Released on 11 October 1985 "Picture Book" was the debut album by British pop and soul group Simply Red, released in October 1985. It contained the US number-one single "Holding Back the Years", and covers of the Valentine Brothers' "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)" and Talking Heads' "Heaven". Three more singles were released from the album: "Come to My Aid", "Jericho", and "Open Up the Red Box". Picture Book was Simply Red’s debut album that catapulted Mick and the
band from working class Manchester into the public eye. The album helped Simply Red earn a 1987 Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. "Holding Back the Years" was also nominated for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals.
By 1985 Hucknall’s punk rock pretensions were nowhere to be heard,
but few were predicting the gold-paved path he would soon take. Hucknall
had paid his dues and his new band, Simply Red. In the spring of 1985, the band signed to Elektra, a newly formed UK
outpost of the storied US imprint. By this time, the lineup had
stabilised around the old rhythm section of jazz-infused Manchester
post-punks Durutti Column – Tony Bowers (bass) and drummer Chris Joyce
(drums) – alongside Durutti's erstwhile trumpet player Tim Kellett and
keyboard player Fritz McIntyre. Classically trained, jazz-schooled
guitarist Sylvan Richardson was the newest addition.
Weeks after signed to Elektra, Simply Red decamped to the unlikely
location of Soundpush Studio in Blaricum, a small town in the
Netherlands, to start work on Picture Book. It was hardly Las Vegas, but
their Mancunian contemporaries still wondered why it was that they
needed to go abroad to record. The reason lay in the fact that the group
had enlisted the services of renowned American producer Stewart Levine
to produce the album, and he couldn't get a permit to work in the UK.
The New Yorker had worked with the likes of The Crusaders, Womack and
Womack, and Sly Stone, one of Hucknall's big heroes. He was persuaded to
see Simply Red live, where Hucknall's performance convinced him; the
music less so. 'The lead singer was magical', Levine later recalled, 'but the music
sounded like a retro American soul revue. I wasn't interested in this
kind of sound. I met with Mick Hucknall and told him we needed to come
up with something fresh.'
Hucknall’s choice of debut
single, was a slick cover of a 1982 disco tune,
The Valentine Brothers’ "Money’s Too Tight To Mention". But despite this quite good song, not everyone embraced the band wholeheartedly. Some reviewed Picture Book cautiously, advising readers to "forget the soul stuff and you’ve got one of the better debuts of the year". Hucknall knew how to sing. He might have spent the
next quarter of a century hammering that point home with all the
subtlety of the insults that have since been thrown at him, but as he
suggests Tom Jones told him, Hucknall has "the pipes". He’s simply done
everything he can since to turn the concept of soul into a series of
meaningless, too-many-notes mannerisms.
Picture Book‘s mainstream
production might not endear it to those who prefer their diamonds in the
rough: such techniques are about the only part of the era’s musical
trappings that are yet to be revived, meaning that those who didn’t grow
up with the record need to overcome a double fist of prejudices,
personal and stylistic. But amidst the contemporary pristine synths and jazz club brass
backing lies an authenticity that Hucknall was never able to replicate,
his financially strapped roots soon to be smothered by unimaginable
riches, his social conscience increasingly removed from the lifestyle
his newfound wealth afforded him.
The album opener was "Come To My Aid", keyboards stabbed over a rolling
bassline and tight guitar riffs before Hucknall comes in, his vocal
discreetly low in the mix, its joyful tone masking lyrics that start out
seemingly inclined towards the romantic. Money, interestingly, is a common theme through Hucknall’s work,
something he shares with others who have risen from humble backgrounds
to stardom, and his conclusion here. But it wasn’t all about politics and money. "Open Up The Red Box" may
have hints that wealth for some may not bring happiness to all
On "Look At You Now", where he addresses a former lover – or,
possibly, his mother. His sense of pride, yet to transform into
arrogance, is palpable in the galloping pace of the track and Hucknall’s
triumphant delivery, rather more vulnerable, however, is "Sad Old Red", in which he
reveled, against a sublime nightclub jitter, in the self-pity of a man
whose love has left. Tenderness is also on displayed on a magical interpretation of
Talking Heads’ "Heaven", which sees Hucknall slow down the pace and
transform the track into a slow-burning, yearning slice of sweet soul
And then there was "Holding Back The Years", that
first-dance-at-a-wedding tune which, in actual fact, is a lament for his
childhood. "Strangled by the wishes of pater," he sings, admittedly
adopting a curious private school Latin for the sake of the rhyme, It was another
perfectly poised piece of bitter-sweet soul, the strings restrained, the
trumpet solo muted, Hucknall’s voice wavering with emotion, slowly
building towards a pained, defiant announcement that "I’ll keep holding
on, holding, holding, holding" before he crumples into an inarticulate
heap and concludes "that’s all I have today / That’s all I have to say".
Along its forty minutes and thirty three seconds’ duration, Mick
Hucknall was the real thing, hard though it might be now to believe.
Cringe if you need at the glossy production, Hucknall and the
band carry off the album "on mood and groove alone, it was the most accomplished debut of that year, especially for "Holding Back The Years" considered Hucknall's best vocal performance alongside its rock and jazz sounds that propelled success in both side USA and UK.
Picture Book Track List:
1. Come To My Aid
2. Sad Old Red
3. Look At You Know
4. Heaven
5. Jericho
6. Money's Too Tight (To Mention)
7. Holding Back The Years
8. (Open Up The) Red Box
9. No Direction
10. Picture Book
