The unique and incredible George Michael is dead.
I saw George Michael live in 2007 in a big stadium (Estádio Cidade Coimbra). I was on front row on the show.
You can check my story of that show on a post I wrote in 2007: (George Michael, 2007-05-12, Coimbra) http://pedrossm.blogspot.pt/2007/05/george-michael-2007-05-12-coimbra.html
You can check my story of that show on a post I wrote in 2007: (George Michael, 2007-05-12, Coimbra) http://pedrossm.blogspot.pt/2007/05/george-michael-2007-05-12-coimbra.html
He was always one of my idols. Already since 1982 when he was in Wham! (1982 to 1986).
You can check his story on his wikipedia page and on his imdb page.
Here it goes a little from his history from wikipedia.
Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016), known professionally as George Michael, was an English singer, songwriter, and record producer, who rose to fame as a member (with Andrew Ridgeley) of the music duo Wham!. He was best known in the 1980s and 1990s with his style of post-disco dance-pop, with best-selling songs such as "Last Christmas" and "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go".
Michael sold more than 100 million records worldwide. His 1987 debut solo album, Faith, sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. Michael garnered seven number one singles in the UK and eight number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, including "Careless Whisper" and "Freedom! '90". He ranks among the best-selling British acts of all time, with Billboard magazine ranking him the 40th most successful artist to ever live. Michael won various music awards throughout his 30-year career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male twice, four MTV Video Music Awards, four Ivor Novello Awards, three American Music Awards, and two Grammy Awards from eight nominations.
In 2004, the Radio Academy named Michael the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004. The documentary A Different Story, released in 2005, covered his career and personal life. In 2006, Michael announced his first tour in 15 years, the worldwide 25 Live tour, spanning three individual tours over the course of three years (2006, 2007 and 2008). In 2016, Michael announced a second documentary on his life entitled Freedom, set to be released in March 2017. On 25 December 2016, Michael died at home at the age of 53.
Early life
George Michael was born in East Finchley, London. His father, Kyriacos Panayiotou, a Greek Cypriot restaurateur, moved to England in the 1950s and changed his name to Jack Panos.Michael's mother, Lesley Angold (née Harrison; 1937–1997), was an English dancer. Michael spent the majority of his childhood in Kingsbury, London, in the home his parents bought soon after his birth; he attended Kingsbury High School.
While in his early teens, the family moved to Radlett, Hertfordshire. There, Michael attended Bushey Meads School in the neighbouring town of Bushey, where he befriended his future Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley. The two had the same career ambition of being musicians. Michael would busk on the London Underground, performing songs such as "'39" by Queen. His involvement in the music business began with his working as a DJ, playing at clubs and local schools around Bushey, Stanmore, and Watford. This was followed by the formation of a short-lived ska band called The Executive with Ridgeley, Ridgeley's brother Paul, Andrew Leaver, and David Mortimer (later known as David Austin).
Musical career
1981–86: Wham!
George Michael first found success after forming the duo Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981. The band's first album Fantastic reached No. 1 in the UK in 1983 and produced a series of top 10 singles including "Young Guns", "Wham Rap!" and "Club Tropicana". Their second album, Make It Big reached No. 1 on the charts in the US. Singles from that album included "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" (No. 1 in the UK and US), "Freedom", "Everything She Wants", and "Careless Whisper" which reached No. 1 in nearly 25 countries, including the UK and US, and was Michael's first solo effort as a single.
Michael sang on the original Band Aid recording of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" (which became the UK Christmas number one) and donated the profits from "Last Christmas/Everything She Wants" to charity. In addition, he contributed background vocals to David Cassidy's 1985 hit "The Last Kiss", as well as Elton John's 1985 successes "Nikita" and "Wrap Her Up". Michael cited Cassidy as a major career influence and interviewed Cassidy for David Litchfield's Ritz Newspaper.
Wham!'s tour of China in April 1985, the first visit to China by a Western popular music act, generated worldwide media coverage, much of it centred on Michael. Before Wham!'s appearance in China, many kinds of music in the country were forbidden. The audience included members of the Chinese government, and Chinese television presenter, Kan Lijun, who was the on stage host, spoke of Wham!'s historic performance; "No-one had ever seen anything like that before. All the young people were amazed and everybody was tapping their feet. Of course the police weren't happy and they were scared there would be riots." The tour was documented by film director Lindsay Anderson and producer Martin Lewis in their film Foreign Skies: Wham! In China.
With the success of Michael's solo singles, "Careless Whisper" (1984) and "A Different Corner" (1986), rumours of an impending break up of Wham! intensified. The duo officially separated during the summer of 1986, after releasing a farewell single, "The Edge of Heaven" and a singles compilation, The Final, plus a sell-out concert at Wembley Stadium that included the world premiere of the China film. The Wham! partnership ended officially with the commercially successful single "The Edge of Heaven", which reached No. 1 on the UK chart in June 1986.
