SIMPLY RED:It's time to love Mick the mouth

[KiwiCoromandel]

Yes, he's a bit of a brag. But there's good reason to like Hucknall, writes Neil McCormick....

WHY do people hate Mick Hucknall? He is one of the few great soul singers Britain has produced. His multimillion-album-selling career spans three decades, has its roots in punk rock, the birth of indie and links the 46-year-old to some of the most credible and adored rock acts of our times. Yet, beyond his fan base, Hucknall is widely loathed.

I wonder if this negative public perception might be rooted in the very name he chose for his floating band - Simply Red, denoting hair colour, an allegiance to Manchester United and his left-wing political affiliation. A carrot-topped, champagne socialist - he never really stood a chance, did he?

Hucknall's playboy image hasn't helped. Short, ginger and portly are rarely attributes that rate highly when women look for a man, although rich and famous help. He is hardly the first pop star to take advantage of his status, but Hucknall's association with glamorous women such as Catherine Zeta-Jones and Helena Christensen seems to inspire more envy than admiration. A tendency to mouth off about socialism while driving sports cars, living the high life and hanging out with the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has contributed to an abiding impression of inflated self-regard. ("I've said to Tony: 'You should have waited on Iraq.' He listens," Hucknall claimed, even though his influence on foreign policy may be exaggerated.)

Hucknall is now in a long-term relationship with Gabriella Wesberry (their first child is due in June), and acknowledges a problematic past on a new song, Good Times Have Done Me Wrong from Simply Red's 11th album, Stay, released this weekend in Australia. Ironically, the confident, snarling, sinuous delivery suggests he's having the time of his life. As Hucknall put it recently: "I am one of the best singer-songwriters this country has produced. Ever. If people don't like me saying that, tough shit. You can't sell 50 million albums without something. Tom Jones told me only a few singers have got the pipes, and he's right. He has. Sinatra did. I have."

Self-effacement being the preferred mode for British pop stars, such proclamations may grate - but it is hard to argue with Hucknall's assessment. While Britain has produced some roaring rockers and idiosyncratic stylists, rarely has a British vocalist touched the blend of impeccable technique and emotional resonance that characterises American soul stars.

Hucknall has a rasp that lends an edge to the sweetest note, and the kind of easy, flowing, croon control that winds around a melody. But for all the gorgeous renditions of heartbreaking ballads, tender love songs and uplifting anthems, he retains a lyrical spikiness unusual in the genre. His music may have drifted towards the middle of the road, yet his outspoken politicism lingers. It is hard to imagine any of his American contemporaries delivering the kind of state-of-the-nation addresses that appear on his new album - out and out polemics such as Money TV or The Death of the Cool.Furthermore, Hucknall's musical credentials are impeccable. He was one of only 42 people present at the Sex Pistols' legendary Manchester Free Trade Hall gig in 1976, other audience members going on to form such seminal bands as Joy Division, the Buzzcocks, the Fall and the Smiths. His first band, the Frantic Elevators, put out their own records for seven years. You can hear him shouting Every Day I Die on D-I-Y, a new compilation released by Soul Jazz records celebrating the origins of indie music - but be warned, it's not pretty. Punk never suited his honeyed vocal chords, although a radical re-recording of the Elevators' Holding Back the Years gave him his first US No.1 in 1986.

Despite his commercial status, Hucknall has retained his independent spirit, extracting himself from contracts and setting up his own label, simplyred.com, frequently held up as an example of how artists can run their own careers. A music lover through and through, he owns the rare-groove reggae label Blood and Fire, reissuing reggae classics and funnelling much-needed royalties to their authors. Far from being a hate figure, it is perhaps time we made him a national treasure.

Hucknall, however, would probably be unimpressed. He ends his new album with a delightfully scabrous waltz, Little Englander, deriding the nation's over-inflated sense of itself. "Judge me, go on - it amuses me," he announces, before concluding, surprisingly sweetly, "Let me smash the plastic face of my lovely country."

What's not to love?

source:Telegraph, London

image:Reuters:The BIG GINGE … MICK HUCKNALL isn't crying over the derision...