LIMAHL

'Christopher Hamill' (born December 19 1958) is a British pop singer. He is better known by his stage name 'Limahl' (an anagram of his surname), and was the lead singer of the 1980s pop band Kajagoogoo before embarking on a briefly successful solo career.
Hamill was born in Pemberton, in Wigan, United Kingdom. He attended Mesnes High School, in Wigan, before eventually enrolling at the Westcliff-on-Sea Palace Theatre Repertory Company. Despite some success touring with ''Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'', he formed a short-lived punk band called Vox Deus. Next he joined Crossword but left to form Brooks with Mike Nolan. He adopted his stage name (an anagram of his surname) at the time he was recruited by the existing members of Kajagoogoo. An advert was placed in music magazine ''Melody Maker'' asking for a “front man who could sing and look good.” Soon after he had joined, the group released their first single “Too Shy” which went to number one in the UK charts and the top five on the US Billboard Hot 100. This success was relatively short-lived, however, leading to the notorious ''Viz'' comic satirising him as “Limahl, whose hit includes ‘Too Shy.’ ”
Reportedly, Limahl's relationship with the other band members was always tenuous, and late in 1983 the band fired him after an acrimonious dispute. Defenders of Limahl claim that the band struggled with fame and Limahl’s prominence as the lead singer of the band was proving too much of a diversion from the music. Limahl accused the others of being jealous and was quoted in the press as saying “I’ve been betrayed!” and that "I was sacked for making them a success". Defenders of the band, however, stated that Limahl had become something of an egomaniac following the band's success and was both unprofessional and difficult to work with. Neither view has ever been conclusively proven.
After leaving the band, Limahl launched a solo career, achieving hits with "Only For Love" and "NeverEnding Story", the title theme from the film of the same name. His solo success was incredibly brief though and his début album ''Don't Suppose...'' was a commercial failure, charting even lower than Kajagoogoo's follow-up album (''Islands'') - their first without him. He hit hard times after 1984, and in the late 1980s, he was photographed coming out of a job centre. The pictures were published in a Sunday newspaper, highlighting a story of how the once mighty can fall.
He still released two more albums to little fanfare; 1986's ''Colour All My Days'' and ''Love is Blind'' in 1992, as well as a one-off single, "Tell Me Why" in 2003.
When the boom for ’80s nostalgia began, Limahl began to wear an orange wig identical to his original Kajagoogoo hairstyle and started playing gigs, performing the hits he had with the band and by himself. His willingness to send himself and the whole era up gained him plenty of respect, and other declined acts of the 1980s followed him back on to the stage.
In 2004, Limahl took part as a contender in musical reality show ''Comeback'' on German TV (Pro7). A year later, he appeared in a similar UK show ''Hit Me Baby One More Time'' (ITV).
Limahl shared a flat with disc jockey Paul Gambaccini during his heyday, leading to rumours in the tabloid press that the two were lovers, a claim which both denied, even though both are openly gay.

Contents

External links

External links

★ Limahl Official Website

★ Official MySpace Website of Limahl

★ German Limahl Fanclub

★ Limahl-Fanpage

★ KajaGooGoo Official Website

★ Unofficial Limahl Fanpage MySpace Website

★ Giorgio Moroder

★ People’s Republic of Limahl