R&B Bridgez: Celebrating Musical Legend Billy Ocean
Today Billy Ocean Celebrates His 75th Birthday.
Singer and songwriter Billy Ocean is celebrating his 75th Birthday today and R&B Bridgez is celebrating the hit-maker!
Billy Ocean is a Grammy award winning artist with sales of more than 30 million records worldwide.
Billy Ocean hit the #1 spot, across three continents in the 1970s and 1980s.
His signature hit, “Caribbean Queen” stormed to #1 on both the US and R&B charts, and is one of Billy‘s six Top 10 singles.
With Top 10 albums the world over, Billy was the most popular British R&B singer/songwriter of the early to mid-80s and reached the #1 slot in the US with three of his singles.
Born Leslie Sebastian Charles in Fyzabad, Trinidad on January 21st, 1950.
He later changed his name, Billy stated to an industry trade; “I got the Ocean from Ocean’s Eleven, which was a football team back in Trinidad. And they took the name from a film called “Ocean’s Eleven” with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. And Billy just seemed to fit the bill!”
Billy moved to England with his parents in the mid-50’s and finished school there.
Billy settled in London’s East End when just seven years old.
The calypso crazy kid soon got turned on to soul singers like Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, as well as pop groups like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, leading him to spend much of his study time in the music room.
His jobs during and after his school days ran from making mattresses in a local factory, to gardening for the factory owner, carpentry, working at the Ford car plant and tailoring.
He worked the night shift at Ford so he could concentrate on his musical ambitions during the day and planned on falling back on his tailoring if his music career didn’t work out.
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 #2 in the UK charts and #12 in the US.
Two top 20 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 #1 single “Caribbean Queen.”
“Some records you can do only in English because it has that sort of aura about it that you don’t have to change the language, and I think that Caribbean Queen was one of them,” Billy Ocean stated to Billboard.
In 1985, Billy Ocean won the Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for his worldwide hit, “Caribbean Queen“, and in 1987 was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male Artist.
“Caribbean Queen” was followed by “Loverboy,” and “Suddenly,” which became the first of Billy’s killer ballads.
The album from which the 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 Get Going,” the theme song to the Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner/Danny Devito movie “Jewel of the Nile.”
Billy then launched the classic “Love Zone” album, which went straight to #2 in the UK charts, staying in the top 40 for six months. In the US, there was a #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 #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.
The University of Westminster, London, awarded Billy Ocean an honorary doctorate of music in 2002.
Billy decided in 2007 to get back out to perform his hits again, this time with his daughter Cherie on backing vocals, with live dates in the UK, Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and the Caribbean.
The tour was a great success and culminated in his getting the bug once more for writing and recording.
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 #17 and sold 72,000 copies in 4 weeks.
Billy Ocean was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the MOBO Awards in 2010. On July 29th, 2011 – Billy Ocean became a Companion of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, presented to him by Paul McCartney.
2012 found him going back into the studio with his old friend Barry Eastmond, to record tracks that became the album “Here You Are” which was released in 2016 entering the charts at #4. His highest charting position since 1988.
2017 saw the “Here You Are” album released in the US. The year was another fantastic one for him; playing shows in Dubai, USA, Canada, Spain, Mozambique, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg.
In 2018 Billy played a sell-out The Royal Albert, which he felt was a real landmark.
Billy Ocean celebrated the “Suddenly” 40th Anniversary last year, on a new Ocean colored vinyl.
“It has been 40 years since we released the ‘Suddenly’ album. I’m getting goosebumps going down memory lane! I had the time of my life writing and recording this album. I still have fond memories of the excitement of recording at Unique Studios in New York.
It was almost like being tested, I remember how terrible the weather was. But I was determined that nothing was going to stop me. I’ve been on quite a journey since, and I want to thank all of my fans for embracing these songs and allowing me the honour to still be performing them for you all these years later.,” stated Billy.
Take A Trip Down Memory Lane With The Hits of Billy Ocean on His 75th Birthday!
