George Michael — Free listening, videos, concerts, stats and photos at Last.fm 90s George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou on June 25, 1963 in East Finchley, London, England died on December 25, 2016 in Goring Oxfordshire, England) was an English pop musician of English/Greek Cypriot ancestry. Michael began his career by forming a band called The Executive together with his best friend Andrew Ridgeley , a fellow pupil at Bushey Meads School, though it did not survive for long. It wasn't until he formed the duo Wham!

, working together again with Ridgeley, in… read more George Michael - Biography - IMDb George Michael Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (39) | Personal Quotes (34) Overview (5) 6' (1.83 m) Mini Bio (1) George Michael was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou in Finchley, north London, in the United Kingdom, to Lesley Angold (Harrison), a dancer, and Kyriacos Panayiotou, a restaurateur. His father was a Greek Cypriot, and his mother was of English background. He first discovered fame as a musician when he and school friend, Andrew Ridgeley , formed the pop group Wham! . Success came fast and furious with their first album, 'Fantastic' (1983) hitting the UK number one spot. Wham! survived for five years and during that time the group notched up four number one singles and two number one albums. Most of their other releases made top three.

George also contributed to the Band Aid Single 'Do They Know It's Christmas' (1984), and scored two further solo number one hits with 'Careless Whisper' and 'A Different Corner'. Following the break-up of Wham! , George went on to have a hugely successful career as a solo artist, his debut album 'Faith' (1987) - and the single of the same name - both achieving instant and international success. The album has since been certified Diamond. Over the last four decades George has notched up 8 number one albums in the and 13 number one singles in the UK (including Wham! , Band Aid , and the 'Five Live' EP). In the U.S. he has achieved 2 number one albums and 10 number one singles, with numerous other number one hits throughout the rest of the world. He has performed duets with artists including Aretha Franklin , Elton John , Queen , and Lisa Stansfield , and actively participates in charitable causes, Live Aid and the Freddie Mercury concert for AIDS being just two of the more prominent examples. According to a BBC documentary, George donated more than five million pounds towards various charities.

Whilst with Wham!, he donated all the proceeds of 'Last Christmas' (1984) to charity. The single reached number two in the UK and George also performed simultaneously on the number one charity record 'Do They Know It's Christmas?'. George released the single 'December Song' in 2008 as a free download: his hope was that purchasers would donate money to charity. He remained in contact with his Wham! partner and long-time friend Andrew Ridgeley until his death in 2016. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous Trade Mark (1) Powerful, smooth and soulful voice Trivia (39) He was arrested in April 1998 at a public restroom in Beverly Hills for committing a lewd act in front of an undercover police officer. As a result, for the first time he spoke publicly about being gay. BBC talk show host Michael Parkinson dedicated an episode of his Parkinson (1971) series to an interview with him. Michael also wrote and released the song "Outside", which had lyrics and a music video mocking the whole incident. The arresting police officer filed a civil suit against Michael for defamation of character, but it was dismissed.

He enjoyed four UK number one singles with Wham: "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" (1984), "Freedom" (1984), "I'm Your Man" (1985) and "The Edge of Heaven" (1986). His song "Father Figure" was sampled for PM Dawn 's hit "Looking Through Patient Eyes". He collaborated with Queen and Lisa Stansfield on the British chart-topping "Five Live" (EP) of 1993. The first three singles of George Michael's solo career all went to the number one position on the UK chart: "Careless Whisper" (1984), "A Different Corner" (1986) and "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" (1987). The latter was a duet with Aretha Franklin . His song with Wham! , "Last Christmas", is the best selling UK hit never to get to number one, reaching the number two position in December 1984, being re-issued and reaching the number six position the next December and being re-issued again and reaching the number 45 position in December 1986.

It spent a total of 24 weeks on the UK chart. He sang on the number one and number two Christmas singles of 1984, Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and Wham! 's "Last Christmas". He was a big fan of This Morning (1988) and, on the final episode of the series, he phoned the presenters, Richard and Judy, to thank them live on air and to wish them the best. He has contributed two songs to the "Warchild Hope" album (released 21 April 2003); one is a cover of Don McLean 's "The Grave" and the other is his own classic "Faith" (a duet with Ms Dynamite). His controversial single "Shoot the Dog" (released 2002) had a video that ridiculed Tony Blair , Cherie Blair and George W. Bush . His last performance with Wham! was at Wembley Stadium in June 1986. Played a benefit for striking British miners.

