Jim Diamond born 28 September 1951

Jim Diamond (28 September 1951 – 8 October 2015) was a Scottish singer-songwriter, best known for his three top 5 hits: "I Won't Let You Down" (1982), as the lead singer of PhD; and his solo performances "I Should Have Known Better", a United Kingdom No. 1 in 1984, and "Hi Ho Silver", the theme song from Boon, which reached No. 5 on the UK singles chart in 1986.

James Aaron Diamond was born in the Bridgeton area in the East End of Glasgow in 1951. He started his music career at the age of 15 with Tony Diver's band, The Method. When aged 16, he also fronted a Glasgow band called Jade. That line-up included bassist Chris Glen who went on to play with the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, and Jim Lacey on lead guitar who later went on to join the Alan Bown Set. Jade played many pub, club and university gigs in London in 1969, playing at Brunel University, West London College in Cricklewood, The Pied Bull in Islington, West Hampstead Country Club, another college in Virginia Water and many more in 1969. They also supported The Move on their Scottish tour with The Stoics in the same year.

Alexis Korner then discovered Diamond, who spent the next couple of years as part of Korner's band. He provided additional and backing vocals on many of Korner's songs, most of which would appear on The Lost Album. Diamond left Korner in 1976, to form Bandit. The line-up included future AC/DC member Cliff Williams. They were soon signed up by Arista Records and released a début album, Bandit, which failed to reach the chart. But the record brought Diamond, who had written five of its songs in various styles, to wider attention and was enough to prompt the NME’s reviewer, Tony Stewart, to comment that he was “an inspired and remarkable vocalist who projects himself well, displaying not only a passion for the music but a staggering range, which he uses fully”. 

                                   

In 1979, Diamond was lead vocalist for a Japanese band called BACCO, whose debut album was Cha Cha Me. Word was spreading about Diamond and his powerfully expressive singing, and he was invited to fly to Los Angeles to form a band with the guitarist and David Bowie collaborator Earl Slick and the drummer Carmine Appice, who had been playing with Rod Stewart. The trio worked in the studio with the producer Eddie Kramer, who had collaborated with a who’s who of stars from Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin and Bowie. Before the project could come to fruition, Diamond was in demand again, returning to England to form PhD and embarking on the series of hits that sealed his reputation.

PhD

In 1981, Diamond formed PhD (Phillips, Hymas and Diamond), with pianist/keyboard player Tony Hymas and drummer Simon Phillips. They were signed by WEA Records and had a hit single with the multi-million selling "I Won't Let You Down". Then Diamond contracted hepatitis, which prevented him from touring and prompted PhD to split. In 1984, he decided to go solo and was signed to A&M Records. He had a number-one hit with "I Should Have Known Better", and was also number one in Latin America. The single, which was from his album Double Crossed (released in 1985), earned him a nomination for an Ivor Novello award. In the same year Diamond went to No 1 again with the celebrity ensemble The Crowd on You’ll Never Walk Alone, a charity record for families of the victims of the Bradford City stadium fire. In 1986 his second solo album, Desire For Freedom, delivered the No 5 hit Hi Ho Silver, a song commissioned for Boon, starring Michael Elphick, and featuring yet another of Diamond’s catchy choruses, this time set to a briskly pumping reggae beat.

In 1993 he released the album Jim Diamond, which reached No 16 on the UK charts, and went on tour performing acoustic versions of his catalogue of songs. In the late 90s he teamed up with the saxophonist Chris “Snake” Davis, renowned for his studio work with M People, George Michael, Paul McCartney and many more, and they performed as The Blue Shoes, but were later billed as Jim Diamond and Snake Davis. With the Hammond organist Paul Birchall, they also worked on Diamond’s 2005 album Souled and Healed. In 2009 he re-united with Tony Hymas to produce a third PhD album entitled Three. 

Jim Diamond's last album, City of Soul, released by Camino Records in 2011, featured among others Wet Wet Wet drummer Tommy Cunningham and Greg Kane of Hue and Cry. All proceeds from this album of soul music covers benefited the children's charity, Radio Clyde Cash for Kids.

Diamond married Christine Bailey in 1978. The couple had two children; their son Lawrence is the keyboard player of the UK indie pop group Citizens! and the former bass player of Official Secrets Act. Diamond died in his sleep on 8 October 2015, at the age of 64. According to his daughter Sara, the cause of death was a pulmonary edema.

(Edited from Wikipedia &The Guardian)