Welcome to a Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. Hello and thanks for joining me. Our special guest today is known both for his solo records in the 80s as well as his massive hits with the band Smokie in the 70s.
Of course, he’s Chris Norman, the British soft rock singer whose hoarse voice afforded him a huge international following over several decades. The band itself amassed 21 studio albums and 54 singles between 1975 and 2010. But hang on a minute, how about I let Chris tell his own story.
To be still working and still being a musician and still making records and playing so many concerts and everything, I didn’t expect that after 50 odd years or whatever it is, I didn’t think that, but it’s great that it’s happening. When you did start out in 1965, was that the plan to become a professional musician? Was there anything else that you wanted to do or that was always your dream? I think when at 65 we were just, mainly it was me and Alan Silson who was the guitar player for Smokie and we were the two friends who both got guitars at the same time. We both came back from a Christmas holiday and we’d both been given a guitar for Christmas.
So it was fun, you know, it was just something that we really loved and we just did it for fun. We didn’t start off thinking this is going to be our career and our lives from now on. We just did it for fun.
And we had a lot of fun just showing each other this is a chord, you know, this chord and everything else and singing in harmony together, which we did from the beginning. And then it just went on. And until finally we had the group together and we went professional in 1968.
And I think then we maybe started to think maybe we can do this sort of seriously, you know. So we tried to do it seriously and we spent the next few years playing all over the length and breadth of the UK and playing every kind of venue you can think of, you know, clubs and pubs and dance halls and whatever, wherever we played, you know. And we had a few records out that were flops.
That was under the name of Kindness, which was our name then. Then it did start to happen when we signed to Mickey Mo’s label in 74. And then it all started from there, really, the success, which was great.
You mentioned that you got your first guitar at the age of seven. You were already a very keen little music listener, weren’t you? Because it was the times when there was so much music going on. Who were your earliest influencers? Well, originally, I mean, I did have a guitar when I was seven, but I never learned to play it.
I only played it with my thumb. And I sort of quickly got tired of that and put it away. And I got a guitar really, I think, the one that I was talking about where we both got one for Christmas would have been 1964.
So I would have been 13 and a half then or something like that, when I got my real first guitar. My influences started, though, when I was seven, because I had older relatives who were about nine or 10 years older than me. And I was listening to Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly and Lil’ Richard, Lonnie Donegan, all those people in the 50s.
You know, I used to stand in front of the mirror when I was seven years old with a tennis racket, like you show, you know, the cliche. But I did really do that and pretend I was Elvis or whoever it was, you know. So that’s when I started listening, although my parents were in show business.
So I’d always had music from the day I was born. It was always around. When the Beatles broke, that was when I think I thought, oh, I want to do that, you know.
You must have had a lot of parental support. Not only were your parents in show business, it actually went right back to your grandparents, didn’t it? Yeah, yeah. My granddad was used to run concert parties during the First World War.
My grandma used to either make the costumes or play the piano. So they went around doing all the concert parties for First World War veterans and hospitals, things like that. Yeah, the whole family was show business, yeah.
So they did support you and were pleased that you were following in their footsteps? They supported me, I think, in the love of music. But when I was like at the age when I wanted to do it instead of working in a normal job, I think my parents were a little worried then, even though they’d done it themselves as professionals, you know. But I think I talked them into it.
And luckily, they let me go on and do it because I was, you know, 17 when I went professional. So I was traveling around, being away from home for weeks and stuff, and then coming back and sleeping in the back of the van. All the things that you do when you’re really keen on something, you know.
Yeah. You mentioned that it took several years before you had your first hit, and you went through various iterations of the band’s name. What was that all about? Well, we didn’t really have an idea what we should call ourselves.
And when we were about 15 or so, when we first started just playing around, we were called, first of all, The Yen. And we called ourselves Longside Down, so we could put capital LSD on the bass drum, so we thought it made us look cool and like one of the Beatles and the hippie thing. So we had loads of names.
