Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, will release Billy Ocean – Here You Are: The Music of My Life on Friday, July 21.
A special single-disc stateside edition of a 2-disc set released in the UK in 2016, Billy Ocean – Here You Are: The Music of My Life brings together 10 new Billy Ocean performances alongside five of the classic hits that made him one of the UK’s most popular recording artists of the 1980s.
A thematic collection celebrating the songs that informed, influenced and inspired Billy’s own music, Here You Are: The Music of My Life features his new composition, “Here You Are,” and the album’s first UK single, “A Simple Game” as well as Ocean’s powerfully heartfelt interpretations of standards and classics including “A Simple Game,” Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” “No Woman No Cry,” “Cry Me A River,” “Having a Party,” “It Was a Very Good Year,” “These Foolish Things,” “Judge Not” and “Love Train.”
An ideal introduction to the artist and an essential addition to any Billy Ocean library, Here You Are: The Music of My Life includes five classic tracks, the original recordings that established the singer-songwriter-performer as a signature sound of 80s pop radio, each of them reaching Top 5 or better on the American charts. These include Billy’s #1 smashes “Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run),” “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car,” and “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going” as well as his Top 5 hits “Suddenly” and “There Will Be Sad Songs (to Make You Cry).”
The release of Billy Ocean – Here You Are: The Music of My Life coincides with Billy Ocean’s first set of US tour dates in 20 years. The artist will be coming to the states this summer as one of the headliners on the Replay America Festival (please see itinerary following).
Billy Ocean is a Grammy award winning artist with sales of more than 30 million records worldwide. He hit the #1 spot across three continents in the 1970s and 1980s.
His signature hit, “Caribbean Queen” stormed to #1 on both the US singles chart and US R&B chart, and is one of Billy’s six US Top 10 singles. With Top 10 albums the world over, Billy was the most popular British R&B singer-songwriter of the early to mid-1980s and reached the #1 slot in the US with three of his singles.
In 1985, Ocean won the Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for his worldwide hit, “Caribbean Queen”, and in 1987 was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male Artist. In 2002, the University of Westminster, London, awarded Ocean an honorary doctorate of music. In 2010, Ocean was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the MOBO Awards. On 29 July 2011, Ocean became a Companion of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, presented to him by Paul McCartney.
Billy Ocean – Here You Are: The Music of My Life Tracklist
Influence and Inspiration – The New Recordings
01 Here You Are
02 A Simple Game
03 A Change is Gonna Come
04 No Woman No Cry
05 Cry Me a River
06 Having a Party
07 It Was a Very Good Year
08 These Foolish Things
09 Judge Not
10 Love Train
Classic Hits – The Original Recordings
11 Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)
12 Suddenly
13 Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car
14 When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going
15 There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)
