recorded by Kirk Whalum and retitled "Ron's Piece".

About 2,000 projectors displaying images onto buildings and giant screens up to high transformed the city's skyscrapers into spectacular backdrops, accompanied by an elaborate display of fireworks and lasers. Rendez-vous Houston entered the ''Guinness Book of Records'' for its audience of over 1.5 million people, beating his earlier record in 1979. The concert featured large projections of photographic images and laser patterns onto the buildings of downtown Houston. The display was so impressive that passing vehicles blocked a nearby freeway, closing it for the duration of the concert. "Ron's Piece" was performed by Kirk Whalum.

Several months later about one million people watched him perform for a celebration of Pope John Paul II's visit to Jarre's home city of Lyon. The pope, viewing from Lyon Cathedral, began the concert with a good-night blessing (a recording of which appears on the album ''Cities In Concert — Houston/Lyon'').

In 1988 Jarre released his ninth studio album, ''Revolutions''. The album spans several genres, including symphonic industrial, Arabian inspired, light guitar pop and ethnic electro jazz. A two hour concert, titled Destination Docklands, was planned for 24 September 1988 at the Royal Victoria Dock in east London. The location, close to the heart of London, was chosen in part for its desolate environment, but also because Jarre thought the architecture and environment would be ideally suited to his music. Plans to stage the concert began early in 1988, with Jarre meeting local officials and members of the community. The floating stage on which Jarre and his musicians would perform was built on top of four large barges. Large purpose-built display screens were constructed from scaffolding, and one of the buildings to be used in the backdrop was painted white. Local children practised the choral elements of the performance. During the transportation of several large mirror balls commissioned for the event, one came loose and fell onto the roadside. On the same night a satellite (containing radioactive material) was due to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. The sighting of the mirror ball led to a degree of confusion as some people mistook it for the falling satellite. World War II searchlights were to illuminate the sky and surrounding architecture, along with thousands of coloured fireworks.

Newham Borough Council, which ran the docks, expressed their fears about the safety of the event, and delayed their decision on whether to allow the concert to proceed until 12 September before eventually refusing the licence application. The local fire service were also concerned that in the event of a fire, they would be unable to gain access. Work continued on the site, and Jarre's team looked at other locations around the UK, but following improvements to both on and off-site safety Jarre eventually won conditional approval on 28 September to stage two separate performances from 8–9 October.

Along with thousands in the surrounding streets and parks, 200,000 people watched Jarre perform with guests such as guitarist Hank Marvin. The performances were not without issues; inclement weather had threatened to break the stage from its moorings, and although the original plan was to have Jarre float across the Royal Victoria Dock on the first evening, winds of over 30 knots meant that it was deemed unsafe – the winds were so strong that television cameras were blown over. The audience, which included Diana, Princess of Wales, was on the second evening soaked by rain and wind.

1990s

In 1990 Jarre released ''Waiting for Cousteau'' (French version: ''En Attendant Cousteau''), which was inspired by the French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. On Bastille Day 1990 he performed a concert at La Défense in Paris, attended by a record-breaking audience of about two million people – once more, beating his earlier world records. He later promoted a concert near the Pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico, to be held during the solar eclipse of 11 July 1991, but the project stalled. Several weeks before the scheduled performance, important equipment had not arrived and the sinking in the Atlantic Ocean of a cargo ship containing the purpose-built pyramidal stage and other technical equipment made the staging of the concert impossible. Jarre's disappointment was such that he "could not cope with Mexican food for two years".

In 1991 he released the Best Of compilation ''Images – The Best of Jean Michel Jarre'', which included some of his best work and additionally three new tracks.

In 1993 Jarre released his first work to be largely influenced by the techno-music scene that had been developing since about 1989. Entitled ''Chronologie'', the album was, from a technical standpoint, a revision to a concept employed by Jarre in his ''Oxygène''/''Équinoxe'' period, where a grandiose overture provides the emotional feel and sonic timbre for the rest of the following, more rhythmic pieces.

Along with Jarre's traditional collection of instruments, such as the ARP 2600 and Mini Moog, Jarre used newer state-of-the-art equipment such as the Roland JD-800 and the Kurzweil K2000. This album features sampled clocks and contemporary rhythms, driving the tempo. Its release was followed by Jarre's first large scale tour.

A series of 16 performances across Europe, ''Europe In Concert'' occurred on a smaller scale than his previous concerts. ''Chronologie'' was central to the tour's repertoire. The set featured a miniature skyline, laser imaging, and fireworks. Locations included Lausanne, Mont St Michel, London, Manchester, Barcelona, Sevilla and the Versailles Palace near Paris. Jarre performed in Hong Kong on 11 March 1994, to mark the opening of the city's new stadium, as a continuation of the tour. The sold-out event included a range of entertainers, including bikini-clad Brazilians.

Jarre performed at the ''Concert for Tolerance'' on Bastille Day in 1995 (he had in 1993 accepted the offer to become a Goodwill Ambassador of Tolerance and Youth for UNESCO). In front of the Eiffel Tower he celebrated the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, performing many of his most well-known hits. The tower was specially lit for the occasion, prompting the installation of a more permanent display. The following December he created a website called "A Space for Tolerance". The site featured music from ''En Attendant Cousteau'', played while the user browsed a variety of "visual worlds". Also in 1995, Jarre released the remix album ''Jarremix''.

After years of experimenting with new technology, with ''Oxygène 7–13'' he returned to the analogue synthesisers of the 1970s. The album was released in 1997, more than 20 years after ''Oxygène'', and was dedicated to his mentor at the GRM, Pierre Schaeffer, who had died in 1995. Eschewing the digital techniques developed in the 1980s, in an interview for ''The Daily Telegraph'' he said:

On 6 September that year the Moscow State University became the backdrop for a spectacular display of image projections, skytrackers and fireworks. The event, celebrating the 850th anniversary of Moscow, was viewed by an audience of about 3.5 million, his fourth record for the largest ever outdoor concert audience. The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, had taken place on the same day, and the composer dedicated "Souvenir of China" to her memory, followed by a well-observed minute's silence.

In July 1998 he became the first artist spokesman for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. He rallied hundreds of musicians in a petition to the European Parliament over the proposed European Union Copyright Directive. He was succeeded in the post by The Corrs, in July 2000. On 31 December 1999 Jarre held a three-hour music and light show in the Egyptian desert near Giza. The Twelve Dreams of the Sun celebrated the new millennium and offered a preview of his next album, ''Métamorphoses''. Beginning on New Year's Eve, the show featured performances from more than 1,000 local artists and musicians, and was based on ancient Egyptian mythology about the journey of the sun and its effect upon humanity. Addressing the audience, Jarre said "I hope the new millennium will witness international understanding". Jarre's anthemic work melded electronic music with Western jazz and Arabic rhythms and melodies, and was accompanied by lasers projected onto the backdrop of the pyramids and the Sahara Desert.

2000s

Jarre released ''Métamorphoses'', his first vocal album, in 2000. The entire album was mixed on an early version of Pro Tools, a digital audio workstation designed to record, edit and play back digital audio. The compositions and their arrangement on this techno-based album co-produced with Joachim Garraud marked a departure from Jarre's previous style. Sound effects used include radio interference from mobile phones (used on the track "Tout est Bleu"), and Macintalk, a Macintosh program used to generate lyrics on the track "Love, Love, Love". Laurie Anderson makes her second guest appearance in the Jarre discography (her first was on ''Zoolook'' on the track "Diva"). Other contributors include Natacha Atlas and Sharon Corr.

On 1 January 2001 Jarre and Tetsuya "TK" Komuro performed exclusive new material in Okinawa. ''Rendez-vous in Space'' was a tribute to the science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, a close friend of Jarre’s. Jarre used recordings of Clarke (filmed before the concert) to introduce each piece of music. The opening sequence of the concert was based on the theme from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Later that year, Jarre gave a charity concert for the Elpida Foundation at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece.