I think we just never found any good names, you know. And then we called ourselves Kindness, because of the period we were in, you know, like happiness, peace and all that. But nobody could ever pronounce the word properly.
They used to misunderstand what we said. What do you call it, lads? And we’d say we’re called Kindness. And they’d say, ladies and gentlemen, The Calendars.
Or they’d see that we were called Kindness and forget by the time producers and say, there they are, happiness. It was just a rubbish name, you know. It was actually Mike Chapman who came up with the idea because of the way that I sounded with this kind of a croaky, smoky voice.
Let’s call him Smokey. Why don’t you call yourself Smokey? And we all went, oh, OK, whatever. As long as we get a sign as to the record deal, I don’t care what you call it.
Mike, of course, is a very famous Australian producer who helped a lot of people. He’s been around with you. You know, just how it looks to be left.
And the great thing about being you, you can do whatever you want to do. So if you turn on to something good, by the way you’re going, I know you should. If you turn on to something good, if you turn on to something good, pass it around.
Don’t give it to yourself, baby. He worked with a lot of people at the time, you know, with Sweet and Mud and Suzy Quatro and then us. He was a great producer, great songwriter, big influence on me from then on.
When you had your first hit single, If You Think You Know How To Love Me in 75, how did that change life for you? Oh, greatly, really. Absolutely. I mean, we’d gone from sleeping in the back of the van and travelling all over the place to suddenly we were getting picked up in a limousine and travelling all over Europe to start with and then further on into America, Australia, we came to Australia, we went all over.
And as we carried on doing that, we got more and more successful because we kept having new hits. So eventually we were playing instead of clubs, we were playing in 12,000 arenas and stuff, you know, especially in Europe. So it changed us.
It changed our lifestyles. We had money. First time we ever had any money.
We went from kind of not earning enough to pay tax, to being on this huge amount of tax that was around in the 70s. So yeah, it changed. We bought nice houses, nice cars, just lived it up a bit, you know, but we weren’t we never really got kind of full of ourselves.
Because when you’re in a band, when there’s like, four guys, and you’ve known each other for so long, if anybody starts to get a bit uppity, somebody else will go, Hey, what are you doing? You know, who do you think you are all of a sudden, and you kind of get you down back to, I don’t mean that happened to me in particular, but it would have probably maybe everybody at some point or they got a bit, you know, I’m great, you know, but you’re not great. You’re just lucky. And that’s what we were.
And I still can’t bear it when I see some new rock star or not even a new one, an old one who talks about themselves as if they’re some sort of God, human being when, and I’m usually shouting at the TV, where the hell did you come from? Don’t you remember? God’s sake. So, you know, the guys I like people I’ve met in my career, you know, all the other artists, the ones I like are the ones that are that worth and I think we all kept that in mind when we were whatever was happening to us don’t get too full of it. Well done you.
And I guess as part of that you would have been sensible with all of this newfound wealth around you too. Well, I think we all had our moments. What sort of car did you buy? Moments of thinking, thinking we were going to be, you know, billionaires forever.
You know, I think we went, you know, we all bought the big flash house and the Terry at one time had a Rolls Royce and a big Mercedes sports car and something. We all went that way, you know, for a while. But, you know, but I think the novelty wears off.
As a kid, when you’re dreaming of becoming successful, you know, you think, first of all, I think about the fame, the money, the big detached house and the sports car. That’s the things you think about mainly. And then as you’re doing it and it’s starting to happen and you’ve got that stuff, then you start realising that really, I don’t need all that really.
The main thing is to keep making good music and to try and keep successful. That’s what becomes the important thing. But we weren’t so sensible at the beginning.
You know, we did all the pitfalls that everybody does, but we were just lucky enough to continue to make more success and more money. So we had a second go at it in a way. So if you think you know how to love me And you think you know what I need And if you really, really want me to stay You’ve got to lead the way Yes, if you think you know how to love me And you think you can stand by me And if you really, really want me to stay You’ve got to lead the way You started off, you weren’t so much interested in making pop singles, but you certainly learned that that was the way to go.
