Chris De Burgh (part I)

BIOGRAPHY

Taken from the official Chris De Burgh website

CHRIS DE BURGH CAREER OVERVIEW
Few artists can lay claim to international success spanning three decades but, beginning with his very first release, Chris de Burgh has achieved precisely that.

The foundations for a remarkable and durable career were laid back in 1975 with the release of Chris’s debut album, ‘Far Beyond These Castle Walls’, featuring a single, ‘Flying’, which spent 17 weeks at No. 1 in Brazil.

Subsequent records, almost in turn, continued to steadily draw in audiences around the world; Scandinavia was early to embrace the vivid story-telling that is Chris’s unique talent, South Africa quickly tuned in to his power as a live performer, North America even demanded its own specially compiled ‘greatest hits’ collection, ‘Best Moves’. In the United States, meanwhile, relentless touring with his management stablemates Supertramp was beginning to establish Chris as a gritty, charismatic stage presence.

Indeed, by 1980, Chris’s global profile had already mushroomed to the point where that year’s album, ‘Eastern Wind’, became one of the biggest-selling albums of all time in Norway. A year later, its follow-up, ‘Man On The Line’, was a Top 30 album in the UK, the US and 20 other countries, while producing the single ‘High On Emotion’, which went to No. 1 in ten European countries.

In many respects, it was this album that opened the door to the enormous success which was to follow and scale new heights with the arrival of Chris’s 1986 album ‘Into The Light’. Chris, by his own estimation, had shrewdly perceived this record to be one which could place him fully centre stage as an artist and, indeed, it featured the song which finally established him as a known singer-songwriter around the world. ‘The Lady In Red’, now undeniably an evergreen classic, achieved No. 1 status in 25 countries, including the UK, went to No. 2 in America – and has now sold in excess of 8 million copies. To this day, it remains one of the most played songs on the planet; in America alone, it has subsequently been the recipient of six annual ASCAP (Association of Composers and Publishers) Awards, presented to acknowledge the track as one of the Top 20 most played records in the United States in a period of 12 months.
By now, Chris’s stature had reached true superstar status in many territories – particularly in Germany, where his sell-out tours were grossing more than any other artist on the road.

Come 1990, Chris’s German popularity was such that he was the only international artist personally invited by then Chancellor Kohl to perform at the historic public celebrations marking the re-unification of East and West Germany. This momentous privilege immediately followed sell-out tours of Australia and Japan.

In the intervening years, and on the eve of the Millennium, Chris continued to add new audiences to his vast fan base – from Moscow to Malta, from Singapore to Sarajevo – and, always, to find and embrace new challenges for himself as a musician and a performer. Specifically, his 1995 album, ‘Beautiful Dreams’, realised a long-held ambition to have his music (both new material and selected highlights from his previous repertoire) recorded in a classical style – with a full, 32-piece orchestra.
Not only did this album breathe new life into Chris artistically, but it also enabled him to embark on a series of open-air shows in some of the UK’s finest palaces and stately homes.

His 1999 album ‘Quiet Revolution’ featured a band for the first time since his ‘This Way Up’ LP, five years earlier. Road-tested as players via tours of Germany, South Africa, the Eastern Bloc, Middle East and South East Asia, a solid line-up of musicians once again invigorated Chris’s approach to making music in a group scenario, a philosophy still very much in evidence on his next studio album, ‘Timing Is Everything’, released in 2002.

In every sense, the record was a current statement of Chris’s craft, easily placing all of the several trademarks he had made his own – vivid story-telling, powerful anthems and heartfelt ballads – against an undeniably contemporary backdrop.

“It was a modern-sounding record, within the parameter of me as a songwriter, because I write in the classic vein. I’m writing in that old-fashioned way, but I think we brought a very new and dynamic sound to it.”

Musically and lyrically, his 16th studio album moved with the times, but on his terms; as always, Chris was content to pursue his own, personal and unique path. It has proven to be the successful route to longevity which, across three decades, has won him a devoted, worldwide following.

All eleven new songs presented on the album were instantly in tune with this international acclaim, reputation and credibility. Each was written and recorded with uncommon ease and speed, factors which infected both the vocal performance and the overall mood of the album. “I found that writing the songs was not a grind and a chore; they came out very easily. I felt so good about the album that I actually recorded four or five full, finished, vocals in an afternoon. That’s unheard of for me! Another day I recorded vocals for four other songs; I just thought ‘Well, I’m in the voice for it – why don’t I just do them?’ It was like I was saying ‘There’s no big deal about this…’

“The speed with which we recorded reflected the fun we were having. That was a big part of it all. When making records previously, there had always been that slightly freaky thing of saying to myself ‘Today I’m doing a lead vocal’. In the past, I have been aware of the need to get my singing, my vocal performance, absolutely right in the studio – because what is recorded there stays with you forever. It’s like taking a penalty in an important football match; you’ve got to get it right.”

