The Communards
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This article is about the pop group The Communards. For the French political activists, see communards.
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The Communards were a British pop duo of the 1980s.
They formed in 1985 after singer Jimmy Somerville left his earlier band Bronski Beat to team up with classically-trained musician Richard Coles. Though mainly a pianist, Coles played a number of instruments and had been seen previously performiong the clarinet solos on the Bronski Beat hit It Ain't Necessarily So. Jimmy was renowned for his falsetto (high pitched) singing style, and the fact that he was openly gay.
The band had their first UK Top 20 hit in 1985 with the piano-based single You Are My World. The following year they had their biggest hit with an energetic cover version of Thelma Houston's soul classic Don't Leave Me This Way which spent four weeks at number one and became the UK's biggest selling single of 1986. It featured Sarah-Jane Morris as a co-vocalist.
Later that year The Communards had another Top 10 hit with the single So Cold the Night. In 1987 they released an album called Red which featured a cover version of Gloria Gaynor's hit Never Can Say Goodbye, which the Communards took to Number 4.
They split in 1988 and Somerville began a solo career. Coles became a journalist for the Times Literary Supplement and Catholic Herald.de:The Communards nl:The Communards