Edwyn Stephen Collins (born 23 August 1959) is a Scottish musician, producer and record label owner from Edinburgh. Collins was the lead singer for the 1980s post-punk band Orange Juice, which he co-founded. After the group split in 1985, Collins started a solo career. His 1994 single "A Girl Like You" was a worldwide hit.[1]
In February 2005, Collins was hospitalised after two cerebral haemorrhages which resulted in aphasia, and he needed months to recover.[2][3] He resumed his musical career in 2007.[4] A documentary film on his recovery, The Possibilities Are Endless, was released in 2014.[2]
Collins was the co-founder of the indie record label Postcard Records and co-founded a second label, Analogue Enhanced Digital, in 2011. Collins has also worked as an illustrator, television actor, television producer and record producer. He won an Ivor Novello Award, the Ivor Inspiration Award, in 2009.[5]
Early life
Collins was born in Edinburgh. He lived in Dundee from the age of six to 14 after his father got a job as a lecturer at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. He attended the now-defunct Demonstration School in Park Place, where new educational ideas were tried out by students and teachers from the adjacent teacher training college, before moving to the secondary school, Morgan Academy.[6]
Collins co-founded the band the Nu-Sonics in 1976 in the Glasgow suburb of Bearsden. The band changed its name to Orange Juice in 1979. Collins and his friend Alan Horne founded the record label Postcard Records that year to release the band's singles.[7] The band's debut single, "Falling and Laughing" was issued in February 1980. Although critically acclaimed, the single only sold 2,000 copies.[8]
After three more singles with Postcard, Orange Juice signed to Polydor Records in October 1981 and released their debut album, You Can't Hide Your Love Forever, in March 1982.[8] The band's second album, Rip It Up followed in November 1982. Their single "Rip It Up", released in early 1983, reached number 8 on the UK Singles Chart and was noted as the first British hit single to feature a bass-line from the Roland TB-303 synthesizer.[9] The song was their only Top 40 single.[10]
The band's two subsequent albums, Texas Fever and The Orange Juice, were both released in 1984. They failed to find the same success as Rip It Up.[8]
Orange Juice disbanded in January 1985, after Polydor grew dissatisfied with the band's lack of success and the band's difficulty finding a new label to sign with.[1][8] During this time in his career, Collins met Grace Maxwell, whom he hired as his manager and later married.[8]
Collins released two singles for the Elevation label in 1987, both produced by Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins, but both failed to enter the UK Singles Chart. Elevation was closed in November 1987, just ten months after it released its first single. After the closure, Collins experienced a "falling out" with Creation Records founder Alan McGee, who had financed Elevation.[11] As a result, unlike other Elevation signees such as Primal Scream and The Weather Prophets, Collins was not migrated to the main Creation label and he was left without a record label contract.[11]
At the request of passionate Orange Juice fans in Germany, Collins recorded his next album at a small German studio, with the aid of producer Dennis Bovell, who had worked with Collins in Orange Juice, and Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera. The album, Hope and Despair, was released in 1989 by the Demon label and achieved success as an independent release. Demon also released Collins's next record, Hellbent on Compromise (1990), which was not as successful as its predecessor. Demon and Collins then parted ways and Collins embarked on a lengthy hiatus.[11]
Collins built his own recording studio in 1994 that was used to record his third solo album, Gorgeous George, which he also produced. The studio, located in West Hampstead, London, would become the West Heath Yard Studios that Collins would use for his future record label, AED Records.[12][13]
In a BBC 6 Musicradio interview on 18 February 2005, Collins said he felt unwell, but ascribed the nausea and vertigo to food poisoning. Two days later, he was admitted to intensive care in London's Royal Free Hospital after apparently suffering a major cerebral haemorrhage. After suffering a second haemorrhage he had an operation on 25 February 2005, which was followed by a lengthy programme of neurological rehabilitation owing to right-sided weakness and difficulty with speech.[3] His aphasia left him able to repeat only four phrases: "yes", "no", "Grace Maxwell" (his wife's name) and "the possibilities are endless".[16]
Post-cerebral haemorrhage
Collins released his sixth solo album, entitled Home Again, in September 2007 on Heavenly Records.[1] The album was recorded before his illness but mixed after his discharge from hospital. While still recovering, Collins returned to singing live, including playing a gig at The Arts Theatre in London, UK. A tribute song celebrating his return was recorded by the indie pop band The Candy Twins.[17]
On 2 October 2009, Collins's wife and manager Grace Maxwell detailed her "running battle" with Warner Music Group and MySpace over his right to allow fans to listen to "A Girl Like You" for free on his MySpace page.[19]
In November 2009, at a gig in London's Bloomsbury Ballroom, following a tour of the Scottish Highlands, Collins's singing was contrasted with his slow speech: "[W]hen he started to sing, his baritone proved as powerful as ever."[20] On 20 February 2010, he joined The Maccabees onstage at Brixton Academy for their encore, performing vocals on a rendition of "Rip It Up".
