James Ure OBE (born 10 October 1953) is a Scottish musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. His stage name, Midge, is a phonetic reversal of Jim, the diminutive form of his actual name. Ure enjoyed particular success in the 1970s and 1980s in bands including Slik, Thin Lizzy, Rich Kids and Visage, and as the frontman of Ultravox. In 1984, he co-wrote and produced the charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", which has sold 3.7 million copies in the UK. The song is the second-highest-selling single in UK chart history.[1] Ure co-organised Band Aid, Live Aid and Live 8 with Bob Geldof. He acts as a trustee for the charity and also serves as an ambassador for Save the Children.
Ure is the producer and writer of several other synth-pop and new wave hit singles of the 1980s, including "Fade to Grey" (1980) by Visage and the Ultravox signature songs "Vienna" (1980) and "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" (1984).[2] He achieved his first UK top 10 solo hit in 1982 with "No Regrets". In 1985, his solo debut studio album The Gift reached number two in the UK Albums Chart and yielded the UK Singles Chart number-one single "If I Was". He also co-wrote Phil Lynott's "Yellow Pearl", which served as the theme of Top of the Pops for much of the 1980s.
Career
Early years
Born to a working-class family in Cambuslang (on the outskirts of Glasgow), Ure attended Rutherglen Academy until he was 15 years old. For the first 10 years of his life he lived in a one-bedroom tenement flat in Cambuslang with his brother, sister and parents,[3] later moving to a new house in nearby Eastfield.[4]
After leaving school, Ure attended Motherwell Technical College and then began to work as an engineer, training at the National Engineering Laboratory (NEL) in nearby East Kilbride.[5] He started playing music in a Glasgow band called Stumble (c.1969 – c.1971): the line-up included lead guitarist Alan Wright, Fraser Spiers on harmonica, Kenny Ireland on bass and Alec Baird on drums.
Ure joined Salvation as a guitarist in 1972. The band had been formed in Glasgow in June 1970 by the brothers Kevin (vocals) and Jim McGinlay (bass guitar). Jim McGinlay (born James McGinlay) decided to turn Ure's name backwards to "Mij" (Midge) to avoid any confusion caused by two members of the band having the same first name.[5] Ure has since presented himself in the music scene as Midge Ure.[6] The band performed covers as house band in the Glasgow and Edinburgh Clouds discothèques. The band also comprised Billy McIsaac on keyboards and Kenny Hyslop on drums.
In April 1974, Kevin McGinlay left to pursue a solo career,[6] so Ure assumed vocals in addition to his guitar duties. In November 1974, the band changed its name to Slik, with Bay City Rollers writers Bill Martin and Phil Coulter providing songs. In 1975 Ure turned down an offer to be the lead vocalist of the Sex Pistols, stating that he felt at the time that Malcolm McLaren had "his priorities completely wrong!", a position he later reversed.[7]
Slik achieved a number one single on the UK Singles Chart in February 1976 with "Forever and Ever". In early 1977, Jim McGinlay decided to quit the band, being replaced by Russell Webb. Slik terminated their contract with Martin and Coulter, believing that their boy band image was hindering their chances of success during the rising punk rock scene. They changed their name to PVC2 and adopted a more punkish style. Ure's only release with the band under this name was the single "Put You in the Picture".
Rich Kids
By October 1977, Ure had left PVC2 to join former Sex Pistol bass guitarist Glen Matlock in Rich Kids. He moved to London and soon found himself immersed in a scene he had previously only read about in the pages of the NME.[8] Musical tensions within the band led to Ure's departure. Having acquired a Yamaha CS50 synthesiser, Ure – alongside bandmate Rusty Egan – wanted to integrate the new instrument into the band's sound. With Glen Matlock and Steve New preferring to remain with the traditional guitars and drums approach, the band broke up.
In January 2010, Rich Kids reformed, for one night only, for a benefit concert for guitarist Stella Nova who was fighting terminal cancer (and who died on 24 May 2010).[9] Although it had been over 30 years since they played together, the press reports praised the gig, which included energetic performances of "Ghosts of Princes in Towers" and "Hung on You". Rich Kids were joined onstage by Mick Jones of the Clash and Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet. Ure also played an acoustic set of Ultravox and Visage songs.
In February 2016, it was announced that Rich Kids would reform for a joint headline show with the Professionals at London's O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire.[10]
Visage
In 1978, Egan and Ure formed Visage with lead vocalist Steve Strange, and utilised their new synthesiser when they recorded a cover of the Zager and Evans classic "In the Year 2525" for promotional purposes. The line-up was expanded in 1979 with the addition of Magazine members Dave Formula, John McGeoch and Barry Adamson, and Ultravox keyboardist Billy Currie, and the band signed briefly to Radar Records for the release of their first single "Tar". Egan and Ure also formed the short-lived band the Misfits, whose career was curtailed by an approach from Thin Lizzy. Though Visage's first single was unsuccessful, they signed a recording contract with Polydor Records in 1980; their second single, "Fade to Grey", became a hit.
Thin Lizzy
Ure already knew Thin Lizzy singer Phil Lynott, and in early 1979 Ure received co-writing credit for "Get Out of Here" on Thin Lizzy's ninth studio album Black Rose (1979). In July 1979 Ure stepped in to help Thin Lizzy complete a US tour following guitarist Gary Moore's abrupt departure. Ure also contributed guitar parts to "Things Ain't Working Out" and "Dublin" for the Thin Lizzy remix compilation album The Continuing Saga of the Ageing Orphans (1979). Thin Lizzy then toured America and Japan. In 1980, during the second part of this tour, Ure switched to keyboards, and was replaced by Dave Flett and then Snowy White as guitarist. At the end of the tour Ure left Thin Lizzy and returned to his primary interest at that time, Ultravox. Ure continued to collaborate with Lynott, co-writing Lynott's biggest solo hit, "Yellow Pearl".
