An artist who has received Ivor Novello, Grammy and BASCAP awards along with a flotilla of gold and platinum records, really needs no introduction.

Musical success is seldom measured in time spans of more than a few years so the fact that by the time Midge’s single “If I Was” went to number one in 1985 he had already crammed several musical lifetimes into a 10-year professional career speaks volumes – Slik, The Rich Kids, Thin Lizzy, Visage, Ultravox and of course the most famous one off group in musical history Band Aid had be then all had the guiding hand of his musical navigation.

Ultravox was a major influence on the new romantic and electro-pop movements of the early 80s and many an open-minded studio and bedroom experimentalist since. Their successful trademark was combining Midge’s powerful guitar riffs with sweeping synthesiser motifs, enigmatic imagery and state-of-the-art visuals. Throughout the first half of the 80s, they brilliantly combined the responsibilities of top 10 chartmakers and innovative style-makers.

Then came November 25, 1984, a historic day for Midge and all of pop music, as 36 artists by the collective name Band Aid gathered at SARM Studios in West London under Ure’s production. They recorded “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” a song he had just written with Bob Geldof as the industry’s heartfelt and eloquent contribution to Ethiopian famine relief. 600,000 copies sold in its first week in the UK alone was only the beginning: 800,000 more were bought in the second week, more than three million world-wide, and the unstoppable emotion engendered by the project led to Live Aid, the summer 1985 global concert that, all exaggeration aside, spoke for a generation.

As summer 2014 beckons, it’s business as usual in camp Ure . . . which means busy busy busy!