Yeah, well, that was the plan. But, you know, it doesn’t always work out the way you think. Before we had the hits, we were doing all kinds of stuff.
I would sort of describe us like if you can imagine somebody like Creedence Clearwater with that electric guitar sound, but with the harmonies of Crosby, Stiltz and That’s kind of what we were. And that’s where we thought we were going like that or the Eagles or something like that. And we carried on going for that until I think the first time we really sort of went away from that was when we did On Midnight, which was kind of really engineered to sort of be excited with the European audience.
And then we recorded Live Next Door for a while. It’s not long after that. And of course, that put us on the thing.
That’s what they are, that kind of group. Oh, I don’t know why she’s leaving or where she’s going to go. I guess she’s got her reasons, but I just don’t want to know.
It’s been 24 years I’ve been living next door to Alice. 24 years just waiting for a chance to tell her how I feel and maybe get a second glance. Now I’ve got to get used to not living next door to Alice.
Come on together, two kids in the park. Carved our initials in the bark. Me and Alice.
It was starting to be the time of the glam rockers. And you weren’t interested in being part of that sort of set, were you? No. The glam rock thing started, I guess, while we were still playing around doing the dancehalls and the clubs and the pubs and everything.
And we went through a little period where we sort of put white makeup on and glitter on our face for a couple of months or so. And then we thought, I hate this. So we stopped doing that and started to wear what we would normally wear, like denim shirts and jeans and stuff.
And then that was what we became. As I say, we were trying to be like the UK’s version of Crosby, Stills and Nash or the Eagles. And Chris Norman, where did you get that voice from? You’ve named the band Smokey after that voice.
Was it a raspy voice because you smoked cigarettes or is that just what God graced you with? Oh, both. Maybe it could have been that. I think really what it was, was I actually had a pretty clear and pure voice.
When I was like 11 years old, I was a soloist in the church choir. And when I started with the band, we were doing things, other things by the Beatles and people like that. So I was sort of going for a sort of cross between a John Lennon and a Paul McCartney voice.
And that’s what it was like. But the more I got into playing in pubs and clubs and really screeching and doing Little Richard songs and screaming at the top of my lungs, I think that and just wearing my voice out, it kind of breaks it, you know. After a few years of doing that, I found that I had this kind of little croaky thing in my voice.
So when I sang soft, it still had this kind of husky thing in it. And as it turned out, it was by accident, really. But it turned out that’s what people liked about us, are one of the things.
So it was good that I did do all that screaming, really. Were you bad boys at the time? Oh, of course. Yeah.
You wouldn’t be anything else, would you? You know, you’re in a band, you’re going around, there’s lots of drink, drugs, all the rest of it, you know. We weren’t sitting on the corner on our own and saying, we don’t want to do that. We were saying, where is it going? I can’t imagine any band from that period that didn’t get involved in some of that stuff.
This is a Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. Luckily, the members of Smokie all survived their hedonistic ways and went on to release a string of more than 15 hit singles through the 70s and 80s, many of them co-written by the team of Nicky Chin and Mike Chapman.
But as Chris Norman tells us, eventually the band did start writing their own songs too. Mexican Girl was our first hit single that we wrote and then we had some others, San Francisco Bay, Jetlag, Due to Me, a few. So we started writing more then.
Juanita came to me last night And she cried over and over Oh, Daddy, I love you, you know And I think it’s moonlight She looked so fine, well, she looked all right And she moaned, Daddy, move over Oh, baby, you know what I like And I think it’s the moonlight Made in Mexico, schooling friends who I love And she needed no teaching Oh, man, if you say international ways, I believe in Mexican girl, don’t leave me alone I got a heart as big as a stone And I need you, believe me, to be here and love me tonight Mexican girl, I want you to stay You know my heart is longing to say That as long as I live, I will always remember The one that I call My Mexican girl Since then, I’ve had a lot of songs I’ve written myself but I’ve also recorded other people’s songs. If it’s a great song, I don’t want to throw it away. Yeah, yeah.
