I would love to hear a Girls Aloud tribute to The Supremes. That sounds like brilliant pop music to me.

but I do think he has a good voice, and to be honest, his little duet with Jools wasn't at all bad. They obviously enjoyed bashing it out live, too, which is nice to see.

As I arrived home from rehearsals Tuesday night, I received a text from our bass player which read "Why is Charlie Drake on Later?" so the impression is shared!

is such a lame cliche. I think you'll find Bobby Bland rather likes him. Just as UB40 are actually quite well respected by other reggae artists, so is Mick Hucknall by other r'n'b singers. It's because he's good.

He's promoting an artist and a bunch of songs he clearly cares about. Why be so cynical? He is a good singer, can hold a tune very well and has some good taste in music. The reason he is so derided is due to the snobbery towards his audience which is mostly middle class types who buy a handful of cd's a year. A shame.

To my eyes Mick Hucknall is morphing into Van Morrison, while Jamirquoi is the new Mick Hucknall.

I was speaking to someone who had done some session work with him, and roundly praised him, as a singer and a bloke. His music doesn't do it for me, but personal taste and all that.

I was heartened to see it's presence being advertised, as Bobby Bland is a sorely underheard singer of substance. Hucknall is roundly derided for his public persona (and looks, god help us, Adonis' all, I am sure). Yes, he has put some dodgy sounding records out but he has also put out some crackers. And, whatever else is said, he can sing as sweetly as many much more lauded garglers. I hoped this could be an opportunity for him to restore his image, upsize Mr Blands and entertain us all as well. Didn't see Later but I have nonetheless put the record on my "wanted" list, based on some reviews and on my hope/expectations.
And no, I have no Simply Red in my collection, bar the first 2 singles, so I am not a fanatic.

that we can now say,
"You heard it here first, at last it's OK to admit you quite like Mick Hucknall."
Oh, and ABBA.
And Supertramp AND Gilbert O'Sullivan.
We ARE a tolerant bunch really aren't we?
Except when it comes to the twerp in the hat, of course.
And Radiohead.

him not for any of the above because he's ManU fan and also he takes it so badly so it's fun winding him up him being a rich pop star and that.

Say what you like, he is one of our best blue-eyed soul voices. He started many a party of mine with 'Money's Too Tight' and 'Something's Got Me Started' while 'Holding Back The Years' is beaut. That he's covered Bobby Bland will probably revive both singers' careers. At least Huck's sticking to his soul/blues roots and hasn't sold out like Rod Stewart.

It's OK for anyone to like anyone as far as I'm concerned. I just don't like Hucknall's music. He may have a fine voice but all the records I ever heard by him did not move me at all - to me they were just slick and bland.

...or, indeed, 'slick and Bobby Bland'?

the Mick Hucknall with the full back cover ad on this month's edition of The wo.....

First it was Phil bastard Collins and now Mick bastard Hucknall.

Who's next?

Michael Bolton? Celine Dion? Enya? Bryan Adams?

No!!

Holding back the Years is a good song. But that still doesn't make him Britain's finest blue eyed soul singer, whatever that means. Good for him for the Blood and Fire thing, anyone who keeps good music in the public eye deserves some props, but a reappraisal?? Well sure..he's still an average, scampi in a basket,"here's one for the ladies", reedy-voiced singer from Denton. Ruined "Money's Too Tight" and "If You Don't Know Me By Now" although "Stars" has a magnificent chorus.

Maybe he'll follow Rod ("The Mod") and do the great American songbook next. Gawd help us.

His "support" of Manure United says it all really!!

...to Simply Red/Hucknall- don't own any of their records myself and never have but I don't hate them either. There are far more worthy figures of derision, I feel.

As soon as I see a thread asking for the reappraisals of Michael Bolton and Barry Manilow, though, I'm off!! :)

For: His singing 'Ding dong merrily on high' over the closing credits of "Knowing Me Knowing Yule' while a deranged Alan Partridge wandered around with a half-stuffed game bird on his fist.
Against: Any of his statements in the early 90s about being the best singer ever. And removing the original members of Simply Red one by one with session men.

...of an anecdote David Hepworth recalled about Simply Red on that first OGWT DVD. He said the camera crew were told not to film the bass player as 'we're firing him on Monday'!!

Sorry but I simply won't stand for this nonsense a moment longer. He's an annoying plonker. He has a grating voice and cannot write a tune to save his life. He ruined the "Money's Too Tight To Mention" and "If You Don't Know Me By Now", used "PATER" in the lyric for "Holding Back The Years" and if he was chocolate he would eat himself. I'm no snob (well not much of one) but give me Daryll Hall, Todd Rundgren or Robert Palmer any day if you are looking for white soul voices.

Arrogance personified. Good singer but has never pushed a musical boundary in his life.

Didn't he also clump an old guy who got up on stage to dance along - in Cuba?

Him and Gary Neville are the two least likely socialists of all time and I have an irrational dislike of both of them.

Like Coldplay he's easy to knock, has a good voice and sounded pretty good on Jools. While we're on the subject of Holland, respect for his show etc, but his piano playing gets on my nerves at times. He's not very subtle. Who was that Scottish band Glasvegas or soemthing- their drummer was terrible. Ranconteurs were ace mind.

no

With you woodface, I have Simply Red's debut album somewhere in the realms of my collection. Great blue-eyed soul music but then it got very tedious even before the mega selling "Stars".

Just find him now an obnoxious **** who think he's God's gift to women. Not with me he isn't, besides did he fight to stop the Glazers taking over Manchester United Football Club by donating some money to the fund. Like hell he didn't, but I know someone who did, all £16,000 of it too!

