Billy Ocean
Billy Ocean
Billy Ocean is the biggest black recording star Britain has ever produced, one who has sold over 30 million records in his lifetime to date.
He has collected a pile of Gold and Platinum records across the world and hit the number one spot worldwide in the pop charts including the USA, Australia, Germany, Holland, and the UK. Billy has achieved extraordinary success as both an artist and a songwriter.
Billy got his first break when he signed to GTO records, for whom his second single was the Motown-ish ‘Love Really Hurts Without You’, which reached No. 2 in the UK charts and No. 12 in the US. Two top twenty singles followed; Love on Delivery and Stop Me, then Red Light Spells Danger became a smash in both the UK and the US. Billy changed record labels and his move to Jive Records provided instant success, with the million selling American number one single Caribbean Queen (for which Billy won a Grammy for best R&B Vocal), followed by Loverboy, and Suddenly, which became the first of Billy’s killer ballads. The Album from which these singles came from spent a year in the US Charts selling double platinum (triple in Canada). Billy also performed on the American half of Live Aid, making 1985 a truly incredible year for him.
1986 wasn’t bad either, opening with When the Going gets Tough (the tough gets going), the theme song to the Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner/Danny Devito movie Jewel of the Nile. Billy then launched the Love Zone album, which went straight to No. 2 in the UK charts, staying in the top 40 for six months. In the US, there was a No. 1 single with There’ll be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry). More Hits were to follow with the now classic Get Outta My Dreams; Get Into My Car, giving Billy yet another US No. 1 hit.
Billy proved himself to be one of the most hardworking artists on the live stage, touring the world to ever-growing enthusiastic audiences. After huge worldwide successes and years of touring, Billy decided to take a break to spend some well- earned time at home with his family.
2008 saw Billy back in the studio for the first time in 15 years, recording his new album ‘Because I Love You’ which was released in 2009. In 2010 Billy went back on the road again with his band in the UK, Europe and the US with the release of ‘The Very Best of Billy Ocean’, which entered the UK album charts at number 17 and sold 72,000 copies in 4weeks. He’s been touring ever since!
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Jason Donovan
Jason Donovan
Jason’s debut album ‘Ten Good Reasons’ was the biggest-selling album of 1989 contributing to impressive career sales of 13 million albums and 4 UK No.1 singles. Music was always a constant in Jason’s life, as was his passion for acting and theatre. This combination became a natural transition for what was to become one of his definitive roles – Olivier-nominated portrayal of Joseph in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’ at London’s Palladium. This sell-out 18-month run in 1991 produced a number-one single and best-selling soundtrack album, and is still known for being one of the most successful revivals of all time.
In 2016 Jason embarked on his Ten Good Reason’s tour, his first for 8 years, and played 44 sold-out dates throughout the UK and a plethora of 80s festivals in the UK and Europe over the summer.
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Heather Small
Heather Small
As part of M People, Heather has enjoyed huge success with hits such as ‘Moving On Up’, ‘One Night In Heaven’ and ‘Search For The Hero’. Achieving massive worldwide success, Heather became one of the seminal British voices of the 1990s, with the band winning the Best British Dance Act Award at the Brits in 1994 and 1995, as well as the Mercury Music Prize for Elegant Slumming.
Heather has since had great successes with two solo albums – the title track of her ‘Proud’ album has gone on to become the soundtrack to a whole host of very special events including London’s successful 2012 Olympic bid, the 60th anniversary of VE Day in Trafalgar Square, the launch of Queen Mary 2, the Tsunami Relief Concert, England’s victory at the Rugby World Cup celebrations, and the official ceremony marking the handover of the Olympic Games from Beijing to London.
Heather is a veteran in the live music and touring scene, year on year Heather’s demand has seen her play shows not just in the UK but internationally. Over the last few decades Heather, along with her band have successfully toured the UK performing at over 30 venues per year to sell-out crowds.
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Katrina
Katrina (Formerly of Katrina & The Waves)
In 2001, Katrina began a solo career, performing live in the UK and in Europe and resumed writing and recording. Her first solo album, ‘Katrina Leskanich’ was released in 2005 and Katrina wrote and produced many of the songs on the album including collaborations with Phil Thornalley, (‘Torn’) and an acoustic cover of Kirsty MacColl’s ‘They Don’t Know’.
Having earlier enjoyed huge success with Katrina & The Waves – ‘Walking on Sunshine’ was a worldwide hit earning top ten spots around the globe (No. 8 UK, No.9 US, No.3 Canada, No.4 Australia). Since then, the song has been broadcasted over 2,500,000 times in the U.S. alone and was the highest played track on radio in the summer of 2008 – 23 years after its release.
In 1997 Katrina and the Waves ‘Love Shine a Light’ won the Eurovision Song Contest with the largest ever margin. This was followed by an unprecedented four consecutive appearances on Top of The Pops and a No. 3 in the UK Charts.
Katrina celebrated 25th Anniversary of ‘Walking on Sunshine’ with Katrina and The Waves in 2010, with the release of a new CD, The Live Album, and in 2022 Katrina released the single ‘Holiday’ to celebrate the 25th anniversary of ‘Love Shine A Light’ winning Eurovision.
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Toyah
Toyah
For 42 years Toyah has taken to the stage like no other. She has won numerous awards and nominations for singing, writing, and acting. From punk princess to cult stage actress, Toyah is a uniquely gifted performer and an inextinguishable flame. Charismatic, outspoken and impossible to categorise, she is one of Britain’s beloved household names – an award-winning rock legend as well as a much-loved stage/screen actress and music composer. Toyah has amassed thirteen top 40 singles, recorded twenty-five albums, written two books, appeared in over forty stage plays, acted in over twenty feature films and presented hundreds of television programmes.