[September 1984] He wrote his smash hit single "Careless Whisper" when he was just 17, on a Thursday afternoon in Bushey. He waited until he was 21 before he released it as his first solo single. The song reached number one in more than 25 countries and sold in excess of six million copies. His father, Kyriacos Panayiotou, was a Greek Cypriot restaurant owner, who emigrated to the U.K. from Cyprus in the 1950s. His mother, Lesley Angold (Harrison), was of English background, the daughter of George James Harrison and Daisy Angold Young. He and Andrew Ridgeley wrote "Careless Whisper" on the back of a bus during their school days. He provided backing vocals on Andrew Ridgeley 's album "Son Of Albert" on tracks "Red Dress" & "Shake". These were the only two songs to do well on the charts. His 1990 solo hit "Freedom 90" from the CD "Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1" was so titled to avoid confusion with his previous Wham! hit "Freedom".

He wrote many of his songs while working at a movie theater as a teenager. He was reported to have sold over 100 million albums upon his death in 2016 when his sales with Wham! and as a solo artist were combined. In the Independent on Sunday 2006 Pink List - a list of the most influential gay men and women - he came no. 25, down from 22. He had an estimated fortune of £105 million upon his death in 2016. He won several Brit (British Phonographic Industry) Awards during his career. He was the winner (as part of Wham! ) of the British Phonographic Industry Award for British Group in 1985. Wham! then shared the Outstanding Contribution award with Elton John in 1986. He was the winner of the award for British Male Solo Artist in 1988 following the success of his multi-million selling album "Faith". His album "Listen Without Prejudice Vol.1" won the 1991 Brit Award for British Album.

He was also the winner of the 1997 Brit Award for British Male Solo Artist following the success of his album "Older". He announced his retirement in February 2004, but began a new European tour in September 2006, his first tour in fifteen years. His debut solo album "Faith" has sold more than 20 million copies since its release in 1987. He was paid £1.7 million to perform for an hour at Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin's New Year's party on 31 December 2006. His partner Anselmo Feleppa, whom he met in 1991, died from an AIDS-related brain haemorrhage in 1993. He was sentenced to 100 hours community service for driving while unfit. The singer was arrested on 1 October 2006 after being found slumped at the wheel of his Mercedes in the early hours of the morning. He had an antidepressant in his system, as well as cannabis and 16 micro-grams per milliliter of the illegal Class C drug GHB. (9 June 2007).

He was a friend of Spice Girls singer Geri Horner . He was ranked #73 on VH1's 100 Sexiest Artists. A fan of The Beatles , he performed with Paul McCartney at Live 8 (2005). He also bought John Lennon 's Steinway Model Z upright piano for £1.67m in the year 2000, then donated it to Liverpool's Beatles Story museum. In September 2010, while serving a prison sentence for driving under the influence of drugs, Michael received a two-page handwritten letter from McCartney to lift his spirits. In the letter, McCartney said that he empathized with Michael as he himself had spent ten days in prison in Japan in 1980 after being caught with cannabis. He told Michael to keep his chin up and that he would see him when he is released. Apparently, Michael was delighted with the letter and read it over and over again. He wrote, produced and performed the classic song "Last Christmas" when he was just 21 years old. There have been over 395 cover versions of the song by different artists since it was released in 1984.

He had homes in London, in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire (where he died), and Dallas, Texas. He was a close friend of Shirlie Kemp , one of Wham! 's backing singers, and introduced her to her future husband, Martin Kemp , who was the bass player of the popular 1980s band Spandau Ballet . The singer's music video "Freedom" (1989) featured supermodels Linda Evangelista , Naomi Campbell , Christy Turlington , Cindy Crawford and Tatjana Patitz . Curiously, GM appeared nowhere in the video himself. Directed by David Fincher and photographed by Jeff Cronenweth . Many observed the poignancy that he died on Christmas Day, 32 years after he first had a hit with Wham! 's "Last Christmas", a song which has become a Yuletide perennial. Nearly died from pneumonia in December 2011. Claimed his maternal grandmother was Jewish. However this was not actually true. BIOGRAPHY: George Michael Lifetime twitter BIOGRAPHY Born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou to a Greek Cypriot father and a British mother, George grew up in suburban Hertfordshire.

He attended the Bushey Meads School where he became best friends with Andrew Ridgeley. They formed their first band whilst still at school, the short-lived The Executive. Following that they created Wham! in 1981. The duo's pretty-boy looks and catchy lyrics meant they were an instant success with their first singles 'Wham Rap (Enjoy What You Do)' and 'Young Guns (Go For It!)' (1982). Wham!'s debut album, 'Fantastic' (1983), had the hit single 'Club Tropicana' (1983) with the memorable video, shot in Ibiza. Rapidly following was the album 'Make it Big' (1984) with hit singles 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go', 'Careless Whisper', 'Freedom' and 'Everything She Wants'. Wham! toured China in April 1985 and received much media coverage around the world. Their fame was starting to spread. The album 'Music from the Edge of Heaven' (1986), with hit singles 'I'm Your Man' and 'Last Christmas', made Wham! the most successful pop act of the 1980s.

