Paul Young's heartbreak as he releases first solo album after death of wife
Paul Young, the 1980s heartthrob, has recently released his first solo album in seven years, titled Behind The Lens, which is his first album since the tragic death of his beloved wife, Stacey Smith.
Paul, now 67, married Stacey, a model, in 1987 after they met four years earlier on the set of his music video for Come Back and Stay. They had three children together: daughters Levi, 36, Layla, 29, and son Grady, 27. The couple briefly separated in 2006, during which time Stacey had a son, Jude, with businessman Ilan Slazenger. However, they reconciled in 2009. Tragically, Stacey was diagnosed with brain cancer seven years later and sadly passed away in 2018.
Following her death, the country went into lockdown due to the Covid pandemic. Paul found this period challenging but says it allowed him to compile material for his new album.
Paul has released his first album since the sad passing of his beloved wife (Getty Images)
Singer Paul Young with his wife, Stacey Smith in 1996 (Popperfoto via Getty Images)In an interview with Express.co.uk, the Everytime You Go Away singer said: "I found it to be difficult to begin with because you felt quite insulated. But in the end, it was good because it gave me a chance to look back at other projects I'd done and realise I'd been overly hard on myself when a lot of the stuff I had was very good."
Paul added that the songs are a collection written over the years and that he revisited some of his past experiments during the lockdown as he couldn't do any new recordings.
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The singer has shared his journey of creating his new album, which includes collaborations with the last band who played with Robert Palmer and songwriting in Nashville. He stated: "I'd worked with the last band who played with Robert Palmer and I did some recordings with them, I also did songwriting in Nashville and so I got those demos. Once I'd picked all my favourites of all the projects I had done, there was enough for an album."
Currently, Paul is touring the country with his solo Behind The Lens gigs, while also preparing to return to the stage with his Tex-Mex band, Los Pacaminos. The band, established in 1992, will commence their sell-out gigs on November 17 in London, with performances scheduled in Leeds, Southampton, and Edinburgh, among other cities.
However, the band experienced a significant loss when long-running member Matt Irving passed away in 2016. Reflecting on performing without him, Paul said: "A lot of time has passed. We couldn't do without an accordion player so, as much as we miss Matt, we've got another great guy in the band with a great sense of humour."
Paul traced back the origins of Los Pacaminos to his love for Tex-Mex music, which began in the mid-1970s under the influence of guitarist Ry Cooder. He explained: "Ry changed his band so almost half of them were Mexican and it changed the sound of what he was doing and there was a different flavour."
He continued, "I looked into that and I started to get into Mexican music from there. We started [Los Pacaminos] for fun and I was trying to do something whereby it wouldn't take me long to be able to get the flavour and sound."
Regarding the upcoming tour, Paul hinted at a "dance flavour" and an abundance of humour. He reflected:"I think it is the kind of music that you can identify with if you are above a certain age and still make mistakes in love and life. We say, 'I'm never going to make that mistake again', and then we go diving into the next part of our life, and make them all over again."
* An AI tool was used to add an extra layer to the editing process for this story. You can report any errors to [email protected]
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