Founding UB40 members, vocalist Ali Campbell, second vocalist Astro and keyboardist Mickey Virtue, have come together to release an Unplugged record that will be a double disc release with the other disc being a catalog of their greatest hits dating back to the group’s 1979, Birmingham, UK inception.
“This is the first time we’ve taken iconic UB40 tunes and done them in an acoustic style,” says Ali. “It all sounds very fresh. It’s completely unlike anything we’ve done before.”
As the group’s website reads, ‘Unplugged’ offers an inventive new spin on UB40’s early gems plus the huge hits with which they later wooed the world. Among the highlights on the album is a new version of “I Got You Babe,” featuring Ali’s 22-year-old daughter Kaya Campbell, who sings the lines originally performed by Chrissie Hynde when the track topped the UK charts in 1985.
Since 2013, there have been two groups touring under the name UB40 –- one led by Ali and the other by his brother, Duncan Campbell, whom Ali refers to as the Dark Side. Ali left UB40 in 2008 and was later joined by Astro & Mickey.
[Related: Interview: Ali Campbell & Astro of UB40]
When we spoke with Ali Campbell back in August, he brought up the Unplugged record saying that it was something they had completed a couple of years ago, “but because of the court case that we’re having [over the name UB40], the ‘dark side’ have pulled our wrist on us, so this other label was scared to release it because of the name thing,” Ali explains. “But Universal don’t care at all, they were like ‘Yeah, we’ll release it!'”
As Ali continues, he details how it came to fruition, stating: “What happened was we started doing a lot of radio sessions in London. In fact, we did I think 6 different sessions where we had to play acoustic stuff cause they’re too lean to pay for the whole band, you know? And a lot of the times the rooms are too small so you couldn’t even fit in there anyway. And we did so many of them and we thought, ‘we’ve got an unplugged album if we think about it.’ So we put it together.”
[Related: Ali Campbell of UB40 Talks Covering Prince]
The double-disc will be released on November 18th via Universal Music Group and all of the signed pre-order copies are already sold-out. You can still pre-order your copy by clicking HERE!
Following this Unplugged release, Ali tells The Pier he hopes to release a separate project involving collaborations with the likes of SOJA, Rebelution, Slightly Stoopid, telling The Pier: “We’re giving copy of the tracks out to people so they can hear them. We’re going ahead and doing it, even though our management doesn’t know anything about it [haha]. And of course, with Universal Music Group, we’d like to release it with them because they’re handling the Unplugged album.”
Stay tuned as we’ll have more details as soon as it’s made available to us…
1.) Kingston Town
2.) Red Red Wine
3.) Many Rivers To Cross
4.) Baby Come Back
5.) (I Can’t help) Falling In Love With You
6.) Purple Rain
7.) I Got You Babe
8.) One In Ten
9.) Homely Girl
10.) Please Don’t Make Me Cry
11.) Food For Thought
12.) Cherry Oh Baby
13.) Rat In Mi Kitchen
14.) Tyler
15.) You Could Meet Somebody
16.) That’s Supposed To Hurt
1.) Red Red Wine
2.) I Got You Babe
3.) I can’t help falling in love with you
4.) Kingston Town
5.) Food For Thought
6.) Cherry Oh Baby
7.) Don’t Break My Heart
8.) Homely Girl
9.) The Way You Do The Things You Do
10.) Please Don’t Make Me Cry
11.) Many Rivers to Cross
12.) Higher Ground
13.) One In Ten
14.) Rat In Mi Kitchen
15.) Breakfast In Bed
16.) Here I am Come And take Me
17.) King
18.) If It Happens Again
19.) Bring Me Your Cup
20.) Sing Our Own Song
Related Links:
UB40 Website
UB40 Facebook
UB40 Twitter
Article by: Mike Patti
