Who is mick hucknalls father

Ironically, we have just been talking about how happy he is; how his latest Simply Red album, Big Love, is suffused with a blissful contentment that has for so many decades evaded this emotionally complex man.

What has reduced Hucknall to tears is talking about the day his mum walked out on him when he was just three years old, leaving him to be looked after by his dad, Reg. Hucknall stands up because he wants to act out the very first image that was burnt onto his memory. My dad is crying. That is my very first memory. It was and Hucknall — now 54 — was three years old. Six years ago Reg, a former RAF man and professional barber, died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in Manchester.

A devoted father to his seven-year-old daughter, Romy, he is a very different man these days to the model-chasing, ruby-toothed jaded superstar who boasted of sleeping with more than a thousand women. Champagne, drugs, going from one fashion show to the next, surrounded by beautiful women. I was actually very unhappy, very insecure. Back then Hucknall was either on the front row of a fashion show and dating one or more of the models on the circuit or the front pages of the tabloids.

Today he leads a different life. He always had the unconditional love of a father but only recently has he come to realise how much this — and not the absence of a mother — has shaped his own life. On his new album — very probably the last he will write — there is a song called Dad. Like a lot of tracks on the album including the single Shine On and The Old Man And The Beer there is a simplicity to it, which comes from absolute emotional honesty.

It tells his story of their relationship as a child and as a man. It is probably the most moving song he has ever written. And that kills me. My dad was my world,' said Mick pictured aged eight with his father Reg. Hucknall Senior was a stubborn man.

In , when his son was a year-old international star, he point-blank refused to let him install a phone. It was tough for me. It must have been tougher for him.

Yet Hucknall — with his funk-rock sound and his bright-red corkscrew curls — gained a reputation not just as an unlikely Lothario but as a difficult, belligerent individual who was abrasive and hard to handle. He smiles. People want to be different but people who are different just want to fit in. I could never do that. He was a product of his upbringing, one which today sounds like something from the pages of a kitchen-sink drama.

Being left by a mother in Sixties working-class Britain was a massive social stigma. I could never do that,' said Mick. He is often described as one of the greatest 'blue-eyed soul' singers. He first found his love for music when attending the Lesser Free Trade Hall show in Manchester in June where the Sex Pistols were playing their first gig.

He was born in Saint Mary's Hospital, Manchester, and is an only child. His mother abandoned the family when he was aged just three, which later inspired him to write 'Holding Back the Years'.

He was brought up in Denton by his father Reginald — , a barber in Stockport. It wasn't until the mids that he reconnected with his mother Maureen, who was by then living in Dallas.

In , he revealed that he had seen her twice since she left the family. I didn't want anyone saying, 'How about this show? That was easier for everyone than being selective. There was no reason to take any phone calls about anything band-related. So the band played their final concert in and, while Hucknall has performed with other musicians and recorded some solo music in the ensuing years, mostly, as he reiterates several times throughout our interview, he was doing very little but looking after Romy, walking his dog, watching daytime TV and generally enjoying married life with wife Gabriella.

Last year, however, a little reminder from his manager about what year it was sparked another U-turn: Simply Red was resurrected; a new album, Big Love, has just been released, and there's a tour planned, which arrives in Belfast in December. He says his manager telling him he should tour to celebrate the milestone, combined with the thought of his old record label releasing "yet another Simply Red greatest hits" with no new material in it, was enough to end the hiatus.

Receive today's headlines directly to your inbox every morning and evening, with our free daily newsletter. Enter email address This field is required Sign Up. He started writing, with the idea that he may record two or three songs to go on any inevitable repackaged hits compilation "At least there'd be a few new things for the fans".

But three songs soon led to four, and he then set himself the challenge of writing a whole album. Before long, in gaps between making Romy's breakfast and picking her up from school, he'd done it, and was ready to start recording. Big Love was taking shape. It's based on family. I have a family that I thought I'd never have, and it changed my life completely," says the singer.