Ultravox
In 1979, Ure and Billy Currie formed a close bond playing together in Visage. Rusty Egan persuaded Billy Currie to ask Ure if he was interested in joining a revived Ultravox. Ultravox had been presumed defunct since guitarist Robin Simon quit and lead vocalist John Foxx had left to pursue a solo career. In April 1979 Ure regrouped the band and assumed duties as singer, songwriter, guitarist and second keyboardist. This second incarnation would become the classic line-up, with Currie (keyboards, violin), Chris Cross (bass) and Warren Cann (electronic drums). Although Ure had spent the latter half of 1979 on tour with Thin Lizzy, Ultravox found time late in the year to tour in the US. During this time the band wrote a number of songs which were included on their first studio album with Ure.
The album, Vienna, was recorded in 1980. Although it was the band's fourth studio album, it was the first with Ure, and the first one to chart, although it was only a minor success on first release. However, when the title track "Vienna" was released as a single in early 1981 it became a huge hit and spent four weeks at no. 2 in the UK singles chart and was the 5th highest selling single in the UK that year. The album itself re-entered the album chart and peaked at no. 3. Inspired by the film noir The Third Man (1949), the music video for "Vienna" was directed by Russell Mulcahy[11] utilising cinematic techniques, and became quite influential. In an interview Ure recalled the way that "music video changed after that. All these things that became video clichés – cropping the top and bottom off the screen, shooting on film as opposed to videotape, making it look like a movie ... we were quite a groundbreaking act for a while."[8] The same year that Ultravox released the Vienna album, Visage also released their self-titled debut studio album which made the UK Top 20 and featured the hit single "Fade to Grey" (co-written by Ure and Currie with Chris Payne), also influential in the direction of the New Romantic electropop music scene.[12] For a while between 1979 and 1980, then, Ure was deeply committed to three different bands, all of them quite successful: Ultravox, Visage and Thin Lizzy.
In 1981, Ultravox recorded their second studio album with Ure as frontman, Rage in Eden, which was a Top 5 hit in the UK. After its release Ure and Currie reconvened with Visage to record the band's second studio album, The Anvil. Released in early 1982, it was a Top 10 hit; but Ure left the band soon after its release, citing creative differences with frontman Steve Strange. The same year saw Ultravox record and release their third studio album with Ure, Quartet, with production by Beatles producer George Martin. The album became their third Top 10 hit and featured four Top 20 singles. This period saw Ure work as a producer for other artists, amongst them Steve Harley, Skids, Peter Godwin, and Strasse, and in 1982 Ure released his first solo single, a cover version of the 1968 Tom Rush song "No Regrets" (based on the 1975 hit cover version by the Walker Brothers), which made the UK Top 10. Ure also recorded the Bowie track "The Man Who Sold the World" for the soundtrack to the British comedy film Party Party (1983).
Midge Ure met bassist Mick Karn at the first ever Prince's Trust concert in May 1982. Sir George Martin was the musical director and Pete Townshend of the Who was the band leader. In three days in February 1983 Ure and Karn were at Air Studios in London and recorded the UK top 40 single "After a Fashion". They also travelled to Cairo to film one of the most expensive music videos that Karn would ever be involved in.[13][14]
After the live album Monument released in October 1983, Ultravox released their fourth studio album with Ure, Lament, in April 1984. The album was another Top 10 success and contained the Top 3 hit "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes". The band released The Collection, their first "greatest hits" album at the end of the year, featuring all the singles from 1980 onwards. The album peaked at no. 2 in the UK and was later certified triple platinum.[15]
After Ure's successful debut solo studio album in 1985, the fifth and final Ultravox studio album with Ure, U-Vox, was released in October 1986. Although another Top 10 hit, the album (and singles) fared less well than their earlier releases.[16] After the end of the U-Vox Tour Ure left Ultravox. He stated in an Extreme Voice Fanzine 1991: "The spark kind of went out of it for me, Live Aid and Band Aid had a lot to do with it, I suppose. We had a long break from each other and when we came back together we were all working in different directions".[17]"I think we went out with a kind of whimper but we chose to do that really, we didn't do the all-singing, all-dancing farewell tour cash-in that a load of bands do. I had decided that I was leaving before we did our last European tour, the U-Vox tour. We were in Italy."[18]
Ure and Currie had met in October 2008 and played an acoustic "Vienna" together on Absolute Radio in UK.[19] In April 2009, Ure and the other members (Cann, Currie and Cross) reformed Ultravox for the Return to Eden tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the album Vienna (1980), and in their own words, the "anniversary of their classic line-up". Ure stated in a BBC interview in April 2009, "we are not trying to get our youth back, nor the hair that's fallen off already".[20][21] After appearing at the Isle of Wight Festival 2009 Ultravox followed up the next year with a second round of the tour. In late 2010, Ultravox started working on their sixth studio album fronted by Ure. This album, titled Brilliant, was released in May 2012.[22] Following this release the band embarked on the 'Brilliant Tour' performing shows in the UK and Europe in late 2012. In November 2013, Ultravox were special guests on a four-date arena tour with Simple Minds.
Ure also did backstage photography for Ultravox.[23