Billy Ocean Tickets

About Billy Ocean

Billy Ocean was born Leslie Sebastian Charles on 21 January 1950 in Fyzabad, Trinidad and Tobago, to Violet and Hainsley Charles, a Grenadian musician. At about ten he moved with his family to Romford, Essex, shortly before Trinidad and Tobago became independent in 1962. He trained as a tailor and worked on Savile Row while singing in a London nightclub. A 2019 interview cited by Wikipedia says his stage name came from a Trinidadian football team, “Oceans 11”, rather than the Ocean Estate in London as earlier reported.

Early career (1969-1975)

In 1969 he joined the band Shades of Midnight, then left to form Dry Ice with keyboardist Les Thompson. Songwriters David Myers and John Worsley discovered him while he was performing in London. His first single, “Nashville Rain”, came out in 1971 on Spark Records, and he spent about two years fronting the studio band Scorched Earth, which released “On The Run” in 1974.

The 1970s: the first hits

He recorded four albums on GTO Records between 1976 and 1982: Billy Ocean (1976), City Limit (1980), Nights (Feel Like Getting Down) (1981) and Inner Feelings (1982). Only the singles charted. “Love Really Hurts Without You” (1976) was his breakthrough, reaching no. 2 in the UK and no. 22 in the US. “Red Light Spells Danger” followed in 1977 and also peaked at no. 2, though my source doesn’t say on which chart. After Sony acquired GTO in 1978, he moved to Jive Records.

International stardom (1984-1989)

Suddenly (1984) reached no. 9 in both the US and UK. It went gold in the UK and double platinum in the US. “Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)” became his first US no. 1 and reached no. 6 in the UK, and the title track “Suddenly” hit no. 4 in both countries. “Loverboy” (1985) reached US no. 2.

Love Zone (1986) produced “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going”, a UK no. 1 and US no. 2, and “There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)”, a US no. 1. Tear Down These Walls (1988) went platinum and gave him another US no. 1 with “Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car”, which reached no. 3 in the UK. In 1985 he played Live Aid at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, and the 1989 Greatest Hits has been a steady seller ever since.

Later career

Time to Move On (1993), recorded in Chicago with R. Kelly, was his last album for Jive and produced no major hits. The compilation L.I.F.E. – Love Is For Ever reached no. 7 on the UK albums chart in 1997. Studio albums since then are Because I Love You (2009), Here You Are (2013) and One World, recorded in 2019 with producer Barry Eastmond and released in September 2020 after a delay. The Very Best of Billy Ocean (2010) debuted at no. 17 in the UK. He has toured the UK regularly, including in 2007, 2010 and 2017, and played Australia and the Far East in 2008. In 2016 he appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Awards and honours

He won the 1985 Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for “Caribbean Queen”, and was nominated for Best R&B Song (shared with Keith Diamond) that year and again in 1987 for Love Zone. He was nominated for Best British Male at the 1987 Brit Awards and received the MOBO Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. He has an honorary doctorate of music from the University of Westminster (2002) and was named a Companion of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in 2011, with Paul McCartney presenting. He was appointed MBE in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to music.

Personal life

He lives in Sunningdale, Berkshire, with his wife Judy, whom he married in 1978. They have three children. He became a vegetarian after his mother died of ovarian cancer in 1989, and he is a member of the Rastafari movement.