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Simply Red music biography continued...

Kellett (brass, keyboards), plus Sylvan Richardson (guitar) and Fritz McIntyre (keyboards). The band signed to Elektra Records and released its debut album, Picture Book, in October 1985. The album featured "Money's Too Tight (To Mention)," a Top 40 cover of a 1982 R&B chart single by the Valentine Brothers, and "Holding Back the Years," a Hucknall original that topped the U.S. charts, and propelled the album to platinum status, making the group one of the major musical successes of 1986. Men and Women (March 1987), which featured two collaborations between Hucknall and soul songwriter Lamont Dozier, was less popular, though it generated the Top 40 hit "The Right Thing." Other Simply Red songs off the album included, "Infidelity" and a cover of Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye," which also made the Top 40 in the U.K. Simply Red's third album, A New Flame (February 1989), went gold on the strength of a cover of the 1972 Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes hit "If You Don't Know Me by Now."
By 1990, the band's line-up had changed considerably, but they were still recording and performing hits. The album Stars (September 1991) contained two Top 40 hits in the United States—"Something Got Me Started" and "Stars"—and became a gigantic success in the U.K., where it was the best-selling album of 1991, topping the charts for 19 weeks, and spawning the Top Ten hits "Stars" and "For Your Babies" and the Top 40 hits "Something Got Me Started," "Thrill Me," and "Your Mirror." Worldwide, it had sold 8.5 million copies by the second quarter of 1993. Subsequently, there were more line-up changes, but the hits kept coming, particularly in the U.K. In 2003, the band released Simply Red released an album called "Home" and a new greatest hits album called "The very best of Simply Red" which contained 37 songs. Following the Asian tsunami in 2004 Hucknall made a public statement of support for the charity and asked his fans to consider giving support. In October 2007, Hucknall announced that Simply Red would split in 2009, a disappointing announcement for the band's legions of fans.