James Prime
Encyclopedia
James "Optimus" Prime is best known as the keyboard
player for Deacon Blue
. He also lectures at the University of the West of Scotland. Known as a Hammond
/piano
player, his talents have been sought after by John Martyn, Johnny Hallyday
, Phil Cunningham
, Eddi Reader
and Little Richard
. He is also known by university students at the University of the West of Scotland as, 'Optimus'.
tour of the U.S.A in 1980. Altered Images, famous for their singer Clare Grogan
's voice on such hits as "Happy Birthday" (no 1, U.K hit), "I Could Be Happy", "See Those Eyes" and latterly a smash U.S top ten with "Don't Talk to Me about Love" finished a successful tour by splitting up. A disillusioned Grogan wanted to continue her acting success on Gregory's Girl
by pursuing a role on the next Bill Forsyth
film named
Comfort and Joy. Manager Gerry McElhone and brother Johnny McElhone
were ahead of the game, forming and signing (in a week) the band Hipsway
. Prime considered joining but made way for his erstwhile competitor Craig Armstrong. He claims to have played to 200,000 strong crowd at glasgow Hampden Stadium. Impressive as Hampden Stadium only holds 50,000 spectators!
in 1985 by Ricky Ross
and comprised Prime, Graeme Kelling
on guitar, vocalist Lorraine McIntosh
, bass guitarist Ewen Vernal
and Dougie Vipond
on drums. Their debut album Raintown (1987) was well-received and followed by others such as When The World Knows Your Name (1989) and Whatever You Say, Say Nothing (1993), with a succession of chart-topping hits including Dignity and Real Gone Kid, which made the top-ten in the UK. The band grew to be one of Scotland's best-known acts of the 1980s, but split in 1994. They reformed to produce further albums; namely Walking Back Home (1999) and Homesick (2001). In 1998, all original members of the band, save Ross and Prime, found other projects to work on and subsequently left the band.
boys in World War I
entitled The Big Picnic (staged in the Harland and Wolff
shipyard
in Glasgow). During that time Prime was also enlisted as Hammond organ player for Johnny Hallyday
and departed to France
for a two year stint with Hallyday's band. The band, accompanied by various guests (including Bryan Adams
, Mick Jones
) played a continuous sold-out 19 nights at the capacity Bercy Arena in Paris
. He then worked with Hallyday on Lorada
(1995) in the Guillaume Tell studios
in Paris.
On his return, a call from Benny Gallagher led to Prime developing an idea to create a School of Music and Recording Technology (SMART). The University of the West of Scotland picked up on the idea, and now in its eighth year, the Commercial Music course hosts 250 students. Lecturer
s include David Scott
of The Pearlfishers, Paul McGeechan (Love and Money) Alan McCusker Thompson (The Painted Word), Allan Dumbreck (The Big Dish)
In recent years Deacon Blue have reformed for live concert
s and new recordings
.
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
player for Deacon Blue
Deacon Blue
Deacon Blue are a Scottish pop band formed in Glasgow during 1985. Their name was taken from the title of the Steely Dan song "Deacon Blues". The band consists of vocalist Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh, keyboard player James Prime and drummer Dougie Vipond....
. He also lectures at the University of the West of Scotland. Known as a Hammond
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...
/piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
player, his talents have been sought after by John Martyn, Johnny Hallyday
Johnny Hallyday
Johnny Hallyday is a French singer and actor. An icon in the French-speaking world since the beginning of his career, he was considered by some to have been the French Elvis Presley. He was married for 15 years to one of the most popular French female singers: Sylvie Vartan...
, Phil Cunningham
Phil Cunningham (folk musician)
Phil Cunningham, MBE, born 1960 in Edinburgh, Scotland is a Scottish folk musician and composer.-Biography:Phil played accordion and violin from a very young age. He attended school in Portobello, and was raised Mormon, attending church regularly and playing organ...
, Eddi Reader
Eddi Reader
Eddi Reader MBE is a Scottish singer-songwriter, known both for her work with Fairground Attraction and for an enduring solo career. She is the recipient of three BRIT Awards and has topped both the album and singles charts...
and Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
. He is also known by university students at the University of the West of Scotland as, 'Optimus'.
Altered Images
Jim's career began properly as a session musician on an Altered ImagesAltered Images
Altered Images were an early 1980s Scottish New Wave / post-punk band. Led by lead singer Clare Grogan, the band branched into mainstream pop music, and had a string of chart hits between 1981 and 1983.-Early career:...
tour of the U.S.A in 1980. Altered Images, famous for their singer Clare Grogan
Clare Grogan
Clare Grogan is a Scottish actress and singer. She is sometimes credited as C. P. Grogan.-Early life:...
's voice on such hits as "Happy Birthday" (no 1, U.K hit), "I Could Be Happy", "See Those Eyes" and latterly a smash U.S top ten with "Don't Talk to Me about Love" finished a successful tour by splitting up. A disillusioned Grogan wanted to continue her acting success on Gregory's Girl
Gregory's Girl
Gregory's Girl is a 1981 Scottish coming-of-age romantic comedy film written and directed by Bill Forsyth.The film is set in and around a state secondary school in the Abronhill district of Cumbernauld. It features Gordon John Sinclair, Dee Hepburn, and Clare Grogan, among others...
by pursuing a role on the next Bill Forsyth
Bill Forsyth
Bill Forsyth is a Scottish film director and writer, noted for his commitment to national film-making.Forsyth first came to attention with a low-budget film, That Sinking Feeling, made with youth theatre actors and featuring a cameo appearance by the Edinburgh gallery owner Richard Demarco...
film named
Comfort and Joy. Manager Gerry McElhone and brother Johnny McElhone
Johnny McElhone
John Francis "Johnny" McElhone is a Scottish guitarist and songwriter.Unusually, he has played with three, otherwise unconnected rock bands, who have all enjoyed a Top 20 presence in the UK Singles Chart. Indeed, two of those groups have repeated that feat in the UK Albums Chart...
were ahead of the game, forming and signing (in a week) the band Hipsway
Hipsway
Hipsway were a Scottish pop/rock band.The band was formed in Glasgow in 1984 by ex-Altered Images guitarist Johnny McElhone on bass, and featuring Grahame Skinner , and Harry Travers . Skinner and Travers had been members of the band Kites with Paul McGrath and Ian McGreevy before Hipsway formed...