The hit singles It’s A Mystery, I Want to Be Free, Brave New World and platinum-selling albums Anthem, and The Changeling, confirmed her status as one of the most significant talents of the 1980s. In 1982 she won the Best Female Singer at the British Rock & Pop Awards (The Brits).
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Sonia
Sonia
Sonia’s debut single ‘You’ll Never Stop Me Loving You’ was released in 1989 and peaked at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart for two weeks. Aged just 18, Sonia became one of the youngest female British singers to ever achieve this in the UK. The single went on to selling a staggering 350,000 copies. Numerous television appearances revealed her bubbly personality and natural enthusiasm endearing her to a large audience. Sonia’s debut album ‘Everybody Knows’, sold half million copies.
All five singles released from the album became top 20 hits in the UK, making Sonia the first British solo female artist to achieve this with the songs Can’t Forget You, Listen To Your Heart, Counting Every Minute, and End of the World. Sonia also sang on the 1989 UK number 1 Christmas single ‘Band Aid II’
Sonia achieved a sixth top 20 hit in the UK in 1990 with “You’ve Got A Friend”, recorded with the group Big Fun, released as a charity single for Childline.
Sonia was invited by the BBC to be the UK representative in the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest and, whilst she was pipped into second place by the Irish, her single ‘Better The Devil You Know’ scored another top 15 hit!
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Pat Sharp
Pat Sharp
Back by popular demand, this will be Pat’s 3rd appearance at Music In The Park!
Pat began his radio career at BBC Radio 1 at just twenty years of age back in 1982. Following a year on air, plus numerous ‘Top of the Pops’ TV appearances, he went on to host mid mornings at 95.8 Capital FM London. Along the way he picked up a gold Sony award whilst also notching up 5 hit singles and raising £300,000 for charity as part of the infamous Stock Aitken Waterman duo ‘Pat & Mick’. He then took his mid-morning slot to #1 again at Heart London.
On TV Pat hosted the now cult rated ITV show ‘Fun House’ for a decade along with other ITV shows including the Saturday morning spectacular What’s Up Doc, 10 Sharp, and The Gala Opening of Euro Disney. Pat was also the pioneer host of Sky Channel’s first pop video shows (Skytrax) shown across Europe in 28 countries via satellite throughout the 80s. Pat appears regularly on Universal’s music channels as the host of Now 70s & 80s.
With more than four decades live TV, radio, hosting and DJ sets experience, Pat still attracts more and more new fans both old and young alike and has tonnes of social media followers!
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Nathan Moore
Nathan Moore
Brother Beyond was signed to EMI records in 1986, but it would take 2 years and four singles for the band to achieve their first hit, the Motown influenced ‘The Harder I Try’. The song became a huge hit peaking at number 2 in the UK charts.
The band’s second single ‘He Ain’t No Competition’ charted at #6, and this was followed by two singles that were written by the band ‘Be My Twin’ #14 and ‘Can You Keep A Secret’ #21. Their album ‘Get Even’ was a top ten hit selling over 400,000 copies in December 1988 in the UK.
Nathan went on to front the Simon Cowell assembled boy band Worlds Apart, after initially joining in 1994 the band went on to achieve huge success in Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Belgium and also France where, in 1997, the band sold 1 million copies of their album Everybody with songs such as ‘Everlasting Love’ and ‘Je Te Donne, Quand Je Reve De Toi’.
Nathan has co-managed acts such as Lisa Scott-Lee, Natasha Bedingfield, James Fox, Haydon Eshun, Phixx, and the Opera singer Keedie, and during this period appeared in TV shows such as Totally Scott-Lee for MTV, and Boys Will Be Girls for channel 4.
We’re delighted to have Nathan join us once again!
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Angie Brown
Angie Brown
Angie is most well known as the featured vocalist on Bizarre Inc’s two hits “I’m Gonna Get You” (1992) and “Took My Love” (1993), and as the featured vocalist on Motiv8’s top ten UK track from 1994, “Rockin’ for Myself”. Before this, she was a member of the group Thrashing Doves (known at that that stage of their career as The Doves), and performed lead vocals on their single “Beaten Up In Love Again”.
Angie has also performed backing vocals for Grace Jones, Beverley Knight, Mark Morrison, The Rolling Stones, The Dirty Strangers, Kate Bush, Chaka Khan, Heaven 17, Neneh Cherry, Lisa Stansfield, Mola Mola, The Stereophonics and Fat Boy Slim.
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Bez (DJ set) & Rowetta (Live)
Bez (DJ Set) & Rowetta (Live)
Bez has teamed up with fellow Happy Monday’s bandmate Rowetta, the sultry vocalist who immortalized ‘Step On,’ to create a nostalgic, generation-spanning party!
“On the Sixth Day God Created Manchester” celebrates all things Manchester – we’re talking doing the disco strut to New Order and The Happy Mondays (of course), we’re talking guitar heroes like Oasis and the Britpop generation, we’re talking prime-time Baggy-era classics like The Charlatans and The Stone Roses. And, we’re talking the club that started it all, The Hacienda, and the countless acid house classics that emerged from one of the most revered rave spaces in the world. That means acid and house classics like ‘Voodoo Ray,’ ‘Pacific State,’ ‘Plastic Dreams’ and ‘Love Can’t Turn Around.’
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Boomin
Boomin
Boomin is an outstanding, live, three-piece Party Rock band. Think Green Day & McFly meets Mick Jagger!
Formed in 2006, Boomin take ordinary songs, mix them, mash them and create something way beyond conventional. They take the recognisable and spin it into the unexpected with interjections of classic rock into modern chart without so much of an iota’s thinking time. Their performance is audacious, outrageous, contagious, and salacious, but why shouldn’t it be? The boys do it better than anyone else currently on the scene and they are absolutely in a league of their own!
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