![]() ![]() George Michael was crushed that 'Last Christmas' didn’t hit No. I like to think of it as a magical coincidence,” Ridgeley says. “It was a remarkable coincidence that I was mucking around with chords and told George, ‘You have to have a listen to this,’ and he said, ‘I have a melody that fits perfectly over that.’ That was the sax melody. and Japan.)Įver the perfectionist, Michael went through 10 saxophonists to play the now-iconic riff before landing on Steve Gregory.ĭespite the convoluted reasons for the song being – controversially at the time – credited to Wham! featuring George Michael, “Careless Whisper” was definitively a joint effort. (The Wexler version eventually was released as a special edition in the U.K. Michael had started working on what would become his defining ballad in 1981 (a tape-recorded demo is played in the documentary), but when it came time to finally record it two years later, he headed across the pond to the famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama to work with famed producer Jerry Wexler.īut both he and Ridgeley hated the Wexler version, declaring it "a bit limp," so Michael returned to England, where he produced it “solely to his vision,” according to Ridgeley in the documentary. 'Careless Whisper' almost had a very different sound 'We're not going away': TLC talks longevity, challenges, in Lifetime documentary We all wake up in the middle of our dreams and suddenly it’s not there (anymore). Toward the end of the “Wham!” film, when the pair decide to end their partnership, Ridgeley says: “Yog had become the artist he was destined to be. The teacher asked, and I was the only one who put my hand up.” It was fortuitous for us both, but I don’t feel it was destiny. It was pure luck that delivered him to me at the age of 12. “I think the only thing destined for him was his artistic destiny and that developed in our youth. ![]() “Yog was a great believer in destiny,” Ridgeley says. Ridgeley, however, maintains a different perspective on their origin story. Michael believed the two were fated to meet, and had he sat next to someone else, his life would have swiveled down a different path. Throwback photos in the documentary of young Michael with curly hair and glasses will make fans smile, as will the story about the teacher asking someone in the class to “take care of the new boy” and Ridgeley raising his hand. Michael was 11 and Ridgeley was 12 when they met at Bushy Meads School in England. George Michael believed meeting Andrew Ridgeley was ‘predestined’ ![]()
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