In 1986, after nearly five years of dominating the charts, touring the world and being poster pinup heartthrobs, Wham! decided to part ways. In 1986, they released their farewell single 'The Edge of Heaven' and played to a capacity crowd for their final concert at Wembley Stadium, London. Andrew then settled in Cornwall and George began to pursue a solo career. A year later, George released his debut solo album 'Faith' (1987) to a resoundingly enthusiastic response. It sold over seven million copies and was number one in both the US and the UK. Memorable singles from the album were 'Faith', 'Father Figure', 'Kissing A Fool' and 'I Want Your Sex'. Three years later, the release of the album 'Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1' (1990) was the start of George's dispute with record label Sony. He claimed that the album's poor sales were due to Sony's poor marketing. In 1993, George entered into a court case with Sony over his record contract, which cost him millions and which he eventually lost.

DreamWorks bought George out of his Sony contract and released the more sombre album 'Older' in 1996. The next two albums were the greatest hits compilation 'Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael' (1998) and 'Songs from the Last Century' (1999) which received a lukewarm response from critics. After all the years of privacy regarding his sexual orientation and rumoured relationships with various women, George was finally out of the closet. On 7 April 1998, he exposed himself to an undercover policeman in a Beverly Hills park toilet, was arrested for lewd behaviour, fined $180 and given 80 hours of community service. In a rebellious retort, George released a video to his single 'Outside' which featured policemen kissing. It became known that George's lover of two years, Brazilian Anselmo Feleppa, had died in 1993 of an AIDS-related brain haemorrhage and the song 'Jesus to a Child' from the 'Older' (1996) album was a tribute to him.

George was also finally able to publicly acknowledge his relationship with Kenny Goss from Dallas, Texas, a former cheerleader coach and later an Adidas sports clothing executive. In 2005, the couple opened the Goss Gallery for contemporary art in Dallas. They owned homes in Hollywood and Dallas and had an £8 million mansion in Highgate, North London. In his upfront way, George made political comment on the Tony Blair/George Bush role in the 'War on Terror' in his controversial 2002 song 'Shoot the Dog'. He was involved in several of the Band Aid songs and concerts and spoke out against Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government and its missiles involvement with the US. Following a five-year gap in album releases, the highly anticipated 'Patience' (2004) made number one on the UK charts and number two in Australia. George performed with Paul McCartney, providing harmony for 'Drive My Car', at the 2005 Live 8 concert.

In a drive to re-launch his career, on 21 April 2006 George announced his first solo concert tour in 15 years: a fifty-date '25 Live' concert tour, commemorating 25 years of being in the music business. The album 'Twenty Five', a greatest hits album that included four new tracks, was put together to coincide with the tour. George had admitted to taking medication for depression, including Prozac and smoking cannabis. Recently, he found himself repeatedly caught out by the law. On 26 February 2006, he was arrested for possession of cannabis, cautioned by the police and let go. Then on 15 May 2006, he was found slumped over the steering wheel of his Range Rover, sweating profusely and apparently napping at the traffic lights. A fellow motorist spent almost five minutes knocking on his window before he woke up and weaved off down the road and hit a traffic bollard. Later that month, George attracted police attention once more when he drove into three parked cars in the North London street in which he lives.

In July 2006, UK tabloids printed photographs of George emerging from the bushes of London's Hampstead Heath, apparently having engaged in a sexual act with a man they called a 'pot-bellied, jobless van driver'. George's reply was that he had cruised for gay sex since his early teens and that his current partner, Goss, had no problem with this habit. At 3.22am on 1 October 2006, police found George with a stash of cannabis, slumped semi-conscious in his Mercedes Benz S-Class, causing an obstruction at an intersection in Cricklewood, North West London. They first took him to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead for a check up and then to the Colindale police station, where they booked him for possession of cannabis and released him on bail, pending further inquiries into his fitness to drive. The court date was set for November 2006. He went directly from the police station to Luton airport to fly to Lyon to resume his '25 Live' tour.

In 2010, the singer was making headlines once again for his private life, rather than his musical talent, as he was arrested following an incident in which he drove into the front of Snappy Snaps in Hampstead. Following his arrest, the star was charged with possession of cannabis and driving while being unfit due to either drink or drugs. He pleaded guilty to the offence and was sentenced to eight weeks in prison. He served four weeks in Highpoint Prison, Suffolk, and was released on 11 October 2010. He was also banned from driving for five years and received a fine. Speaking about the incident in an interview with Chris Evans on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, the singer said he was ashamed about his actions. He explained: "This was a hugely shameful thing to have done repeatedly. So karmically I felt like I had a bill to pay. I went to prison, I paid my bill." George has denied that he has a drug problem although he encouraged his partner, Kenny Goss, to be treated at the Arizona clinic for alcohol abuse in June 2004.

