About Us

About UB40 – the history of Ali & Astro.

About Us

About UB40 – the history of Ali, Astro & Mickey.

The History of UB40

We are UB40 featuring Ali Campbell and Astro, both founding members of the original UB40. Ali left the original band in 2008 siting business management issues and was vindicated when said managers were struck off. Ali was then reunited with Astro when he left in 2013. We were also playing with founding member Mickey Virtue until late 2018, when Mickey decided to leave the band after 40 years. We still continue to make new music and tour as the two original singers with our incredible 8 piece reggae band.

The original line-up of UB40 with Ali and Astro enjoyed huge success over a period of almost thirty years from 1979 until 2008, including number one albums and multiple top ten gold and platinum selling albums and Grammy nominations, four number ones worldwide and a total of seventy million plus sales.

We would not want anyone to confuse Ali and Astro’s band with the band that carried on using the name UB40 after 2008, made up of other founding members and new members they tried to replace us with in their attempt to trade off the reflected glory of the success of the original line-up.

Only with Ali Campbell, the legendary voice of UB40, reunited with Astro, can audiences get to experience the closest thing to the sound of the hugely successful original line-up of UB40 as all the hits are played. They can also get to hear these two founding members’ and UK reggae pioneers’ latest take on the genre.

UB40 featuring Ali Campbell and Astro have enjoyed lots of success with live touring and recorded music over the last five years, including top ten albums Silhouette and Unplugged and in 2018 they reached number two in the charts with the critically acclaimed A Real Labour of Love. They continue to tour the world and sell out arenas and festivals. Currently preparing for the 2019 40th Anniversary arena tour starting in Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii before UK and Europe, which will then lead into a huge tour of the US.

As original members of UB40, Ali, Mickey and Astro helped to define reggae music for a generation. The multi-racial band, formed in 1979 in the Birmingham suburb of Moseley, pooled a diverse set of influences to put a fresh, indigenous slant on Jamaican reggae. After encouragement from Chrissie Hynde, who offered them support slots with her chart-topping band The Pretenders, they recorded their independently released debut album, Signing Off, on an eight-track tape machine in the home of producer Bob Lamb. An unexpected number two album, it gave them the conviction to chart their own course.

“Chrissie Hynde discovered us,” recalls Ali. “We’d only done a dozen gigs when she saw us at the Rock Garden in London. She was top of the charts at that time, but she took us on tour. We were on the road with The Pretenders when our first single, Food For Thought and King, reached number four in the charts.”

“We owed a lot to the late 1970s ska movement, too,” adds Mickey. “We shirt-tailed the ska movement but we also stood apart from the 2-tone acts: their thing was a mix of punk and ska and ours was a new homegrown strand of reggae.”

UB40 went on to dominate charts around the world, not least with the hugely successful Labour Of Love series. The first Labour Of Love album, in 1983, yielded a cover of Neil Diamond’s Red Red Wine that topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. The band secured two further chart-topping singles at home in (I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You (also another US number one) and I Got You Babe, a duet between Ali and the band’s old friend Chrissie Hynde, and Ali and Robin Campbell also scored a No.1 with Baby Come Back.

UB40 FEATURING ALI, ASTRO & MICKEY

‘A REAL LABOUR OF LOVE’

When UB40 embarked on their Labour Of Love series in 1983, they were keen to tell the world about the songs that they grew up with in Birmingham. They dug deep into the reggae and rock steady rhythms of yesteryear and ended up producing three Labour Of Love albums, bringing hits such as Eric Donaldson’s Cherry Oh Baby, Lord Creator’s Kingston Town and Johnny Osbourne’s Come Back Darling to a new, global audience. They also topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic with their reggae cover of Neil Diamond’s Red Red Wine.

By the third Labour Of Love album in 1998, though, the band had revisited almost all of their favourite reggae songs from the Sixties and Seventies. It was time to move on.