In 2001 he composed ''Interior Music'', a demonstration piece for Bang and Olufsen. The album has not had a commercial release. On 6 September 2002 Jarre performed a concert at a windfarm near Gammel Vrå Enge, outside Aalborg in Denmark. A rain-soaked audience of between 35–40,000 watched him perform in front of a windfarm illuminated by lights and fireworks. The event was beset with problems, caused mainly by the 22mm of rain that fell on the venue – the organisers had anticipated only 4mm. Some fans reported a wait of six hours to leave the site, and one fan reported that a bus had blocked traffic when it slid into a ditch, and also that many ticket-holders were not allowed into the arena because thousands of gatecrashers had broken through a fence. The concert was however generally viewed as a success.

The event marked a change in direction in Jarre's live concerts; from Rendez-vous Houston onwards he had been accompanied by a full complement of live musicians, however the concert in Aalborg demonstrated a marked reduction in the number of musicians on stage; Jarre was accompanied only by the Klarup Girls Choir, Francis Rimbert, Safri Duo, and the Aalborg Symphonic Orchestra. 2002 also saw the release of ''Sessions 2000'', a set of more experimental synth-jazz pieces that were stylistically distinct from anything Jarre had previously released. The album was reviewed positively by ''Billboard Magazine'', which wrote "He's [Jarre] created a deeply nuanced soundscape that invites repeated listening."

In 2003, Jarre released ''Geometry of Love''. The album was commissioned by Jean Roch, as a soundtrack for his 'V.I.P. Room' nightclub in France, and contains a mix of 'electro-chill' music, with touches of his more traditional style. The following year, on 10 October, he returned to China for two performances, one in the Forbidden City at the Meridian Gate, followed immediately by a smaller concert in Tiananmen Square. Both were designed to open China’s "Year of France" cultural exchange. The concert was transmitted live across the country, and was also watched on large television screens at shopping centres in Beijing. Jarre opened the concert with a collaboration with Chen Lin, who played an Erhu. Accompanying his traditional musical repertoire, 600 projectors shone coloured light and images across various screens and objects. More than 15,000 spectators watched the concert at the Meridian Gate. A combined DVD/CD of these concerts, ''Jarre in China'' was released in 2004.

In September 2004, Jarre released ''AERO'', both a DVD and a CD in one package. Purportedly the world's first album released for 5.1 systems, with it being fully "constructed" in 5.1 surround sound, it contains re-recorded versions of some of his most famous tracks, including tracks from ''Oxygène'' and ''Équinoxe''. Accompanying the audio, the DVD features a visual image of Anne Parillaud's eyes, recorded in real time as she listened to the album. Jarre used the minimalist imagery to reinforce the audio content of the DVD. The CD was mixed in super-stereo.

In his role of UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, Jarre performed a concert named Water for Life in Morocco, on 16 December 2006, to celebrate the year of desertification in the world. The performance was in front of the Erg Chebbi Dunes of Merzouga, in the Sahara. A free event, it was attended by about 25,000 people. Images of water and the environment were projected onto nine vertical screens, held in place by sand which was watered to keep it hard. Several permanent drinking fountains were built on the site, along with a permanent electricity installation. Jarre was accompanied by over 60 Moroccan artists.

Jarre released ''Téo & Téa'' on 26 March 2007. He described the two computer-generated characters in the video clip of the title track as being "like twins", one female, one male. The album is supposed to describe the different stages of a loving relationship, and explores the idea that the length of such relationships is unpredictable. Its release demonstrated a move away from virtual instruments and computers that Jarre had been using up to that point; he instead chose to use a simplified range of devices, including several new prototype instruments. The album's cover was inspired by the David Lynch film ''Wild at Heart''.

In August 2007 Jarre signed for EMI France. He released an anniversary package containing a special live recording of his classic work, ''Oxygène'', in 3D DVD, live CD and normal 2D DVD formats in November 2007, named ''Oxygène: New Master Recording''. A first for Jarre, the album was recorded live, without tape or hard disk playback, with help from Francis Rimbert, Claude Samard, and Dominique Perrier. The album also contains three extra tracks not found on either the original or remake, which form links between the main movements. Jarre plans to integrate the original analog synthesizers from ''Oxygène'' into his next album, and is building a new private recording studio on the outskirts of Paris. In the same year Disques Dreyfus released ''The Complete Oxygène'', containing the original versions of ''Oxygène'' and ''Oxygène 7–13'', and remixes of tracks from ''Oxygène 7–13''.

Jarre performed 10 concerts (''Oxygène Live'') in Paris, from 12–26 December 2007, held in the Théâtre Marigny, a small 1000-seat theatre in the Champs-Élysées. Later in 2008 Jarre performed several concerts to celebrate the 30th anniversary of ''Oxygène'', in theatres in Europe. Following one such performance at the Royal Albert Hall Jarre met Brian May, who proposed he create a concert in Tenerife for the International Year of Astronomy, but a lack of sponsorship meant that the concert did not take place.

In 2009 he was selected as the artistic director of the World Sky Race, and also accepted a role as Goodwill Ambassador for the International Year of Astronomy. In 2009 he started an indoor tour in arenas throughout Europe.

2010s

On 1 March 2010, Jean Michel Jarre started the second leg of his 2009–2010 indoors tour, and on 10 June he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by Mojo magazine.

On 30 May 2011, he released the double CD set ''Essentials & Rarities''. The ''Essentials'' disc is a compilation of his most famous work. The ''Rarities'' disc includes tracks made before ''Oxygène''.

On 1 July 2011, Jarre performed a large scale concert in Monaco to celebrate the marriage of Prince Albert and his bride Charlene.

Personal life

Jarre has been married three times. He was married to Flore Guillard from 20 January 1975 until 1977, their daughter Émilie Charlotte was born in 1975 (or 1976) and became a fashion model. He met his second wife Charlotte Rampling at a dinner party in St Tropez in 1976. Both were in failing marriages, but they each obtained a divorce (Rampling was married to New Zealander Bryan Southcombe). The two married, Jarre gaining custody of his daughter Émilie Charlotte, and Rampling her son Barnaby. Together they have a son, David. In 1995 photographs in ''Hello!'' showed Jarre apparently romantically involved with 31-year old secretary Odile Froument, and in 1996 Jarre and Rampling separated. They divorced in 2002. He had a brief relationship with Isabelle Adjani, but married French actress Anne Parillaud in May 2005. In November 2010 the couple announced their divorce.

Jarre has a half-sister Stéphanie Jarre, from Maurice Jarre's other marriages. His half-brother, Kevin Jarre, died in 2011. Although Maurice and Jean-Michel remained estranged, following Maurice's death in 2009 Jarre paid tribute to his legacy. Jarre said about his father:

Awards and recognition

1976 – Grand Prix du Disque by L'Académie Charles Cros, for ''Oxygène'' 1976 – "Personality of The Year" by ''People'' magazine (U.S.) 1978 – Midem award 1979 – ''Guinness Book of Records'' entry for the biggest concert ever (La Concorde)

1981 – Honorary member of the Beijing Conservatory of Music.

1984 – Grand Prix du Disque by L'Académie Charles Cros, for ''Zoolook''. 1985 – Instrumental album of the year, at the Victoires de la Musique in France, for ''Zoolook'' 1986 – Instrumental album of the year, at the Victoires de la Musique, for ''Rendez-vous'' 1986 – Musical spectacle of the year, at the Victoires de la Musique, for the Rendez-Vous Houston concert 1987 – New ''Guinness Book of Records'' entry for the biggest concert ever (Rendez-Vous Houston) 1987 – "European musician Person of the Year" by ''People'' magazine

1990 – New ''Guinness Book of Records'' entry for the biggest concert ever (Paris La Defense: A City in Concert)

1993 – UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador 1994 – Victoire de la Musique for Chronologie. 1995 – Awarded Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur from the French Government. 1997 – New ''Guinness Book of Records'' entry for the biggest concert ever with 3.5 million watching at Moscow's 850th anniversary

1998 – IFPI's Platinum Europe Award

2005 – HCA Ambassador for the Hans Christian Andersen 2005 Bicentenary Festival

2006 – Polish Television Academy's "Super Wiktor" award for "Space of Freedom"

2006 – Gdańsk's Man Of The Year 2005 Award

2007 – Eska Music Awards Special Award

2008 – Doctor Honoris Causa by the Mendeleev Russian University of Chemistry and Technology 2010 – MOJO Lifetime Achievement Award. 2010 – Grand Prix des Musiques Electroniques SACEM 2011 - International Cavalchina Award. 2011 - Awarded Officier de la Légion d'Honneur from the French Government.

