George’s frustration with Innervision boiled over after he’d finished recording the first Wham! album. He took the master tapes home to Radlett and told his bemused mother to guard them. When he informed Dick Leahy what he had done, his wise advisor told him calmly to hand them straight back to Mark Dean.
In George’s defence, he had been up for forty-eight consecutive hours at the studios, putting the finishing touches to the modestly named Fantastic, and wasn’t thinking too clearly. Dick told him he would have a much better case in court if he was arguing his legal position with a number one album in his back pocket.
Fantastic duly topped the charts when it was released in July 1983, eventually selling nearly 900,000 copies. As well as their families, George and Andrew included David and Andros alongside Shirlie and Dee in their thank yous. Poignantly, they dedicated the album to Andrew Leaver and Paul Atkins, both of whom had died since they had left Bushey Meads. Their former bandmate Andy had finally succumbed to cancer at the age of twenty. Just a few months later, Paul, another classmate, was killed in a car accident. George and Andrew attended both funerals, keenly aware, and a little embarrassed, that they were the centre of attention because of their new fame as pop stars.
The reviews for Fantastic were mixed and not every critic praised George Michael. Rolling Stone magazine thought his ‘earnest whine’ was synthetic. The reviewer said: ‘Probably the biggest problem with Wham! is that the group lacks a really distinctive vocalist.’
The NME was more complimentary, praising in particular the ‘touching sensitivity’ of ‘Nothing Looks the Same in the Light’, which surely would have reached number one had it been released as a single. The rhythmic ballad, on which George played all the instruments, told of the emptiness of a misguided one-night stand. George never said if he was speaking from experience, but the words were a touch more mature than ‘Careless Whisper’ and the forerunner of his heartfelt and introspective songs of the future. Intriguingly, both contained the sentiment, ‘Please stay’.
‘Careless Whisper’ was not included on the album. The song was always going to be George’s ticket to solo stardom and the start of the credibility he craved. George protected the song as if it was a precious diamond that he kept locked away in a safe. Every so often, he would take it out, polish it a bit, admire its sparkle and hide the jewel away again.
He took the diamond with him when he flew to the US that summer to record as George Michael for the first time. Simon Napier-Bell had arranged for him to work on the song with Jerry Wexler, the renowned producer of Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield and Ray Charles, at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama, about sixty miles from Nashville. Jerry was at the very top of the tree and, for once, George was slightly overawed by his surroundings and, temporarily, let others take over and hand him the finished product.
At first George seemed pleased that he was flying home with such a classy, slick and expensive sound. It was as if Kenny G had teamed up with Hall & Oates. But in reality he was just putting on a brave face when he told people that they would ‘get used to it’. As the weeks went by, however, he became less confident that this version was the very best he could do. Jazz Summers didn’t like it and nor did Dick Leahy. Even Simon acknowledged, ‘It had no kick to it; no balls.’
More pressingly, Wham! needed to find a new sidekick for Shirlie after Dee, who’d been feeling increasingly marginalised in the group, left abruptly. She felt undervalued, which she probably was. She explained, ‘I left because George kept saying in interviews that he was going to “kick the girls out” and that we were “only for show” and that wasn’t doing me any favours.’
George wasn’t the only one with ambition. Dee was writing songs and wanted to be appreciated as an artist in her own right. ‘They kept me so tied up with dance classes and working out Wham! routines for Top of the Pops, I used to get worn into the ground. I’d ring up my mother and say, “I’ve got to come home, Mum, I’m just so tired.”’
Dee released various singles without much success until her own composition, ‘See the Day’, became her biggest hit in 1985. She was better known as a vocalist with Paul Weller’s band The Style Council, eventually marrying the former leader of The Jam in 1987 and having two children before their divorce ten years later.
George was keen to find another black girl so that the look of the group remained the same with the live tour coming up. He was very fastidious about that. A replacement was quickly found: some friends of Simon’s recommended a young singer called Helen DeMacque, who everyone called ‘Pepsi’. She went along to the manager’s home in Bryanston Square, now also Wham! HQ, where he hired her on the spot – provided the others approved. Shirlie picked her up from the station in Radlett to take her to George’s house. On the way she listened to Helen’s demo cassette in the car. She was impressed by her voice, which reminded her of Shirley Bassey, and discovered they both liked the Welsh diva’s voice.
Pepsi had the distinct impression that it was really up to Shirlie whether she joined the group: ‘I got in the car and we clicked right away.’ Shrewdly, she did not try and join in when the other three started cracking in-jokes but took her time to get to know them.
