Will Young
Background information
Birth name	William Robert Young
Born	January 20, 1979 (1979-01-20) (age 28)
Origin	Berkshire, England, United Kingdom
Genre(s)	Pop / Jazz-Pop
Years active	2002–Present
Label(s)	Sony BMG
Website	http://www.willyoung.co.uk/

William Robert Young BA (Exon) (born January 20, 1979) is an English singer and actor. He catapulted to fame in 2002 after winning the inaugural UK Pop Idol contest. He has continued to work very successfully in music, and also as an actor.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Pop Idol 3 Post-Idol career 4 Music 5 Acting career 6 Television documentaries 7 Philanthropy 8 Discography 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

Early life

Young was born in Reading/Wokingham, Berkshire, with a non-identical twin, Rupert. He also has an older sister, Emma. He was educated at Horris Hill preparatory school and Wellington College.

Young read Politics at the University of Exeter. At university, some of his haunts included Timepiece, The Old Firehouse, and Harry's, where he used to work. In September 2001, he became a student at The Arts Educational Schools in Chiswick, London, starting a three-year course in musical theatre with a scholarship.

Pop Idol

In February 2002 Young came to national prominence by winning the ITV television programme contest Pop Idol.

Contrary to press claims of being the under-dog, Will did not come from behind to win the contest. After having beaten the widely-accepted front-runner Gareth Gates in the final show, it emerged that Will had in fact gained the most votes in six out of the nine rounds of public voting. This was published in the "Pop Idol" book which was released shortly after the programme.

The songs Will sang on the show were:

• Audition - Blame It on the Boogie by the Jackson 5
• London Rounds (Day 1 - first round): Up on the Roof by The Drifters
• London Rounds (Day 1 - second round): All or Nothing by O-Town
• London Rounds (Day 2): Fastlove by George Michael
• Top 50 (Semi Finals): Light My Fire by The Doors
• Top 10 (Your Pop Idol): Until You Come Back to Me by Aretha Franklin
• Top 9 (Christmas Songs): Winter Wonderland
• Top 8 (Burt Bacharach Songs): Wives and Lovers sung by Jack Jones
• Top 7 (Movie Hits): Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers
• Top 6 (ABBA Songs): The Name of the Game by ABBA
• Top 5 (Big Band Hits): We Are in Love by Harry Connick Jr
• Top 4 (No 1 Hits): Night Fever by The Bee Gees; There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart) by the Eurythmics
• Top 3 (Judges' Choice): Beyond the Sea sung by Bobby Darin; I Get the Sweetest Feeling by Jackie Wilson
• Top 2 (Grand Finale): Anything Is Possible; Light My Fire by The Doors; Evergreen album track by Westlife

Post-Idol career

Young's first single was a double A-side featuring Westlife's song "Evergreen" and "Anything is Possible", a new song written for the winner of the show by Chris Braide and Cathy Dennis. In March 2002 this became the fastest-selling debut in UK chart history, selling 403,027 copies on its day of release (1,108,659 copies in its first week). It went on to sell over 1.7 million copies, and in the official list of the all-time best-selling singles in the UK issued later that year it was eleventh. The song Anything is Possible also won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically.

Young subsequently revealed that he was gay, in order to pre-empt a tabloid newspaper that was preparing to run a story 'outing' him. He also stated that he had never hidden, and was comfortable with, his sexuality.

Shortly after this he went on a Pop Idol tour along with the other contestants who were on Pop Idol.

In June 2002, Young performed at the Queen's Jubilee Concert in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. His first song was I Heard it Through the Grapevine and then he sang We Are the Champions with Queen members, Brian May, and Roger Taylor. Phil Collins was also in the line-up.

During July 2002, Young sang at two concerts with the renowned songwriter Burt Bacharach performing the song especially written for him by Burt Bacharach and Cathy Dennis What's In Goodbye as well as Wives and Lovers. These concerts took place at Hammersmith Apollo and at the Liverpool Pops concert.

In August 2002, he performed at the closing ceremony of the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

November 2002 brought an appearance at the Royal Command Performance where he opened the show singing a James Bond medley.

In February 2003 he won the BRIT Awards "Best Breakthrough Act", followed by a plethora of other awards.

In November 2003, Young performed the classic wartime song A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square accompanied by The Squadronaires, at the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Albert Hall in London.

His second Brit, in February 2005, was awarded for the single "Your Game" (co-written by Young and Blair MacKichan). Following sell-out theatre and arena tours in 2004, he toured again at outside festival venues in summer 2005. On July 6, 2005, he performed at Edinburgh 50,000 - The Final Push, the final concert of Live 8, a charity concert in Edinburgh to raise awareness for the plight of Africa, where he performed a duet with James Brown singing "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag".

Later in the year, Young met comedian David Walliams and the pair became good friends, with Young appearing at the Little Britain live stage show in Manchester, and later recording a podcast with Walliams, in which they chatted about various aspects of Young's career. The four parts are available on his website and iTunes.

In November 2005, Young appeared in his second Royal Command Performance singing All Time Love accompanied by pianist Howard Francis playing a grand piano.

