UB40’s ‘Red Red Wine’ Certified Double Platinum In The UK
One year shy of 40 years since its release, British Reggae band UB40’s chart-topping single Red Red Wine has been certified double-platinum in the UK.
According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the song was issued another Brit Certified Platinum Award after it sold more than 1.2 million units in the UK, as measured by The Official Charts Company.
Red Red Wine was the Birmingham-based group’s first number one hit in the United States. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1988, and became one of the biggest Reggae songs in history, five years after it was released in 1983.
The remake of the Neil Diamond song topped the charts in six countries, turning the members of UB40 into global stars and the world’s most successful cover band.
Red Red Wine was the breakout single from UB40’s fourth studio album, Labour of Love, a collection of cover versions that were released on the band’s own label DEP International.
The song was originally written, performed and recorded by American singer Neil Diamond in 1967 and appeared on his second studio album titled Just For You. The lyrics are written from the perspective of a lovesick man who imbibes red wine as a means of dealing with his woes. The UB40 version of the song includes a deejay verse by founding member Astro, who chants: “Red Red Wine, you make me feel so fine/You keep me rocking all of the time.”
Astro, whose real name is Terence Wilson, passed away at age 64, last November, following a brief illness.
Neil Diamond has stated in the past that UB40’s version of the song is one of his favorite covers of his songs and that he frequently performs the song live using the UB40 reggae rendition, as opposed to his original version.
According to the group’s Ali Campbell, Red Red Wine did not catch on in the United States for many years, a disconnect which he attributed to “racial politics”.
“The song had two lives. It went to number one in England and all over the world in 1983, but didn’t do anything in America,” he told Billboard in a 2018 interview.
“It was difficult for us in America. In the ’80s it was still very much black radio and white radio — and of course we were multiracial, so we didn’t fit neither,” he added.
Some pundits have attributed the song’s breakthrough in the US to UB40’s June 1988 performance on the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday TV special, while others credit DJ Guy Zapoleon from Phoenix, Arizona, who added Red Red Wine on his nationally syndicated radio show.
“It’s actually a very sad song. It’s all about a bloke drinking his sorrows away.” Still somehow the reggae beat makes for an uplifting experience. “It’s the drum and the bass that says it all,” he notes. “The thing about reggae music is that it is elating. It elates me when I’m listening to it, whether old reggae or new reggae. That’s why I love it. It changes the mood of everything,” Ali had explained to Billboard.
Many of UB40 albums include remakes of older Reggae songs, many of which were composed by newcomers to the Jamaican music industry, who were said to be exploited by music producers, who would claim all the royalties and proceeds on the recordings, with the artists getting, in many cases, nothing.
As a consequence, UB40, quite aware of these shenanigans, sought to right the wrongs done to the authors of the songs by tracking down the originators and registering them with PRS, which is the major royalty collection agency in the UK. Among these songs were the Gold-certified Kingston Town, which became a massive hit for them in 1989, for which UB40 ensured songwriting royalties finally went to a highly appreciative Lord Creator.