'Singing is a bit like being an athlete'

When singer Paul Young came to Bath in 2016, JEFFREY DAVIES caught up with him to talk about the thrill of performing more than 30 years after his debut, as well as his memorable role in Band Aid's global anthem back in 1984.

- JEFFREY DAVIES

AUL Young is an English musician, singer and songwriter. Born in Luton, Bedfordshire, in 1956, he became a pop pinup with enormous success in the 1980s with songs - or anthems - including Everytime You Go Away, which was a massive international hit in 1985.

An actor and composer too, Paul Young's very distinctive voice was the very first to be heard on the 1984 Band Aid charity record, Do They Know It's Christmas [Feed the World].

I interviewed the most welcoming and engaging star before his performance at Komedia in Bath in 2016...

WHEREVER I Lay My Hat, Love of the Common People and Come Back and Stay. Some of the massive hits of erstwhile pop pinup and now much-respected rock legend Paul Young.

Since his rise to prominence with his critically acclaimed 1983 album No Parlez, his 1985 Live Aid appearance, and a string of top 10 hits, Luton-born Paul has been tirelessly performing worldwide and is making a welcome return to the West Country in a special solo show in the intimate setting of Bath's Komedia.

The “exciting performance” gives Paul - now an unbelievable 60 years of age - a chance to perform some of the music from his latest album, Good Thing, alongside his catalogue of classic chart-topping hits which made him into one of the biggest and most-revered icons in popular music history.

More recently, Paul was approached by Take That's singer/ songwriter Gary Barlow to write the soundtrack for the new Eddie the Eagle film, which features Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman, Keith Allen and Christopher Walken.

Barlow enlisted the help of the popular 80s legend to curate an original soundtrack of music influenced by the film The Fly.

So what's in store for Paul's audience of fans and followers this time around? And who, indeed, are his audience now, some thirty-plus years after his heyday as a chart-topping performer and pop-idol?