An asteroid, 4422 Jarre, has been named in his honour. He is honorary citizen of Gdansk.

Discography

Jarre has sold an estimated 80 million albums and singles, the first of which was the 1969 single "La Cage / Erosmachine". His first solo album, ''Deserted Palace'', was released in 1972, but it was the success of his 1976 album, ''Oxygène'', that catapulted him to international stardom. Until 2000 Jarre's output was entirely instrumental, but that year he released ''Métamorphoses'', his first vocal album.

;Studio albums

''Deserted Palace'' (1972)

''Les Granges Brûlées'' (1973)

''Oxygène'' (1976)

''Équinoxe'' (1978)

''Magnetic Fields'' (1981)

''Music for Supermarkets'' (1983)

''Zoolook'' (1984)

''Rendez-Vous'' (1986)

''Revolutions'' (1988)

''Waiting for Cousteau'' (1990)

''Chronologie'' (1993)

''Oxygène 7–13'' (1997)

''Métamorphoses'' (2000)

''Interior Music'' (2001)

''Sessions 2000'' (2002)

''Geometry of Love'' (2003)

''Téo & Téa'' (2007)

''Oxygène: New Master Recording'' (2007)

See also

List of Jean Michel Jarre concerts

List of Jean Michel Jarre compositions with multiple titles

References

;Notes

;Bibliography

External links

Official blog

Jean Michel Jarre – live@ Bucharest (review+photos)

Official collaborative photobase

Jarre Discography

Jarre Technologies Official Website with AeroSystem One IPhone Speaker Dock

Category:People from Lyon Category:French electronic musicians Category:New Age synthesizer players Category:New Age musicians Category:French keyboardists Category:French bloggers Category:Polydor Records artists Category:Epic Records artists Category:Rock keyboardists Category:Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Category:1948 births Category:Living people

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Name	Sir Cliff RichardOBE
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Harry Rodger Webb
Born	October 14, 1940Lucknow, United Provinces, British India
Bmi	'25'
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, percussion instruments
Genre	Skiffle, rock and roll, pop, gospel, Contemporary Christian
Occupation	Musician, actor, entrepreneur
Years active	1958–present
Label	EMI, Decca, Columbia, Epic, Rocket, Papillon
Associated acts	The Shadows, Olivia Newton-John, Dionne Warwick
Website	CliffRichard.org
Notable instruments	}}

Sir Cliff Richard, OBE (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, entrepreneur and philanthropist, who has sold over 260 million records worldwide.

With his backing group The Shadows, Richard, originally positioned as a rebellious rock and roll singer in the style of Little Richard and Elvis Presley, dominated the British popular music scene in the pre-Beatles period of the late 1950s and early 1960s. His 1958 hit single "Move It" is often described as Britain's first authentic rock and roll song, and John Lennon once claimed that "before Cliff and the Shadows, there had been nothing worth listening to in British music." A conversion to Christianity and subsequent softening of his music later led to a more middle of the road pop image, sometimes venturing into gospel.

Over a 53-year career, Richard has become a fixture of the British entertainment world. He has amassed hundreds of gold and platinum discs and awards, including three Brit awards and two Ivor Novello awards. He has had more than 130 singles, albums and EPs make the UK Top 20, more than any other artist. He holds the record (with Elvis Presley) as the only act to make the UK singles charts in all of its first six decades (1950s–2000s). He has achieved 14 UK number one singles (or 18, depending on the counting methodology) and is the only singer to have had a number one single in the UK in six consecutive decades: the 1950s through to the 2000s (discounting digital downloads and counting only CDs, he also had a UK number one single in the 2000s). He is the biggest selling singles artist of all time in the UK, with total sales of over 27 million and UK album sales of over 18 million. He has sold more than 150 million singles worldwide.

Richard has never achieved the same impact in the United States despite eight US Top 40 singles, three of which peaked in the Top 10, including the million-selling "Devil Woman" and "We Don't Talk Anymore" (with the latter, becoming the first act to reach the Hot 100's top 40 in the 1980s who had also been in that chart's top 40 in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s). In the USA, his singles sales stand at around 10 million while his album sales are about 6 million. In Canada Richard achieved moderate success in the 1980s with a couple of albums gaining platinum status; he has sold around 5 million records there. He has remained a popular music, film, and television personality in Australia (where he has sold more than 5 million records), New Zealand, South Africa, Europe (especially in Germany, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Holland and Belgium) and Asia (especially Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong), and he retains a following in other countries also. He has sold more than 260 million records worldwide.

Biography

1940–58: Childhood

Harry Rodger Webb was born on 14 October 1940 at the King George Hospital, Victoria Street, in Lucknow, India, to Rodger Oscar Webb, a manager for a catering contractor that serviced the Indian Railways, and Dorothy Marie Webb (née Dazely). Rodger Webb was 17 years senior to his Anglo-Indian wife, Dorothy. Richard was baptised Harry Rodger Webb on 2 November 1940 at St Thomas's Church, Dehradun, India. The family lived in a modest house with other Anglo-Indians at Maqbara, close to the main shopping centre of Hazratganj. The Anglo-Indians living at Maqbara often were employed as musicians; a band from there played at the Royal Cafe Restaurant, Lucknow, and another at the Mohmmad Bagh club, which was the officers' military club serving the large garrison at Lucknow. Dorothy's mother served as the dormitory matron at the La Martiniere Girls' School. Anglo-Indians did not enjoy any social status in India and were looked down upon by the British. Richard has three sisters.

In 1948, following Indian independence the family embarked on a three week sea voyage to Tilbury, Essex, England aboard the SS Ranchi. The Webbs moved from comparative wealth in India, where they had servants and lived in a company-supplied flat at Howrah near Calcutta, to a semi-detached house in Carshalton, Surrey (which was the also the location of the school he attended, Stanley Park Juniors). In 1949 his father obtained employment in the credit control office of Thorn Electrical Industries and the family moved in with other relatives in Hertfordshire until a three-bedroom council house in Cheshunt was allocated to them in 1950. Harry Webb then attended Cheshunt Secondary Modern School, later renamed Riversmead School (which was later rebuilt and renamed Bishopslea School) from 1952 to 1957. As a member of the top stream he stayed on beyond the minimum leaving age to take GCE Ordinary Level examinations and he gained a pass in English. He then started work as a filing clerk for a company called Atlas Lamps. A development of flats, Cliff Richard Court, has been named after him in Cheshunt.

Harry Webb became interested in skiffle. His father bought him a guitar at 16 and he formed the Quintones vocal group in 1957. He then sang in the Dick Teague Skiffle Group.

1958–1963: Success and stardom

Harry Webb became lead singer of a rock and roll group, The Drifters (not to be confused with the U.S. group of the same name). 1950s entrepreneur Harry Greatorex wanted the up and coming Rock 'n' Roll singer to change from his real name of Harry Webb. The name "Cliff" was adopted as it sounded like cliff face, which suggested "Rock." It was "Move It" writer Ian Samwell who suggested that the former Harry Webb be surnamed Richard as a tribute to Webb's musical hero Little Richard. Before their first large-scale appearance, at the Regal Ballroom in Ripley, Derbyshire in 1958, they adopted the name "Cliff Richard and the Drifters". The four members were Harry Webb (now going under the stage name "Cliff Richard"), Ian "Sammy" Samwell on guitar, Terry Smart on drums and Norman Mitham on guitar. None of the other three played with the later and better known Shadows, although Samwell wrote songs for Richard's later career.

For his debut session, Norrie Paramor provided Richard with "Schoolboy Crush", a cover of an American record by Bobby Helms. Richard was permitted to record one of his own songs for the B-side; this was "Move It", written by the Drifters' Samwell on a number 715 Green Line bus on the way to Richard's house for a rehearsal. For the "Move It" session Paramor used the session guitarist Ernie Shears on lead guitar and Frank Clark on bass.

