Photo: Andrew Ridgeley & George Michael | By Lyndsey Parker, Editor in Chief, Yahoo Music | Class of 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee George Michael was such a superstar in his own right, it’s almost easy to forget that his ‘80s duo Wham!, formed with his childhood best mate Andrew Ridgeley, was the launching pad for his stellar career.
To be fair, Wham!’s run was quite brief. Incredibly, only three and half years separated their charmingly school-play-like “Young Guns (Go for It)” performance on Britain’s Top of the Pops — a last-minute booking, after an unnamed act dropped out, that gave Wham! their first U.K. top 10 hit and forever altered the course of their lives — and their bittersweet official farewell concert at London’s 72,000-capacity Wembley Stadium. However, Wham! sold a whopping 30 million records during that short time frame, and their new self-titled Netflix documentary (which coincides with the band’s 40th-anniversary greatest-hits collection The Singles: Echoes From the Edge of Heaven and unexpected resurgence on TikTok) makes a compelling case that they were never just a footnote on George Michael’s lengthy résumé. In fact, it shows that without Wham! — and more specifically, without Ridgeley’s friendship and support — Michael probably would have never become a star at all.
Wham! chronicles Michael and Ridgeley’s schoolboy days, when the more gregarious Ridgeley was actually Wham!’s bandleader and front-facing heartthrob, up through their surprisingly shared decision to part ways so that the prolific Michael, who at age 23 had already outgrown Wham!’s bubblegum pop, could pursue a more sophisticated solo sound. It was a breakup that Michael once described to Smash Hits as “the most amicable split in pop history.” And throughout both the Wham! film and his interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Ridgeley — who after Wham! pursued a race-car-driving career and released one solo album, 1990’s Son of Albert, before stepping away from the spotlight — displays an almost saintly sense of humility and absolutely no signs of resentment.
“Well, first and foremost, I couldn’t be resentful of my best friend,” Ridgeley tells Yahoo matter-of-factly. “It’s just not in me. I was the proudest person of [Michael’s] creative development throughout — and it was very, very swift, indeed. No one could have been more pleased than me.”
The Wham! movie actually makes a strong case that Ridgeley was a key contributor to the group, not the coattails-riding sidekick he was sometimes cruelly made out to be in the press. (“Almost everything came from Andrew,” Michael says at one point in the doc’s archival interview footage.) Ridgeley was the one who initially urged his shy and awkward classmate George, nicknamed “Yog,” to pursue music against Michael’s strict Greek father’s wishes. Ridgeley also cowrote “Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do),” “Club Tropicana,” and “Careless Whisper,” the three demos that landed Wham! their first label deal. But Ridgeley insists that setting the record straight about his involvement “wasn’t the purpose of the documentary.”
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Read the whole interview here – with lots of videos:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/andrew-ridgeley-let-george-michael-walk-away-from-wham-163438035.html
Songwriters Corner:
Since 1982, Ridgeley has reportedly amassed £10 million from sales and royalties of records. Much of his income comes from the 1984 single “Careless Whisper”, which he co-wrote, and that has sold six million copies worldwide and, as of 2020, was the 37th best-selling single of all time in the United Kingdom, having sold over 1.3 million copies. Ridgeley still receives tens of thousands of pounds a year from his share of Wham! royalties as a member of the act and as a songwriter on some of the duo’s songs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Ridgeley
Photo: George Michael & Andrew Ridgeley
https://www.facebook.com/p/Andrew-Ridgeley-100058166377864/
(No postings since 2016!)
Ryn Todd: I hope you come back and post on here again. I understand 2016 year lost your best mate George Michael. The new Wham documentary was awesome. Never before seen pictures, audio, and video. Thank you for making it possible.
Why Andrew Ridgeley Let George Michael Walk Away From Wham!: ‘I couldn’t be resentful of my best friend’
