Pauline Black (born 23 October 1953) is a British singer and actress, most notable as the lead singer of Ska / 2 Tone outfit The Selecter founded in 1979 in Coventry, UK. After the band split in 1982, Black developed an acting career in television and theatre, appearing in dramas such as The Vice, The Bill, Hearts and Minds and 2000 Acres of Sky. She won the 1991 Time Out award for Best Actress, for her portrayal of Billie Holiday in the play All or Nothing At All. She also starred next to Christopher Lee in the horror film, The Funny Man.
As lead singer with legendary 2 Tone group The Selecter and enjoyed a string of hits in the early '80'S, gaining two gold discs, to mark 100,000 sales of the albums 'Too Much Pressure' and 'Dance Craze'. The critically acclaimed album 'Celebrate The Bullet' followed. In 1982 she left The Selecter (th
e band split up soon after), gained her Equity card and diversified into theatre, TV and film acting, TV and radio presentation and writing. She also won the 'Manchester Evening News Best Actress Award' 1993 for 'From The Mississippi Delta' by Dr. Endesha Mae Holland.
The Selecter re-formed in 1991, with a different line-up and regularly toured in U.S.A, Europe and Japan and recorded new material. But Neol Davies was no longer in this line-up after a year. Post 1993, Arthur 'Gaps' Hendrickson, the original singer of Too Much Pressure, performed with this line-up occasionally. They released several new albums, toured around the world and even toured with No Doubt in 1997 in the US. Pauline Black continued to record and perform as The Selecter up until 2006.
After that Pauline took a sabbatical from The Selecter and had been touring a new solo project with The Blue Jazz Trio (drums: Pick Withers ex Dire Straits; double bass: Nigel Portman-Smith, ex The Pentangle; keyboards: Dom Pipkin, ex Morcheeba) entitled 'The Very Best of Nina Simone & Billie Holiday' since April 2007. An album and DVD recording of this project was released.
In early 2008, Pauline has been invited to sing and present the JUST SOUL tour, featuring Eddie Floyd & Geno Washington & The Ram Jam Band.
In July 2010, Neol Davies, with a view to re-connecting to his original 1979 vision plus some modern influences, created a brand new version of The Selecter to re-launch the band with new songs alongside tracks and hits from the first two albums Too Much Pressure and Celebrate The Bullet. From 2010 the new line-up, with Neol Davies playing guitar and John Gibbons as the new singer, will be The Selecter.
On October 31st 2010 Pauline Black and Arthur “Gaps” Hendrickson played under The Selecter name to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the seminal debut album, ‘Too Much Pressure’, by performing the whole album live at the “Sinners Day Festival”, Ethias Stadium, Hasselt, Belgium. They also performed at The Bloomsbury Ballroom, London on Saturday 13th 2010. The line-up is now billed as The Selecter Featuring Pauline Black.
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