There are a number of stories about why the A-side was replaced by the intended B-side. One is that Norrie Paramor's young daughter raved about the B-side; another was that influential TV producer Jack Good, who used the act for his TV show ''Oh Boy!'', wanted the only song on his show to be "Move It". Richard was quoted as saying - ''NME'' - September 1958

The single went to No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart. Music critics Roy Carr and Tony Tyler wrote that it was the first genuine British rock classic, followed by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' "Shakin' All Over". John Lennon was quoted as saying that "Move It" was the first English rock record.

In the early days, Richard was marketed as the British equivalent to Elvis Presley. Like previous British rockers such as Tommy Steele and Marty Wilde, Richard adopted Presley-like dress and hairstyle. In performance he struck a pose of rock attitude, rarely smiling or looking at the audience or camera. His late 1958 and early 1959 follow-up singles, "High Class Baby" and "Livin' Lovin' Doll", were followed by "Mean Streak", which carried a rocker's sense of speed and passion, and Lionel Bart's "Living Doll". It was on "Living Doll" that the Drifters began to back Richard on record. It was his fifth record,and became his first number 1 single . By that time the group's lineup had changed with the arrival of Jet Harris, Tony Meehan, Hank Marvin, and Bruce Welch. The group was obliged to change its name to "The Shadows" after legal complications with the U.S. Drifters as "Living Doll" entered the American top 40, licensed by ABC-Paramount. "Living Doll" was used in Richard's debut film ''Serious Charge'', but as a country standard, rather than a rock and roll standard.

The Shadows were not a typical backing group. They would become contractually separate from Richard, and the group received no royalties for records backing Richard. In 1959, The Shadows (then still the Drifters) landed an EMI recording contract of their own, for independent recordings. That year, they released three singles, two of which featured double-sided vocals and one of which had instrumental A and B sides. In 1960, they recorded and released "Apache" this time using Richard as a session percussionist playing Chinese drums to open and close this single. Reaching the top of the charts in more than one country, the single set The Shadows on a path of their own. They thereafter had several major hits, including five UK No. 1s. The band also continued to appear and record with Richard and wrote many of his hits. On more than one occasion, a Shadows' instrumental replaced a Richard song at the top of the British charts.

Richard's fifth single "Living Doll" triggered a softer, more relaxed, sound. Subsequent hits, the No. 1s "Travellin' Light" and "I Love You" and also "A Voice in the Wilderness" lifted from his film "Expresso Bongo" and "Theme for a Dream" cemented Richard's status as a mainstream pop entertainer along with contemporaries such as Adam Faith and Billy Fury. Throughout the early sixties his hits were consistently in the top five.

In 1961 EMI records organised Richard's 21st birthday party at its London-HQ in Manchester Square led by his producer Norrie Paramor. Photographs of the celebrations were incorporated into Richard's next album "21 Today" in which Tony Meehan joined in despite, then, having very recently left the Shadows to be replaced by Brian Bennett.

Typically, The Shadows closed the first half of the show with a 30-minute set of their own, then backed Richard on his show-closing 45-minute stint as exemplified by the retrospective CD album release of "Live at the ABC Kingston 1962". Tony Meehan and Jet Harris left the group in 1961 and 1962 respectively and later had their own chart successes for Decca. The Shadows added bass players Brian Locking (1962–63) and then John Rostill (1963–1968) and took on Brian Bennett permanently on drums.

In the early days, particularly on EP and album releases, Richard sometimes recorded without The Shadows in order to cater to other styles with The Norrie Paramor Orchestra with Tony Meehan and then Brian Bennett as a session drummer. Even after the Beatles' rise he continued to achieve hits, although more often with an orchestra rather than The Shadows: a revival of "It's All In The Game" and "Constantly". A session under the direction of Billy Sherrill in Nashville yielded two more top two hits: "The Minute You're Gone" and "Wind Me Up" in 1965.

Cliff Richard, and in particular The Shadows, never achieved star status in the United States. In 1960 they toured the U.S. and were well-received; however, lacklustre support and distribution from a revolving door of American record labels proved an obstacle to long-term success Stateside despite several chart records by Cliff including the aforementioned "It's All In The Game" on Epic, via a renewed linking of the worldwide Columbia labels after Philips ended its distribution deal with CBS. To the Shadows' chagrin, Apache reached #1 in the U.S. via a cover version by Danish guitarist Jorgen Ingmann which was virtually unchanged from their worldwide hit, save a sound effect Ingmann added evoking whooshing arrows in flight created by flicking his fingers on the fretboard. Cliff and the band appeared on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'', which was crucial for The Beatles, but these performances did not help them gain sustained success in North America.

Richard and The Shadows appeared in six feature films all commercially successful,( although the films title was changed to suit various countries' markets) , including a rather odd debut in the 1959 film ''Serious Charge'' but most notably in ''The Young Ones'', (the title song being his biggest hit up to "Mistletoe and Wine"), ''Summer Holiday'' (which featured a slimmed-down Richard with visible dancing skills), ''Wonderful Life'' and ''Finders Keepers''. These films created their own genre known as the "Cliff Richard musical" and led to Richard being named the number one cinema box office attraction in Britain for both 1962 and 1963 beating that of even James Bond. The irreverent 1980s TV sitcom ''The Young Ones'' took its name from Richard's 1962 film, and also made references to the singer. In 1966, Richard and the Shadows appeared as marionettes in the Gerry Anderson film ''Thunderbirds Are GO''. In the summer of 1963 Cliff and the Shadows appeared for a season in Blackpool, where Cliff had his portrait modelled by Victor Heyfron, M.A.

1964–1975: Changing circumstances

As with the other existing rock acts in Britain, Richard's career was affected by the sudden advent of The Beatles and the Mersey sound in 1963 and 1964. However, his popularity was established enough to allow him to weather the storm and continue to have hits in the charts throughout the 1960s, albeit not at the level that he had enjoyed before. Nor did doors open to him in the U.S. market; he was not considered part of the British Invasion, and despite four Hot 100 hits (including the top 25 "It's All In The Game") between August 1963 and August 1964, the U.S. public had little awareness of him. However, he continued having international hits, including 1967's "The Day I Met Marie", which reached #10 in the UK Singles Chart and #5 in the Australian charts, and is considered a quintessential summer hit, due to its summery nature.

Although baptised as an Anglican, Richard did not appear to practise the faith in his early years. However, in 1964, he became an active Christian and this conversion has become an important aspect of his life. Standing up publicly as a Christian affected his career in several ways. Initially, he believed that he should quit rock 'n roll, feeling he could no longer be the rocker who had been called a "crude exhibitionist" and "too sexy for TV" and a threat to parents' daughters. However, by the time Richard converted, his image had become tamer because of his film roles and well-spoken manners on radio and TV. Richard intended at first to 'reform his ways' and become a teacher, but Christian friends advised him not to abandon his career just because he had become a Christian. Soon after, Cliff Richard re-emerged, performing with Christian groups and recording some Christian material. He still recorded secular songs with the Shadows, but devoted a lot of his time to Christian work, including appearances with the Billy Graham crusades. As time progressed, Richard balanced his faith and work, enabling him to remain one of the most popular singers in Britain as well as one of its best-known Christians. He was a leading figure in the Nationwide Festival of Light during 1971, protesting against the commercial exploitation of sex and violence in Britain, and advocating the teaching of Christ as the key to recovering moral stability in the nation.

Cliff Richard's first serious acting role took place in the 1967 film ''Two a Penny'', released by Billy Graham's World Wide Pictures, in which he played a young man who gets involved in drug dealing while questioning his life after his girlfriend changes her attitude. He released the live album "Cliff in Japan" in 1967.

In 1968 he sang the UK's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest: "Congratulations" by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter; it lost by just one point to Spain's "La La La". According to John Kennedy O'Connor's ''The Eurovision Song Contest—The Official History'', this was the closest result yet in the contest and Richard locked himself in the toilet to avoid the nerves of the voting. In May 2008 a Reuters news report claimed that voting in the competition had been fixed by the Spanish dictator leader, Francisco Franco, to ensure that the Spanish entry won, allowing them to host the contest the following year (1969). In particular, it is claimed that Spanish TVE television executives offered to buy programmes in exchange for votes. The story was widely covered and featured on UK Channel 4 News as a main story, with Jon Snow interviewing author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor about the matter. Eurovision later ended voting by national juries in a bid to eradicate such alleged scams. Nevertheless, "Congratulations" was a huge hit throughout Europe and yet another No. 1 in April 1968.

