Black (musician)

Colin Vearncombe (≈1990s)

Black alias Colin Vearncombe (born May 26, 1962 in Liverpool , England , †  January 26, 2016 in Cork , Ireland ) was a British musician . He became known in the 1980s through the hit singles Wonderful Life , Sweetest Smile and Everything's Coming Up Roses .

Until 1985 "Black" was the name of the band, after that Vearncombe went on solo under the same name with changing studio musicians without his colleagues.

Band history

Colin Vearncombe (2007)

The formation "Black" was founded by Vearncombe (vocals, guitar , keyboard ) with Dave "Dix" Dickie (keyboard, guitar) and Jimmy Sangster ( bass ) as a trio in Liverpool in 1980. Vearncombe explained the choice of the name Black by saying that he found his name too difficult for people to remember. The band, which played romantic rock / pop similar to The Associates or The Chameleons , gave their first concert on New Year's Day 1981. This formation also recorded the first single Human Features for the indie label Rox Records . From June 1982, the band consisted only of Vearncombe and Dickie. After another single on the indie label WWO and a tour in the opening act of the Thompson Twins , they were able to get a contract with a major label : Eternal Records des Wah! -Manager Pete Fulwell, which was distributed by WEA Records . Two singles were the result, but there was no commercial success and WEA lacked the patience, so they dropped Black again. Dickie focused on working as a sound engineer / producer but occasionally reappeared on keyboard instruments on later Black projects.

Vearncombe withdrew, wrote songs, rehearsed and looked for a new label. With the song Wonderful Life he was able to arrive at the small Ugly Man Records - and made it to number 42 in the UK charts in September 1986 . Now a major label was interested again, Vearncombe / Black signed with A&M Records . The first single Everything's Coming Up Roses , released on the new label in spring 1987, was not a hit in Great Britain, but reached number 11 in Germany. Only Sweetest Smile reached the higher regions of the British charts in the summer of the same year and was placed in the Top ten. A new, improved recording of Wonderful Life followed in the fall of 1987 as well as the debut album of the same name, which rose to number 3 on the album charts. (When his ascent became clear WEA quickly brought the old songs on an LP entitled Black out, but without being able to build on the success.) Musicians on these recordings have included bassist Roy Corkhill, drummer Jimmy Hughes and Saxophonist Martin Green.

The second album Comedy (1988) and its singles stayed in the lower regions of the charts. This also applied to the 1991 LP entitled Black ; Robert Palmer and the singer Sam Brown, among others, as well as the Swede Camilla Griehsel (formerly singer of the band One 2 Many ), who Vearncombe had recently married in their second marriage. The contract with A&M now expired; Vearncombe retired to Normandy and recorded the album Are We Having Fun Yet? With producer Mike Hedges . which appeared in 1994 on his own label Nero Schwarz . Meanwhile, an insurance company had used Wonderful Life for a commercial, so that the song came to a third time in the UK hit parade. The song also made it into the German charts in 2000 with a cover version of Hyperchild and in 2012 with a dancehall version by the Berlin group Seeed . Vearncombe released a number of recordings under his own name in 1999. A new album called Black , Between Two Churches , was released in November 2005.

The Given album was released digitally in 2009. It was distributed for free and included the option to purchase the album Water on Stone . The title of the compilation Any Color you like , published in 2011, was chosen by the fans. In 2012 Vearncombe, who had also become active as a poet and painter, published the illustrated book I am not the same Person . He went on an extensive tour through Europe and Great Britain, for which he worked with the Irish singer Ewan MacColl , as he did in 2005 for the album Between Two Churches . Both worked on the production of new songs and Vearncombe started a crowdfunding campaign that should enable him to produce a new album. The campaign achieved double what it would have taken to get the 2015 album Blind Faith out .

Private and death

Vearncombe had lived in Schull in County Cork in southwest Ireland since 2003 .

He died on January 26, 2016 at Cork University Hospital at the age of 53 of cerebral edema from a traffic accident on January 10, 2016 near Cork Airport . He left his wife Camilla Griehsel and three sons.

