Black is back for a Wonderful Life

The ‘big-nosed Scouse git’ has found out who he is.

The world is full of recording artists who have been dropped by their record company. However, there aren’t many artists who take the decision to drop their record company to strike out on their own. Colin Vearncombe did and he shows no signs of ever going back.

The artist formerly known as Black , Vearncombe enjoyed massive chart success in the 80s with the singles Wonderful Life and Sweetest Smile and then took "a seven-year holiday" where he raised two children and effectively retired from the music business. That retirement ended six years ago when Vearncombe picked up his guitar again.

Although the charts have remained untroubled by his remarkably consistent output of two albums a year, Vearncombe is blessed with a voice that would bring a tear to the eye of any Scott Walker fan and his songs echo the influences of his two heroes - Neil Young and Jacques Brel. But the question everyone wants to know, however, is does he still sing that song?

Wonderful Life, with its mournful, ironic refrain has been used to sell everything from washing powder to jeans, and yes, Vearncombe does still sing that song as well as the heartbreaking Sweetest Smile and a slew of more recent, lesser known numbers that are easily as good.

However, you may not be able to hear them as well as you might like when he plays the Pleasance Cabaret Bar tonight. The last time Vearncombe played Edinburgh at The Attic two years ago, the songs were accompanied by a gentleman somewhat the worse for drink who insisted on providing woozy backing vocals.

"Oh God, me Scottish stalkers!" groans Vearncombe in his soft Liverpool accent as it all comes flooding back.

"There’s this group of guys from Edinburgh and Glasgow and they turn up in the strangest places to hear me play. Not so long ago they drove to Ullapool to hear me. I was incredibly touched. But they do tend to drink and sing along."

Far from the image projected by his best known songs Vearncombe is a million miles away from his reputation. "I still get letters from people addressed to ‘Colin (lead singer of Black)’ and I think: ‘What kinda outfit do these people think I run? They must think Black is a band and there’s only a picture of me on the sleeve and the musicians keep coming and going. Who do they think I am? Some big-nosed Scouse despot that just picks up musicians and drops them?"

Vearncombe’s decision to drop his record company and go "totally indie" came after he licensed 50 per cent of his critically adored (but criminally undersold) album The Accused to a small record company who only managed to shift 3000 copies of the record. Vearncombe now sells albums himself through his website www.colinvearncombe.com.

"It’s a pain in the arse trying to run a record label," he admits. "Keeping deadlines, sticking to budgets and doing what you said you were going to do when you’re going to do it, but these are healthy things for a human being to have. They help you discover who you really are and it’s only recently that I’ve come to realise who I am."

Who’s that, then?

"A big-nosed Scouse git," he laughs.