Ricky Ross
Ricky Ross formed Deacon Blue over 30 years ago, and 2017 saw the 30th anniversary of the release of their debut album, Raintown. A string of best-sellers followed it: When the World Knows Your Name [1989], Fellow Hoodlums [1991], Whatever You Say, Say Nothing [1993] and a double-platinum compilation Our Town – The Greatest Hits [1994] which included Real Gone Kid, Fergus Sings the Blues,Dignity, Wages Day, Twist and Shout, and many others.
Then, with 12 UK Top 40 singles and two No.1 albums to their credit, the group split up for five years. Ricky Ross built up his career as a songwriter and solo act releasing two solo albums What You Are [1996] and New Recording [1997] as well as writing for or with artists including James Blunt, Ronan Keating, Jamie Cullum, Nanci Griffith, among many others.
Ricky then found time to head into the studio and record his starkest and most urgent work Trouble Came Looking [2013], performing the album in the places he couldn’t get to with Deacon Blue, travelling the length and breadth of the country.
By the spring of 2014 Ross, with the help of guitarist Gregor Philp, had finished writing and demoing a new batch of songs. The band went back in to Paul Savage’s Chem19 Studio in Blantyre on the outskirts of Glasgow, where they set up and played together live, as they had done for The Hipsters. The result was A New House [2014], an album full of confidence, courage and rekindled passion for the second life which Deacon Blue has now embarked upon.
On a roll now, the band returned to the studio to record their third album in quick succession. Believers [2016] went on to become their most successful album in 23 years with a sell-out tour of the UK and Ireland to support it. 2017 saw Ricky release his seventh solo album, Short Stories Vol. 1 [2017], an album that draws from his solo shows, recorded in Hamburg and Glasgow featuring Ricky at his piano supported by sumptuous strings and a choir. A tour of the same name took in the UK, Ireland, Germany and Holland.
Ricky presents a number of radio shows including BBC Radio Scotland’s Americana music show Another Country (for which he has won two Sony awards and a CMA International Trophy in 2015) and Sunday Morning With, as well as Ricky Ross’s New Tradition for BBC Radio 2.
