English musician William ‘Holly’ Johnson was born 64 years ago in Liverpool and is also a writer and painter.
He took his education at primary and then grammar school and started showing interest in music, particularly David Bowie and Marc Bolan. When he was 14, Johnson adopted the name ‘Holly’, after being inspired by an actress. Also, he was involved in the local new wave/punk rock scene and joined a band named ‘Big in Japan’ as a bassist. Holly even released 2 singles ‘Yankee Rose’ and ‘Hobo Joe’, which, however, failed to chart.
In 1980, Johnson joined a group of young musicians and together formed the band ‘Frankie goes to Hollywood’. This name was given by Johnson himself after seeing an article about Frank Sinatra. Three years later, the band released their debut number one UK hit single ‘Relax’ and they immediately rose to stardom. Two more successful singles followed, namely ‘Two Tribes’ and ‘The Power of Love’, which were also UK number one hits. Their debut album ‘Welcome to the Pleasuredome’ came out in late 1984, and yielded the UK number 2 hit single of the same name.
The band’s second album was released 2 years later, but did not received the success expected. In fact, only one of the three featured singles made it with the UK Top 5, namely ‘Rage Hard’. To make things worse, Holly and his fellow band members entered in many disagreements regarding the group’s direction, so much so that in 1987 he left the group.
Holly then decided to embark on a solo career and his debut album came out in 1989 and was very successful, yielding the singles ‘Love Train’, ‘Americanos’ and ‘Atomic City’. He then joined singer Paul McCartney, the band ‘The Christians’ and others to record the charity hit single ‘Ferry cross the Mersey’.
From the beginning of the 90s to date, Johnson had 4 more albums and 12 singles. He also collaborated with other artists as songwriter, guest appeared as singer and on TV shows as well as the radio.
In May last year, he reunited with the other ‘Frankie goes to Hollywood’ members and performed ‘Welcome to the Pleasuredome’ in the Eurovision opening night in Liverpool.
*Image: no infringement intended. Source: ethnicelebs.com