It was forty years ago today that Wham! released their single I’m Your Man.
The track was the band’s first new music since the festive single Last Christmas came out a year earlier, and fans hoped the song would herald a new era for the duo following on from their mega-selling Make It Big album which was released in 1984.
The band had certainly been making it big, they’d become the first Western band to play in China, had the success of a string of singles in the charts around the globe, they’d played the historic Live Aid concert and toured the USA too.
But just months after I’m Your Man topped the charts George Michael and Andrew Ridgely announced they were parting ways. Both would go on to release solo albums, but George Michael’s post Wham! career would dwarf the music he made in the early 1980s.
George Michael would later recall that the song was written very quickly during a plane flight while the band toured the USA.
The black and white video for the song was filmed in London’s Marquee Club by Andy Morahan who had also created the videos for Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Last Christmas and Everything She Wants. He would go on to create two more videos for the duo their farewell single Edge of Heaven and their final ever release Where Did Your Heart Go?
Morahan would work with George Michael during his solo career making the videos for I Want Your Sex, Faith, Father Figure, Monkey, and later clips for Older and Round Here. He also made memorable clips for Pet Shop Boys, The Human League, Cyndi Lauper, Bananarama, Tina Turner and many others.
The I’m Your Man video features George Michael and Andrew Ridgely, and long serving Wham! bass player Deon Estus is also prominently featured. Estus would remain part of Michael’s backing band, and the singer sang backing vocals on Spell the bass player’s 1989 solo album, as well as writing a track and remixing another.
Ridgely and Michael would make a few brief appearances together on stage in the following years, and in 1990 they played I’m Your Man at the massive Rock in Rio concert. Michael also provided some backing vocals on Ridgely solo album Son of Albert.
In 1995 British singer Lisa Moorish covered the song in a funkier style and George Michael dropped by the studios while she was laying down the track. Impressed with producer Jon Douglas’s take on the tune George Michael added his backing vocals to Moorish’s version.
A year later he released his own solo recording of the song in a similar style, it appears as the B-side to his Fastlove single.
George Michael died on Christmas Day in 2016 at just 53 years of age, and Deon Estus passed away in 2021 aged 65.