His recent, increasingly erratic behaviour and constant run-ins with the police is causing concern in some quarters, even although his concert ticket sales have been phenomenal. With his public image under scrutiny, George is doggedly pursuing his music career. A single with ex-Sugababes singer Mutya called 'This Is Not Real Love' was released in 2006. He is also recorded a new version of the song 'Heal the Pain' with Paul McCartney. He wrote the original as a tribute to McCartney and was honoured that McCartney is singing this version. On 25 December 2008, he released 'December Song', which was available on his website for free, with people downloading the track encouraged to donate money to charity. In 2009, he re-released the single as a contender for Christmas number one. The popularity of the song was boosted by a performance on the 'X-Factor'. In 2010, he performed his first concerts in Australia since 1988, with his first show in Perth on 20 February attracting a crowd of 15,000 fans.

On 2 March 2011, George released a cover of New Order's 'True Faith' (1987) to raise money for Comic Relief. This was followed by a cover of Stevie Wonder's 1972 hit 'You and I' on 25 April 2011 as a wedding present to Prince William and Kate Middleton. The money made from downloads of the song went to the couple's charitable gift fund. On 11 May 2011, George announced the 'Symphonica Tour' in Europe. On the opening night (22 August), he revealed that he had split from Goss two years earlier. In October 2011, George had to cancel a performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London due to a viral infection. His health got worse as he was admitted to a Vienna hospital on 21 November as he was complaining of chest pain. It was revealed that the singer had pneumonia and he cancelled the rest of his tour dates. It was announced on 22 December 2011 that the singer was on the mend and well enough to go home for Christmas.

He released his latest album 'Symphonica' in 2014, it was his 7th number one solo album in the UK. In a career spanning more than twenty years and having sold in excess of 80 million records - as part of Wham! and as a solo artist - George has certainly painted a colourful picture. There is no doubt that the music industry has given recognition for his talent during his prodigious career. Over the years he has amassed numerous accolades including three Ivor Novello Awards, two Grammy Awards and three Brit Awards. About : GeorgeMichael.com About About George Michael – Biography Global superstar George Michael continues his extraordinary career when he releases ‘Symphonica’, his sixth solo album, on March 17. ‘Symphonica’ was recorded during the tour of the same name of 2011 and ‘12 and was co-produced by George himself, alongside the late, legendary Phil Ramone. ’Let Her Down Easy’, the lead single from ‘Symphonica’ is now at radio on and will be released on iTunes/digital platforms on March 17. ‘Let Her Down Easy’ was written and originally performed by Terence Trent D’Arby.

Since he entered our lives in 1982 with the ground-breaking slice of exuberance that was ‘Wham! Rap (Enjoy What You Do)’, George Michael has become an international artist of the highest order. He has sold well over 100 million albums in a world where Germany’s population is 80 million and the United Kingdom’s is 63 million. He’s topped charts from Austria to Australia. He’s sold-out stadiums from Tokyo to Tampa. He re-defined popular music with his debut solo album, 1987’s ‘Faith’ and has subsequently crafted a substantial, enormously popular body of work. Perhaps, though, the real starting point is Radlett, a commuter town of 60,000 souls, north-west of London, where some scenes of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange were filmed. It’s where young Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (born 25 June 1963) and his loving, tightly bound, part-Greek-Cypriot, part-English family moved from their original North London home.

Like teenagers the world over, George and his best friend, fellow Bushey Meads Comprehensive student Andrew Ridgeley, would dream of pop stardom, of making it big: “I wanted to be loved,” admitted George. “It was an ego satisfaction thing”. Deep down, the pair of dreamers understood that it wasn’t going to happen. These things just didn’t happen. Yet, these things do occasionally happen and as Wham!, the duo would encapsulate the early-’80s. From that first single to their last, 1986’s ‘The Edge Of Heaven/Where Did Your Heart Go’, they sold 25 million records and they departed in a blaze of glory before 72,000 people at Wembley Stadium on June 26 1986, their friendship as strong as it was in the beginning. Wham! never got old and never lost their exclamation mark, but along the way, George won the first of his three Ivor Novello Songwriter Of The Year awards in 1985.

