Tracie Young

Born in Derby on 25 March 1965 and raised in Essex, Tracie Young was discovered by The Jam frontman Paul Weller, through an advertisement in Smash Hits magazine for his Respond Records label soliciting demo tapes.

Young impressed Weller enough to become his priority signing for the Respond label.

Tracie sang backing vocals on The Jam‘s final single, Beat Surrender and joined the band for their appearance on Top of the Pops to promote the song.

In January 1983, she contributed vocals for The Style Council‘s first single, Speak Like a Child and also appeared in the promotional video. Tracie toured with the group for part of 1983 while also performing as a solo artist as part of a Respond package tour.

She had UK hit singles with The House That Jack Built (March 1983) and Give it Some Emotion (July 1983) and her debut album, Far from the Hurting Kind, was released in 1984.

Tracie recorded with The Style Council again in 1985, contributing backing vocals to the song Boy Who Cried Wolf, a single taken from the album Our Favourite Shop.

Respond ceased operations in 1986 and Young was briefly signed by Polydor. The second album she recorded whilst signed to Polydor, No Smoke Without Fire, was never released by them. It was eventually released in May 2014 by Cherry Red Records.

In the late 1990s, Young became a radio presenter.

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