The Awesome Music of Smokie

This English rock band originally spelled their name as Smokey. The band comes from Bradford, Yorkshire, England. They have had many great hit singles and are still touring. Among their most popular singles are “If You Think You Know How to Love Me”, “Don’t Play Your Rock ‘n’ Roll to Me”, “and Lay Back in the Arms of Someone”. The hit by which they are most recognized is “Living Next Door to Alice”.

The band in their original formation was created in 1965 and its members were Chris Norman lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Terry Uttley bass and vocals, Alan Silson lead guitar and vocals and Ron Kelly drums. It was their second album Changing All the Time that brought them fame with the hit “If You Think You Know How to Love Me”. 

 Finally, with their third album Midnight Café, they came out with a string of hits like “Something’s Making Me Blue”, “Wild Wild Angels” and “I’ll Meet You After Midnight”.

The next two albums they released had the hits “It’s Your Life” and “Needles and Pins”. 

Then popularity shifted again to Smokie who came out with “Mexican Girl” composed by Norman and Spencer. 

Their album The Other Side of the Road was released in 1979 and recorded in Australia. It brought them the following hits “Do to Me” and “Babe It’s Up to You”. 



These were followed by a melancholic single “Run to Me”. 

They were considering a full comeback when in 1986 Chris Norman chose to leave the group due to his success as a solo singer. He was replaced by Alan Barton who was previously a part of Black Lace. With a few other changes, Smokie released the album All Fired Up! In 1988. A surprise turn to popularity came when they toured Ireland and noticed that when they sang their most popular song “Living Next Door to Alice” the audience would shout, “Alice? Who the f---k is Alice?” Finally, this phrase was worked into a version of the song and became a runaway hit. 

In 2001 Smokie came out with two albums Uncovered and Uncovered Too consisting of all cover versions of various songs. In 2004 the band recorded another album On the Wire consisting of fourteen songs among them eleven of the songs were written by band members. In 2006 they released a compilation album with only three new tracks.

Lead Singer Chris Norman Goes Solo

Chris Norman began his career as the lead singer for the popular English rock band Smokie, who were popular in the 1970s. Afterwards, he began his solo career and became a well-known English soft-rock singer. 

Norman got his first big break in 1978 when he recorded a duet with American singer, bass guitarist, songwriter, and actress Suzi Quatro. The song “Stumblin' In” charted on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and sold more than one million copies.

Chris Norman’s career really took off in 1986 with the hit song “Midnight Lady”. This became a hit all over Europe and rose up on the charts to number one in Germany and stayed there for six weeks. 

Chris Norman performed on the “Comeback Show” on the German TV station, ProSieben in 2004. He sang “Stumblin’ In” as a duet with German pop singer C.C. Catch and in the final episode of this show, Smokie joined Norman for the final song. In 2007 Norman performed at the Peel Bay Festival on the Isle of Man. Today he continues to record and perform all over the world gathering up many more fans along the way. He released a new album in 2015 Crossover. With songs like “Take This Lonely Heart”