name | Billy Squier |
---|---|
background | solo_singer |
birth name | William Haislip Squier |
born | May 12, 1950Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States |
instrument | Vocals, guitar, keyboards |
genre | Rock, hard rock |
occupation | Musician, Songwriter |
years active | 1968–1993, 1998, 2001, 2006, 2008, 2009 |
label | Capitol |
associated acts | The Bluesbreakers, The Sidewinders, Piper, Magic Terry and the Universe, Kevin Osborn. |
website | http://www.billysquier.com }} |
William Haislip "Billy" Squier (born May 12, 1950) is an American rock musician. Squier had a string of arena rock hits in the 1980s. He is best known for the song "The Stroke" on his 1981 album release Don't Say No. Other hits include "In the Dark", "Rock Me Tonite", "Lonely Is the Night", "My Kinda Lover", "Everybody Wants You", "All Night Long" and "Emotions in Motion".
Squier signed with Capitol Records to release his solo debut in 1980. Tale of the Tape was a minor hit, partly because Squier played a mixture of pop and rock, which earned him a large crossover audience. The song "You Should Be High Love" received a fair amount of play on album rock stations, but no single cracked the pop charts. Years later, the song "The Big Beat" was sampled in rap songs.
Squier asked Brian May of Queen to produce his second album Don't Say No. May declined due to scheduling conflicts, but he recommended instead Reinhold Mack who had produced one of Queen's albums, The Game. Squier agreed, and Mack went on to produce Don't Say No. The album became a smash, with the lead single "The Stroke" becoming a hit all around the world, hitting the Top 20 in the US and topping the singles chart in Australia. "In The Dark" and "My Kinda Lover" were successful follow-up singles. Squier became a monster act on the new MTV cable channel as well as on Album Rock radio, with most tracks on the Don't Say No album receiving airplay. Don't Say No reached the Top 5 and lasted well over two years on Billboard's album chart, eventually selling over 4 million copies in the US alone.
Two years passed before Squier's next album Signs of Life. It was his third consecutive Platinum album. The album's first single release, "Rock Me Tonite" was Squier's biggest Pop hit. It reached #15 on Billboard's Hot 100, as well as #1 on the Album Rock Tracks chart in late 1984. However, the video for the track (directed by Kenny Ortega), which shows Squier dancing around a bedroom in a pink tank top, was named by Video GaGa as one of "The worst videos of all time". On the VH1 show Ultimate Albums (Def Leppard's "Pyromania" episode), Squier blamed the end of his career as a chart-topping rocker on the release of the "Rock Me Tonite" video.
Squier's career took a major downturn afterward and he began playing smaller venues. His next two albums Enough is Enough (1986) and Hear & Now (1989) sold in the neighborhood of 300,000 copies each. Enough is Enough featured another collaboration with Freddie Mercury in the songs "Love Is The Hero" and "Lady With A Tenor Sax".
In 1991, Squier released Creatures of Habit, which yielded only one single, "She Goes Down," which also peaked at #4 on the Mainstream Rock chart. The title of the track refers to oral sex, and the music video is a very rare item, mainly because it features nude females and sexual metaphors throughout.
Squier released his final album with Capitol Records in 1993, Tell the Truth, which featured different sets of musicians performing the various tracks. Squier called it his finest album since Don't Say No, yet Capitol did little to promote it, and Squier walked away from the music business to pursue other endeavors.
On February 17, 1998, during the second run of the play Mercury: The Afterlife and Times of a Rock God - a monodrama about the life of Freddie Mercury - Squier debuted a song that he wrote in memory of his friend titled "I Have Watched You Fly". He introduced the song by saying, "I knew Freddie as a friend. I'm honored to share the stage with him in the afterlife."
In 1998, Squier released his last studio album to date on an independent label, a solo acoustic blues effort entitled Happy Blue. He embarked on a mini-tour to showcase songs from the album, which included a stripped-down acoustic version of his classic rock mega-hit, "The Stroke."
As time passed, his albums went out of print, save Don't Say No and some greatest hits compilations; however, many of these are now being reprinted.
Shout! Factory will release Don't Say No: 30th Anniversary Edition on July 27, 2010, marking the first time that this album as been remastered in over 20 years. It was released in collaboration with Squier, who provided two live bonus cuts from his personal collection.
Squier now lives in New York's Upper West Side. Sampling of "The Big Beat" continues. The late Jam Master Jay's reference to the song as a classic beat in the early days of hip hop has paid great dividends for Squier. The three piece hip hop group performed a track live at The Funhouse entitled "Here We Go", using the song's backbeat. Jay Z's "99 Problems," a massive hit in 2003, is based on that beat, as well as British grime/hip-hop MC Dizzee Rascal's "Fix Up, Look Sharp" and Kanye West's "Addiction".
In 2004 "Everybody Wants You" was remixed with the group Fischerspooner's song "Emerge" and included on the "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" soundtrack.
In 2006, Squier joined Richard Marx, Edgar Winter, Rod Argent, and Sheila E touring with Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band. A documentary of the tour including a full-length concert performance is now available on DVD.
In 2008, Squier joined Colin Hay, Edgar Winter, Gary Wright, Hamish Stuart and Gregg Bissonette touring with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band.
In 2009, Squier launched a nation-wide summer/fall tour with a band that included drummer Nir Z, guitarist Marc Copely, long-time bassist Mark Clarke and keyboard player Alan St. Jon.
Year | Single | Peak chart positions | Album | ||
! width="35" | ! width="35" | ! width="35" | |||
align="left" | 17 | 3 | 7 | ||
align="left" | 35 | 7 | 22 | ||
— | 28 | — | |||
45 | 31 | — | |||
32 | 1 | 26 | |||
68 | 20 | 13 | |||
— | 15 | — | |||
— | 46 | — | |||
1983 | 75 | 44 | — | ||
15 | 1 | 31 | |||
75 | 10 | — | |||
71 | 29 | — | |||
80 | 17 | — | |||
— | 30 | — | |||
58 | 4 | — | |||
— | 20 | — | |||
— | 38 | — | |||
— | 4 | — | |||
— | 37 | — | |||
1993 | — | 15 | — |
Category:1950 births Category:Living people Category:American rock guitarists Category:American rock singer-songwriters Category:Musicians from Massachusetts Category:People from Norfolk County, Massachusetts
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