Midge Ure

Midge Ure, guitarist and singer who became one of the central figures in the new wave act Ultravox, launched his professional path with Salvation, the Glasgow outfit that rebranded as the bubblegum group Slik in 1974. Discontent with that stylistic shift prompted him to depart and link up with the Rich Kids, the punk-pop ensemble fronted by former Sex Pistol bassist Glen Matlock. That band managed only a single album, 1978’s Ghosts of Princes in Towers, before disbanding later the same year. Ure passed briefly through the Misfits—not the American group—then co-founded Visage alongside drummer Rusty Egan and vocalist Steve Strange, only to exit and step in for Gary Moore in Thin Lizzy midway through an American tour. Once that run concluded, he honored a prior commitment by replacing John Foxx in Ultravox.

Joining the group in 1980, Ure steered Ultravox toward mainstream visibility while simultaneously producing sessions for Steve Harley and Modern Man. His first solo outing arrived in 1982 as a cover of the Walker Brothers’ hit “No Regrets,” which reached the U.K. Top Ten. Together with Bob Geldof he assembled Band Aid in 1984 to support Ethiopian famine relief; the pair composed “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and gathered a star-studded cast of British musicians to record it. The single moved millions of copies during the 1984 holiday season and inspired Geldof to stage the Live Aid benefit concert the following year.

Ultravox entered a period of inactivity in 1985, freeing Ure to concentrate on solo work full-time. His self-produced debut, The Gift, yielded the chart-topping single “If I Was” along with the smaller successes “That Certain Smile” and “Call of the Wild.” He completed one last Ultravox album before the band dissolved in 1987; his next solo effort, 1988’s Answers to Nothing, underperformed in Britain compared with its predecessor yet still registered on U.S. charts—an achievement The Gift had not matched. Three years afterward he issued Pure, which failed to register stateside but contained the British Top 20 hit “Cold, Cold Heart.” A 1996 attempt at resurgence, Breathe, attracted scant attention in either the American or British marketplace. Four years later his soundtrack for the Jon Cryer comedy-drama Went to Coney Island appeared on the Evenmore label.

Ure’s 2000s output opened with Move Me in 2001, an album that included several unexpectedly hard-rocking tracks. He later published the autobiography If I Was, then co-organized the Live 8 concerts with Geldof, after which he received the OBE distinction. Following the covers collection 10 in 2008, he took part in an Ultravox reunion while maintaining his solo recording schedule. Fragile surfaced in 2014 and included the Moby collaboration “Dark, Dark Night.” In 2017 he teamed with composer Ty Unwin for Orchestrated, an album of orchestral reinterpretations of Ultravox material and selections from his own catalog. Throughout the ensuing years he maintained a steady schedule of live dates across Europe, the U.K., and the U.S.; in 2019 the anthology Soundtrack 1978-2019, spanning four decades of his output, was released. Ure marked his 70th birthday in 2023 with a singular performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall that presented a complete live rendering of the landmark Ultravox album Vienna; the concert was captured and issued as Live at the Royal Albert Hall in late 2024.