The ever-cheerful Billy Ocean will appear in concert (https://www.crowncomplexnc.com/events/detail/billy-ocean) at 7 p.m. Oct. 27 at the Crown Theatre. Ticket prices start at $45, and, as of this writing, are still available. Don’t miss seeing this cheerful-countenanced man sing his infectious hits like, “Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run),” “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going” and “Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car.” His new album, “One World,” is well worth a listen. It incorporates a wide range of styles—reggae, rhythm and blues, rock and soul—perfectly suited to Ocean’s smooth and emotive voice. Although his chart-toppers fall into upbeat, dance music, you can hear the urgency in his voice when encouraging people to live in love toward each other.
Billy Ocean was born Leslie Sebastian Charles in 1950 on the island of Trinidad in the then-West Indies. Before he was 10, the family moved to London. As a teenager, Ocean sang in nightclubs and worked as a tailor in custom menswear on Savile Row. He released ten singles under other stage names, but none of them found an audience. He was discouraged, but he kept at it, doing session work for free just for the opportunity it offered. At night he worked in an automobile plant. But the 1970s would be a formative decade for Ocean: In 1976 his song “Love Really Hurts Without You” was a breakout success, hitting No. 2 in the UK and No. 3 in Australia; In 1978 he married his wife Judy Bayne; and, perhaps through the popularity of Bob Marley’s music, the Rastafari movement expanded rapidly, sweeping Ocean up with it. All would form the three-corded accompaniment of one of the hardest-working and most positive musicians of our era.
During Ocean’s time volunteering in the studio, he was given songs to sing that simply didn’t lend themselves to his singing style. He determined that to be successful and attain sustainability in the music industry—“or any business”—he needed to produce his own material. He’d have to learn to compose music, and he did. He’s self-taught. Ocean bought his first piano for £23. He sat down at it and his left hand began laying down the bass for “Love Really Hurts Without You” while his right added the melody. Thank goodness for tape recorders because Ocean cannot read or write music. Even today, he brings tapes to “people who know what they’re doing” as far as reading and writing music go.
“But you know what, it doesn’t matter,” he said in his always uplifting tone. Most of the great modern songs are written by people who can’t read and write music.
Ocean never met Marley, but he wishes he had and acknowledges his music had a profound effect on him.
“His music gave hope to people like me, black people,” he said. Musicians like Marley, Marvin Gaye, John Lennon and Bob Dylan, come along only once in a lifetime, Ocean said. He met Gaye in passing and wished he’d taken the chance to talk with him, but he didn’t want to intrude on Gaye’s privacy.
“You know what, though, I meet all those people through their music.”
Marley’s music, though, was different. It wasn’t just reggae dancing through white suburbia and the world; it was most decidedly a religion and a social movement. Despite the culture’s immersion into marijuana for its medicinal and mystical properties, at its root, Rastafari is an Abrahamic (Old Testament) form of Christianity that emphasizes self-control and love of others. It would prove pivotal in 1989, when Ocean’s mother, Violet, died of ovarian cancer.
“Here I was more successful than I ever imagined I’d be.” But her passing shattered his foundation.
His success was well-earned and lasting. In 1977, on the heels of “Love Really Hurts Without You,” “Red Light Spells Danger” reached No. 2 in the UK. Then in 1984 “Caribbean Queen” launched Ocean into another level of stardom. The song peaked at No. 6 in the UK; charted in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and across Europe under different titles; and in the US entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 85 but 10 weeks later was No. 1. The song earned Ocean the 1985 Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.
After “Caribbean Queen,” “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going,” the theme song from the 1985 movie “Jewel of the Nile,” starring Michael Douglass, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito, reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in the US. Also in 1985, “Loverboy” made it to No. 2 in the US. Ocean sang “Caribbean Queen” and “Loverboy” at the American Live Aid fundraising concert from JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Live Aid collected donations to alleviate mass starvation conditions in Ethiopia at the time. In 1986, “There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)” made it to No. 1 in the US, and two years later “Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car” peaked at No. 3 in the UK, but made it into the top position in America.
But the death of Ocean’s mother changed everything. His voice shakes slightly even now explaining that she worked so hard and he’d finally been able to buy her a house—“every boy’s dream, right?”—and she lived in it for only three years. When he’d written “Love Really Hurts Without You” he had owned a bible but never read it. Now he read it, and he found the guidance he’d been lacking. He became a vegetarian, which arguably is biblically based and a prominent part of Rastafari Ital, meaning to eat only clean, pure, plant-based foods. He also took time away from his career. In other interviews, he has shared that with three children and him on the road, his wife needed his help. He did the right thing for his family, pausing his career to help raise his children, and he doesn’t regret it.
Ocean considers Marley’s music a wake-up call that pointed Ocean and many like him toward a life-altering dependence on Jesus. Once that is “locked in,” you see the world differently, he explained. We are constantly bombarded by lures to bad food and illicit sex, “especially sex,” Ocean emphasizes. Without the self-discipline the bible lays out and the salvation, forgiveness and comfort a belief in Jesus provides, we can easily be swept off course by our own desires and the knowingly evil or misguided intent of others. The resultant blessings for Ocean are obvious: He and Judy are still married with three children and four grandchildren, and at 74 he’s still filling venues and singing songs both old and new.
In 2007, Billy began touring again, now with his daughter Cherie on backing vocals. The following year, he leaned back into his songwriting talents and returned to the studio for the first time in 15 years, resulting in a new album, “Because I Love You.” A best-of compilation followed the next year. Another album, “Here You Are” debuted in 2012, and five years later it was released in the US. Ocean toured the world, doing shows in such diverse places as Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Dubai, Germany, Holland, Luxembourg, Spain and the US. In 2018, Ocean played to a sellout audience at The Royal Albert, which he considered an honor. In 2018, he received an Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement; Novello awards are given in recognition of songwriting and composing. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2020 New Year Honors for his services to music.
Ocean disciplined himself at the peak of his career when things often get out of control for artists. He made a sacrifice for the sake of his wife and children. God must have noticed because he blessed Ocean with both recognition within the music industry and a fan base that spans the globe.
(Photo: Billy Ocean will be performing at the Crown Theatre, Oct. 27. Photos courtesy of Billy Ocean)
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