They had two US Number 1 singles and a Number 1 album – titled ‘Make It Big’ to commemorate those Bushey Meads dreams – they became first western band to play China and George began his long but mercifully mostly undocumented commitment to charity work with a performance on Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ and by donating all Wham! royalties from their ‘Last Christmas/Everything She Wants’ single to Ethiopian famine relief. Even when Wham! were in their pomp and George was contributing to his friend and sparring partner Elton John’s ‘Nikita’ and ‘Wrap Her Up’, it was plain that George’s destiny was solo and that his new, more mature songs were too worldly, too adult to fit into the format of a good-time duo. He’d already dipped a toe in solo waters in 1984 with a song he’d written as a 17-year-old (“a very precocious lyric!” he quipped) while riding the number 32 bus home as a teenager. ‘Careless Whisper’ (credited to Wham!

Featuring George Michael in the US) not only introduced one of the great lines in popular music, “guilty feet have got no rhythm”, but showed that there was more to George than the instant joy of ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ and ‘Young Guns (Go For It)’. ‘Careless Whisper’ charged to Number 1 in America and topped the charts in Australia, Canada, France, Holland, Italy, Ireland, South Africa, Switzerland and the UK, amongst others. Just to prove ‘Careless Whisper’ was no fluke, before Wham!’s final hurrah, George’s second solo single, ‘A Different Corner’ topped the British charts and went Top 10 in the US, Australia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Ireland and Switzerland. As someone once almost said, you didn’t have to be a weatherman to see which way the wind was blowing. His first post-Wham! offering wasn’t even a solo effort.

Instead, hot on the heels of singing alongside Stevie Wonder on a glorious ‘Love’s In Need Of Love Today’ at the world’s leading soul venue, Harlem’s Apollo Theater, George became the first white male vocalist to duet with Aretha Franklin, whom he described as “the best female soul singer in the world”. The magical, life-affirming, Grammy-winning ‘I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)’ swept its way to Number 1 on both sides of the Atlantic, Australia, Ireland and Holland. Then, shortly after George contributed vocals to ex-Shalamar chanteuse Jody Watley’s self-titled album came the iconic, groundbreaking ‘Faith’, which would eventually top charts in the UK, US, Australia, Ireland and Holland before going 10X Platinum in the US and 5X Platinum in the UK. Released in October 1987 and recorded earlier that year at Puk, in Judland, somewhere in the Danish countryside (it was a tax year thing; but George just yearned for home) and Sarm West Studio 2 in West London, it surprised everyone who suspected that for all Wham!’s obvious style and swagger, they might have lacked real depth.

‘Faith’ is the one written (except for his childhood and current friend David Austin’s sterling contribution to ‘Look At Your Hands’), produced and arranged by George himself. It’s the one which stayed atop the American charts for 12 weeks and the one which spawned four of his six number one US singles: ‘Faith’ itself, ‘Father Figure’, ‘One More Try’ and ‘Monkey’. Widely acclaimed as the British ‘Thriller’, ‘Faith’ sold over 10 million copies in the US alone (it’s found its way into almost 25 million homes worldwide), it transformed George Michael from global teen idol to global adult superstar – in the process coining one of his least favourite phrases “doing a George Michael” – and it paved the way for the extraordinary delights to come.

And ‘Faith’ was the album which made the Michael mantelpiece sag with awards: a Grammy for Album Of The Year; three American Music Awards (Favourite Album (Soul/R&B); Favourite Male Vocalist (Soul/R&B) and Favourite Male Vocalist (Pop/Rock)) plus an MTV Award for ‘Father Figure’ (Best Direction) and Ivor Novello Awards for Songwriter Of The Year and International Hit Of The Year. There was storm-in-a-teacup controversy vis-a-vis his ode to monogamy, ‘I Want Your Sex’ (“I expected the BBC to ban it,” George admitted, “I became the antichrist for a couple of weeks”); there was funk in the clattering drug abuse saga ‘Monkey’; there was the horror of spousal battery in ‘Look At Your Hands’ and there was extraordinary beauty in both ‘Father Figure’, the Canadian Number 1 ‘Kissing A Fool’ and the Irish Number 1, ‘One More Try’, which remains George’s pick of an extraordinary bunch. There was even an anti-Margaret Thatcher political aspect to ‘Hand To Mouth’.

Amazing as it seemed then, amazing as it seems now, he was still only 24. Not that he was especially happy in himself: “one of the reasons the record was so successful,” he mused in 2010, “was that people can recognise the loneliness.” The success of the ‘Faith’ album enabled the legendary Faith tour, where George played Wham! and solo material, plus the occasional cover. It encompassed 137 dates in 19 countries from February 1988 to June 1989, was choreographed by Paula Abdul and took in a three-song covers set at the Nelson Mandela Freedom Concert at Wembley Stadium. The magnificent spectacle helped ensure that nobody would sell more records than George in the United States in 1988. “I never met anyone who was a reluctant star,” he admitted, just as enthusiastically as he admitted to his insatiable ambition. The prestigious Best British Male Brit was his and he contributed to both his bassist Deon Estus’s album ‘Spell’ and the mysterious Boogie Box High.

