Where are they now? Black

Colin Vearncombe - the artist known as Black - hasn't made the news since his singles, Sweetest smile, Wonderful life (both top 10 and 1987) and Paradise (Top 40 in 1988), and the Top 10 album Wonderful Life. Where is he now, asks Steve Lunny of Carlby, Lincolnshire?

"I was reading the sidebar for Q's Nick Cave feature (Q 142, Cheer up, It Might Never Happen) just before sleeping and I had to get up and have a large whisky. Finally, after ten years, somebody got it."
Black's last album for A&M was 1991's Black. "Things started to go wrong when A&M got bought by PolyGram. The singles didn't get any airplay, and though the album got a few sniffs in Europe, it didn't do well. My next album Are We Having Fun Yet, was sold on mail order (on his own label nero schwarz) for a year before it reached the shops. The album wasn't the right record. I wasn't grown-up enough to handle the weight of the problem".
At which point, "I just stopped. I couldn't see a place for myself anywhere. It's taken me five years to find one." In between, he "spent a good deal of time with my son, and started learning things".
He invested in multimedia designers Tomato, run by his manager Steve Baker, tried his hand writing music for ads ("I assumed the ad world would be more professional than the music industry, but I still wanted to chin people all the time") and produced vocalist Wendy Page (one single, Cool, on nero schwarz), and William Topley (ex- The Blessing).
In 1994, Wonderful Life went top 50 again on the back of s Standard Life ad. "I'll give permission provided it's not shite. I turned down Cadbury's but they did a carbon copy."
A music symposium run by Chris Difford (ex-Squeeze) was a turning point. "He puts songwriters together for a week down in Devon, which was interesting being put on the spot, because you only have a day to write a song, which you have to perform after dinner."
The result is a new album, released early next year and "the best record I've ever done".