SIMPLY REDfrom East Manchester, had been on
the dole for four years and all of a
sudden I’m standing on a stage with
some of the biggest artists in the
world and it was all a bit of a shock,
to put it mildly.”
Nevertheless, fame did open
doors. For Simply Red’s second
album, 1987’s Men And Women,
Hucknall wrote a couple of songs
with Lamont Dozier; a dream come
true for the young Motown devotee.
“That was just fantastic. I love Lamont.
He’s very different to me in how he
approaches writing in that he’s very
workmanlike. He’ll sit down and
write pretty much every day, just
sitting in front of the piano. Whereas
I just wait until a song comes into my
head. But I feel very honoured to
have written with him. We did four
together – two each for Men And
Women and A New Flame. It was a
great experience.”
A PEAK YOU REACH
In his homeland, Mick’s big album
was Stars, which shifted some nine
million copies worldwide and was
the UK’s best-selling album of both
1991 and 1992, spawning no less
than fi ve hit singles. This was the
band’s commercial peak: it’s no
exaggeration to say that during
those in-between years, post-acid
house but pre-Britpop, Simply Red
were the sound of Middle England.
Mick, though, seems unable to put
his fi nger on why that album, more
than any other, connected with so
many people.
“I don’t know, I think it’s one of
those things with an artist’s career
you build up to that point – The
Beatles built up to Sgt Pepper. Each
artist has their own individual
moment – Van Morrison had it with
Astral Weeks. Each one has this
moment where everything comes
together at the right time and I guess
Stars was that one for me.”
He admits that following it up
wasn’t easy and even though 1995’s
Life included their fi rst (and so far
only) UK No.1 single, Fairground, it
didn’t fare anywhere near as well
commercially. “You just think, ‘Well,
I’m just going to do the best I can’,
and that’s all I’ve ever really done.
We did enjoy success with Life – it
sold a lot of copies, but well, you
know I don’t think ’The White Album’
is as good as Sgt Pepper.
“But I think the one thing that we
have had across the decades is
consistency. Every album we’ve ever
made has gone Top Five and that’s
the thing that stays in my mind more
than anything.” Indeed, even when
the band went independent after
1999’s Love And The Russian Winter,
releasing via their ‘simplyred.com’
label, their core audience still
remained loyal. “We had the
biggest independent album in the