There were, and will be, many interpretations concerning the meaning of ‘The Road To Freedom’, the title given to his 17th album, released in 2004.

For Chris, the album name openly identified his enthusiasm about not only producing an intensely individual record but, also, for choosing to be at liberty to make it available on his own, Ferryman Records, label; having been signed to a major record company for almost 30 years, the time had come to do things on his own. For listeners, the album presented a vibrant and emotionally uplifting journey along a path filled with insight, inspiration and, as ever, colourful imagination. And it did so with a lyrical diversity married perfectly against a musical backdrop of truly international appeal; Spanish, Celtic, North American and Eastern European melodies are instantly apparent.

Equally, it was a record which tackled a wide spread of subject matter; the bittersweet life of Queen Elizabeth the First (‘Rose Of England’), a rallying, heartfelt plea for people to make something of their lives (‘Read My Name’), a moving tribute to the late Eva Cassidy (‘Songbird’) and – possibly most intriguingly – a song called ‘Five Past Dreams’, the ‘what happened next?’ follow-up to Chris’s biggest career hit, and one of the most romantic ballads of all time, ‘The Lady In Red’.

Each of the songs, and the other seven original compositions featured on the album, were written with a quite specific aim in mind; the desire within Chris to be able to play them all in the context of solo concert performance, without the need to embellish every track with any accompaniment beyond his guitar or piano. An extensive World Tour, with dates across Europe, the UK and North America, followed to support the album and that intent. ‘The Road To Freedom’ presented an up-beat, positive and hopeful over-view of the world as Chris de Burgh then saw it, viewed in the cinematic proportions which have become one of his unique abilities.

By now recording and releasing albums with more regular frequency than at almost any other point in his career, Chris delivered his next – and most current – studio LP, ‘The Storyman’, in 2006. Its title alone aptly summed up Chris; imaginative story-making has, after all, always been at the very core of his worldwide success.

Whether his lyrical – and musical – themes have tackled love and loss or been set against imaginative backdrops created from the past, present or future, the telling of tales is his special gift.

Across more than three decades by now, Chris’s extensive repertoire of songs has taken his audience on travels through continents, cultures and centuries - in cinematic proportion – and such was the inspiration behind the concept of ‘The Storyman’.

Each one of the songs was accompanied by stories – also written by Chris and printed in the CD booklet – which set the scene and expand upon the lyrics with detail, colour and atmosphere.

In order to win a place on his new album, Chris de Burgh selected the songs he recorded by applying three critical principles: he had to love them, have sung them many times before – and, perhaps most relevantly, they had to have inspired him.

As a result, and by any measure, the 13 ‘covers’ on ‘Footsteps’ represent a deeply personal and candid appraisal by Chris of songs which have influenced and affected the way he has crafted his own particular musical imprint.

There is little doubt that these songs and songwriters provided solid cornerstones for him to build upon. Equally, there is no attempt by Chris to disguise, in his selection, the creative models and ideals he aspired to – and still does.

“Listening to the great songwriters was the inspiration for me to try and become a good songwriter myself,” he readily admits. “I’m talking about the likes of Lennon & McCartney and Bob Dylan; people as good as that just don’t seem to exist any more. I learned my trade, my craft, almost at the feet of the Great Masters. And that is my musical journey. Those songs are my footsteps.”

Two new pieces, ‘First Steps’ and ‘Footsteps’, explain in greater depth his musical journey, his dreams and aspirations, and his sense of achievement from hopeful beginnings to the success of today.
The process of short-listing the songs which potentially ‘qualified’ for inclusion on the album was an involved one.

“There were hundreds and hundreds of titles, which all got narrowed down to the ones I recorded. They are all, in my opinion, great songs – and each one has a resonance with me for a very particular reason.
“When I was growing up in my father’s castle/hotel, I would sing a lot of these songs, to the guests. For example, ‘The Long And Winding Road’, ‘Sealed With A Kiss’, ‘Where Have All The Flowes Gone?’, ‘All Along The Watchtower’...

