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Billy Currie | |
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 Currie performing in 2009 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | William Lee Currie |
| Also known as | Billy Curry |
| Born | (1950-04-01)1 April 1950 (age 74) |
| Origin | Huddersfield, England |
| Genres | |
| Occupation | Musician |
| Instruments | |
| Years active | 1974–present |
| Formerly of | |
William Lee Currie (born 1 April 1950[1]) is a British multi-instrumentalist and songwriter fromHuddersfield, England. He is best known as the keyboard and strings player withnew wave bandUltravox, who achieved their greatest commercial success in the 1980s.
Currie was born inHuddersfield, West Yorkshire and had an interest in music from an early age. As a child he sang a lot and at the age of ten he got aguitar. In 1961 he picked up theviolin at school and also sang in achoir. A year later he was in the school orchestra, but had to change instrument toviola to get a place at theHuddersfield School of Music, which he joined in 1965. The education was a preparation to become an orchestral player, learning viola withpiano as his second instrument and also studyingcomposition andharmony. During this time he joined astring quartet, played viola in an orchestra and performed with a viola, clarinet and piano trio. At this time Currie was excited to discover composers likeBéla Bartók,Arnold Schoenberg,Arthur Honegger andEdgar Varese. By 1967 he became increasingly interested inrock music, excited by the fact that bands created something unique and original together. In 1969 he had qualified for a place at theRoyal Academy of Music inLondon for further education, but decided not to go. Currie was interested in breaking into other areas of music and joined a rock band instead, playing viola. In the early 1970s he was a member of the experimental art group The Ritual Theatre, which included four classically trained musicians and four dancers. With this group Currie performed inHolland,Edinburgh Festival and various other places.
In 1974, Currie left Ritual Theatre to join the glam rock bandTiger Lily on viola and keyboard. In 1976, after several name changes, the band ultimately becameUltravox and recorded three albums,Ultravox!,Ha!-Ha!-Ha! andSystems of Romance, before singerJohn Foxx left to pursue a solo career in March 1979.
During Ultravox's subsequent hiatus, Currie dedicated himself to different projects. He collaborated withGary Numan who had admired theSystems of Romance album and asked Currie to record some songs that were included on his first solo album,The Pleasure Principle. Currie toured with Numan's band during 1979. During soundchecks for the tour Currie, with Gary Numan band musiciansChris Payne andCedric Sharpley began to develop a song of their own called "Toot City". Currie had also joined the studio-based bandVisage, fronted bySteve Strange, that also includedMidge Ure. Currie and Ure developed a solid working relationship. Visage drummerRusty Egan encouraged Currie to ask Ure to join the defunct Ultravox as lead singer/guitarist. Whilst composing material for a new Ultravox album and for the debut Visage album, Ure collaborated with Currie on the "Toot City" track which eventually became "Fade to Grey". The single became a huge hit for Visage in early 1981. However, this was surpassed by Ultravox's hit "Vienna", released around the same time. Both Ultravox and Visage became highly successful recording acts in the early 1980s. Ure decided to leave Visage to focus on Ultravox full-time in 1982. Currie remained with Visage for a while longer, but he too had left by 1984.
From 1980 to 1986, Ultravox released seven top 10 albums, including a live album and a "greatest hits" compilation and featured inLive Aid inWembley Stadium on 13 July 1985. During the last days of the band, there were tensions between Currie and Ure. With an underwhelming response to their 1986 albumU-Vox, the band effectively disintegrated.
In 1988, Currie put out aninstrumental solo albumTransportation, released on the IRS NoSpeakrecord label.Steve Howe played guitar on some of the tracks, with Currie later playing keyboards in Howe's 1991 albumTurbulence. In 1989 he formed the bandHumania. An album by them calledSinews of Soul was released in 2005.
In 1992, Currie reformed Ultravox with a new line-up (himself being the only original member involved). WithTony Fennell on vocals, they recorded the album "Revelation". At the outset of the subsequent tour, Fennell left to be replaced by Sam Blue. The tour took in the former USSR andMalta amongst other locations. Many of the synthesisers for which Currie was famous, apart from the often-volatileOSCar andMinimoog, were abandoned for this tour, replaced withKorg Wavestations andT-series keyboards. A further Ultravox album featuring this line-up, "Ingenuity", was released in 1994. Both albums were commercially unsuccessful.
Since 2001 Billy Currie has released several solo albums on his own label. These includeUnearthed, completed in 1998, andKeys and the Fiddle, which includes Curries soundtrack to the short filmThe Fragile Skin (1999), new material and a previously unreleased 1983 collaboration with Steve Howe andHazel O'Connor.
In 2009 and 2010, the "classic" Ultravox line-up from the 1980s (Currie, Ure, Chris Cross, and Warren Cann) reformed for two successful tours – their first together in over twenty years. In 2016 Currie announced his retirement from Ultravox. In May 2016 he released his 10th solo albumDoppel.
Currie is noted for his use of analogue synthesisers, such as theElka Rhapsody, and in particular his trademarksoloing sound, which typically consisted of soaring fluid lines on anARP Odyssey, making use of oscillator sync, later re-created with theOxford Synthesiser CompanyOSCar synth. Currie's original instrument whilst at music college was theviola, and he frequently added solo violin or viola to the arrangements of songs he played on, a relatively unusual choice in pop music.At the height of Ultravox's career, Billy Currie's keyboard rig included aYamaha CP70 electric piano andSS30 string machine,CS80 synthesiser, aPPG Wave 2.2 digital synth, aSequential Circuits Prophet T8 synth as well as his trademarkARP Odyssey. Other synths used by Ultravox included theMoog MiniMoog, Yamaha GS1 (the pad sound on "Lament") andEmulator II sampler.
Currie is married to Heidi (his 2nd wife) and has a son named Tom and a daughter named Lucy. He lives in North London.[citation needed]
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