Shirlie observed that the two of them were very compatible: ‘It would have been embarrassing if none of us liked her. But I really did, because, although she looked quite tomboyish, she had this strong feminine streak.’
Since she’d split with Andrew, Shirlie had been dating Martin Kemp from Spandau Ballet. He’d seen her performing with Wham! on Top of the Pops and, rather sweetly, fallen ‘completely in love with her’. A few weeks later, they bumped into each other at the aftershow party for the opening night of Yakety Yak, a rock and roll show starring the McGann brothers and the group Darts, which had transferred to the Astoria Theatre in Charing Cross Road.
Martin went over to chat to her and gave her his number. A couple of weeks later she rang and they arranged to meet at the Camden Palace. He recalled their first date: ‘As I am walking towards the Palace I could see Shirlie standing on the pavement and next to her I realised the worst thing that could happen – she had brought a wingman. And nobody wants that on a date, do they? Nobody wants the girl to bring her mate. But her mate was George. And I have to say, George was one of the nicest people you could want to meet.’
George gave Martin his seal of approval, a relief for Shirlie, who valued his opinion highly. She was one of a few women with whom over the years he had a long-standing, close, platonic relationship. He loved Shirlie and genuinely liked Martin.
Spandau Ballet were for a while rivals of Wham!, but Martin and George liked nothing better than talking for hours about life and the world. With Shirlie and Martin, he could be Georgios again – as if he were chatting to his mum in the kitchen at Oakridge Avenue. They remained his friends for life.
Shirlie was in love but she had to concentrate on Wham!’s first tour. She and Pepsi were a united front against the thousands of young girls intent on getting a message to George or Andrew by handing Pepsi and Shirlie pieces of their underwear with their phone numbers on them. The ploy never worked.
When the Club Fantastic Disco Evening began at the Capital Centre in Aberdeen in October 1982, underwear became an unexpected hazard. Andrew and George were scarcely Tom Jones, but so many bras and knickers were tossed on stage that they needed to assign a roadie to sweep them up so they didn’t trip during one of the dance routines.
Pepsi and Shirlie were listed as ‘tour crew’. George was careful not to promote the girls as being part of Wham! They were strictly members of the backing band – just as Dion Estus was on bass guitar. Record Mirror in its review of the show at the Playhouse Theatre in Edinburgh described them as ‘two pretty dancing accessories’. Dee C. Lee would probably have punched the writer, Jim Reid. On a positive note, he loved the show: ‘Wham! are a success because they come across as the cocky smile ’n’ wink pair their songs portray. They ham it, they milk it and the crowd love it.’
The theme of the shows was a night at a club. The Capital Radio DJ Gary Crowley played a succession of dancing hits to get everyone in the mood and the audience of mainly sixteen-year-old girls screamed every time they thought they caught a glimpse of George and Andrew about to come on.
They had to wait an hour before George launched into ‘Hey sucker!’ Their managers had struck a £50,000 deal with Fila sportswear to wear the label’s clothing throughout the show, so there was a costume change that basically consisted of wearing different-coloured shorts. They ensured maximum publicity by thrusting shuttlecocks down their pants before hitting them into the audience. In private, George hated the stunt, telling Simon it was ‘tacky crap’ and that he and Andrew came across as ‘two silly schoolboys’. More importantly, in the long run, ‘Careless Whisper’ was finally unveiled as the big song they had been talking up for weeks.
At half-time, everyone took a breather and a specially filmed video was shown which featured their parents, and most noticeably, George’s father behind the wheel of his Rolls-Royce ferrying his hungover son in his pyjamas over to Andrew’s house. For some reason, the media and the fans decided to ignore the obvious contrast between the bad boys singing about the DHSS and the wealthy teenage life of George Michael. During the next decade, they would focus interminably on Posh Spice and the fact that her nouveau-riche father drove a Roller. But they never gave George a tough time about it, preferring instead to pose the same tired question about his sexuality.
George’s dad was happy to be part of his new world, bristling with pride at watching his son on TV or on stage. ‘I couldn’t believe I was seeing my son,’ he said. Jack had been considerably happier to see some money coming in after Wham!’s managers, Simon and Jazz, successfully negotiated a fee of £110,000 for the tour from leading promoter Harvey Goldsmith. As George observed, ‘He is very financial.’ In fact, everyone was feeling more optimistic about money, although most of the earnings were being used to fund the legal action against Innervision.
Not everything went well throughout the tour. Strenuous singing and too many cigarettes took their toll on George’s voice and they had to cancel and reschedule some gigs. He was clearly in charge of the tour. Already, he alone made most of the decisions, insisting on quality above money-saving. He didn’t enjoy the touring experience and, as a result, had a lack of enthusiasm for being on the road that would stay with him.
