George Michael is around the age of my mum, so it’s entirely plausible that in the 1970s they rode the same buses and trains in and around Stanmore. George, the mop-haired shy kid, was one of the most popular vocalists in the world of his time, certainly between 1984 and 1990. He wasn’t competing with Madonna or Prince or Michael Jackson, although his record labels would have said so; he wanted to be Stevie Wonder, a Capital-A artist, or Elton John.
He would have turned 60 on June 25, an occasion marked in 2023 by several TV documentaries with a focus on 40 years of his first band Wham! Andrew Ridgeley and Shirlie Kemp have both popped up to talk about their friend. This hour-long celebration of ‘Yog’, as Andrew called him, includes recollection from both his friends as well as his own words, interspersed with material from his days in Wham! and his four solo albums of original material, as well as George’s interpretations of pop standards.
Will Last Christmas be as deathless as White Christmas? Will we still be doing the jitterbug (click click) and hitting that high in 2084?