And now, two decades later, UB40 founder members Ali Campbell and Astro are revitalising the concept by exploring the tunes of a later golden age: on new album A Real Labour Of Love, the group explore the songs that defined reggae in the Eighties. The concept isn’t a rigid one: Stevie Wonder’s A Place In The Sun is a Motown classic from 1966, and there are numbers from the late Seventies in Dennis Brown’s sublime How Could I Leave and Culture’s International Herb. But most of the tracks on A Real Labour Of Love are from the Eighties – a decade that saw dancehall reggae enter the mainstream, the arrival of new digital rhythms like Sleng Teng, and some of singer Gregory Isaacs’ most memorable moments.

‘There was always a chronological element to the Labour Of Love series,’ says Ali. ‘The first three albums featured the songs we grew up listening to. This one is built around the records we were listening to once UB40 were on the road. It’s been 20 years since Labour Of Love III, so it was time for an update. The Eighties were such a fertile decade for reggae, and enough time has now elapsed for us to investigate that era properly. In the Eighties, artists were moving away from the same old backing tracks. They were using technology to create new rhythms. Reggae was moving forward at an incredible pace, but there were also lots of great songs – everybody remembers Here I Come by Barrington Levy.’

‘We used to sing a lot of these on the tour bus,’ adds Astro. ‘We were spending more time in Jamaica, too, and some of these numbers are the ones we’d hear on the radio and out in the streets. The singers of these songs were our heroes. They are quintessential reggae artists.’

A Real Labour of Love section link
A Real Labour Of Love

The new album builds confidently on the momentum gathered in the past five years, with Ali’s instantly recognisable voice augmented by the ‘sing-jay’ vocal style of Astro. The latter takes the lead on six of the album’s 16 tracks, placing the two singers at the helm of an 11-piece band, most of whom have been on the road with Ali in some capacity for ten years. Sadly, A Real Labour Of Love also marks the passing of long-serving trombonist John Johnson. A former member of Simply Red who joined forces with Ali seven years ago, John played on the album but passed away the night before the rest of the group were due to play a benefit concert to raise money for his cancer treatment. The album is dedicated to him.

Produced by Ali and recorded in two London studios, Dean Street and RAK, the new record – which features a striking sleeve illustration by artist Mark T. Smith – arrives in an era when reggae-inspired hits are exerting huge sway in the pop world, with Katy Perry’s Chained To The Rhythm, Clean Bandit’s Rockabye, Rihanna and Drake’s Work and Sia’s Cheap Thrills all displaying significant reggae undertones.

Among the album’s highlights are heartfelt tributes to two of Jamaica’s greatest singers, both sadly no longer with us. Dennis Brown’s How Could I Leave was a hit for the Crown Prince of reggae in 1977, and there are two tracks from Gregory Isaacs’ exquisite 1981 album More Gregory, Once Ago and Hush Darling.

Astro’s vocals are prominent on two of the album’s most adventurous song choices – Barrington Levy’s 1984 hit Here I Come and Wayne Smith’s Under Me Sleng Teng, a track widely recognised as the starting point of reggae’s digital age when it arrived the following year. ‘Those two were tricky choices,’ admits Ali. ‘Reggae experts warned us off doing them, as our versions would be instantly compared with the originals. But we didn’t want to back off, and Astro was brave enough to tackle them both in his own way.’

The influence of American hip-hop on reggae in the Eighties is also acknowledged. Bronx-raised singer and toaster Shinehead played with UB40 on their first visit to New York, and he is represented by his single Strive, a huge hit in Jamaica in 1989, while female singer J.C. Lodge’s Telephone Love became one of the first dancehall numbers to top the R&B chart in New York City in 1988.

Ali, Astro and Mickey are also proud of influences from closer to home, and they acknowledge the importance of British reggae by tackling London singer Barry Boom’s Making Love, Pablo Gad’s Hard Times – a 1980 single sampled by The Prodigy on their single Fire – and Webby Jay’s In The Rain. ‘It was important to include British as well as Jamaican music,’ says Astro. ‘When we started out, we wanted to put our own slant on Jamaican reggae and create our own hybrid sound, but we used to sing a lot of British reggae songs on the tour bus.