After the last date at the Hammersmith Odeon at the end of November, it was time to finally sort out the festering legal headache with Mark Dean and Innervision. The company, perhaps sensing doom, had released the ‘Club Tropicana Megamix’, basically a rework of the existing material. More seriously, the label wanted to release the Jerry Wexler-produced version of ‘Careless Whisper’. Fortunately, Dick Leahy was able to stop that.
Eventually, in March 1984, CBS decided to settle the case without going to court. George had won. The giant label did not want to see a major new act not making any money for them because of a disagreement with a very minor subsidiary. Innervision ended up declaring bankruptcy while Simon and Jazz negotiated a new deal for Wham! with Epic Records, another subsidiary of CBS. The signing-on fee, according to Simon, was £250,000. At last, some real money.
George was very much his mother’s son and the pursuit of money was no more a factor in his life at this time than it ever had been before. Following her lead, he cared little for that side of things. George was primarily motivated by injustice. He hated the feeling that he was being ripped off.
Now that there was some cash in the till, Simon and Jazz could start to build a team around Wham! The unforgettable Connie Filippello became their publicist. She already worked for Nomis and had endeared herself to Andrew and George by referring to them as her ‘wonderful sex-gods’. Connie, a beguiling mix of Australian and Italian, used the word ‘dahlink’ in a way that would have had Zsa Zsa Gabor purring with pride. She could get anything in the paper, whether it bore any relation to the truth or not.
The day-to-day running of Wham!’s affairs was taken over by the unassuming and capable Siobhan Bailey. George was still living at home so his mother was always there for him, keeping him fed and doing his washing. She was a normal voice in the madness of stardom. In the big world, Siobhan took over many of the maternal duties, although these tended to be more organisational, including booking George’s driving lessons. He liked cars and was particularly keen to obtain a licence. Most of all, though, Siobhan was another cheerleader, who was immensely proud every time he had a hit. That was important to George. He thrived on being appreciated and liked to bask in the glory of something well done.
The third member of what would become Team George was the energetic Gary Farrow, who Nomis brought in as an independent plugger and general consultant with the brief to turn Wham! into a ‘scream’ band. He had worked his way up by the sheer force of his personality from being a runner at Elton John’s Rocket Records and achieved just what Jazz and Simon asked him to.
George trusted these three implicitly because they put his interests first. He valued their loyalty and returned it. By this stage, it really was the George show and they understood that. He was in control. All three would remain close to him for many years. The music journalist Rick Sky observes, ‘George had the ability to suss out who he could trust and who he couldn’t. It was a sign of his incredible maturity. He wouldn’t surround himself with anybody who would divulge secrets. Sometimes he might make a mistake but they were got rid of very quickly.’
George became godfather to Gary’s daughter Lauren – just as he would do with Shirlie and Martin Kemp’s children. Every Christmas he would turn into Santa Claus, call in and bring an armful of presents. He took his role very seriously.
The two closest to him remained David Austin and Andros Georgiou. His cousin had largely been absent during George’s teenage years, simply because he lived in South London. They picked up their friendship again when Andros started joining him for nights out in clubland. He soon became one of his most trusted companions and a constant fixture on trips abroad, practically at George’s side every day, much more so than Andrew.
Occasionally, a crossover took place and someone from his gay world would become a public companion. Pat Fernandes, a voluptuous black woman with a dazzling smile, became the centre of attention when she appeared to be his date at various events. She was just a close friend and nothing more, although that didn’t stop media speculation that they were a couple.
Pat had first been noticed alongside George as a dancer on the video for Wham!’s comeback single ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’. They hadn’t released anything new during the months of legal action, but here was an instant classic, one of the best feel-good tracks of modern pop and totally different to anything George had written before. Jazz Summers told him, ‘I think this is a smash.’
He had been inspired one day when he popped round to Andrew’s house and discovered that his mate was still nursing a hangover in bed. He had pinned a note for his parents to the door that should have read ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go’, except that, slightly the worse for wear, he had two attempts at writing ‘go’. The note therefore read ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’, which became the catchiest of choruses for George’s new song.
In the video Pat is one of the dancers that included Pepsi and Shirlie, and she certainly seemed to have some airtime, which would have been with George’s approval. The video, directed by Duncan Giddings, was frothy, but most noticeable for the famous ‘Choose Life’ T-shirt that George and Andrew wore. It was designed by Katharine Hamnett and was nothing to do with the anti-abortion community who later hijacked the slogan, much to her annoyance. Her inspiration was Buddhism and advocated the right of individuals to choose their own destiny whatever their gender or sexuality. George liked the concept. He would also have approved of another Hamnett creation: ‘Use a Condom,’ it proclaimed.