Just tell me a little bit about Living Next Door to Alice, who Alice was and all the lyrics in there. I don’t think anybody knows that. I asked Mike Chapman that not long ago.
You know, I said, I keep, everybody keeps saying to me, who is Alice, who is it then? He said, I don’t know. He doesn’t really know. But that song, we weren’t going to cut that song.
That song had been out already about three, four years earlier with New World, Australian group. And they’d made a version of Living Next Door to Alice with Mickey Mouse producing it. It didn’t make it.
They had a few big hits, New World in England, I don’t know about Australia, but Alice didn’t make it for them. Sally called when she got the word And she said, I suppose you’ve heard About Alice Well, I rushed to the window and I looked outside I could hardly believe my eyes As a fake limousine rolled up into Alice’s drive Don’t know why she’s leaving or where she’s gonna go I guess she’s got her reasons but I just don’t wanna know Cause for 24 years I’ve been living next door to Alice 24 years just waiting for the chance To tell her how I feel and maybe give a second glance Now I gotta get used to not living next door to Alice When we recorded, it was in a recording session in LA. We were recording, I think it was the Midnight Cafe album, maybe the third album.
We had already, like, most of the album finished and there were some good songs on there. And then Mike said, I’ve been thinking you guys could record this. And he started playing Living Next Door.
I’d be going, that’s New World. Yeah, but we could do it different if they did it. And it could be a massive country hit.
And it could help you to break that market in America, which would be great, wouldn’t it? So anyway, we recorded it. It turned out pretty good. It caught people’s ears.
So when we came back to the UK, I remember being in Mickey’s office and him saying, we’ve decided the next single’s going to be Living Next Door to Alice. We went, no! It’s not even going to be on the album. This is for America only, for the country.
Now everybody wants to release the next single. We’ve had Germany on, we’ve had France, we’ve had Australia, America, whatever. So we got pushed down.
We just had to say, oh, OK. And then, of course, it sold truckload. It kind of did what we didn’t want it to do, which is why we were against putting it out.
It sort of put us in a category that wasn’t really us, because it sounds like one of those sing-along songs, you know? We didn’t want to be that. It did help you break into the country market in the US, too, didn’t it? Yeah, and it’s a great record. It’s just that because of the type of song it is, it’s like, living next door.
And now we’ve got the version where everybody shouts out when you sing it. So it’s like it’s part of what you do and it works. And I sing it all the time when I play live and people love it.
And so I’m just glad to have those in my back pocket now and again. Of course. How did you come to create the same sound live as you were doing in studio, for instance, on Lay Back in the Arms of Someone? Well, you’ve got to compromise a bit, especially in those days.
If you think when we first went on tour after we’d had some hits, the main two hits we had at the beginning was If You’re Thinking I Love Me and Don’t Play Rock and Roll to Me. And both of them had no electric guitars on them at all. They were just acoustic guitars.
But recorded in the studio with big, fat microphones, they sounded great. So it took us a while to sort of come to terms with how to compensate for that. But you do, you know, you just kind of use an electric guitar plus an acoustic.
And you compensate for the string parts by, in those days we did, by doing oohs instead. Like we’d do the string parts by singing them, you know. We’d do that instead of the, because we didn’t have string synthesizers and stuff yet.
But later on, as we went on, you know, it became easier because they invented string and synthesizers. They had electric acoustic guitars that sounded great. So it became easier.
Now it’s simple. When I go on stage now, I can make any record sound like it on stage as close as you can think of, really. It just comes together.
If you want my sympathy, just open your heart to me. You’ll get whatever you’ll ever need. I’m too high for you, and there’s nothing left for you.