‘American Pie’, for me, used to be the one that, when I was singing in a restaurant, would make people stop eating and clap along. I still enjoy performing it, to this day. ‘Corinna, Corinna’ is a song I frequently sing in my soundcheck, as I do ‘The Last Thing On My Mind’. ‘Polly Von’, the song by Peter, Paul and Mary, is one that, probably, gave me some indications about writing story songs. ‘Spanish Train’, ‘The Tower’...many of those songs from my early days owe something to ‘Polly Von’.”
Once the songs were chosen, recording them took no time at all, perhaps surprisingly so, given the necessary vocal range; from low notes to high, requiring both subtlety and strength.

“I like to wear a song like I’m wearing a coat and wanted to to fit into each one of these songs,” Chris explains, “and a lot of them are singer’s songs - they really stretch the singer - but we made the album very quickly. It was all recorded live in the studio, with me singing together with the orchestra or together with the band. It took us eight days – and that’s including all of the vocals and all of the backing vocals. All in all, it was a real pleasure, a complete thrill.”

Chris feels that the process of paying homage to his influences may be far from over. “I have to stress that to nail it down to just the songs recorded was extremely difficult. There are so many other great writers; Jackson Browne and Paul Simon, to name but two. However, I didn’t believe that certain songs would work on this record. So I might come back with longer footsteps, another time...”

And so the ever-changing musical journey that has been Chris’s career continues to evolve, adapt and develop. It’s all light years away from the 12th Century Irish castle (converted into a hotel by his parents) where Chris first performed to guests and, certainly, more than the young man who gained a degree in French and English at Trinity College, Dublin, could ever have dreamed for.

But, at the end of the day, the facts speak for themselves; a career encompassing 17 studio albums, approaching 3,000 concerts worldwide, plaudits and landmarks too numerous to mention – with LP sales in excess of 45 million…and counting

DISCOGRAPHY

Studio albums
Footsteps
The Storyman
The Road To Freedom
Timing Is Everything
Quiet Revolution
Beautiful Dreams
This Way Up
The Power Of Ten
Flying Colours
Into The Light
Man On The Line
The Getaway
Eastern Wind
Crusader
At The End Of A Perfect Day
Spanish Train And Other Stories
Far Beyond These Castle Walls

Live albums
Chris de Burgh Live
Live In Dortmund
The River Sessions
High On Emotion -Live From Dublin
Live In South Africa

Compilation albums
The Best Of Chris de Burgh (Green Series)
Now And Then(incl. 1 new track)
Colour Collection
Silver Collection
Much More Than This(incl. 18 rare und unreleased tracks)
GOLD (Canada)
The Very Best Of Chris de Burgh (Netherlands)
High On Emotion (Germany)
The Ultimate Collection
The Chris de Burgh Collection
20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection (USA)
20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection (Canada)
Chris de Burgh Gold (South Africa)
Missing You: The Collection (UK)
Star Boulevard (Germany)
Megastar (Germany)
Notes From Planet Earth (incl. 1 new track)
The Ultimate Collection
The Collection (UK)
The Lady In Red - The Very Best Of
The Love Songs (incl. 3 new tracks)
Spark To A Flame - The Very Best Of (incl. 2 new tracks)
The Very Best Of (Telstar)
Best Moves(incl. 2 new tracks)

Vinyl LPs
This Way Up
The Power Of Ten
High On Emotion - Live From Dublin
Spark To A Flame
Flying Colours
Into The Light
The Very Best Of (Telstar)
Man On The Line
The Getaway
Best Moves
Eastern Wind
Live In South Africa
Crusader
At The End Of A Perfect Day
Lonely Sky And Other Stories
Spanish Train And Other Stories
Far Beyond These Castle Walls

Other albums on which Chris de Burgh appears
The Reel Burt Bacharach
The Power Of Peace
Glory Of Gershwin
Jetzt - by Vicky Leandros
Friends Forevermore - The Aravon School Choir
Arthur 2 - On The Rocks
Best Of Pop
Celtic Myst 3
Forgotten Angels
Live For Ireland
Merry Christmas From
Working Girl Soundtrack
Billboard Top Hits 1987
The Power Of Love V
The Night Of The Proms 2001
Men Only
WDR 200
Now! The Christmas Album
Celtic Myst - The Christmas Collection
Celtic Myst 4
Coronation Street - The Official 40th Anniversary
Sound Minds
Bling When You're Mingin'
Comme Ca - by Marie-Elaine Thibert
Bi To Ba To - by Arian
Christmas Stars
50 Jahre Rock! Love Songs
The Very Best Of School Disco.com
Love Bites & School Nites
Worlds Best Mum
Love - The Ultimate Collection
Die Ultimative Chartshow - Rockballaden
Die Ultimative Chartshow - Singer-Songwriter
Ein Kuss Im Kornfeld
Duettino