Losing Sleep, Collins's first written and recorded album since his 2005 illness, was then released on 13 September 2010 in the UK.[21] The album was recorded at his own West Heath Studios between November 2008 and May 2010, and was produced by Collins and Sebastian Lewsley. Collins and Lewsley first met in 1992, while Collins was producing former Subway Sect frontman Vic Godard's album The End of the Surrey People and Lewsley was his assistant. For the album, he collaborated with The Cribs' Ryan Jarman and Johnny Marr, Franz Ferdinand, The Magic Numbers singer Romeo Stodart, The Drums and Roddy Frame.[22] Lewsley explained the recording process of Losing Sleep in 2010:
We did each song in a day ... and a day consists of about four hours. So there's a real expediency about how it's recorded. The whole attitude of the album is just doing that. Not indulging anyone. Not having any band sitting round for days and days. "Have you got a guitar part yet? No? Just do it. You've got a coupla hours." They [Collins's collaborators] all looked quite petrified but they did it.[22]
In 2009, during the making of Losing Sleep, Lewsley observed Collins gradually regain his musical proficiency—Lewsley explained: "The studio is more of an instrument again for Edwyn."[22] The cover art for the album features a collection of bird drawings that Collins started working on in 2005.[21]
On 30 July 2011, Collins performed at the Indietracks festival that was held at the Midland Railway, Butterley, UK.[25] During the 2012 Kendal Calling event Collins sang "A Girl Like You", with Roddy Frame on guitar and Tim Burgess on backing vocals.[26]
Collins's eighth solo album, Understated, was released in March 2013 on his own AED Records label and was critically well received, with God Is in the TV stating:
Understated is more than just another step to recovery, it is indeed a fine record in its own right, and utterly life-affirming. It's also perhaps the ultimate testament to the healing power of music. He lost the ability to read, write, and lost movement in half of his body, but what he didn't lose was his gift for coming up with an ear-catching tune, as is proved here. It will make you smile, it may even make you cry, and it's an album that reminds you how good it is to be alive.[27]
A documentary film about Collins entitled The Possibilities Are Endless, directed by James Hall and Edward Lovelace, was released in November 2014.[28][29]
Collaborations with Roddy Frame
Collins has been friends with Roddy Frame, the frontman for the new wave group Aztec Camera, since they were both signed to Postcard Records in the 1980s.[30][31] Collins and Frame collaborated on the Aztec Camera album Stray, including a live performance of the song "Consolation Prize".[32]
Frame performed with Collins in November 2007 during Collins's first concert after his recovery from a serious illness,[33] and the pair played again at the Glastonbury Festival in June 2008, on the Park Stage, and at the Purcell Rooms in London, UK, in September 2008.[34][35]
Frame's fourth solo album, Seven Dials, was released in 2014 on Collins's AED record label. Frame explained, following the album's release, that he had been inspired to make an album with a full band after his positive experience playing with Collins in 2007 and 2008.[31]
In 1999, Collins was invited by the band Space to produce what would have been their third album Love You More than Football, which ended up being scrapped. However he is credited as a producer on a few B-sides, and he delivers a brief vocal cameo on the song "Thank You", where he makes reference to "Falling and Laughing".
In 2005 Collins produced the Cribs album The New Fellas and co-produced the 2013 album Clarietta, by Charlie Boyer and the Voyeurs, with Lewsley.[36][37] He also co-produced The Rails' debut album Fair Warning, released on Island Records in 2014.[38]
Collins also produced The Official Body, the third album by the British post-punk band Shopping, which was released on 19 January 2018.[39]
In addition to his music career Collins also produced and starred in the Channel 4 television show West Heath Yard.[40] Collins released his first book of illustrations, Some British Birds, with Morel Books in 2009.[41]Liberty of London printed his bird illustrations on fabric as part of a series of fabrics created in collaboration with musicians; his print is named Ornithology.[42]
In 2010 he received an honorary master's degree from the Buckinghamshire New University, in recognition of his "strong influences and contribution to the national and international music industry over the last three decades".[43]
On 21 August 2010, Collins attended the Helmsdale Highland Games as the chieftain, an honour also previously bestowed on his grandfather.[44]
On 24 August 2022, Collins appeared on stage with Coldplay at Hampden Park, Glasgow, to perform A Girl Like You
Personal life
Collins is married to Grace Maxwell, who is also his manager. The couple live in Helmsdale[45] and have a son named William.