After the Shadows split in 1968, Richard continued to record. He had already become accustomed to the Shadows' absence, and was able to record in a variety of settings. Although many of his earliest fans regretted that Richard had tried out songs which were not strictly in the rock 'n roll genre, most had got used to his habit of recording rockier material with the Shadows, while producing more middle-of-the-road material at other times; this versatility extended Richard's career prospects. During the 1970s, Richard took part in several television shows and fronted his own show ''It's Cliff Richard!'' from 1970 - 1976. It starred Olivia Newton-John, Hank Marvin and Una Stubbs, and included ''A Song for Europe''. These shows, for a time, branded Cliff Richard as a television personality more than a recording artist. He began 1970 by appearing live on the BBC's review of the sixties music scene, ''Pop Go The Sixties'', which was broadcast across Britain and Europe on 31 December 1969. He performed "Bachelor Boy" with The Shadows and "Congratulations" solo. In 1972, he made a short BBC television comedy film called ''The Case'' with appearances from comedians and his first ever duets with a woman, Olivia Newton-John. He went on to release a double live album "Cliff Live in Japan 1972" featuring Newton-John.

In 1973 he starred in the film ''Take Me High'', his final acting role on the silver screen.

In 1973 he sang the British Eurovision entry "Power to All Our Friends"; the song finished third, close behind Luxembourg's "Tu Te Reconnaîtras" and Spain's "Eres Tú". This time, Richard took Valium in order to overcome his nerves and his manager was almost unable to wake him for the performance. Richard also hosted the BBC's qualifying heat for the Eurovision Song Contest, ''A Song for Europe'', in 1970, 1971 and 1972 as part of his BBCTV variety series. He presented the Eurovision Song Contest Previews for the BBC in 1971 and 1972.

In 1975 he released the single "Honky-Tonk Angel" produced by Hank Marvin and John Farrar, oblivious to its connotations or hidden meanings. As soon as Richard was notified that a honky-tonk angel was Southern U.S. slang for a prostitute, Richard ordered EMI to withdraw it. He refused to promote it despite making a video for it. EMI agreed to his demand despite positive sales. About 1,000 copies are known to exist on vinyl. Subsequently Richard was harassed by the British media about this single and in particular this apparent career 'anti-Christian' faux-pas. Thereafter all of Richard's songs on any format were double checked by his management for any conflict with his faith.

1976–1994: Comeback

In 1976 the decision was made to repackage Cliff Richard as a "rock" artist. That year he produced the landmark album ''I'm Nearly Famous'', which included the successful but controversial guitar-driven track "Devil Woman" (Richard's first true hit in the United States) and the ballad "Miss You Nights". Richard's fans were excited about this revival of a performer who had been a part of British rock from its early days. Many music names such as Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, and Elton John were seen sporting ''I'm Nearly Famous'' badges, pleased that their boyhood idol was getting back into the heavier rock in which he had begun his career. In the same year Richard became the first occidental artist to tour the USSR at the height of the Cold War.

Notwithstanding this, Richard continued to release Gospel-tinged albums in parallel with his rock and pop albums, for example: ''Small Corners'' from 1978 contained the single "Yes He Lives". Despite his 1976 comeback, this single failed to chart in the United Kingdom. In 1980, the singer would legally change his name by deed poll from Harry Webb to Cliff Richard. On 31 December 1976, he performed his latest single "Hey, Mr. Dream Maker" on BBC1's ''A Jubilee Of Music'', celebrating British pop music for Queen Elizabeth II's impending Silver Jubilee.

In 1979, Richard teamed up with the producer Bruce Welch for the pop hit single "We Don't Talk Anymore", written by Alan Tarney, which hit #1 in the UK and #7 in the U.S. Bryan Ferry added hummed backing vocals to the song. The record gave Richard the distinction of becoming the first act to reach the Hot 100 in the 1980s who had also reached the Hot 100 in each of the three previous decades. The song was quickly added onto the end of his latest album ''Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile''. It was his first time at the top of the UK singles chart in over ten years, and the song would become his biggest-selling single ever. The accompanying music video was the sixth to appear on American cable channel MTV when it debuted on 1 August 1981.

In 1980 Richard received the O.B.E. from the Queen for services to music and charity.

At long last he had some extended success in the United States following "Devil Woman". The follow-up "Dreamin'" also reached the top ten, peaking at #10. His 1980 duet "Suddenly" with Olivia Newton-John, from the film ''Xanadu'', was a Top 20 hit in America, peaking at #20. Richard continued with a string of top ten albums, including ''I'm No Hero'', ''Wired for Sound'', ''Now You See Me, Now You Don't'', and, marking his 25th year in show business, ''Silver''. The singles chart also saw his most consistent period of top twenty hits since the mid 1960s, with three of them on the Hot 100 at the same time at the end of 1980. His 1985 single "She's So Beautiful" reached No. 17 in the UK. 1987 saw Richard record his ''Always Guaranteed'' album, which became his best selling album of all new material. It contained the two top ten hit singles "My Pretty One" and "Some People". Richard concluded his thirtieth year in music by reaching number one on the British singles chart with "Mistletoe and Wine", while simultaneously holding the number one positions on the album and video charts with the compilation ''Private Collection'' summing up his biggest hits from 1979-1988. "Mistletoe and Wine" was his biggest seller to that point.

In 1986, Richard teamed up with The Young Ones to re-record his smash hit "Living Doll" for the charity Comic Relief. Along with the song, the recording contained comedy dialogue between Richard and The Young Ones. The release went to No. 1. That same year he opened in the West End as a rock musician called upon to defend Earth in a trial set in the Andromeda Galaxy in the multi-media Dave Clark musical ''Time''. Two Richard singles, "She's So Beautiful" and "Born To Rock 'n Roll", were released respectively in 1985 and 1986 from the concept album recorded for ''Time''.

In 1989 Richard received the Brits highest award The Outstanding Achievement award.

Further top ten albums included ''Stronger'' in 1989, which included the UK No. 2 hit "Best Of Me", and UK No. 3 "Just Don't Have The Heart" written and produced by Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman, and ''From a Distance'' in 1990. Later that year, Richard scored his second UK Christmas No. 1 single with "Saviour's Day". Richard unsuccessfully bid for the Christmas No. 1 spot again with "We Should Be Together" and "Healing Love" in 1991 and 1993 respectively – the latter being taken from his No. 1 studio album ''Cliff Richard – The Album''. The next few years saw Richard concentrate on bringing the musical ''Heathcliff'' to the stage. The production was a resounding success, but the time it took seemed to take a toll on his reinvigorated chart status. Back in the UK during the next years and throughout the 1980s, Richard remained one of the best-known music artists in the country. In the space of a few years he worked with Elton John, Mark Knopfler, Julian Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Stevie Wonder, Phil Everly, Janet Jackson, Sheila Walsh, and Van Morrison. Richard also reunited with Olivia Newton-John. In 1989, he filled the Wembley Stadium for a few nights with a spectacular titled "The Event". Meanwhile, The Shadows later re-formed (and again split). They recorded on their own, but also reunited with Richard in 1978, 1984, and 1989–90 for some concerts. On 14 June 2004 Cliff Richard joined the Shadows on-stage at the London Palladium. The Shadows had decided to re-form for one final tour of the UK, with this concert heralded as their final ever concert as "Cliff and the Shadows."

1995: Knighthood

Cliff Richard was knighted on 25 October 1995, the first rock star to be so honoured (Bob Geldof had received his honorary knighthood a full nine years earlier, but not being a British subject, he is not permitted to use the title 'Sir', whether in the UK or abroad). Richard was knighted ahead of Paul McCartney (1997), Elton John (1998), Mick Jagger and Tom Jones.

1996–2007

In 1996 he famously led the Wimbledon Centre Court crowd in singing during a rain delay when asked by Wimbledon officials to entertain the crowd. Richard was not aware this performance was being televised by the BBC and after singing six of his golden greats, TV presenter Des Lynam commented on this and added jokingly "we'll probably get one hell of a bill".

In 1998, Richard demonstrated that radio stations were refusing to play his music by releasing his latest single "Can't Keep This Feeling In" on a white label under the pseudonym of Blacknight. The single was well regarded and featured on playlists until the true artist was revealed.