Tell me about coming together with Suzy Cuatro and doing that massive hit, Stumbling In. How did that come up for you, and what was this first taste of success like outside of the group, Smokey? Well, it was by accident, really. Smokey were in Germany at an awards ceremony.
We were getting an award. Suzy and her band and Mike were in EMI Studios in Cologne, and this award thing was in Cologne too. So, of course, they came to say hello and came backstage afterwards.
It was an after show party, and there was a band that had been booked. A local band had been booked. So there was a lot of group equipment, drums and everything, in the corner of this room where we were all.
Who was there? Everybody of the day. Bonnie Tyler was there. I remember that.
People of that era were there. So when we all had a few drinks, we started to get up and sing and play, and me and Suzy got up and sang, I think, Long Tall Sally. It was an old rock and roll song.
I think it was that. When we sat down again and Mike said, you two look great up there together. We should do something.
It just so happens I’ve got this song I’ve been writing called Stumbling In. Oh, we said, great. He said to me, what would you feel like coming into the studio? We were in the studio.
We were finished. We’d been touring. I was going home the next day, but I stayed, and I went into the studio on their session, Suzy’s session, and we just took a couple of days, I think, and put the track down.
I played acoustic 12-string with her band. We put the track down for the two songs we did, which was Stumbling In and the B-side, which was Stranger With You, which was a great song, by the way. I actually like that better than Stumbling In.
But anyway, never mind. So we did it, and then we just, when we got the track down, we stood on one mic, both of us together, me and Suzy. There was none of this phoning it in or I’ll send you the files.
It wasn’t like that. We stood on one mic, and the song started, and we sang it. And we did maybe two or three takes, and we said, okay, that’s it.
We’ve done it. And then the next day, I think I went home. That was it.
And then I went back to touring with Smokey, whatever we were doing, and the record came out and started to get a lot of interest, until in the end, it became a big hit. Our love is a light, and so we begin Only see it laying our hearts on the table Stumbling in Our love is a flame, burning with it Now and then, firelight will catch us Stumbling in Wherever you go Whatever you do You know these reckless thoughts of mine are following you I’m falling for you Whatever you’ve shown me so it takes Baby, I’ll do it for you There’s something to be said for standing in the studio with somebody because the chemistry that you have with someone is so important, isn’t it? Yeah, it is. And also, I think you’re kind of encouraging the other one while you’re doing the vocal.
And you’re also competing. I want to get this next line really good. You’ve got that sort of thing where you’re looking into each other’s eyes, and when you’re singing, You were so young And she sings, I was so free.
And then she sings, I may have been young, but baby, that’s not what You’re singing it to each other, you know? Yeah. So it’s a completely different feeling. I’m interested to hear you say that after coming off stage and there’s this after party, what singers, musicians do is just get back up and start singing again together.
You haven’t had enough after a couple of hours on stage. You’re out there doing it again. That was in those days.
I wouldn’t do it now. These days, off to bed with a cup of cocoa. Thank you very much.
Doesn’t life change for you, huh? Yeah, yeah. Lots of lifestyle modifications for you, things like, you know, no more smoking, exercising more, a healthy diet perhaps now where you wouldn’t have given a hoot about it then? I still don’t give a hoot about my diet. If somebody puts a plate of bacon and egg and chips in front of me, I’ll eat them straight away, no argument.
But yeah, you know, the health thing, you know, not drinking and stuff, you can’t do it. You know, I can’t. The hangovers I used to get and I think back to the 70s and I’d get up with, oh, God, and then an hour later I was rushing around like a fresh young man.
And these days if I wake up with that kind of a hangover, it takes me four days to be even warm. Hey, why did you leave Smokey in the 80s? It’s really a very long story but I’ll shorten it as best as I can. By about 1982, pretty much we were all fed up of being in Smokey.
So we kind of stopped. We made a couple of albums and didn’t do anything else. So for three years, we kind of already stopped.
