LIVERPOOL songwriter Colin Vearncombe, who shot to worldwide fame as Black in the mid 1980s, has died, it was announced this evening.
The news came a fortnight after the 54-year-old was involved in a road traffic collision in Co Cork, Ireland, where he lived.
The father of three, who penned the worldwide hit, Wonderful Life, had suffered serious head injuries in the crash and had been placed in an induced coma. But his condition deteriorated and last weeked friends and family said it would take a “miracle” for him to recover.
“We’re deeply saddened to announce the death of Colin Vearncombe (aka Black) earlier today, Tuesday 26thJanuary 2016,” read a statement from his management tonight.
“Colin never regained consciousness following a road traffic accident 16 days ago. He died peacefully surrounded by his family who were singing him on his way.”
His wife, Camilla, and his three sons paid tribute to the staff at the Intensive Treatment Unit of Cork University Hospital saying; “Colin received the best possible care from the expert and highly professional staff there and we are deeply grateful for everything they did”.
The funeral will be a private one, said his agent, but a memorial service will be held in Liverpool in the near future "as we know there are many, many people who will want to celebrate Colin’s life and work."
Colin Vearncombe enjoyed mainstream success in the late 1980s under the name Black when 'Wonderful Life’ became a massive hit worldwide. The album of the same name, released in 1987, had similar success, reaping commercial, critical acclaim and in the process selling over two million records worldwide with Comedy (1988) and Black (1991).
In 1991 he launch his owned independent label Nero Schwarz. 15 albums followed in the intervening 25 years. His most recent album, ‘Blind Faith’, was funded by a popular crowdfunding campaign. Released in the summer of 2015 it received glowing reviews across the press, including 4 stars in The Guardian and showed the Liverpool born singer was back to his creative best.
Colin Vearncombe: May 26, 1962 - January 26, 2016
'I was frustrated by how few of the people in the music world I respected. Maybe I just didn’t go to the right clubs'
Colin Vearncombe, otherwise known as Black, was born in Liverpool on 26 May 1962, in the week that Elvis Presley’s Good Luck Charm was at number one. Like many nascent rock musicians, it was a viewing of Elvis’s movie Jailhouse Rock that fired his youthful imagination and spurred him on to miming in front of the mirror with a cricket bat for a guitar.
Black’s first gig was on New Year’s Day 1981. The debut single Human Features was issued on local label Rox records and quickly sold out of its initial pressing of 1,000 copies. Later that same year Colin was introduced first to Pete Wylie and then his manager, Pete Fulwell. The fruit of this meeting was the second Black single, ‘More Than The Sun’, released on the Wonderful World Of . . . label.
An encounter with David Dix from The Last Chant, led to a new musical partnership. They attracted the interest of WEA Records (through Wylie and Fulwell’s Eternal label), but the liaison proved frustrating. The only releases were the single ‘Hey Presto’ and a re-recording of ‘More Than The Sun’ which led to the record company dropping the act during the promotion period for the single.
After a year or two of musical and personal darkness and finding himself homeless, Black wrote & released the single ‘Wonderful Life’ on the independent Ugly Man label. It only got to number 72 in the charts but the phone started ringing and resulted in a two-album deal with Chris Briggs at A&M.
In June 1987, Black achieved his first UK top ten hit with the single Sweetest Smile, to be followed up by a reworked version of Wonderful Life, also entering the top ten.
“Once you’ve had a hit, it’s hard to write another song without having that in the back of your mind," said Vearncombe. "For a long time, I would find myself hearing ‘I like it, but it’s not Wonderful Life”.
“It was surprising how little of the pop star life was as I had imagined it. I was frustrated by how few of the people in the music world I respected. Maybe I just didn’t go to the right clubs. I’ve never been a great schmoozer or networker and the idea of setting out to meet a certain type of people is anathema to me. The highlight was meeting Roddy Frame, and he looked as pissed off as I was. It was two years of disappointment – I didn’t have any wild sex, I’m not a druggie, so I was just digging a hole for myself.”
‘Wonderful Life’, the debut album, eventually sold well over 1.5 million copies and was followed by the sardonically entitled ‘Comedy’. ‘Comedy’ was critically acclaimed, but failed to repeat Wonderful Life’s commercial success.
Relations with the label became increasingly strained and after the third album also failed to repeat the success of the debut, Black and A&M parted company. The fourth Black album, ‘Are We Having Fun Yet?’, was released on Vearncombe’s own Nero Schwarz label in 1993 and licensed in 19 countries. Once again, it was a critical success and although it sold well in Europe it was virtually ignored in the UK.
There then followed a long hiatus and Vearncombe’s passion for song-writing was eventually rejuvenated in 1998 by a weekend workshop in Devon hosted by Squeeze’s Chris Difford. The result was album number five, ‘The Accused’ in 1999, his first release under his own name
“I’d spent six years without releasing a record or working on one. I was depressed without realising I was,” he said. “I had started recording some solo demos and then realised I was half way through a record. I had finally stopped thinking about Wonderful Life and so I released it as Colin Vearncombe rather than Black.”
