Aretha Franklin & George Michael - I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)

What's happening when a popstar sings a duet with a soul music living legend? Well, that produces a legendary hit for sure! That's what happened in UK first week of february 1987 with Aretha Franklin and George Michael's "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" .

Though Aretha Franklin seems to be a bigger music legend than George Michael (everyone probably knows her biggest hit "Respect"), this duet was the first and only one time that Aretha reached the first place in the UK charts.

On the other hand, after "Careless Whisper" in 1984 and "A Different Corner" in 1986, this was already the third number one in a row from George Michael , and he'll have several others later on...

That song already reached the top of the US charts but a bit later... It entered the charts at place 59th then it needed 9 weeks to reach the top on 18th april 1987.

For your information only, that song was co-written by Dennis Morgan and Simon Climie who'll also know his hour of success in 1988 with his band Climie Fisher and their breakthrough hit "Rise to the Occasion".

Wham! "I'm your man"

Today, back to London where Feargal is not the charts' leader anymore, but they needed to be two to replace him... They? I'm talking about Wham! that reached n°1 in the UK charts with their hit single "I'm your man".

Wham! it's of course (are you an eighties music fan or not?!?) George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. I've already talked about them in that post, so just click if you don't remember! ;-)

By clicking on the cover above, you'll be able to listen to samples of the best songs from Wham!

"I'm your man" is the second track but there's also a '96 remix... That is ... how to say... "different"! This remix is probably not the best idea they ever had... I'll let you judge by yourself but of course I still prefer the 85's version...

If you checked my previous post about George Michael, you saw that I had said that I'll let you know more about Andrew Ridgeley in my next post about Wham!... So, it should be today... but since then, I've changed my mind about what this blog would be about... So, I'll keep the updated information about Andrew for my "to come" website about singers from the eighties... Sorry!;-)

George Michael

George who? Hehe, just kidding... ;-)

If you did not spent your last 20 years in a bunker without radio and television, I guess I don't need to tell you who George Michael is!

Just a quick note on him today to let you know that on 10th februray 1985, George Michael's hit "Careless Whisper" finally crossed the ocean and hit the number one position in US charts... In UK, this song hit the first place on august'84 already!!! 6 months to cross the ocean... what a record! ;-)

The story of this song is a bit original, because I'm still not sure if it has to be considered as a George Michael's song or a Wham!'s song... In Uk, the song was published as a solo from George and in the US it was credited to Wham! featuring George Michael !!! Actually, it looks like the song was written by George Michael together with Andrew Ridgeley, but this ballad didn't fit well with the image Wham! had with their upbeat songs...

At the end, it appeared well on Wham!'s second album "Make it big", this was their breakthrough album as it also contained the hits "Wake me up before you go-go", "Everything she wants" and "Freedom". You can click here to listen to samples of those.

I'll talk again about Wham! in another post and I'll try then to know what Andrew Ridgeley became, but that's another story...

If you want to read more about this song's story, click here.