This November Ricky Ross will embark on his most intimate U.K. tour yet performing songs from his extensive song-writing catalogue. 30 years of songs, from Deacon Blue and beyond. The tour will be of special interest to fans on Merseyside as Ricky will be performing at the New Brighton Floral Pavilion on Sunday 15th November.
Ricky formed Deacon Blue over 30 years ago and it is now 28 years since the band released their debut album, Raintown. A string of best-sellers followed, When the World Knows Your Name [1989], Fellow Hoodlums [1991], Whatever You Say, Say Nothing [1993] and a double-platinum compilation Our Town – The Greatest Hits [1994] which included Real Gone Kid, Fergus Sings the Blues, Dignity, Twist and Shout and Wages Day.
Then, with 12 U.K. Top 40 singles and two No.1 albums to their credit, the group split up for five years. Ricky Ross built up his career as a songwriter and solo act releasing two solo albums What You Are [1996] and New Recording [1997] as well as writing for or with artists including James Blunt, Ronan Keating, Jamie Cullum and Nanci Griffith among many others. A Deacon Blue reunion show prompted a new album Walking Back Home [1999] and a follow-up Homesick [2001] after which the band continued to play live but did not return to the studio together for 11 years. Ross continued writing though and recorded and toured his fourth solo album Pale Rider [2005] (his first So Long Ago [1984] was released prior to Ross forming Deacon Blue.
With his band on hold again he formed a duo with his Deacon Blue cohort Lorraine McIntosh. As McIntosh Ross they toured and released their much acclaimed album The Great Lakes [2009].
It wasn’t until 2012 that Deacon Blue decided to return to the studio and with the release of The Hipsters [2012] they had little idea of the impact which that album would have. The group’s dedicated fans were, naturally, quick to embrace it and the album sailed into the Top 20 on its week of release but then the media taste-makers got on board, in particular Radio 2, which A-listed four singles form the record.
Ricky then managed to find time to head into the studio and record his starkest and most urgent work Trouble Came Looking [2013], performing the album in the places he couldn’t get to with Deacon Blue, traveling the length and breadth of the country.
Touring with Deacon Blue soon continued and as the word spread, a new generation discovered their music. When the group played T in the Park in the summer of 2013, they were the talk of the festival. The buzz continued to build in September of that year when they played a triumphant show at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and that turned into a roar of acclaim as they ended their second tour of the year with a homecoming Christmas gig at the brand-new, 13,000-capacity SSE Hydro Arena in Glasgow. By the spring of 2014 Ross, with the help of guitarist Gregor Philp, had finished writing and demoing a new batch of songs. The band went back in to Paul Savage’s Chem19 Studio in Blantyre on the outskirts of Glasgow where they set up and played together live, as they had done for The Hipsters. The result was A New House [2014], an album full of confidence, courage and rekindled passion for the second life which Deacon Blue has now embarked upon. Filled with a sense of joy and forward-looking energy, it is an album which sounds distinctly at odds with the group’s veteran status.
Ahead of this new solo tour Ricky says “I want to be in a room of people and tell some stories and sing some songs. The stories won’t always be true … but the songs will be. There will be a piano, perhaps a guitar now and again, a pile of songs written over four decades and myself. Come and join me if you can.”
This will be a unique opportunity to see Ricky present some of his most famous songs as they were first written, by him, sitting at a piano and it’s a chance for Ricky to engage the audience with the stories about the people, places and ideas that influenced his song writing.
The tour, which will start in New Brighton, will also visit venues in Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham and Gateshead.
Tickets are on sale now and available from the New Brighton Floral Pavilion box office.