Mick's playing De Montfort Hall tickets a mere snip of £35 plus booking fee. One of the most expensive shows put on bar the musical events of Evita and Joseph!

Even Boy George's concert at the same venue is cheaper!

Simply Red moreover simply dull.

I've had a sort of love/hate thing going with little Mickey Hucknall over the years. He's ugly but in a sort of interesting ginger way.

"Stars" takes me back to a quite exciting time in my past. Valentine Bros "Money's too tight" is one of my favourite records of all time but Mick's verion is at least passable.

BTW just watching a great programme on BBC4, John Martyn on as we speak, "Transatlantic Sessions".

...is that rock fandom is a deeply irrational business.
There's the work, which is one thing, and then the public personality, which is another thing entirely.
People will forgive all kinds of things from people they think are Good Blokes (Keith Richards, Neil Young) but have zero patience when it comes to people they think are Not (Mick Jagger, Steve Stills). Everything that the former group do is moved along by a warm thermal of approval. Everything done by the latter group is guilty until proven innocent.

Wouldn't it have been great if the team at Later had suddenly sidelined Mick Hucknall and just got Jack White to sing St. James' Infirmary?

A long time ago in a nightspot far away, I saw someone minesweep Mick Hucknall's bottle of Becks whilst he was "checking out the dancefloor". The look on his pudgy freckled phizzog when he put the bottle to lips moments later was absolutely priceless.

No-one has mentioned Peter Kay's brilliant deconstruction of Simply Red in his "Park Avenue" episode of his first series, that Peter Kay thing.

Saw them once with an ex who liked them. The playing was technically good but had all the life sucked out of it to the point where it was little more than speeded up elevator music. He can sing but his songs are crap - only exception was a solo holding back the years on acoustic guitar.Personally I don't like his music - mainly because it doesn't move me.
File him under 'irrelevant artists'.

Musically, there's not much to object to: as has been widely, if grudgingly acknowledged, he can sing; the songs are almost uniformly on a spectrum ranging from poor to not bad (exceptions being Holding Back The Years and Wonderland); the musicianship on the records is unexceptionable.

But, my, what a knob this man has made of himself. There's something uniquely pitiful about someone who so overestimates his own abilities, regardless of whether he's shit and thinks he's quite good, or pretty good and thinks he's a Master. And I have a long enough memory to remember him taking a pop at Alison Moyet's version of That Old Devil Called Love, while expecting us to genuflect at his truly hideous steamrolling of Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye; and then there was the time he said Robert Cray was overrated and was only being praised because he's black. Nice, Mick.

As for the Bobby Bland project? Well, he managed to insult Mary Wilson on Later, virtually blaming her and her ilk for sidelining Mr Bland (and his point may have some validity, but the crassness with which it was expressed was pretty unpleasant). And, based on the one song we saw, as good as he is, he simply doesn't have the pipes to do justice to a voice as huge and charismatic as Bobby Bland.

What was it Lloyd Bentsen said to Dan Quayle...?

I seem to be swimming against the tide here as I don't much like his music, though I bought a couple of albums and quite liked them, but I do like hearing him talk/read interviews with him. His opinions are often worth hearing and he has a brain and some wit.

I think the green-eyed monster is at work here among the male of the species. He is perceived as a got-lucky singer who is now popular and rich and therefore successful beyond his level with women. Just because he is seen as overweight, ginger and not conventionally handsome and appears in public with models and/or attractive/successful women. Good luck to the guy.

Oh... and he is one of the few football supporting musicians who at least sound like they went to a game even when they had nowt. Oh... and credit due for that pic of him at the Sex Pistols gig.

Blimey, if we keep at it like this Mick will be next in line for a knighthood. I know its funny (side splitting actually) BUT keeping personalitys out of it, the Simply Red music output is pretty thin. The Bobby Bland works set a standard, a standard for feeling and emotion in r+b singing. Mick may well love Bobby's music but when you make a tribute it has to be of worth or at least find some thing new in the songs that points out their greatness. I would direct you to the Gram Parsons tribute done a few years ago, Gillian Welch doing Hickory made you feel GP's ghost had passed too close by. That's a tribute.

Apologies: this may even be the third time that I've made this point, but these two clips illustrate for me perfectly why Mick Hucknall gets all the stick he does:

Lucas,

I am finding this quite difficult but I must stick up for old Mick. Comparing one of the Titan's of Rock Music to a version of Vick Reeves singing in a club style is hardly fair. I am unsure who would do a tribute to Young but it had better be good. However, further to Dave Hepworth's comments above; reading the Young biography he is quite a difficult personality to deal with. Lucky for us we just have to listen to him.

What I really object to about Hucknall's slow torture of Mellow My Mind is not that he had the balls to do it, or how dare he tackle a Neil Young song, yadda, yadda etc. The point is that Young's original recording of it, from Tonight's The Night -

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=147373&id=...

- may just be one of the most raw, ragged, frail and imperfect vocals ever committed to tape. He can't quite hit the notes, he's probably out of his mind on tequila at three o'clock in the morning; everything about it screams humanity, imperfection, unvarnished.

Enter Hucknall. Pure presumption here, but I imagine him digging out the song and thinking to himself, "What if this were tackled properly, by someone who can really sing? Someone who can hit those notes and polish it up a bit?", thereby methodically robbing the song of every one of the elements that makes it good in the first place. The stupidity and blindness, coupled with the pigheadedness and ignorance of what singing is about is what gets my goat. Furthermore, I guarantee that there are people out there who maintain that Hucknall is a proper singer, and that Young isn't.