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Boy George heads for coast as Culture Club confirm Scarborough Open Air Theatre gig

Clubbing together: Culture Club founder members Boy George, Roy Hay and Mikey Craig will perform at Scarborough Open Air Theatre this summer

BOY George and Culture Club are off to the Yorkshire seaside to play Scarborough Open Air Theatre on August 14.

Bexleyheath-born frontman and fashion innovator George O’Dowd, who turns 60 on June 14, will perform alongside original band members Roy Hay and Mikey Craig in a “stunning live band”.

Tickets go on sale for the 8,000-capacity show via scarboroughopenairtheatre.com on Friday (21/5/2021) at 9am.

Since their inception in 1981, Culture Club have sold more than 150 million records worldwide, clocking up such hits as Do You Really Want To Hurt Me, fellow chart topper Karma Chameleon, I’ll Tumble 4 Ya, Time (Clock Of The Heart), Church Of The Poison Mind, Victims, It’s A Miracle, The War Song, Move Away and I Just Wanna Be Loved.

Poster Boy: Boy George fronts the artwork for Culture Club’s August 14 concert at Scarborough Open Air Theatre

In 1984, Culture Club picked up the Grammy Award for Best New Artists and the BRIT Awards for Best British Group and Best British Single.

Boy George’s New Romantic luminaries became the first group since The Beatles to have three top ten hits in the United States from a debut album (1982’s Kissing To Be Clever).

Scarborough Open Air Theatre (OAT) venue programmer Peter Taylor, of promoters Cuffe & Taylor, says: “I’ve wanted to bring Boy George and Culture Club to Scarborough OAT for some time, so I’m delighted we’ve been able to make this happen for this summer.

“George remains one of the most colourful and iconic pop stars in British history, a true music star around the world. Culture Club’s live shows are a true spectacle and this is going to be a really special night.”

For full details of Scarborough OAT’s summer season, go to scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

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‘Blues, jazz, soul and R&B cat’ George Benson moves Leeds gig to June 22 2022

George Benson: Give Me The Night…but now another night in Leeds after his 2021 tour is out back to 2022

AMERICAN jazz, blues and soul guitar virtuoso George Benson is moving this summer’s eight UK shows to June 2022, among them his only Yorkshire gig at Leeds First Direct Arena.

Tickets will remain valid for the new date of June 22 next summer after the ongoing pandemic and present restrictions on indoor events enforced the decision.

Benson, 78, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, will perform his greatest hits with his band, such as Give Me The Night, Lady Love Me (One More Time), Turn Your Love Around, Inside Love, Never Give Up On A Good Thing and In Your Eyes.  

Benson’s latest album, Weekend In London, was recorded at his 2019 performance at the 250-seat Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, almost half a century since he played the London club as the hottest property on the American jazz scene of the early 1970s.

Honoured by the National Endowment of the Arts as a Jazz Master, Benson has won ten Grammy awards: Record of the Year for This Masquerade (1977); Best Pop Instrumental Performance for Breezin’ (1977) and Mornin’ (2007); Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for On Broadway (1979) and Give Me the Night (1981), and Best R&B Instrumental Performance for Theme From Good King Bad (1977) and Off Broadway (1981).

Benson summed up his musical evolution neatly in his 2014 autobiography: “…from blues cat to blues-jazz cat…from blues-jazz cat to jazz cat…from jazz cat to soul-jazz cat…and from soul-jazz cat to R&B-jazz cat.”

Tickets for June 22 2022 are available from ticketline.co.uk or on 0844 888 9991.

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Gregory Porter calls for “All of us rise” on new studio album set for August release

“All Rise,” urges Gregory Porter…from his seated position

AMERICAN jazz singer and songwriter Gregory Porter will release his new album, All Rise, on August 28 on Decca Records/Blue Note Records.

Porter’s last studio album, 2017’s Nat King Cole & Me, was a dedication to his life-long idol, built around cover versions.

All Rise marks a return to the two-time Grammy Award winner’s original song-writing template: his heart-on-sleeve lyrics imbued with everyday philosophy and real-life detail, set to a stirring mix of jazz, soul, blues, gospel, and pop.

“You could say that I went big,” says Porter, 48, of a record produced by Troy Miller that combines the talents of his long-time bandmates, a hand-picked horn section, a ten-strong choir and the London Symphony Orchestra Strings.

“But, quite frankly, the way I write in my head, it all happens with just voice and piano first, and it’s built up from there. It feels good to get back to the rhythms and the styles and the feelings and the way that I like to lay down my own music from start to finish.”

The artwork for Gregory Porter’s August 28 album, All Rise

Sacramento-born Porter has just released his latest single, the suitably soaring Phoenix. “The song is about the undying, irrepressible spirit of love,” he says. “Love can fall, can suffer some great blow, but it can rise from the ashes and keep going.”

Phoenix follows the gospel-infused lead single Revival, the ballad If Love Is Overrated and Gregory’s dedication to his fans, friends and family, Thank You.

As he worked out the album’s direction, he looked inward, upward, and around him, arriving at a raison d’être found in the title, All Rise. “We hear that phrase when presidents or judges come into the room, but I’m thinking ‘all of us rise’, not just one person being exalted,” says Porter, who played York Barbican in October 2014 and Leeds First Direct Arena in April 2018.

“We are all exalted and lifted up by love. This is my political thought and my real truth. It comes from my personality, my mother’s personality, the personality of the blues and of black people. It’s this idea of making do with the scraps, of resurrection and ascension, and of whatever the current situation is, it can get better through love.”

Did you know?

GREGORY Porter won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album for Liquid Spirit in 2014 and Take Me To The Alley in 2017.