Holding back the tears ... Mick Hucknall on stage. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
I never thought Mick Hucknall would give me cause to rejoice but, against all odds, the ringletted crooner has come up trumps. Perhaps sensing that we all need something to get us through the long winter months ahead, Hucknall has called time on Simply Red. Yes, you read that right. We won't have to suffer the tubby Mancunian in pinstripes shrieking about stars, new flames or holding back the years for much longer now. Stay, the Simply Red studio album released in March, will be their last.
While the news has brought an unexpected ray of light to this damp October day, I can't help wondering what Hucknall means. How can Simply Red split up? As far as I know, Hucknall is Simply Red. Like the Gallagher brothers, Pete Doherty and Jay Kay, Hucknall's own cult of personality has turned the other band members into cardboard cut-outs. The narcissistic frontman has, it seems, obliterated the background. And all we are left with is an arrogant singer with a ginger 'fro.
After 25 years in the business, Hucknall's lasting legacy will not be Simply Red's inexplicable 50 million album sales but a confidence bordering on the offensive. "I am one of the best singer-songwriters this country has produced," he famously said. "Ever. Tom Jones told me only a few singers have got the pipes, and he's right. He has. Sinatra did. I have." Ol' Blue Eyes must have reduced his coffin to a small pile of kindling sticks with all that turning.
The end of Simply Red won't, however, put an end to Hucknall's delusions of musical genius. For his next project he plans to "invent a new form of music". Hopefully, it will be one best appreciated by the profoundly deaf.