Discography

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)				Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK
1987	Wonderful life	DE9 gold (31 weeks)DE	AT6 (16 weeks) AT	CH5 (13 weeks) CH	UK3 platinum (23 weeks)UK	First published: September 1987
1988	Comedy	DE38 (3 weeks) DE	-	CH24 (2 weeks) CH	UK32 silver (4 weeks)UK	First published: October 1988
1991	Black	-	-	-	UK42 (2 weeks) UK	First published: May 1991

More albums

• 1984: Black
• 1993: Are We Having Fun Yet?
• 1999: Abbey Road Live (as Colin Vearncombe )
• 1999: The Accused (as Colin Vearncombe )
• 2000: Water on Snow (as Colin Vearncombe )
• 2001: Live at the Bassline Johannesburg (as Colin Vearncombe )
• 2002: Smoke Up Close (as Colin Vearncombe )
• 2005: Between Two Churches
• 2009: Water on Stone
• 2009: The Given
• 2015: Blind Faith

Compilations

year	title	Remarks
1996	Master Series	First published: 1996
2000	Millennium Edition	First published: 2000
	The Collection	First published: 2000
2007	Black: CV	First published: 2007
2011	Any Color You Like	First published: 2011

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)				Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK
1986	Wonderful Life Wonderful Life	-	-	-	UK42 (9 weeks) UK	First published: September 1986
1987	Everything's Coming Up Roses Wonderful Life	DE11 (16 weeks) DE	AT8 (8 weeks) AT	-	UK76 (5 weeks) UK	First published: April 1987
	Sweetest Smile Wonderful Life	-	-	-	UK8 (10 weeks) UK	First published: June 1987
	Wonderful Life (Remaster '87) Wonderful Life	DE2 gold (22 weeks)DE	AT1 (16 weeks) AT	CH2 (16 weeks) CH	UK8 (9 weeks) UK	First published: August 1987
	I'm Not Afraid Wonderful Life	-	-	-	UK78 (3 weeks) UK	First published: October 1987
1988	Paradise Wonderful Life	-	-	-	UK38 (4 weeks) UK	First published: January 1988
	The Big One Comedy	DE43 (9 weeks) DE	-	-	UK54 (4 weeks) UK	First published: September 1988
	You're a Big Girl Now Comedy	-	-	-	UK86 (2 weeks) UK	First published: November 1988
1989	Now You're Gone Comedy	-	-	-	UK66 (4 weeks) UK	First published: January 1989
1991	Feel like change black	DE72 (4 weeks) DE	-	-	UK56 (2 weeks) UK	First published: April 1991
	Here It Comes Again Black	-	-	-	UK70 (1 week) UK	First published: June 1991

Awards for music sales

Golden record  Germany 2012: for the author participation Wonderful Life ( Seeed )  France 1988: for the album Wonderful Life 1988: for the single Wonderful Life Platinum record  Spain 1988: for the album Wonderful Life 1989: for the album Comedy

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	silver	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Germany (BVMI)	-	3 × gold3	-	650,000	musikindustrie.de
France (SNEP)	-	2 × gold2	-	600,000	infodisc.fr
Spain (Promusicae)	-	-	2 × platinum2	200,000	Sólo éxitos: año año, 1959-2002
United Kingdom (BPI)	silver1	-	platinum1	360,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	silver1	5 × gold5	3 × platinum3

Web links

Commons : Black  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website by Colin Vearncombe (English)
• Black at Allmusic (English)
• Black at Discogs (English)
• Literature by and about Black in the catalog of the German National Library
• Colin Vearncombe in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Adam Sweeting: Colin Vearncombe obituary. In: theguardian.com. The Guardian , January 26, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016 . 
2. ↑ Olivia Kelleher: Singer-songwriter 'Black' dies following car crash in Cork. In: irishtimes.com. The Irish Times , January 26, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016 . Wonderful Life singer Colin Vearncombe this following car accident. In: belfasttelegraph.co.uk. Belfast Telegraph , January 26, 2016, accessed January 27, 2016 . 
    
3. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: Singles albums DE AT CH UK