Nobody left. We just stopped and we just all did our own thing. I did some solo stuff then.
I made a couple of records around 82, 83. Terry went off to San Francisco and joined a heavy rock band. I forget who it was.
Alan was doing some other stuff. Me and Pete were producing. We did a lot of producing.
We appeared with Ignatius on an album. We did stuff on Ed Donovan’s album. So we were all doing stuff but we weren’t doing stuff as a band anymore.
That was up to about, say, 83-ish. Then 85 came along and there was a big fire disaster at the Bradford football ground. The town where we all came from.
We were asked to form and do a charity show. We did that. And then everybody was ringing us up.
Agents. Well, we want to tour you. Tour that.
And we were going, well, we kind of don’t want to do that anymore. But then we kind of got together and said, well, it might be all right. We can do a bit of touring.
We won’t be on the same level as we were, but we can see how it goes. Me, Alan, Terry and them went off and did a tour of Germany, did a tour of Australia. And while I was doing that, I got invited to record the song for a TV movie called Midnight Lady.
And I did. And it became number one. And suddenly I was being asked to tour.
I can’t promote this record. I was doing TV shows everywhere. And then I was coming back and doing tours with Smokey.
Then I was being asked to do tours on my own. I did a couple. I thought, I’m not going home anymore.
I don’t see anybody. So I had to make a decision. Is Smokey worth giving up the solo thing, which I’ve been kind of wanting to do really anyway, to go back to that? Or is it a spent force for me? I think it is.
So I stopped. And I just told them, you know, I’ve got to follow this now. I don’t think the Smokey thing is going anywhere anyway.
So I just left. You think love’s a game Love is an ocean Endless and so deep Always in motion I’ve got many ways To reach tomorrow Love will always grow No pain, no sorrow When you take me in your arms You can break me with your heart I feel the magic of your charm Oh, you’re tearing me apart Midnight lady, love takes time Midnight lady, it’s hard to find Midnight lady, I call your name I know you can ease my pain Midnight lady, just you and me Midnight lady, eternally Midnight lady, I can fly In your arms, I’ll get high You touch my life I’m still dreaming Anything before has lost its meaning And so Chris Norman’s highly successful solo career was born in 1986 with his second album, Some Hearts Are Diamonds.
This is a Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. In the decades that followed, Chris proved himself to be quite prolific, delivering a new studio album every two or three years and maintaining a large fan base in Germany where his chart success continued well into the 2000s.
Surprisingly, during all of this success, he managed to keep his family intact. You’ve got to remember that when we first met, me and Linda, I was 19 when I got married, and she knew what I was doing. I met her while I was touring in Scotland with kindness as it was.
She also knew that when I came home, I never went out. I never went out socially. I always figured that being in a band was like my social life in a way.
And the only time I ever went out was if we both went out together. I never said, oh, I’m going down to Pobloff. I’ll be back next Friday.
You know, I used to, I’d be there with her. And if we’d go out, we’d go out together, or I wouldn’t go out. So when I was not working, I gave the family life, all of me.
And she was cool with that. If I’d have been doing the solo career and the smoky career and spending as much time with each as is necessary, then it would have been impossible. I couldn’t have done that.
Chris found himself hitting the charts again in 2004 with this top ten single, Amazing. Guess I took your love for granted Even though you cared for me Losing you has left me stranded Like a single fallen leaf I was foolish and demanding And just too blind to see You’ll always be a part of me, baby How can I survive? I realize there’s a consequence But know that your heart still has a home for me Baby, I’m amazed with the thought of you It’s so amazing Lost in all the thoughts I have of you Come back here, baby Every night I whisper to the stars Don’t want to sleep without you I don’t want to live without your love It’s so amazing You’re writing more and more these days. In 2020 you released a new album called Just A Man and that was Mike Chapman again.