In 1999, controversy again arose regarding radio stations refusing to play his releases when EMI, Richard's label since 1958, refused to release his latest song, "Millennium Prayer". Richard took it to an independent label, Papillon, which released the charity recording (in aid of Children's Promise). The single went on to top the UK chart for three weeks, becoming his fourteenth No. 1 and the third-highest-selling single of his career. Richard's next album, in 2001, was a covers project, ''Wanted,'' followed by another top ten album, ''Cliff at Christmas.'' The holiday album contained both new and older recordings, including the single "Santa's List", which reached No. 5 in 2003.

For his seven day long 60th birthday party Richard in conjunction with OK magazine hired a cruise boat to Monte Carlo and sailed with his top 80 (out of a possible 500) specially invited guests, mostly from British showbiz, to France. Notable attendees were Olivia Newton-John, Shirley Bassey, Sue Barker, Gloria Hunniford, Tim Rice, Mike Read, Bobby Davro(a Cliff Richard impersonator), Richard's three sisters, etc. Notable non-attendees were all the members of The Shadows, except Bruce Welch, all of whom would have been shortlisted on Richard's original list of 500 guests.

Cliff Richard finished number 56 in the 2002 100 Greatest Britons list, sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public.

Richard decamped to Nashville, Tennessee for his next album project in 2004, employing a writers' conclave to give him the pick of all new songs for the album ''Something's Goin' On''. Though the collection was critically well-received, it had disappointing sales. Nevertheless it was yet another top ten album, and produced three top fifteen singles: "Something's Goin' On", "I Cannot Give You My Love", with Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, and the lively "What Car". Richard did not hide his disappointment with the album's lacklustre sales, and it was speculated that it might have been his last ever album of original songs.

''Two's Company'', an album of duets released in 2006, was another top 10 success and included newly recorded material with Brian May, Dionne Warwick, Anne Murray, Barry Gibb and Daniel O'Donnell, plus some previously recorded duets with artists such as Phil Everly, Elton John and Olivia Newton-John. ''Two's Company'' was released to coincide with the UK leg of his latest world tour, "Here and Now", which included a number of lesser known but fan-favourite songs such as "My Kinda Life", "How Did She Get Here", "Hey Mr. Dream Maker", "For Life", "A Matter Of Moments", "When The Girl In Your Arms", "Every Face Tells A Story", "Peace In Our Time" and the Christmas single "21st Century Christmas", which debuted at No. 2 on the UK singles chart.

Richard's mother, Dorothy Webb, suffered from dementia. In a September 2006 interview with the ''Daily Mail'', he spoke about the difficulties he and his sisters had in dealing with their mother's condition. On 18 October 2007 a statement on the star's website read, "We are sad to report that Cliff's mother, Dorothy, passed away early on 17 October; she was 87."

Another compilation album, ''Love... The Album'' was released on 12 November 2007. Like ''Two's Company'' before it, this album includes both previously released material and newly recorded songs, namely "Waiting For A Girl Like You", "When You Say Nothing At All", "All Out Of Love", "If You're Not the One" and "When I Need You" (the last was released as a single, reaching number 38; the album peaked at number 13). The concept of the project has divided fans who anticipate an album of new material.

2008: 50th anniversary

2008, Richard's 50th year in music, saw the release of the 8 CD box set ''And They Said It Wouldn't Last (My 50 Years In Music)''. In September, a single celebrating his 50 years in pop music, titled "Thank You for a Lifetime" was released. On 14 September 2008 it reached No. 3 on the UK music charts. On 2 November 2008, British newspaper ''The Mail on Sunday'' gave away a free promotional CD entitled ''50th Anniversary'' containing 12 tracks picked by Richard himself. On 11 November 2008, Cliff Richard's official website announced that 20 years after their latest concert together, Cliff and The Shadows would reunite to celebrate their 50th anniversary in the music business. A month later they performed at the Royal Variety Performance. In 2009 Cliff and The Shadows brought their partnership to an end with the "Golden Anniversary concert tour of the UK".

2009: Reunion

A new album by Cliff Richard and the Shadows was released in September 2009. Titled ''Reunited'', It was their first studio project in forty years. The 28 tracks recorded comprise 25 re-recordings of their earlier classics, with three "new" tracks, originally from that era (and earlier), the single "Singing the Blues", along with Eddie Cochran's "C'mon Everybody" and the Frankie Ford hit "Sea Cruise". The tracks are to be spread across the single and its bonus tracks, a limited edition version of the album, as well as a standard CD release. The album charted at number 6 in the UK charts in its opening week and peaked at number 4. The reunion tour continued into Europe in 2010. In June 2009 it was reported by Sound Kitchen Studios in Nashville that Cliff was to return there shortly to record a new album of original recordings of jazz songs. He was to record fourteen tracks in a week.

2010–present

Richard performed "Congratulations" at the 70th birthday celebrations of Queen Margrethe II in Denmark on 13 April 2010.

In October 2010 Cliff Richard celebrated his 70th birthday. To mark the occasion Richard performed a series of six concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Over 30,000 tickets for the concerts went on sale on 7 March and sold out within a few hours. To accompany the concerts a new album of cover versions of swing standards, ''Bold as Brass'', was released on 11 October.

His official 70th birthday party was held on the 23rd October with guests including Cilla Black, Elaine Paige and Daniel O'Donnell.

After a quick week of promotion Cliff flew out to rehearse for the German Night Of The Proms concerts in Belgium at the end of October. Cliff made a surprise appearance at the Antwerp, Belgium concert of the Night Of The Proms on Thursday, 28 October 2010. He sang We Don't Talk Anymore to a great reaction from the surprised 20,000 fans at Sportpaleis Antwerp.

Cliff will tour 12 German cities during November/December 2010 during the Night Of The Proms concerts as the headline act. The total of 18 concerts will be attended by over 300,000 fans. Cliff will perform a selection of hits and also some new tracks from his new album Bold As Brass.

The first two performances were in Köln at the Lanxess Arena where audiences totalled 50,000.

In Munich Cliff added his hand prints to the Munich Olympic Walk Of Stars during a break when the concerts were held there.

With the DVD release of Bold As Brass in November 2010 Cliff achieved his 3rd consecutive number 1 music DVD in three years. It has so far achieved a total of 8 weeks in the top 10 on the UK chart selling nearly 60,000 copies. It also charted in New Zealand, and Denmark in the top 10 and in Holland in the top 20. Selling a further 10,000 copies.

Lack of commercial support

Cliff Richard openly complains about the lack of commercial support he receives from radio stations and record labels. He spoke about this on ''The Alan Titchmarsh Show'' on ITV in December 2007, pointing out that while new bands needed airplay for promotion and sales, long-established artists like himself also relied upon airplay for the same ends. He did note, however, that so-called eighties radio stations did play his records and that this went some way to help sales and maintain his media presence. In the recent BBC Radio 2 documentary "Cliff – Take Another Look", he pointed out that many documentaries charting the history of British music (e.g. ''I'm in a Rock 'n' Roll Band!'') fail to even mention him (or The Shadows).

Cliff Richard's protracted chart success undermines radio stations' claims that he does not enjoy the support of their target audiences. Richard believes he is "the most radical rock star there has ever been". Richard's premise is that his decision not to adopt the "sex, drugs and alcohol" image expected of rock stars, then and now, was the truly avant-garde choice.

Career achievements

Richard holds many records for the number of concerts held at various venues around the world. In the UK he holds the record for most performances at the Royal Albert Hall, with over 80 performances at the venue with audiences reaching 450,000. He also holds the record for most shows at Wembley Arena, where he has performed at least 66 concerts to audiences of nearly 800,000. In Birmingham, Richard has performed at least 56 shows at the NIA (totalling 620,000 attendees), in addition to over 20 shows at the NEC arena. In Manchester Richard has performed at the MEN arena eight times with over 120,000 fans attending the shows. He appeared twice at Wembley Stadium in 1989 in celebration of his 30th year in music; over 144,000 fans attended the sold-out shows. Richard has also performed hundreds of times in Australia and New Zealand in cities including Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland, audience members totalling hundreds of thousands.