Aside from winning a career-encompassing Video Vanguard award at the MTV Europe Video Music Awards, George took 1989 off, “to sort my head out”. Head sorted, George unveiled his second solo album, the Beatles-influenced ‘Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1’ in September 1990. Oh and the title wasn’t a plea to listen to George without prejudice: he really wasn’t that self-absorbed. The mood was darker and more adult still, but that didn’t stop his British audience from sending it to Number 1 and the Americans to Number 2, behind MC Hammer. No shame there: the voluminously trousered rapper was a fine sprinter, but George was always a marathon runner. The hit singles flowed, a Best Album Brit kept that Michael mantel groaning and the videos featured everything but (in keeping with his desire for peace and privacy), George himself.

So, after George was entranced by a Herb Ritts cover for Vogue, the video to the album’s third single, ‘Freedom ‘90’ (helmed by future Social Network director David Fincher) enlisted models Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Tatiana Patitz. After appearing in the video, the quintet became supermodels, referred to only by their first names. The man may have made the music, but he always insisted that music sold on its own merits and, as if to cement his artistic evolution, he was the subject of an edition of Britain’s most prestigious arts programme, the South Bank Show. In keeping with his desire to do things differently, when George returned to live work in 1991, the Cover To Cover tour was exactly what it promised: a dizzying, cover-heavy romp, which featured Stevie Wonder’s ‘Living For The City’, Adamski’s ‘Killer’, Leonard Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’ and perhaps most notably, Elton John’s ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’.

Recorded on the Faith tour, Elton and George’s ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’ duet was another British, American, French, Dutch and Swiss Number 1. Proceeds went to the Aids hospice London Lighthouse and the Rainbow Trust children’s charity. Soon, another charity, the Red Hot Organisation, enlisted George’s ever-willing assistance. Their ‘Red Hot + Dance’ album was a benefit for the Aids research charity, the Red Hot Foundation, and chiefly featured remixes of songs by artists including Madonna and Lisa Stansfield. George, however, gave the project three brand new songs, including the aptly titled ‘Too Funky’. Ever game, he even appeared in the video, albeit briefly and it was another global top tenner. A debilitating court case with his record label Sony loomed, but he wasn’t finished with live chart toppers or charities.

1993’s ‘Five Live’ EP featured heroic versions of Queen’s ‘Somebody To Love’ (with Queen themselves) from the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, a performance which Queen’s Brian May anointed as the evening’s finest and ‘Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone’, the video of which won an MTV Europe’s International Viewers’ Choice Award. Proceeds went to the Freddie Mercury Phoenix Trust. Later that year, on World Aids Day before an audience including the Princess Of Wales, George headlined the Concert Of Hope at Wembley Arena. George re-emerged in November 1994, at the MTV European Music Awards in Berlin, with the stunning ‘Jesus To A Child’, his first self-penned song in three years. Despite its seven-minute, radio-unfriendly length, it was yet another British Number 1 (as it was in Australia, Ireland and Norway) and yet another US Top tenner. His absence had only made the public’s hearts grow fonder.

In January 1995, ‘Careless Whisper’ was voted London’s favourite record of all time and George himself as Best Male Singer by listeners of Capitol Radio, alongside an Outstanding Contribution To Music Award as he became the most performed artist on British radio. Once George had formally left Sony and signed to Virgin (excluding the US) and DreamWorks (US only), in May 1996 he released ‘Older’, the third George Michael album. “It’s my first completely honest album,” he explained of what at the time (i.e. pre Spice Girls) was the Virgin label’s fastest seller. Musically adventurous and lyrically brave, it spawned a record six British Top 3 singles. That year, he would win Best British Male at both the MTV Europe Awards and the BRITs; his third Ivor Novello Songwriter Of The Year Award and he would retain his Capital Radio’s Best Male Singer title. ‘Fastlove’ would win the International Viewers’ Choice Award at the MTV Video Music Awards and ‘Older’ would spend 147 weeks in the British album charts, which, of course, it topped, as it did those in Austria, Australia, Norway, Netherlands and Sweden.

