WE WERE IN THE THROES of holiday celebrations when the news came that George Michael was dead. It was Christmas day, and he had passed away in his sleep at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. He was only 53.
George Michael (1963 – 2016)
English singer, songwriter, and record producer George Michael was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou in East Finchley, London in 1963 to a Greek Cypriot restaurateur father and English dancer mother.
While in his early teens, the family moved to Radlett, Hertfordshire. It was here, in Bushey Meads School in the neighbouring town of Bushey, where he would meet friend Andrew Ridgeley. Both had the same ambition to become musicians and would go on to form the band Wham! in 1981. Michael’s early days in the music business began as a DJ playing at clubs and local schools around Bushey, Stanmore, and Watford and would end with him selling more than 100 million records worldwide.
In April of 1985, Wham! toured China — it would be the first visit to China by a Western pop music act and generated worldwide media coverage, as before Wham!’s appearance, many kinds of music were forbidden in the country. Members of the Chinese government were in attendance and Chinese television presenter, Kan Lijun, the on stage host, said of Wham!’s historic performance: “No-one had ever seen anything like that before. All the young people were amazed and everybody was tapping their feet. Of course the police weren’t happy and they were scared there would be riots.”
Wham! officially separated in 1986 and Michael would go on to become one of the best-selling British acts of all time, with Billboard magazine ranking him the 40th-most successful artist to ever live.
George Michael discography
Faith (1987)
Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 (1990)
Older (1996)
Songs from the Last Century (1999)
Patience (2004)
Wham! discography
Fantastic (1983)
Make It Big (1984)
The Final (1986) (UK only)
Music from the Edge of Heaven (1986) (North America and Japan only)
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