Personal life

Richard's father, Roger Webb, died in 1961, and his mother Dorothy died in 2007.

Richard is a lifelong bachelor. In a letter written in October 1961 to "his first serious girlfriend", Australian dancer Delia Wicks, and made public in April 2010 after her death from cancer, Richard writes: "Being a pop singer I have to give up one priceless thing – the right to any lasting relationship with any special girl." The pair had been dating for 18 months. In the letter he goes on to say: "I couldn't give up my career, besides the fact that my mother and sisters, since my father's death, rely on me completely. (...) I have showbiz in my blood now and I would be lost without it." He has said that he once considered marriage to the dancer Jackie Irving and later to the former tennis player Sue Barker.

In 1979, Richard was one of approximately 30,000 people gathering at London's Trafalgar Square to protest against the Swedish sex education film ''Kärlekens Språk'', which was showing at a nearby cinema.

Richard currently lives with a former Roman Catholic priest, John McElynn, whom he met in 2001 while doing charity work in the United States; McElynn has been described as Richard's property manager and looks after the properties whilst Richard is away. Richard describes McElynn as a close friend and companion, and Richard declines discussion about their relationship: "what business is it of anyone else’s what any of us are as individuals? I don’t think my fans would care either way." Asked about rumours in the media about his being homosexual, Richard has said: "I am sick to death of the media’s speculation about it."

Richard has called on the Church of England to affirm people's commitment in same-sex marriage. In his autobiography he states that "... many of my friends are gay – let's face it, homosexuality has been legal for more than thirty years. For me, the commitment is what counts – and I'll leave the judging to God."

According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2010, Richard is worth £50m. As well as owning various houses and apartments around the world, Richard has become joint owner of the Arora International Hotel in Manchester, which opened in June 2004. He also owns a Quinta in the Algarve, Portugal, where he is involved in the production of wines at the Adega do Cantor (“Winery of the Singer”), a state-of-the-art winery in Guia, near Albufeira. In 2006 Cliff Richard received Portugal’s equivalent of a knighthood in recognition of his 40 years of personal and business involvement in that country.

Works and achievements

Discography

Awards

;Brit Awards

1977 – Best British male solo artist during the past 25 years

1982 – Best British male solo artist

1989 – Lifetime achievement: Outstanding contribution to music (excluded The Shadows)

; ''TV Times''

1980 – Most Exciting Male Singer on TV

1987 – Best Male Singer

1989 – Favourite Singer

;''The Sun'' Reader Polls

1970 – Male Pop Personality

1971 – Top Male Pop Personality

1972 – Top Male Pop Personality

;''NME'' Reader Polls

1958 – Best New Disc or TV Singer

1959 – UK Male Singer

1959 – Best Single: "Living Doll"

1960 – Best UK Single: "Living Doll"

1961 – UK Male Singer

1962 – UK Male Singer

1963 – UK Male Singer

1963 – Best World Male Singer

1964 – UK Male Singer

1964 – UK Vocal Personality

1965 – UK Male Singer

1966 – UK Male Singer

1966 – UK Vocal Personality

1967 – UK Vocal Personality

1968 – UK Vocal Personality

1969 – British Vocal Personality

1970 – UK Male Singer

1970 – UK Vocal Personality

1970 – World's Best Recording Artist of the 60s

1971 – UK Male Singer

1971 – British Vocal Personality

1972 – UK Male Singer

1972 – British Vocal Personality

;Ivor Novello

1968 – Most Performed Work: "Congratulations" by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter

1970 – Outstanding Services to Music

;''Melody Maker''

1959 – Best Male Singer

1960 – Top British Male Singer

1962 – The Emen Award – Top male singer

1962 – Top British Male Singer

1962 – Top single of the year: "The Young Ones"

1963 – Best Male Singer

1964 – Best Male Singer

1965 – Best UK Male Singer

1967 – Top Male Singer

;''Disc & Music Echo''

1967 – Best-Dressed Male

1968 – Best-Dressed Male

1969 – Best-Dressed Male

1970 – Top British Male Singer

1970 – Best-Dressed Male

1970 – Mr. Valentine

1971 – Mr. Valentine

;''Bravo'' Magazine (Germany)

1964 – Best Male Singer – Gold

1964 – Year End Singles Charts – 1. "Sag 'no' Zu Ihm" ("Don't talk to him")

1965 – Best Male Singer – Gold

1980 – Top International Male Singer

;''Record Mirror''

1961 – ''Record Mirror'' Survey – Most successful chart records 1958–1961 – No 1: Cliff Richard, "Living Doll" (Cliff had three of the top five records and a further two in the Top 50)

1964 – ''Record Mirror'' Poll – Best-Dressed Singer in the World

;1960s

1961 – Royal Variety Club – Show Business Personality

1961 – ''Weekend'' Magazine – Star of Stars

1962 – ''Motion Picture Herald'' Box-Office Survey Of 1962 – Most Popular Male Film Actor

1963 – ''Motion Picture Herald'' Box-Office Survey Of 1963 – Most Popular Male Film Actor

1963 – ''16'' (US Magazine) – Most Promising Singer

1964 – ''Billboard'' (US Magazine) – Best Recording Artist UK

1969 – ''Valentine'' Magazine – Mr Valentine

;1970s

1970 – National Viewers' and Listeners' Association – Outstanding Contribution to Religious Broadcasting and Light Entertainment

1971 – ''Record Mirror'' – UK Male Singer

1974 – Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy Committee – Silver Clef – Outstanding Services to the Music Industry

1977 – The Songwriter's Guild Of Great Britain – Golden Badge Award

1979 – ''Music Week'' – Special Award for 21 years as successful recording artistes – Cliff Richard and The Shadows

1979 – EMI Records – Gold Clock and Gold Key award – EMI celebrates 21-year partnership with Cliff

;1980s

1980 – Cliff receives O.B.E. from The Queen

1980 – BBC TV Multi-Coloured Swap Shop – Best UK Male Vocalist

1980 – National Pop And Rock Awards – Best Family Entertainer

1980 – Nationwide, in conjunction with Radio 1 and the ''Daily Mirror'' – Best Family Entertainer

1981 – ''Sunday Telegraph'' Readers Poll – Top Pop Star

1981 – ''Daily Mirror'' Readers Award – Outstanding Music Personality Of The Year

1989 – The Lifetime Achievement Diamond Award (Antwerp)

;1990s 1992 – Spectacle Wearer Of The Year

1995 – American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers – Pied Piper Award (Cliff became the first British recipient of Ascap's coveted Pied Piper Award, which recognises outstanding contributions to the songwriter and music community)

1995 – The formal investiture of Cliff Richard as Knight Bachelor took place at 10.30 a.m. in Buckingham Palace on Wednesday 25 October

1998 – Dutch Edison – Lifetime Achievement Award

;2000s

2000 – South Bank Awards – Outstanding Achievement Award

2003 – British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors – Gold Badge of merit

2003 – Lawn Tennis Association – 20 Years of Service to Tennis Award

2004 – Induction into UK Music Hall of Fame (representing the 1950s – Cliff and The Shadows)

2004 – Ultimate Pop Star (No. 1 singles recording artist in UK)

2005 – Avenue of Stars (star on the pavement, London)

2005 – Rose D'or Music Festival (Paris) – Golden Rose

2006 – Portuguese Ordem do Infante Dom Henrique - Order of Prince Henry (awarded for services to Portugal)

Tours and concerts

Filmography

Film

''Serious Charge'' (1959)

''Expresso Bongo'' (1960)

''The Young Ones'' (1961) (aka ''It's Wonderful to be Young'')

''Summer Holiday'' (1963)

''Wonderful Life'' (aka ''Swingers' Paradise'', 1964)

''Finders Keepers'' (1966)

''Rhythm 'n Greens'' (B-movie) (guest appearance: CR plays "King Canute")

''Thunderbirds Are GO'' (as puppet-marionettes)

''Two a Penny'' (1969)

''His land'' (1970)

''The Case'' (1972) (features Olivia Newton-John)

''Take Me High'' (1973)

TV series

1960: ''The Cliff Richard Show'' (ATV Television)

1961: ''Cliff'' (ATV Television)

1963: ''The Cliff Richard Show'' (ATV Television)