On 1 May 2006, Young was voted the UK's favourite artist 'ever' in a poll conducted by commercial radio, beating the likes of Robbie Williams, Paul McCartney and the Spice Girls.[1]

On 20 May 2006, he sang "Who Am I", "Leave Right Now" and "Love the One You're With" at the Prince's Trust 30th Birthday.

From 12 September until 2 October 2006, Young toured the UK with his "Keep On Live" tour, which included the songs taken from his album Keep On and a selection of past songs. The official merchandise range for the tour, highlighted by the press included a "tip and strip" pen, which when turned over, reveals Will Young in his underpants.

On 30 September he also performed at G-A-Y nightclub in London.

On 27 October 2006 Will sang his song "Home", the closing track on his triple platinum third album "Keep On", at Nitin Sawhney's concert in the BBC Electric Proms group of concerts.

During November Will performed in South Africa for Nelson Mandela's Unite of the Stars charity concerts. Also appearing were Ronan Keating, Banarama and Shayne Ward.

On 11 December 2006 Will performed at the Dolce Vita Ball in London.

He was nominated in the Best British Single category for his song "All Time Love" in the 2007 BRIT Awards. He has been nominated each year for the past five years. "All Time Love" made it to the final round of voting but the award went to Take That for their song "Patience".

On 27 May 2007 Will Young was voted UK Favourite Artist of all time for the second year running. [2]

On 1 July 2007, he performed "Switch It On" at the Concert for Diana at the new Wembley Stadium.

It has been announced that Will Young will be performing at the Proms in the Park which takes place in Hyde Park on 8 September 2007 as part of the Last Night of the Proms.[[3]]

Music

Early singles of note, taken from his debut album From Now On include "Light My Fire"(in José Feliciano style) and the double A-side (and official Children In Need single of 2002) "You and I"/"Don't Let Me Down".

Taken from his second album, "Friday's Child" was first the hugely successful "Leave Right Now", for which the writer Eg White scooped an Ivor Novello songwriting award. The second and third singles were "Your Game" and "Friday's Child" respectively. This second album is often deemed to be Young's most successful, selling over 1.6 million copies (five times platinum) and containing several tracks co-written by him, the album received a great many accolades and much critical acclaim.

His third album, Keep On, was released in November 2005, along with a revamped website, together with the first single from the same, "Switch It On", which confounded much expectation of the singer as it strayed from the predictable successful ballad formula. He released a second single in the form of "All Time Love" which was very well received, reaching number three in the sales charts and achieving Young's highest ever airplay. A third single "Who Am I" was released in April 2006, accompanied by an innovative video based on old episodes of Blue Peter, whereby Young was superimposed into scenes from decades past.

Acting career

Young added acting to his repertoire when he accepted a role in the BBC film Mrs. Henderson Presents, starring Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins, in which he played Bertie. The film was released in the UK in November 2005 to excellent reviews — not least for Young's performance as both actor and singer in the film. The scene in which Young appears naked postdated his "absolutely thrilled" acceptance of the British male Rear of the Year Award 2005, an accolade to add to the Most Stylish Male Music Star, Best Bod, Sexiest Star, Best Dressed and Best Hair awards he had already won.

Young trod the boards in the Royal Exchange Theatre's production of The Vortex by Noel Coward. This production ran from 17 January to 10 March 2007 and Young played the leading role of Nicky Lancaster.

Critics, including the well respected and acclaimed critic Nicholas de Jonghe, thought Will played the role of Nicky just has it should have been played and he wrote, "revelatory Will finds key to Coward classic". Some, however, were not as complimentary.

Television documentaries

In November 2004, Young presented a documentary entitled Runaways as part of the Children in Need campaign, highlighting the problems facing distressed teens who run away from home, and the plight they were in being picked up off the streets and railway stations by pimps who offered them work and drugs. The children didn’t know where to go for immediate help unless they were picked up by the police and sent to a refuge centre.

During June 2007 a series of documentaries entitled Saving Planet Earth were shown on BBC Television. Young filmed an episode about saving the gorillas of West Africa during his visit to Africa earlier in the year. This was aired on 25 June 2007 with a follow-up programme at the end of the series.

Philanthropy

Young supports the charity Women's Aid, about which he wrote: "I am proud to put my name beside this cause and hope that I may be able to help more people affected by the terrors of domestic violence as well as help to create a wider awareness within our society." [4]

Young also supports Mencap, about which he wrote "I'm very much in this for the long term and I'd like to help continue to break down peoples' misconceptions and prejudices", The Children's Society Safe and Sound Campaign, and Positive Action Southwest (PASW)[5], for which he performed at his first solo concert, in July 2003 at Killerton House, Exeter.

Young has been an ambassador for the Prince's Trust since 2002 and performed at the 30th anniversary concert in the grounds of the Tower of London.

Discography

Main article: Will Young discography

See also

• List of artists who reached number one in Ireland
• List of songs that reached number one on the Irish Singles Chart

References

External links

• Official website
• Will Young interview @ musicOMH.com
• Will Young at the Internet Movie Database

Preceded by None

Pop Idol winner Series 1 (2002)

Succeeded by Michelle McManus