Shakin' Stevens, also known as "Shaky" (born Michael Barratt, 4 March 1948) is a platinum selling Welsh rock and roll singer and songwriter who holds the distinction of being the UK's biggest-selling singles artist of the 1980s.
His recording and performing career began in the late 1960s, although it was not until 1980 that he saw commercial success in his native land. In the UK alone, Stevens has charted no fewer than 33 top 40 hit singles in the sales charts.
He began his professional performing career during 1968, fronting Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets, created and managed by South Wales rock and roll promoter and impresario Paul 'Legs' Barrett (no relation). The Sunsets were a 1950s-influenced rock'n'roll outfit from Penarth, South Glamorgan that had evolved from a band, previously called The Backbeats since 1958, who invited Stevens to join them after he had been an avid fan of the band for several years and occasionally hopped on stage to do a guest vocal.
In late 1979, Shaky signed what was to be his most successful management deal with music industry doyenne Freya Miller, who immediately advised Stevens to sever his association with The Sunsets and continue developing a more lucrative solo career. Under Miller's deft hand, in 1981, Shaky scored his first UK chart topping number 1 with "This Ole House" and would follow up with ten more songs reaching the top five, including three number 1 hits with "Green Door", "Oh Julie" and "Merry Christmas Everyone", while "You Drive Me Crazy" and "A Love Worth Waiting For" reached number 2 in 1981 and 1984 respectively.
Stevens hit a low point in January 2002 when he was very publicly convicted of a drink-driving charge and banned from driving for two years, but in 2004 things started to look up again when he had a further platinum CD / DVD album in Denmark and a gold album in South Africa.
In the sitcom I'm Alan Partridge, Stevens's fictional endorsement of Partridge's book Bouncing Back - in which he described it as "lovely stuff" - was supposedly critical to its success.
In 2005, he returned once again to the charts in the United Kingdom, with his greatest hits album The Collection, which reached the UK top 5. That year, he also appeared in the video to Tony Christie's and Peter Kay's #1 hit single "Is This the Way to Amarillo", alongside many other UK stars, including Ronnie Corbett, Jim Bowen, Michael Parkinson and Geoffrey Hayes. He was the winner on the reality television show, Hit Me Baby One More Time. This was quickly followed by a re-release of his cover and his own biggest hit sung in the show, ("Trouble" covering Pink's version) / "This Ole House"), which reached #20 on the UK Singles Chart in June 2005, his 33rd Top 40 hit in the United Kingdom.
