It could be argued that Wham! was ahead of its time.
Listen now to early-‘80s hits “Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)” – a clever paean to working-class strife – and “Young Guns (Go For It),” − a snappy riff on losing a friend to married life − and it’s clear that George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley knew their way around social commentary cushioned in melody.
The duo’s stratospheric success is compacted to three albums from 1983 to 1986 before Michael detoured into an even bigger and broader solo career, but their accomplishments linger.
A 40th anniversary collection, “The Singles: Echoes from the Edge of Heaven” (out July 7), is preceded by a fizzy, archive-rich Netflix documentary about the duo, “Wham!,” (streaming July 5).
The celebrations are shaded in sadness given the unexpected death of Michael on Christmas Day in 2016 at age 53.
But Ridgeley, 60, is proud to revive Wham!’s legacy as he chats via video, looking tanned and chic in a button-down shirt, and he speaks lovingly about his enduring friendship with Michael, whom he still refers to as “Yog,” a childhood nickname stemming from Michael’s Greek name, Georgios.
George Michael believed meeting Andrew Ridgeley was ‘predestined’
Michael was 11 and Ridgeley was 12 when they met at Bushy Meads School in England. Throwback photos in the documentary of young Michael with curly hair and glasses will make fans smile, as will the story about the teacher asking someone in the class to “take care of the new boy” and Ridgeley raising his hand. Michael believed the two were fated to meet, and had he sat next to someone else, his life would have swiveled down a different path.
Ridgeley, however, maintains a different perspective on their origin story.
“Yog was a great believer in destiny,” Ridgeley says. “I think the only thing destined for him was his artistic destiny and that developed in our youth. It was pure luck that delivered him to me at the age of 12. It was fortuitous for us both, but I don’t feel it was destiny. It was pure chance. The teacher asked, and I was the only one who put my hand up.”
Toward the end of the “Wham!” film, when the pair decide to end their partnership, Ridgeley says: “Yog had become the artist he was destined to be. Wham! was now going to be middle-aged. We all wake up in the middle of our dreams and suddenly it’s not there (anymore). I was happy for my friend.”
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‘Careless Whisper’ almost had a very different sound
Michael had started working on what would become his defining ballad in 1981 (a tape-recorded demo is played in the documentary), but when it came time to finally record it two years later, he headed across the pond to the famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama to work with famed producer Jerry Wexler.
But both he and Ridgeley hated the Wexler version, declaring it “a bit limp,” so Michael returned to England, where he produced it “solely to his vision,” according to Ridgeley in the documentary.
(The Wexler version eventually was released as a special edition in the U.K. and Japan.)
Ever the perfectionist, Michael went through 10 saxophonists to play the now-iconic riff before landing on Steve Gregory.
Despite the convoluted reasons for the song being – controversially at the time – credited to Wham! featuring George Michael, “Careless Whisper” was definitively a joint effort.
“It was a remarkable coincidence that I was mucking around with chords and told George, ‘You have to have a listen to this,’ and he said, ‘I have a melody that fits perfectly over that.’ That was the sax melody. We shared the same taste. I like to think of it as a magical coincidence,” Ridgeley says.
George Michael was crushed that ‘Last Christmas’ didn’t hit No. 1 when it was released
The retelling of the backstory of the lush holiday favorite – Michael and Ridgeley were watching a soccer game, Michael went upstairs and wrote the song and returned to tell Ridgeley, “I’ve done it!” – speaks to his innate talent.
But his competitive nature was displayed when the song was released the same week as the Band Aid charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” (on which Michael also sings).
Michael was intent on notching a fourth U.K. No. 1 single in 1984, following “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” “Careless Whisper” and “Everything She Wants,” but the all-star Band Aid song blocked “Last Christmas” from the top spot.
“I had a little bastard ego thing I had to keep squashing,” Michael says in a clip about his conflicted feelings.
The oft-covered song (Gwen Stefani’s version is a favorite of Ridgeley’s) finally achieved No. 1 status in January 2021 and repeated in 2022, bittersweet moments for Ridgeley, who has a cameo in the 2019 rom-com named for and based on the song.
“I felt it was a shame that Yog never got to see it happen,” he says. “We knew we’d written a No. 1 and he set himself the task of writing a Christmas song. He felt every big-name artist should have one and he wrote one of the best. But (with finally hitting No. 1), you wait 37 years and they come like London buses, all at once.”
Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael spent their final time together with a board game
Despite their divergent lives – Michael’s solo career soared while Ridgeley pursued his passion as a race car driver – the two school chums never lost touch.
“Firm friends,” Ridgeley says.
Just before Michael’s untimely death, the pair met for some innocent fun.
“The last time I saw him was over a Scrabble board. He’d beaten me the week before, and I was exacting my revenge. It was that fundamental kind of juvenile sparring between us. That spark, that kind of intimacy between us … the essence of friendship is always the same, whether its five years or 50 years.”
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