And the latest album that you’ve got out called Junction 55, I love the title because that reflects the fact that it’s been 55 years since you turned pro. It’s a collection of 12 songs. Tell us a little bit about Junction 55 because it really does sound fabulous.
To be honest, I think it is fabulous. I don’t want to sound arrogant or anything, but it’s my favourite album that I’ve done. This is the first album I’ve ever recorded where I listen to every song.
Every song is like… A winner. I don’t normally feel like that, but I do with this. So I’m very, very happy with it.
Whether it sells or whether it’s successful or not, it doesn’t matter. I think it’s my favourite album I’ve ever recorded. I won’t have dirty shoes To walk this darkened road And I try to fight these blues As my heart’s on overload And your fire just makes me burn And I’m in a living hell With your lies and your empty words You got me underneath your spell Old scars and stains on my soul Tearing up my heart And magic you control Just makes me fall apart I just started writing, came up with a couple of songs and then I started to dig into other things like Pete, Spencer, Abel, with a couple of little tunes which were great.
And he had a great first couple of lines for a song called Tell Her She Can and another one called Tears Will Fall. And I loved both of those songs, so we finished them up. The same with Mike Chapman.
I had a song called Devil In Your Heart, which I’d recorded, I’d written with him back when we were doing Just A Man album, but we never finished it in time to get it on the album. So it was just waiting. So I finished that up.
My lead guitar player, Jeff Carline, who I’ve written a few songs with in the past, he had a couple of good tunes, one of which was Battle of the Sexes, which we’d written together for Bonnie Tyler and Rod Stewart about three, four years ago. They recorded it, but they didn’t quite record it the way that I recorded it. When that wasn’t a hit for her and Rod Stewart, I thought, well, I should re-record that and do it the way that I had originally planned.
Man versus woman It’s always been around since time immemorial Man versus woman There’s nothing to protect us From the battle of the sexes You tell me, baby, I’m fine But I don’t know Messing with my mind I played the piano, I played the string parts on a keyboard, you know, with a string sample thing. I played bass, I played guitar. Most of it was just me sitting on my own, did all the vocals, all the back vocals.
And then when it was all recorded, I mixed it and everything. So it was really great fun to do. I can imagine how much self-satisfaction you would get from having accomplished that.
Yeah, yeah. There’s not one of them that doesn’t deserve its place on the album, so I’m very pleased with that. So it sounds like there’s another album up your sleeve then.
I’ll always keep making music and recording and doing songs, but like I just said, I don’t think I’ve got another album like this one in me for a bit, because as I say, I’m very happy with this and I don’t think I could do that, like, very soon. It will take me a while to be able to cope with this sort of stuff. Yeah.
And you’re taking this one out on the road? Yeah, sure. I’m going all over the place. There was one song on it called Now I’m Sure, which everybody likes and people, when I started rehearsing it, the band said to me, we’ve got to do this one.
And I said, it’s very slow. It’s a little bit morbid. Don’t you think? Oh, it’s beautiful.
It makes me want to cry. I said, really? I like it too, but I don’t know whether we could do it in the set. I think people might start falling asleep.
We rehearsed it and it sounded great, so I said, we’ll slip it in in Prague, see what happens. And the audience went crazy. It gives me shivers to think about.
It was fantastic. I never felt love like this before Until you came, I felt washed up Upon the shore You came along and now my life has changed And things just seem to fit Don’t feel the same No, I never really felt The waves coming Now I’m in so deep That I can’t swim You turned my life completely upside down But the love I found Now I can feel the kind of one Run through my life again And the winter’s turned to summer One more time There have been many times Believe me When I thought that life was easy Now I’m sure Yes, I’m sure Now you are here And the sun shines on my face I was standing in the cold So out of place I’ve never been so sure Of anything before You beside me I can’t ask for more I’ll be playing them all and the dates as they come up and the gigs as I’m doing them over the next few months. You can bet that if you’re lucky enough to catch Chris Norman in concert, it’ll be an unforgettable experience.