Solo career
The beginning of his solo career, during early 1987, was a duet with Aretha Franklin. "I Knew You Were Waiting" was a one-off project that helped Michael achieve an ambition by singing with one of his favourite artists, and it scored number one on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100 upon its release.
For Michael, it became his third consecutive solo number one in the UK from three releases, after 1984's "Careless Whisper" (though the single was actually from the Wham! album Make It Big) and 1986's "A Different Corner". The single was also the first Michael had recorded as a solo artist which he had not written himself. The co-writer, Simon Climie, was unknown at the time, although he would have success as a performer with the band Climie Fisher in 1988. Michael and Aretha Franklin won a Grammy Award in 1988 for Best R&B Performance – Duo or Group with Vocal for the song.
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Personal life
Sexuality
At the age of 19, Michael told Andrew Ridgeley and close friends that he was bisexual. Michael also told one of his two sisters, but he was advised by friends not to tell his parents about his sexuality. In a 1999 interview with The Advocate, Michael told the Editor in Chief, Judy Wieder, that it was "falling in love with a man that ended his conflict over bisexuality." "I never had a moral problem with being gay", Michael told Wieder. "I thought I had fallen in love with a woman a couple of times. Then I fell in love with a man, and realized that none of those things had been love." In 2007, Michael said he had hidden the fact he was gay because of worries over what effect it might have on his mother.
Speaking about his time with Wham! in the 1980s, Michael said: "I used to sleep with women quite a lot in the Wham! days but never felt it could develop into a relationship because I knew that, emotionally, I was a gay man. I didn't want to commit to them but I was attracted to them. Then I became ashamed that I might be using them." In 2009, Michael said: "My depression at the end of Wham! was because I was beginning to realize I was gay, not bisexual."
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Health problems
On 26 October 2011, George Michael cancelled a performance at London's Royal Albert Hall due to a viral infection. On 21 November 2011, a hospital in Vienna admitted Michael after he had complained of chest pains while at a hotel just two hours before his performance at a venue there for his Symphonica Tour. The singer was later confirmed to have suffered from pneumonia and, until 1 December, was in an intensive care unit. While Michael appeared to be "in good spirits" and responded well to treatment following his admittance, on 25 November hospital officials said that his condition had "worsened overnight". This development led to cancellations and postponements of Michael's remaining 2011 performances, which had been scheduled mainly for the United Kingdom.
On 1 December 2011, doctors at the hospital in which George Michael had stayed announced that the singer was "steadily improving" and that he had moved out of the intensive care ward. On 21 December 2011, the hospital discharged Michael. On 23 December 2011, Michael made a public speech outside his house in Highgate, London, in which he stated that the staff at the Vienna General Hospital had saved his life and that he would perform a free concert specifically for those staff. While making the speech, he became emotional and breathless. During the speech, he also mentioned that he had undergone a tracheotomy. He also revealed that, after waking from the coma, he had a temporary West Country accent.
On 16 May 2013, George Michael sustained a head injury when he fell from his moving car on the M1 motorway, near St Albans in Hertfordshire, and was airlifted to a hospital.
Death
Michael died at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, aged 53. He was found dead by his partner Fadi Fawaz on Christmas morning, 25 December 2016.
No cause of death was immediately determined; his manager Michael Lippman conjectured that heart failure was the cause of death, and that Michael "passed away peacefully." Fawaz described, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, finding the performer on Christmas morning, “I went round there to wake him up and he was just gone, lying peacefully in bed. We don’t know what happened yet. Everything had been very complicated recently, but George was looking forward to Christmas, and so was I."
On 29 December a post-mortem was undertaken to determine the exact cause of death, but was inconclusive. Thames Valley Police said that further tests would be carried out, but the results were unlikely to be known for several weeks.
In its obituary of Michael, the BBC described him as a "pop superstar" and wrote, "Blessed with good looks and a fine singing voice, his stage presence made him a favourite on the live concert circuit as he matured from teen idol to long term stardom." He is survived by his father and two sisters.
Awards and nominations
Michael won numerous music awards throughout his 30-year career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male twice, four MTV Video Music Awards, four Ivor Novello Awards, three American Music Awards, and two Grammy Awards from eight nominations.
Discography
Faith (1987)
Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 (1990)
Five Live (EP) (1993)
Older (1996)
Songs from the Last Century (1999)
Patience (2004)
Symphonica (2014)
Tours
Faith World Tour (1988–89)
Cover to Cover (1991)
25 Live (2006–08)
George Michael Live in Australia (2010)
Symphonica Tour (2011–12)
| George Michael | ||||||||||
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Michael performing on stage during the
Faith World Tour in 1988 |
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| Background information | ||||||||||
| Birth name | Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou | |||||||||
| Born | 25 June 1963 East Finchley, London, England |
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| Died | 25 December 2016 (aged 53) Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England |
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| Instruments | Vocals | |||||||||
| Years active | 1981–2016 | |||||||||
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| Website | georgemichael | |||||||||
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