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In 1971, Ocean released the singles ‘Nashville Rain’ and ‘Sun in the Morning’ on Spark Records, under the name of Les Charles. He also fronted the band Scorched Earth for two years, and released ‘On The Run’ along with ‘Let’s Put Our Emotions in Motion’ in 1974. The Trinidadian and Tobagonian British recording artist took his stage name ‘Billy Ocean’ from the Ocean Estate, Stepney in London’s East End, where he was situated at the time.
Ocean recorded his debut album ‘Billy Ocean’ in 1976 and released the single ‘Love Really Hurts Without You’ which charted at number two in the Official UK Singles Chart whilst also achieving a number 22 spot on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. He began to see huge success during the 1980s; in 1985, the single ‘Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)’, on the album ‘Suddenly’, won Ocean the Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. Another single ‘Loverboy’ from the same album also featured in the opening scene of the UK BBC One TV series ‘Casualty in 1986, and achieved a number two position in the USA.
In 1986, Ocean released the album ‘Love Zone’ which included the popular single ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’. It topped the UK charts and achieved a number two position in the US, whilst the single ‘There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)’ listed at number one in the US. In 1988, Ocean followed up ‘Love Zone’ with another album ‘Tear Down These Walls’ which featured the number one single ‘Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car’; the album achieved platinum success. Ocean has gone on to release a number of albums, one of which was the ‘Greatest Hits’ collection in 1989, along with ‘Emotions In Motion’ in 2002 and ‘Here You Are’ in 2013.
Billy Ocean performed at prestigious settings such as Live Aid Philadelphia US and 80’s Rewind Festival, and can be compared to music artists such as James Ingram, La Toya Jackson and Gregory Abbott. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the MOBO Awards in 2010, and became a Companion of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in 2011, whilst he featured in the British comedy movie Keith Lemon: The Film during 2012.
A Billy Ocean concert, like a cool sea breeze, is a perfect refresher to put you in a relaxed mood or revive your spirit back to full health. His shows are guaranteed to be a blast and this is evident from the mass of people who cannot help, but dance and move along to Billy's grooving tunes. He plays with so much charisma and gaiety that it is hard not to be smiling the whole time.
Billy is quite the performer and his stage presence is most definitely an indicator of this. During his shows he is dressed in crisp clean suits often in chill blue and gray colors. His face is elated the whole evening and the rastafarian hair style he now sports perfectly matches the carefree nature of his music.
Billy Ocean's music blends a large amalgamation of styles. He touches on soft rock, reggae, smooth jazz, soul and crooner pop. There is really something that everyone can enjoy. His diverse sound is perhaps what attracts so many fans to his shows. His performance features cruise ship sounding keyboards, upbeat funk riffs, distorted blues licks, both congo and traditional drums, back up singers and a saxophone to top it off. His songs like "Caribbean Queen" and When the "Going Gets Tough, The Tough Gets Going" are played on a sweeping scale. They possibly sound more thematic live than on record. In fact Billy can even strip down the song "Caribbean Queen" to an acoustic format and though it sounds completely different than the original it is equally astounding. Billy's acoustic version of "Suddenly" is also to die for. Billy Ocean has proven that he can just as likely enamor an audience with just his voice and acoustic guitar as he can with a large backing band. With covers like the O'Jays "Love Train" and originals like "There'll Be Sad Songs" it seems like you can't go wrong in attending one of his shows.
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