1964: ''Cliff'' (ATV Television)

1965: ''Cliff and the Shadows'' (ATV Television)

1967: ''Cliff'' (ATV Television)

1970: ''Cliff Richard Show'' featuring Marvin, Welch, Farrar, Olivia Newton-John and Una Stubbs (BBC Television)

1971: ''Cliff Richard Show'' featuring Marvin, Welch, Farrar, Olivia Newton-John and Una Stubbs (BBC Television)

1972: ''Cliff Richard Show'' featuring Marvin, Welch, Farrar, Olivia Newton-John and Una Stubbs (BBC Television)

1975: ''It's Cliff and Friends'' (BBC Television)

1976: ''It's Cliff and Friends'' (BBC Television)

Other TV Shows

! Air Date	! Episode	! Viewers	! Channel
1971	Getaway with Cliff	5,200,000	BBC
1972	The Case	5,000,000	BBC
1999	An Audience With Sir Cliff Richard	11,000,000	ITV
2001	The Hits I Missed	6,500,000	ITV
2008	When Piers Met Sir Cliff	5,500,000	ITV

Stage musicals

''Aladdin'' – music by The Shadows and Norrie Paramor

''Cinderella'' – music by The Shadows and Norrie Paramor

''Time'' – music by Dave Clark

''Heathcliff'' – music by John Farrar and lyrics by Sir Tim Rice

See also

Best selling music artists

List of celebrities who own wineries and vineyards

Further reading

The Cliff Richard Story by George Tremlett, Futura Publications Limited, London, 1975, ISBN 0-8600-7232-0

The Complete Recording Sessions, 1958–90, by Peter Lewry and Nigel Goodall. ISBN 978-0-7137-2242-0.

Which One's Cliff?, by Cliff Richard Coronet ISBN 0-340-27159-0.

You, Me and Jesus, by Cliff Richard with Bill Latham, pub: Hodder & Stoughton, London.

The Biography, by Steve Turner. ISBN 978-0-7459-5279-6.

The Bachelor Boy, by S.Turner. ISBN 978-1-84442-037-7.

The Story of the Shadows, by Mike Read. 1983. Elm Tree books. ISBN 0-241-10861-6.

The Complete Rock Family Rock Trees, by Pete Frame. Omnibus. ISBN 0-7119-6879-9.

Guinness World Records: British Hit Singles and Albums (19th Edn), David Roberts. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.

The Complete Book of the British Charts Singles and Albums, by Neil Warwick, Jon Kutner & Tony Brown, 3rd Edn. ISBN 978-1-84449-058-5.

Jet Harris — Survivor, by Dave Nicolson, ISBN 978-0-9562679-0-0, 31 October 2009.

References

External links

Cliff Richard's official website

Cliff Richard Songs site

bfi.org.uk - Cliff Richard on film (bfi database)

Category:1940 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century actors Category:BRIT Award winners Category:British Eurovision Song Contest entrants Category:British performers of Christian music Category:Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 1968 Category:Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 1973 Category:Converts to Christianity Category:English businesspeople Category:English child singers Category:English Christians Category:English evangelicals Category:English film actors Category:English-language singers Category:English male singers Category:English pop musicians Category:English pop singers Category:English television actors Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:People from Cheshunt Category:People from Lucknow Category:Silver Clef Awards winners Category:The Shadows Category:Rocket Records artists

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name	Una Stubbs
birth date	May 01, 1937
birth place	Hinckley, England
occupation	ActressDancer (former)
years active	1956–present
spouse	(divorced) (divorced) }}

Una Stubbs (born 1 May 1937) is an English actress and former dancer who has appeared extensively on British television and in the theatre, and less frequently in films. She is particularly known for her roles in the sitcom ''Till Death Us Do Part'' and Aunt Sally in the children's series ''Worzel Gummidge''.

Film and television

Una Stubbs was born at Hinckley, Leicestershire. She first appeared on television as one of The Dougie Squires Dancers on the British television music show ''Cool for Cats'' in 1956. She also worked in cabaret, clubs and revues in London during these years and was one of Lionel Blair's dance ensemble.

Her first major screen role was in Cliff Richard's 1963 film, ''Summer Holiday''. She also appeared in Richard's next film, ''Wonderful Life'' (1964). A few years later, she made her breakthrough in television comedy, playing Rita, the married daughter of Alf Garnett in the controversial BBC sitcom ''Till Death Us Do Part'' (1966–75). She also appeared in the short-lived sitcom ''Till Death...'' (1981), again playing Rita. She played Rita a third time in a few episodes of the BBC sitcom ''In Sickness and in Health'' (1985–92). From 1970-1972, Stubbs teamed again with Cliff Richard to appear each week on his BBC1 TV Series, ''It's Cliff Richard!''. When she was absent from the show due to her pregnancy, her TV 'mother', Dandy Nichols from ''Till Death...'', appeared in her place on several editions.

Stubbs featured in the ''Fawlty Towers'' episode "The Anniversary" in 1979. From 1979 to 1981, Stubbs played Aunt Sally in the ITV children's series ''Worzel Gummidge'' opposite Jon Pertwee and Barbara Windsor and was for several years a team captain in the weekly game show ''Give Us a Clue'' in the 1980s, reuniting her with Lionel Blair, the other team captain.

She has appeared in shows such as ''Midsomer Murders'', ''Heartbeat'', ''Casualty'', ''Keeping Up Appearances'', ''Born and Bred'' and ''The Worst Witch''. In recent years, Stubbs has also appeared in Victoria Wood's ''We'd Quite Like To Apologise'', ''The Catherine Tate Show'', ''Agatha Christie's Marple'', ''EastEnders'', ''Benidorm'' and ''Sherlock''

Stubbs appeared on the West End stage in Noël Coward's ''Star Quality'' with Penelope Keith in 2001 and Fredrich Schiller's ''Don Carlos'' with Derek Jacobi in 2005. In recent years she has appeared in ''La Cage Aux Folles'' at the Menier Chocolate Factory, ''Pygmalion'' at the Theatre Royal, Bath and Old Vic and ''The Family Reunion'' by T.S Elliot at the Donmar Warehouse.

Indie grumblers Half Man Half Biscuit refer to Una in their song God Gave Us Life, from the album Back in the DHSS.

Personal life

Stubbs was married to the actor Peter Gilmore from 1958 to 1969: they adopted a son, Jason. After their divorce in 1969, she married actor Nicky Henson. They divorced in 1975 but remain good friends. She and Henson had two children: composer Christian Henson (born 25 December 1971), and musician-composer Joe Henson (born 18 September 1973).

For many years, Stubbs has sketched vignettes of characters around London, and has held exhibitions of these near her Mayfair home.

Television shows and films

''Only the entries for 1963, 1964, 1965 and 2009 are theatrical films''

''Summer Holiday'' (1963) as Sandy

''The Bargee'' (1964) as Bridesmaid

''Wonderful Life'' (1964) as Barbara

''Three Hats for Lisa'' (1965)

''Mister Ten Per Cent'' (1967)

''Till Death Us Do Part'' as Rita (28 episodes, 1966–1974)

''Till Death Us Do Part'' (1969) as Rita

''Fawlty Towers'' (1979) as Alice (in the episode ''The Anniversary'')

''Worzel Gummidge'' as Aunt Sally (21 episodes, 1979–1981)

''Till Death...'' as Rita (6 episodes, 1981)

''In Sickness and in Health'' as Rita (9 episodes, 1985–1986)

''Worzel Gummidge Down Under'' as Aunt Sally (11 episodes, 1987–1989)

''The Worst Witch'' as Miss Bat (25 episodes, 1998–2000)

''The Catherine Tate Show'' as Carole-Ann & Ursula (2 episodes, 2005)

''EastEnders'' as Caroline Bishop (6 episodes, 2006)

''Mist: The Tale of a Sheepdog Puppy'' as Fern (23 episodes, 2007–2009)

''Benidorm'' guesting as Diana Weedon (Season 3 Episode 5, 2009)

''Ingenious'' (2009) as Gransha

''Sherlock'' as Mrs Hudson (3 episodes, 2010)

References

External links

Category:1937 births Category:Living people Category:English film actors Category:English television actors Category:People from Hinckley

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