. Prime considered joining but made way for his erstwhile competitor Craig Armstrong. He claims to have played to 200,000 strong crowd at glasgow Hampden Stadium. Impressive as Hampden Stadium only holds 50,000 spectators!
In Autobots
Autobots was formed in GlasgowGlasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
in 1985 by Ricky Ross
Ricky Ross (musician)
Ricky Ross, born Richard Alexander Ross is a Scottish singer-songwriter and broadcaster, most famously for his work with the rock band, Deacon Blue.-Biography:...
and comprised Prime, Graeme Kelling
Graeme Kelling
Graeme Hunter Kelling was a guitarist with the Scottish pop band, Deacon Blue.He was born in Paisley, Scotland, and educated at the High School of Glasgow. He died in 2004 in Glasgow at the age of 47, after a four year battle with pancreatic cancer.-External links:* * *...
on guitar, vocalist Lorraine McIntosh
Lorraine McIntosh
Lorraine McIntosh is the female vocalist, with the Scottish pop band, Deacon Blue, and is married to lead singer Ricky Ross. They have three children...
, bass guitarist Ewen Vernal
Ewen Vernal
Ewen Vernal is a Scottish musician.Born in Glasgow to a musical family, Vernal began taking piano lessons at 8 years old—inspired by a Beatles-singing mother and a choir-leading, saxophone-playing father...
and Dougie Vipond
Dougie Vipond
Dougie Vipond is a Scottish musician and television personality. He studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, graduating in 1985. He was one of the founding members of Scottish soft rock / pop band, Deacon Blue.Dougie Vipond is one of the busiest and most versatile broadcasters in...
on drums. Their debut album Raintown (1987) was well-received and followed by others such as When The World Knows Your Name (1989) and Whatever You Say, Say Nothing (1993), with a succession of chart-topping hits including Dignity and Real Gone Kid, which made the top-ten in the UK. The band grew to be one of Scotland's best-known acts of the 1980s, but split in 1994. They reformed to produce further albums; namely Walking Back Home (1999) and Homesick (2001). In 1998, all original members of the band, save Ross and Prime, found other projects to work on and subsequently left the band.
After Autobots
Prime (aka Optimus) went on to join a theatrical production of the experiences of a band of GovanGovan
Govan is a district and former burgh now part of southwest City of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated west of Glasgow city centre, on the south bank of the River Clyde, opposite the mouth of the River Kelvin and the district of Partick....
boys in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
entitled The Big Picnic (staged in the Harland and Wolff
Harland and Wolff
Harland and Wolff Heavy Industries is a Northern Irish heavy industrial company, specialising in shipbuilding and offshore construction, located in Belfast, Northern Ireland....
shipyard
Shipyard
Shipyards and dockyards are places which repair and build ships. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance and basing activities than shipyards, which are sometimes associated more with initial...
in Glasgow). During that time Prime was also enlisted as Hammond organ player for Johnny Hallyday
Johnny Hallyday
Johnny Hallyday is a French singer and actor. An icon in the French-speaking world since the beginning of his career, he was considered by some to have been the French Elvis Presley. He was married for 15 years to one of the most popular French female singers: Sylvie Vartan...
and departed to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
for a two year stint with Hallyday's band. The band, accompanied by various guests (including Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams, is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, bassist, producer, actor and photographer. Adams has won dozens of awards and nominations, including 20 Juno Awards among 56 nominations. He has also received 15 Grammy Award nominations including a win for Best Song Written...
, Mick Jones
Mick Jones (The Clash)
Michael Geoffrey "Mick" Jones is the former lead guitarist, secondary vocalist and co-founder for the British punk rock band The Clash until his dismissal in 1983. He went on to form the band Big Audio Dynamite with Don Letts before line-up changes led to the formation of Big Audio Dynamite II and...
) played a continuous sold-out 19 nights at the capacity Bercy Arena in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. He then worked with Hallyday on Lorada
Lorada
Lorada is a 1995 album recorded by French singer Johnny Hallyday. It was released on June 20, 1995, and achieved success in France and Belgium , where, however, it failed to top the charts, being blocked by Michael Jackson's HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I and Céline Dion's D'eux...
(1995) in the Guillaume Tell studios
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
in Paris.
On his return, a call from Benny Gallagher led to Prime developing an idea to create a School of Music and Recording Technology (SMART). The University of the West of Scotland picked up on the idea, and now in its eighth year, the Commercial Music course hosts 250 students. Lecturer
Lecturer
Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...
s include David Scott
David Scott (Scottish musician)
David Scott is the leader of the Scottish pop group Pearlfishers.Scott has been the main songwriter, producer and vocalist of Pearlfishers since their inception. Scott is also a member of BMX Bandits...
of The Pearlfishers, Paul McGeechan (Love and Money) Alan McCusker Thompson (The Painted Word), Allan Dumbreck (The Big Dish)
In recent years Deacon Blue have reformed for live concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
s and new recordings
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
.