Inspired by a 1976 Sex Pistols gig in Manchester, art student Mick Hucknall decided at the age of 15 on a career as a performer, and within a year he was fronting a punk group called The Frantic Elevators. Hucknall managed to persuade several local labels to release Elevators material, but by the time the group wearily split in 1984, their only success had been limited critical acclaim for their final single, "Holding Back the Years".Realizing his powerful voice could yet be his fortune, Hucknall next linked up with manager Elliot Rashman, whose enthusiasm for Hucknall's potential knew no bounds. By early 1985 they had assembled a group of highly proficient musicians and enough decent songs to interest several major record companies, and having adopted the name Simply Red (after Hucknall's nickname, which denoted hair color, football allegiance to Manchester United and political affiliation) they signed to Elektra and began recording and rehearsing. The band's original line up was Hucknall, Tony Bowers (bass), Fritz McIntyre (keyboards), Tim Kellett (brass), Sylvan Richardson (guitar) and Chris Joyce (drums). This was a volatile period in which several musicians who had made contributions to Simply Red's development were dispensed with as success loomed, creating bitterness which in some cases endures to this day and establishing Hucknall's reputation as a ruthless operator.The first single was "Money's Too Tight (To Mention)" (1985, a Top 20 British hit, a cover of Valentine Brothers soul track championed by Hucknall in his days as a DJ. Its energy and Hucknall's blistering vocal established Simply Red as a name to watch.A run of flops was halted a year later when "Holding Back the Years", a smoky reworking of the old Frantic Elevators song, soared to #2 in Great Britain and later #1 in the United States of America. Suddenly Simply Red were stars, and their debut album Picture Book (1985), an underachiever when first released, began to fly off shelves the world over. Hucknall's image as a latter-day Oliver Twist, with walking cane, woolly jumper and cloth cap covering an unruly mop of red curls was distinctive enough, but soon seemed inappropriate as the platinum discs poured in.For the second album, Men and Women (1987), a more sober style was adopted, with bowler hats and colorful suits replacing the ragamuffin look. The music has changed too, with the introspection and social commentary of their debut replaced by a bold, funky, soul groove. It was at this point that Hucknall became a target for the tabloid press, who pounced on the suggestive lyrics to the hit single, "The Right Thing", threw in a few lurid tales of his womanizing, and began to portray the singer as a lecherous loudmouth. Despite the bad press, and a roasting from the critics, Men and Women sold well enough to keep the band's momentum going.Before starting work on the third album, Hucknall made a decision to put together an album of quality music aimed at a mass audience rather than continue the fruitless pursuit of credibility. On A New Flame (1989) the Simply Red sound became smoother and classier, perfectly illustrated by the cover of Harold Melvin's "If You Don't Know My By Now", which became their second US #1 hit and one of the worldwide biggest singles of the year. After that kind of success, there was no turning back. Hucknall began to be photographed with some of the world's most beautiful women and courted by Hollywood celebrities, and Simply Red found themselves firmly in the superstar bracket.By 1991, Hucknall was declaring himself a European citizen and finally admitting that Simply Red was essentially a solo project. He also produced the sharpest, most articulate songs of his career on Stars (1991), an album on which Hucknall perfected the art of dressing political lyrics in such a way as to avoid alienating his huge, mainly apolitical, audience. (The smoochy ballad "Wonderland", for example, di
