"I've Been
Waiting For So Long, To Come Here Now And Sing This Song...".
So went the opening line of Howard Jones' very first single - New Song
-
released in the early autumn of 1983. Exceeding all expectations,
the
record shot into the UK Top 20 within a month, eventually reaching # 3. It
was just the first of many
landmarks in his career.
1984 was very much Howard's year. January
saw his second single What Is
Love? climb to within a place of the top spot on the UK charts, while
the
debut album Human's Lib entered at No.1 in Britain two months later -
still
a notable achievement at the time. It would clock up in excess of a year
on
the UK best-seller listings, going platinum in the process as well
as
sealing his reputation as a quality songwriter and performer around
the
globe with Human's Lib certified gold in America, Australia, Japan,
Germany
and Italy. Howard enjoyed a total of four Top 15 UK hits during 1984,
plus
a brace of Top 30 singles on the US Billboard Hot 100.
More US popularity would follow in 1985, as
the second album Dream Into
Action spawned a series of hit singles - Things Can Only Get Better,
Look
Mama (both UK Top 10 hits) and Life In One Day. A 1986 re-recording of
No-One Is To Blame with Phil Collins
on drums and backing vocals topped the US charts, and has since been
played more than 2 million times on
American radio.
Howard's third studio album One To One -
produced by the late Arif Mardin - was released in late 1986,
spawning another US Top 20 smash with You Know I Love You..Don't You?, and
a UK Top 40 single All I
Want. There then followed a two-year hiatus, ended with 1989's Cross That
Line album and its #12 Billboard
hit single Everlasting Love. Both albums were accompanied by successful
world tours.
1992's In The Running album continued in
the same vein, as its first single Lift Me Up went Top 10 in the US.
By the time of 1993's retrospective The Best Of Howard Jones, total sales
for all his albums had passed 7
million worldwide.
The Best Of release marked a watershed in
Howard's career. He played the US, Canada and Japan as part of
a one-man synthesizer tour which concluded in early 1994. That same year
Working In The Backroom was
released on his own dtox label, an album only available through the
internet and at live shows.
Early 1996 saw Howard's first-ever Live
album issued in Europe and the USA. Entitled Live Acoustic America,
it was a recording from the Los Angeles date of his Acoustic Tour, which
featured Howard (on grand piano) with
Carol Steele (percussion). The
album was released in Japan a year later. This
was followed by the now legendary one-off concert at The Bloomsbury
Theatre, London in December 1996. A special 15-piece band - dubbed
The
Howard Jones Electric Orchestra - included Pino Palladino on bass, Luis
Jardim on percussion, Howard's bother
Roy Jones on vocals and a string quartet.
All the while he continued to work on new
material for his next studio album, Angels & Lovers, produced
with
Andy Ross and mixed by Bob Clearmountain. The title track was released as
a single in the UK during 1997,
but ultimately Angels & Lovers was only made available in Japan.
Instead, a new version - renamed People -
would appear in July 1998. Howard had subsequently composed and recorded a
further three songs : Tomorrow
Is Now (in collaboration with former Go-Go Jane Wiedlin), Everything
(featuring ex-Police drummer Stuart Copeland),
and Let the People Have Their Say (written shortly after the death of
Diana, Princess Of Wales).
These replaced two of the original tracks
on Angels & Lovers. Having formed an explosive four-piece band
for
another tour of the UK and US that featured Nick Beggs on bass, Robin
Boult on guitar and the late Kevin
Wilkinson on drums, the remainder of 1998 and early 1999 was spent on the
road. A completely re-recorded Let
The People Have Their Say, with a Caribbean flavour replacing the more
traditional synth style of its first
incarnation on the American edition of People, grazed the UK charts in
February 1999 as Howard undertook
extensive promotional duties on TV and radio around Britain...including an
appearance on BBC2's notoriously
irreverent pop-quiz programme
Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
A brand new recording deal with Berlin's
Seven Days Music was struck that May, securing a higher profile in
Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Much of his recent energies have been
concentrated in mainland Europe,
with a series of rapturously-received tours and exclusive single releases.
Many of them, especially a duet with
German artist Juliana Werding called I Remember, are sought-after
collector's items in Britain and America.
Howard was also named Best Comeback Of 1999 at the RSH Gold Awards in Keil,
Northern Germany.
The line-up that performed on the year-long
People live jaunt then convened at Howard's own studio to record
new versions of his classic material, in response to both fans' demands
and also to reflect the musical evolution
of so many old favourites during the tour.
The resulting two albums - titled
Perform.00 and Pefawm - were unleashed in 2000, and marked another
key
moment in Howard's career. Engineered and mixed by Stephen W Tayler, who
was also responsible for the same
duties on Human's Lib and Dream Into Action, Perform.00 was a 14-track CD
with Pefawm the double-album
edition complete with its own unique track sequencing and 6 extra songs.
The latter, like Working In The
Backroom before it, was only released through the internet via the
official howardjones.com and dtox websites.
Both records included a trio of new tracks - most notably Someone You
Need, performed with Duncan Sheik.
A summer festival tour of Belgium and
Germany, playing to crowds of up to 50,000 people at each show, was
followed by a role as musical director of the five-piece group who played
the prestigious Nokia Night Of The
Proms tour that took in Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark and
Switzerland.
Howard also peformed with the band, who
were augmented by a 72-piece orchestra and 50-strong choir. 2001
is shaping up to be another memorable and exciting year, with a brand new
album in the pipeline as well as
the keyboard-playing slot on the latest Ringo Starr's All Starr Band tour
recently confirmed.