Orange Juice were a Scottish jangle pop band founded in the Glasgow suburb of Bearsden as the Nu-Sonics in 1976. They became Orange Juice in 1979, and became perhaps the most important band in the Scottish independent music scene that emerged in the post-punk era, inspired by contemporary punk bands including Subway Sect, Television, and Buzzcocks but also 1960s acts, most notably the Byrds and the Velvet Underground. Musically, the band brought together styles and genres that often appeared incongruous, for example, country, disco and punk.
Aztec Camera were a Scottish pop/new wave band founded by Roddy Frame, the group's singer, songwriter and only consistent member. Established in 1980, Aztec Camera released a total of six studio albums: High Land, Hard Rain (1983), Knife (1984), Love (1987), Stray (1990), Dreamland (1993) and Frestonia (1995). The band garnered popular success for the songs "Oblivious", "Somewhere in My Heart" and "Good Morning Britain".
Vic Godard is an English singer-songwriter formerly of the punk group Subway Sect. He is now also a solo performer, while continuing to appear with various incarnations of Subway Sect.
Timothy Allan Burgess is an English musician, singer-songwriter and record label owner, best known as the lead singer of the alternative rock band the Charlatans.
Strawberry Switchblade were a Scottish pop duo formed in Glasgow in 1981 by Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall, best known for their song "Since Yesterday" from 1985, and their flamboyant clothing with bows and polka-dots.
Roddy Frame is a Scottish singer-songwriter and musician. He was the founder of the 1980s new wave band Aztec Camera and has undertaken a solo career since the group's dissolution. In November 2013, journalist Brian Donaldson described Frame as: "Aztec Camera wunderkind-turned-elder statesman of intelligent, melodic, wistful Scotpop."
Postcard Records is a British, Glasgow-based independent record label founded by Alan Horne in 1979 as a vehicle for releases by Orange Juice and Josef K. The label's motto was "The Sound of Young Scotland", a parody/tribute to the Motown motto; its logo featured a cartoon cat beating a drum. Although short-lived, Postcard was a key influence on the C81 and the later C86 indie-pop movements.
The Cribs are a British indie rock band originally from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, that formed in 2001. The band consists of twins Gary and Ryan Jarman and their younger brother Ross Jarman. They were subsequently joined by ex-The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr who was an official member of the group from 2008 until 2011.
Setanta Records was a British independent record label led by founder Keith Cullen. Setanta published UK and Irish indie music in the late 1980s and in the 1990s.
Paul Walter Quinn is a Scottish musician who was the lead singer of cult 1980s band Bourgie Bourgie, and also released records with Jazzateers, Vince Clarke and Edwyn Collins and sang on an early track by the French Impressionists.
The Bluebells are a Scottish indie new wave band, active between 1981 and 1986.
Malcolm Ross is a Scottish guitarist. His career started when he played guitar in the Scottish band Josef K. They released a string of singles and an album, The Only Fun in Town, on Postcard Records in the early 1980s.
Home Again is the sixth solo album by former Orange Juice singer Edwyn Collins, released 17 September 2007 on Heavenly Records.
Colorama is the longest running musical project of Welsh singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Carwyn Ellis, with an ever-revolving cast of collaborators. Stylistically best described as alternative indie pop, Colorama is an eclectic hybrid of genres and languages.
The Heartbreaks are a British alternative rock band formed in Morecambe, Lancashire in 2009. The band consists of singer Matthew Whitehouse, songwriter and drummer Joseph Kondras, guitarist Ryan Wallace and bassist Christopher 'Deaks' Deakin.
Carwyn Meurig Ellis is a Welsh musician, composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is known as the frontman of Welsh alternative band Colorama, as a member of the Pretenders and as a long-time collaborator with Edwyn Collins. In 2014, they worked together on the soundtrack to the film The Possibilities Are Endless which won the Mojo 'Film of the Year' Award.
Losing Sleep is the seventh solo album by Scottish singer-songwriter Edwyn Collins, released on 13 September 2010 on Heavenly Records.
Frankie & The Heartstrings are a Sunderland-based indie rock band formed in 2008. The band's debut album, Hunger was released on 21 February 2011, and debuted at No. 32 on the UK albums chart. Known for their partying, they were labelled as the indie Mötley Crüe.
"Rip It Up" is a song by Scottish indie pop band Orange Juice, released in 1983 as the second single from their 1982 album of the same name. The song became the band's only UK top 40 success, reaching No. 8 on the chart. "Rip It Up" signalled a departure from the sound of the band's earlier singles, with Chic-influenced guitars and using a synthesiser to create a more disco-oriented sound.
This is a discography for the Scottish new wave band Aztec Camera.
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