Working With Paul Young

Paul Young in the 80s

For much of the 80's Paul Young rivaled Simply Red's Mick Hucknail as the top blue-eyed soul/pop singer in the U.K. In the U.S, Young was known primarily for his song "Everytime You Go Away", but was able to sustain his commercial success in the U.K. for much of the decade.

In 1990 Paul Young did a remake of the Chi-Lites hit "Oh Girl". Oren Waters, Kevin Dorsey and myself were called in to sing the backgrounds on this song which became Paul's single. This cover of "Oh Girl" peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Peter Wolf produced this project and Oren, Kevin and I also sang background on quite a few other songs for the project as well.

Because of the popularity of "Oh Girl" Paul was asked to perform the song on The Tonight Show.  Paul asked if Oren, Kevin and myself could do the show with him, which we did.

The next time our paths crossed was when I was called in for the film, "Friend Green Tomatoes" which I BLOGGED about a while ago. Paul had recorded a re-make of "What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted" and we sang backgrounds on the song which was also used for the film.

After we recorded the song for the film our paths never crossed again. It seems that Paul had moved back to the U.K. and was doing work there.

We met Paul a few years after his huge success with "Everytime You Go Away", this song hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1985.

Paul Young Today

 Paul was always nice to work with, of course he had a strong British accent which stood out. Our paths crossed for just a few short projects, but again it was nice to play a small part of someone else's career.

I enjoyed working with Paul Young.

Until Next Time - Phillip