The Cultured Traveller, April-May 2017 Issue 16

Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou was born in London’s East Finchley on 25th June 1963 to an English dancer, Lesley Angold (née Harrison) and a Greek Cypriot restaurateur, Kyriacos Panayiotou who moved to England in the 1950s from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. It was in Radlett, Hertfordshire, where young George went to school, that he met Andrew Ridgeley with whom he officially formed Wham! in 1981.

The British pop duo released their debut studio album “Fantastic” on 9th July 1983 and it soon reached number 1 in the UK album charts, spawning a series of top 10 hit singles, including “Bad Boys”, “Young Guns”, “Wham Rap!” and “Club Tropicana”, the latter two of which were co-written with Ridgeley. After releasing their second album “Make It Big” in 1984 - which went to no. 1 in both the UK and USA - Wham! released one of the most beloved holiday songs of the post-MTV era, “Last Christmas”, which was part of a double A-side single with “Everything She Wants”.

In May 1984 “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” (from Make It Big) went to number one in the British singles chart. A few months later (while still a member of Wham!), Michael released his first solo track, “Careless Whisper”, which was also co-written with Ridgeley when they were just 17-years-old. Featuring one of the most famous sax solos in popular music, the single topped the charts in more than two dozen countries, including the UK and America’s Billboard Hot 100, and was credited to ‘Wham! Featuring George Michael’ in the USA. In April 1985 Wham! became the first popular Western music act to ever visit and perform in China, garnering worldwide media coverage. Before the duo‘s groundbreaking performance, many kinds of music were forbidden in China, but many dignitaries including members of the Chinese Government watched Wham! perform. Around the same time Michael began his long but mostly undocumented commitment to charity work, with a performance on Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, and by donating all Wham! royalties from their “Last Christmas/Everything She Wants” single to Ethiopian famine relief.

Apr-May 2017 The Cultured Traveller 125