49 Facts About Midge Ure

James Ure was born on 10 October 1953 and is a Scottish musician, singer-songwriter and record producer.

Midge Ure's stage name, Midge, is a phonetic reversal of Jim, the diminutive form of his actual name.

Midge Ure enjoyed particular success in the 1970s and 1980s in bands including Slik, Thin Lizzy, Rich Kids and Visage, and as the frontman of Ultravox.

Midge Ure co-organised Band Aid, Live Aid and Live 8 with Bob Geldof.

Midge Ure achieved his first UK top 10 solo hit in 1982 with "No Regrets".

Midge Ure co-wrote Phil Lynott's "Yellow Pearl", which served as the theme of Top of the Pops for much of the 1980s.

Midge Ure moved to London and soon found himself immersed in a scene he had previously only read about in the pages of the NME.

Midge Ure played an acoustic set of Ultravox and Visage songs.

In 1978, Egan and Midge Ure formed Visage with lead vocalist Steve Strange, and utilised their new synthesiser when they recorded a cover of the Zager and Evans classic "In the Year 2525" for promotional purposes.

Egan and Midge Ure formed the short-lived band the Misfits, whose career was curtailed by an approach from Thin Lizzy.

Midge Ure already knew Thin Lizzy singer Phil Lynott, and in early 1979 Midge Ure received co-writing credit for "Get Out of Here" on Thin Lizzy's ninth studio album Black Rose.

In July 1979 Midge Ure stepped in to help Thin Lizzy complete a US tour following guitarist Gary Moore's abrupt departure.

Midge Ure contributed guitar parts to "Things Ain't Working Out" and "Dublin" for the Thin Lizzy remix compilation album The Continuing Saga of the Ageing Orphans.

In 1980, during the second part of this tour, Midge Ure switched to keyboards, and was replaced by Dave Flett and then Snowy White as guitarist.

Midge Ure continued to collaborate with Lynott, co-writing Lynott's biggest solo hit, "Yellow Pearl".

In 1981, Ultravox recorded their second studio album with Midge Ure as frontman, Rage in Eden, which was a Top 5 hit in the UK.

Midge Ure recorded the Bowie track "The Man Who Sold the World" for the soundtrack to the British comedy film Party Party.

Midge Ure met bassist Mick Karn at the first ever Prince's Trust concert in May 1982.

Midge Ure stated in a BBC interview in April 2009, "we are not trying to get our youth back, nor the hair that's fallen off already".

Midge Ure was rehearsing with Ultravox for an episode of the Channel 4 music show The Tube when host Paula Yates handed him the phone.

Geldof provided the initial lyrics, with Midge Ure working the musical theme on a small keyboard in his kitchen.

Midge Ure has described the song as not one of the best he has ever written, commenting that "the momentum the artists gave it in the recording studio is what made it".

At the studio recording Midge Ure took on the production duties for the song.

Midge Ure co-organised the Live Aid concert of 1985 along with Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith.

Geldof and Midge Ure have been honoured with two Ivor Novello Awards for writing the song.

In 1988, Midge Ure helped to organise the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute, at which he performed.

Midge Ure first performed at The Prince's Trust rock concert 1982, and has been the Musical Director at the concerts 1986,1987,1988,2010 and 2011.

Midge Ure performed at Music for Montserrat on 15 September 1997 to raise funds for the Caribbean island of Montserrat, which had been devastated by Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and again in 1997, when the island was impacted by volcanic activity.

Midge Ure himself lost a house on Montserrat, which was destroyed.

On 24 July 1999, Midge Ure was the Musical Director of the Wicked Women concert for the Breakthrough Breast Cancer charity held at Hyde Park in London, featuring artists Ronan Keating, Big Country and Lisa Stansfield.

Midge Ure has received five honorary degrees and was made an Honorary Doctor of Arts in 2005 by the University of Abertay Dundee for his artistic and charity work over the past 30 years.

Midge Ure was made a Doctor of Music by University of Edinburgh in 2006.

Midge Ure was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Bath in December 2010.

Midge Ure recruited Mick Ronson to play guitar on his upcoming solo tour.

From 22 March to 22 April 1992 Midge Ure toured in the US with four songwriters, Don Henry, Chip Taylor, Darden Smith and Rosie Flores.

Midge Ure made an appearance at the prestigious Oxford University Union Debating Society.

In 1998 Midge Ure played on a European tour with Troy Donockley, and he recorded the soundtrack to two American films that year, both directed by Richard Schenkman, October 22, and Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God.

In November 2004 Midge Ure released his autobiography, If I Was, through Virgin Books.

Midge Ure worked for over a decade on the next solo studio album, Fragile, which was released on 7 July 2014.

In 2015, Midge Ure's 1982 cover of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World", was featured in the video game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

Midge Ure returned to North America in the summer of 2018 on a co-headline tour with Paul Young, called "The Soundtrack of Your Life Tour".

Midge Ure invited other artists, including Mark King of Level 42, Glenn Gregory, Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Gary Kemp, and Clare Grogan of Altered Images.

From 4 January 2021 Midge Ure was hosting on Scala Radio, on their show The Space.

The project came about when Midge Ure was performing in Dusseldorf in 2020.

Wolfgang Flur of Kraftwerk was in the audience and later asked Midge Ure to join a new project he was working on.

Whilst Flur went on to record his own version of the song for his album Magazine 1 released in 2022, Midge Ure laid down "Das Beat" with Band Electronica in its original form.

Midge Ure first married television presenter, actress and novelist Annabel Giles, in 1985.

Midge Ure appeared on the 2007 Celebrity MasterChef series, winning his heat and progressing to the final on 15 June, alongside Nadia Sawalha and Craig Revel Horwood.

Midge Ure is a recovered alcoholic, something he discusses in his autobiography If I Was.