A REAL LABOUR OF LOVE: TRACK-BY-TRACK

MAKING LOVE

Originally released in 1989 by London singer and producer Barry Boom. ‘We wanted to include British as well as Jamaican reggae, and Barry Boom is a fabulous singer,’ says Ali.

SHE LOVES ME NOW

Written by guitarist Willie Lindo and sung in 1986 by Beres Hammond, a vocalist who is still making music today. ‘He is a hero of ours, and She Loves Me Now has a brilliant backing track.’

STRIVE

A 1989 dancehall hit for British-born, Brooklyn-raised singer and toaster Shinehead. ‘We spent a lot of time in Jamaica in the Eighties, and this song was everywhere,’ says Ali. ‘Every man, woman and child reacted if it came on the radio. They related to the lyrics as well as the tune.’

HERE I COME

A UK hit for Jamaican dancehall star Barrington Levy in 1984. ‘This was one of the trickier choices,’ says Ali. ‘It’s a song that’s still being listened to by younger kids, skateboard kids. But Astro was brave enough to take it on and do it his own way.’

TELEPHONE LOVE / RUMOURS

Originally by London singer JC Lodge, the 1988 dancehall track Telephone Love crossed over into the R&B and hip-hop charts in the States. ‘It was such a big smash and it dominated the airwaves for months,’ says Astro. ‘You heard it at every dance or shebeen that summer.’

HOW COULD I LEAVE

A 1977 classic from the Crown Prince of reggae Dennis Brown. ‘It’s a standard because of the hook,’ says Ali. It’s a real ear-worm, a bit like Johnny Cash’s Ring Of Fire.’

EBONY EYES

Written by Thom Bell, one of the creators of the Philadelphia soul sound, Ebony Eyes was sung by The Stylistics in 1971 and covered by reggae-soul act The Chosen Few the following year. ‘I was drawn to the song because of the bassline,’ says Ali.

HUSH DARLING & ONCE AGO

Two classics from reggae’s cool ruler Gregory Isaacs, both from 1981’s More Gregory. ‘That was such a great album, from the time when Gregory was working with Sly & Robbie and the Roots Radics backing band,’ says Ali.

HARD TIMES

‘Pablo Gad is a British reggae star, and 1980’s Hard Times is a song we used to sing on the tour bus.’ says Astro. ‘When we were choosing the tracks, we focussed on the Eighties and that allowed us to pick our favourite songs from that era.’

MOVING AWAY

A number from the pre-reggae era that is still popular today, Moving Away was sung by Ken Boothe, the singer once promoted as Mr. Rock Steady. ‘Ken has the ability to take any number and turn it into a love song,’ says Ali.

INTERNATIONAL HERB

Written by the late reggae legend Joseph Hill, International Herb was the title track on the seminal vocal group Culture’s 1979 album for Virgin’s pioneering Front Line label.

A PLACE IN THE SUN

Stevie Wonder’s 1966 soul hit is something of an oddity on an album of reggae covers, but it made the final cut as a personal favourite of Ali’s. ‘I love Stevie Wonder, and this was one of his first social commentary songs,’ he says. ‘And it was nice to have one song that wasn’t a reggae classic.’

TUNE IN

An Eighties hit for dancehall star Cocoa Tea, and a personal choice of Astro’s. ‘It’s one of my favourites, and I hope I do it justice,’ he says. ‘It transports me back to one of the first times I went to Jamaica. I remember seeing Gregory Isaacs and Freddie MacGregor, and Cocoa Tea was everywhere.’

IN THE RAIN

A single for Webby Jay in 1979 and another British reggae standard. ‘It was originally done by Keith Hudson, but we looked to Webby Jay’s version,’ says Ali. ‘British reggae had it’s own distinct identity, a very clean sound characterised by the production work of Dennis Bovell.

UNDER ME SLENG TENG

Driven by a Casio keyboard rhythm, Wayne Smith’s 1985 hit Under Mi Sleng Teng was the song that ushered in reggae’s digital age. ‘Another one we used to sing on the tour bus,’ says Astro. ‘I wanted to update the original rather than simply copy it.’
Official website: http://ub40.org