Paul Hardcastle

Description

Paul Hardcastle (born December 10 1957, in London) is an English composer and musician specializing in the synthesizer. <p>In the early 1980s, Hardcastle played keyboards on several singles on the Oval label by the dance music groups Direct Drive and First Light, before going solo. He achieved some acclaim for his early singles, notably the popular instrumental Rainforest 1984, but came to greater prominence in 1985. <p>The 1985 release of "19", brought Hardcastle acclaim and chart success. 19 was a dance record, featuring stuttering samples of television narrator Peter Thomas from the war about Vietnam veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. Initially unhappy about having his voice used in this way, Thomas relented and allowed the single to be released. A number one hit for Chrysalis Records in the United Kingdom for five weeks, the record topped the charts in both France and Germany in two versions, the English-language original and an authorised local language alternative...