But don’t be fooled. Chris tours as Chris Norman, not as Smokey these days, even though he does perform many of the old Smokey hits. Yeah, because Chris Norman became famous when the solo career started.
The name Chris Norman, my name, became famous throughout Europe. But when I come to places that I didn’t have record releases and didn’t have hits like it did, then they only remember me from Smokey, which is fine because I do the Smokey stuff as well. But tour promoters want a name that everybody knows, so they’ll sell tickets.
Of course. What about in the US? Does the US know Smokey? The US was never a big market for us. I had a big success there with Suzie and we had a couple of hits there in the 70s.
But I think we had the wrong name because Mike Chapman tells a story about Nicky Chin having upset somebody in the radio industry there and they wouldn’t play us because of that. I don’t know if that’s true. I always believed it was because of the name because when we first came out, obviously as Smokey, it was spelled E-Y originally, we had a lot of trouble when our first album was released from Smokey Robinson’s people and Tamla Motown because Smokey Robinson’s known as Smokey in America.
So they go, what the hell’s this? Who’s this Smokey? There’s only one Smokey. We actually just avoided a court case with them by changing the spelling of the name to I-E and then put the records out as Smokey with I-E. But as far as I think, the media was concerned, the radio was concerned, I think they sort of turned their back on us a little bit because they thought, who the hell do these English upstarts think they are? There’s only one Smokey.
And I’m feeling that’s why we didn’t get played so much because the songs were tailor-made for America. Even without the massive promotion there, we still managed. And the other thing that makes me think that is the first record we put out that wasn’t under the name Smokey was Stumbling In and it went to number two.
So that kind of tells its own story, I think. So Smokey were never really big in America and we never really toured there. Rest assured they could have never pronounced kindness either.
We should have called ourselves kindness, yeah. Or the Smokies. I always thought we should have called ourselves the Smokies.
Like Blondie, because people used to call us the Smokies and Blondie they used to call the Blondies sometimes, you know, with Debbie Harry in them. So yeah, we could have been the Smokies. Do you regret that? Yes, a little bit, yeah.
But partly it’s my own fault because when Stumbling In was a big hit there, Susie and I were asked to go over and do some promotion and I was in the middle of touring and stuff and I said, oh no, I can’t be doing that. I’m already away for four months or something. So I didn’t go.
She always reminds me of that, by the way, still. But it would have made a big difference. She’s absolutely right.
It would have made a big difference. And for me, I would have been a lot more well known then and probably who knows where it would have gone. So it’s my own fault not going.
Yeah, I regret it, but it’s too late now. Yeah. You’ve done pretty well without it, suffice to say there aren’t many that have done quite as well.
Doing all right. Exactly. Get down on my knees and pray That they go away Still they begin Needles and pins Because of all my pride The tears I gotta hide Thought I was smart I’d won her heart Didn’t think I’d still see She’s worse than him to me Let her be, she will see Just how to say please Please She’ll be those needles And why can’t I stop And tell myself I’m wrong I’m wrong, so wrong Why can’t I stand up And tell myself I’m strong Chris Norman, thank you so much for your time.
You’ve been awfully generous and congratulations with this latest album. I know there’s lots more to come from you and we can’t wait for it. You sound awesome and you’re just getting better and better with age.
How lucky are you? Thank you very much. Very nice to talk to you. You too, Chris.
Thanks so much for your time. Bye bye. Bye now.
He does sound fabulous still, doesn’t he? Having released more than 50 singles and over 30 albums, Chris has sold in excess of 30 million records. Today he lives on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea where he’s been happily married to his wife Linda for more than 50 years. The couple has five children and four grandchildren.
Thanks for joining me today. I hope you’ve enjoyed the Chris Norman and Smokey story. Can I count on you again same time next week? I hope so.
Take care until then, won’t you? Bye now. Oh, baby, any day that you’re gone away It’s a beautiful day