Somehow he found time to record ‘Desafinado (Off Key)’, a duet with the legendary Astrud Gilberto, for the ‘Red Hot + Rio’ charity album. To remind everyone (not least himself) that he could sparkle in a smaller setting as well as a stadium, he played intimate shows for Radio 1 before an audience of just 200 and for MTV in the company of 500 lucky fans. 1997 saw a second Best British Male Brit Award, a reissue of ‘Older’ which included a second disc, ‘Upper’, comprising four remixes, two newish songs and an interactive element. Oh, and there was a Wham! best of, ‘If You Were There’: good, weren’t they? Speaking of best ofs, the following year saw ‘Ladies And Gentlemen, The Best Of George Michael’. Divided into two discs, ‘For The Heart’ and ‘For The Feet’, it was partly a comprehensive career resume and partly a helpful corralling of some non-album gems.

Its three new tracks included ‘Outside’ with its laugh-out-loud video, and a turbo-charged romp through Stevie Wonder’s glorious ‘As’, alongside the ever-splendid Mary J. Blige. The collection went 8X Platinum in Britain, a nation swooned at George’s droll performance on the chat show Parkinson and he topped Capitol FM’s Hall Of Fame for the eighth time, as well as the Norwegian charts. Another year, another curveball. George’s appearance at the NetAid charity show in October 1999 included a version of Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney’s ‘Brother Can You Spare A Dime’. Come December, the depression era classic featured again on ‘Songs From The Last Century’, the George Michael covers album. A labour of love, it comprised George’s takes on some of his favourite songs, including Sting’s ‘Roxanne’, Passengers’ (aka most of U2) ‘Miss Sarajevo’, both of which were singles (George appeared in neither video) plus standards such as ‘Secret Love’ and ‘You’ve Changed’ and a radical re-imagining of Johnny Mathis, Nina Simone and David Bowie’s ‘Wild Is The Wind’.

A low-key treat, it nevertheless went double platinum in the UK and Top 10 in Germany. The new century saw George step back from his relentless schedule. Even so 2000, saw appearances at the Equality Rocks charity show at Washington’s RFK Stadium (then the largest-ever concert in aid of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender awareness) and at Luciano Pavarotti’s Pavarotti And Friends gathering in Modena, where George delivered an extraordinary performance of ‘Brother, Can You Spare A Dime’, which some Italian newspapers declared had saved the day. Indeed, the performance ranks alongside ‘Somebody To Love’ at the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert as being amongst George’s finest. It later appeared on the ‘Pavarotti And Friends For Cambodia And Tibet’ album and the pair also duetted on ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’. All wasn’t quite quiet on the studio recording front: George joined Whitney Houston to re-record her album track, ‘If I Told You That’. 2001 was professionally quiet, but in 2002 George signed to Polydor records.

Soon, he was at Number 1 in Croatia, Denmark, Italy, Portugal and Spain and back in the UK Top 10 with the super-funky ‘Freeek!’, his first self-penned single since 1998’s ‘Outside’. Joseph Kahn’s sci-fi tinged, sexually charged video was a boundary-pushing, sense-tingling feast, which featured George as businessman, scientist, cowboy and leather-clad dog-handler. There was more mischief in the shape of the satirical ‘Shoot The Dog’, which sampled The Human League and, via its animated video, poked fun at George Bush, Tony Blair and David Seaman. Its message, though, could hardly have been more serious: at the time, to the derision of some, George was a lone, brave voice in the wilderness, speaking out against the Iraq war. It turned out he was right all along. 2003 was spent crafting the eagerly-awaited ‘Patience’, but there was still an appearance on the ‘War Child’ charity album (and subsequently on Top Of The Pops), with a sombre version of Don McLean’s anti-war ‘The Grave’.

After eight years – several musical lifetimes – without an album of original material, even diehards wondered if George still had the magic of yore, even though he had re-signed to his label of yore, Sony. They needn’t have worried. The joyful single ‘Amazing’ served notice that another feast was on its way. So it proved and ‘Patience’ hurtled to Number 1 in Britain, Denmark, Germany, Poland and Sweden amongst many others. Having retreated from the American market since ‘Older’, George appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s show, invited her and her crew into his lovely home and performed ‘Amazing’, ‘Father Figure’ and ‘Faith’ for them. The album reached Number 12 there. George was back. He could hardly have been more back. July 2005 saw George performing alongside erstwhile Beatle Paul McCartney at Live 8 on a rip-roaring version of ‘Drive My Car’. Later that summer ‘Blame It On The Sun’ a duet with Ray Charles, appeared on Charles’s posthumous album, ‘Genius And Friends’. 2006 began with George Michael: A Different Story, a documentary directed by Southan Morris.

