UB40 Biography

The members of UB40 (Robin Campbell, Ali Campbell, Earl Falconer, Mickey Virtue, Brian Travers, Jim Brown, Norman Hassan, and Terence “Astro” Wilson) came together and met for the first time while waiting in a welfare line in Britain in 1978.  A year after acquiring a few musical instruments and learning how to play them, the band members found themselves with an invitation to tour with none other than the Pretenders. They did so, and performed their politically charged music to eager audiences ready to embrace UB40’s ska-revival music.

UB40’s single, “Food for Thought,” reached into the top ten in the UK in 1980, and their albums Signing Off and Present Arms were moderately successful as well. Labour of Love (1983) brought UB40 recognition in America, and earned them their first number one in the UK with the reggae-infused  “Red Red Wine.”  After performing the song at a 1988 tribute for Nelson Mandella, UB40 caught the attention of a US-based radio station and the single rocketed to the top of the charts. UB40 followed up the success with Labour of Love II, which featured a number of hits, including: "The Way You Do the Things You Do,” "Here I Am (Come and Take Me),” "Can't Help Falling In Love," the last of which spent seven weeks at the top of the American charts.

By the end of the 1990’s, UB40 had scored a number of hits and released Presetns the Dancehall Album (1998), followed by a third Labour of Love collection.  The band entered the new millennium with the release of The Fathers of Reggae (2002), followed by Homegrown (2003), Who You Fighting For (2005), and TwentyFourSeven (2008.) After a change in the lineup, Duncan Campbell was moved into the spot as the lead singer, just before UB40 released Labour of Love 4 in 2009.

Most recently, UB40 participated in a June 2010 concert at the Le Mans 24-hour race, and then embarked on both American and UK tours in the fall. UB40 continues to perform and record, and released a CD/DVD package in 2010 as a special edition of their material from the album Signing Off.