George liked dancing with ‘Patty’, as she was known in clubland. She was happy to drive him around as he had yet to pass his test. She had many gay friends, particularly in Boy George’s circle, whose flat in Camden she once lived in. The Culture Club singer had no problem calling her a fag hag and referred to her as his sidekick.
The feud between the two Georges began after the media suggested Patty and George Michael were lovers. Boy George laughed when the papers ran a headline, ‘How Pat Broke My Heart’, suggesting that it should have read ‘How Pat Broke My Hoover’. He was always fast with a witty quip.
Georgios Panayiotou was a warm and funny man. The George Michael image he created took life much more seriously, or as Boy George observed, ‘He’s got no sense of hummus.’ Boy George would later admit that it was ‘cheap and cruel’ to poke fun at George’s sexuality. A touch of professional jealousy may also have played its part. Clearly they were rivals and Wham! were in the process of brushing Culture Club aside as the most successful British band of the eighties.
The two Georges were never close, although Bananarama, once tried to act as peacemakers by inviting them both to a dinner party and not telling either one who would be there. They passed a pleasant enough evening but neither was invited into the other’s circle of friends.
George continued to fret about his personal appearance. He was bored with what he considered to be an overplayed narrative of him portrayed as the ugly duckling transformed into a swan by his association with Andrew Ridgeley. But that didn’t stop him wanting to present the best possible image to the public. Or the best side of his face.
He got into the habit of turning the right side of his face away from the camera because he only wanted to present the left. His insecurity stretched to social gatherings and, in company, he would invariably sit with what he considered to be his good side facing his assembled friends.
His hair, the symbol of his adolescent insecurities, remained his principal obsession. His sister Melanie, who he called ‘Mel’, was in charge of making sure he was happy with his hair and makeup for all photography and videos. She received a special thank you on the Fantastic album for her efforts.
Melanie was also a key player in the saga of the ‘Careless Whisper’ video. She was not involved at the beginning. George flew alone to Barbados to lie in the sun for a couple of days before a film crew joined him for the shoot. The weather was disappointing so he didn’t stay long and jetted off to Miami, causing chaos.
Duncan Gibbins, who had again been brought in to direct, recalled, ‘One hour before we’re all due to fly off with the film crew and all the equipment, I suddenly get this frantic call from George, telling me to meet him in Miami instead. We ended up renting boats and choppers all over Miami over the course of two very long, hot and humid days.’
It had been a nightmare as they struggled to find the right locations. Duncan had suggested a storyline in the style of a ‘fairly hard-edged Miami Vice story’, but George, who had complete control, decided he wanted something more like a glossy teen romance.
After two days, everyone was delighted with the footage when they reviewed it – except George. He hated his hair. He told his manager, Simon Napier-Bell, that he considered it ‘too long, too posy and too poofy’. All the humidity had made it ‘frizzy’. Duncan continued, ‘He said we’d have to do the entire thing again.’
An SOS call was made to Melanie, who literally took the first flight out of London so that she could attend to her brother’s hair. She was the only one he would trust, so popping down to the local barber’s was never an option. Her trim became one of the most expensive cut and blow-drys of all time because the entire video had to be reshot, which doubled the budget by more than $60,000.
George hadn’t finished, though. After all the footage had been shipped back to London and edited, he went back into the studio to re-record the track yet again, which caused all his singing on the video to be out of sync. As a result, Duncan had to re-film him on a ‘moody soundstage’ in London that forms the beginning of the video and then cut to George singing over what was little more than a travel guide to Miami.
The city, looking particularly warm and inviting, becomes the backdrop for his anguish. He thinks of the beautiful girl he rejected as he gazes at the Freedom Tower – aptly named considering the title of a new song he was working on. The video ends with his walking, crestfallen, into the penthouse of the Grove Towers condominiums.
Despite all the hiccups, the video for ‘Careless Whisper’ would become one of the most famous – and most watched – of all time. On YouTube, it has been viewed more than 275 million times and still rising fast, second only to ‘Last Christmas’ in George Michael’s career.
‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ had already raced to number one when it was finally decided it was time to put a toe into more mature waters and release ‘Careless Whisper’ in August 1994. This single too climbed effortlessly to the top of the charts, a vindication of all the faith that George had placed in the song. By this time, he had already told Andrew and his two managers his future plans. They were all in New York to whip up some enthusiasm for launching Wham! in the US when he announced one evening that sometime soon they would have to start thinking about him going solo. The success of ‘Careless Whisper’ meant that particular clock was already ticking.