There were contributions from Boy George, Mariah Carey, Noel Gallagher, Elton John, Andrew Ridgeley and Sting. It took us back to his childhood, back to Wham!, back to ‘Faith’ and looked to the future. Like George, it was honest. Too honest some might say. The man himself? He loved it. ‘Patience’ had everything but an accompanying tour. Once Tony Bennett’s ‘Duets: An American Classic’ album had concluded with ‘How Do You Keep The Music From Playing?,’ a collaboration with George, it was time to put things right with his first tour since 1991’s Cover To Cover jaunt. Starting in Barcelona in September 2006, finishing in Copenhagen in August 2008 and including George’s first American shows in 17 years, two and a half million people in 27 countries saw the universally lauded 25 Live tour at arenas, and stadia. The tour titled as a celebration of George’s 25 years at the musical coalface included the first two gigs at the renovated Wembley Stadium and a much more intimate charity show for British nurses at the Roundhouse in London’s Camden Town.

As George toured, ‘Twenty Five’, a comprehensive compilation was released and its three new songs included a duet with Paul McCartney on ‘Heal The Pain’ from ‘Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1.’. Naturally it was a British Number 1, a global Top 10 hit and there was a 40-song DVD too. If that wasn’t enough, George was also given the rare honour of a second South Bank Show to himself. Once the tour was over, it was time for wings-spreading with guest slots on the British television hits The Catherine Tate Show and Ricky Gervais’s Extras, plus regular appearances in the US sitcom Eli Stone, where each episode was titled after a George song. There was a stirring rendition of ‘Praying For Time’ on that year’s American Idol finale too. The last few weeks of 2008, saw ‘December Song (I Dreamed Of Christmas)’, co-written with old friend David Austin, a Christmas gift via George’s web site and a commercial release a year later. In 2009, the Live In London DVD, filmed at two Earls Court concerts on the 25 Live tour, reached the top of the UK DVD charts.

George also appeared with Beyonce to sing ‘If I Were A Boy’ at London’s 02 Arena and with Joe McElderry on British talent show The X Factor, where the pair duetted on ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’. 2010 undoubtedly had its moments, not least three sell-out dates in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne, George’s first shows in Australia since the Faith tour in 1988. 2011 was a vintage year for George. ‘Faith’ was reissued in January. In March, he took part in Comic Relief and Red Nose Day. An enthusiastic supporter of Comic Relief since he gifted them his royalties from his and Mary J. Blige’s ‘As’ and appeared on a classic Little Britain sketch with Matt Lucas and David Walliams as Lou’n’Andy, in 2011 not only did he take part in a sketch with Gavin & Stacey’s James Corden, but his version of New Order’s ‘True Faith’ was the official Comic Relief single. George didn’t simply cover the song, he re-invented it as a gorgeous, stately ballad and raised thousands for the charity.

Flush with creativity, George kicked off Symphonica: The Orchestral Tour at Prague’s state Opera House on August 22, 2011. The set featured a selection of his own songs and covers alongside an orchestra and included shows all over Europe including the Royal Albert Hall to the delight of fans and critics alike. On November 6, George performed a special Symphonica charity show at London’s Royal Opera House for the Elton John AIDS Foundation’s newly created Elizabeth Taylor Memorial Fund before a star-studded audience including Elton John himself, Kylie Minogue, Rupert Everett, David Walliams, Lara Stone and many more. The evening raised over £987,000 for the charity. Later that month, George was due to play Vienna’s Stadthalle Mere hours before the show, he was hospitalised with a particularly virulent strain of pneumonia. The rest of the tour was postponed on medical advice, but George promised to reschedule the remaining European dates. Nine months later, he would be as good as his word. Before returning to the Symphonica tour, George released a new single ‘White Light’, which celebrated the 30th anniversary of the first Wham! single, ‘Wham Rap!

(Enjoy What You Do)’. In August, George performed ‘White Light’ and ‘Freedom! 90’ at the London Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony. Those rescheduled Symphonica dates were rapturously received, not least the September 9 show in Paris, where George became the first contemporary pop artist to perform at the Palais Garnier Opera House. This special evening was a charity performance in aid of Sidaction, France’s biggest AIDS charity. The momentous occasion was filmed by the production/direction team of David Austin and Caroline True and will air in the rest of the world this Spring. Since the Symphonica tour finished in London in October 2012, George had been doing what he does best: writing, recording and producing. March 17, 2014 saw the release of ‘Symphonica’, an album recorded during the Symphonica tour. The album was produced by George and the late Phil Ramone, who died in March 2013 aged 79.

Ramone had also co-produced ‘Songs From The Last Century’ and, in a career which spanned over half a century, worked with hundreds of artists from Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Billy Joel and Paul McCartney to Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand Karen Carpenter. ‘Symphonica’ is Phil Ramone’s last work.

Question: Who partnered George Michael in the group 'Wham'?
Answer: Andrew Ridgeley