Tony Christie

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Tony Christie (born Antony Fitzgerald; April 25, 1943) is an English male singer from Conisbrough, South Yorkshire. His mother was English and his father came from Ireland.

He had two top twenty hits in the UK charts in 1971 with "I Did What I Did For Maria" which reached #2 and "Is This the Way to Amarillo" which reached #18. He also had a minor hit with "Avenues and Alleyways" which reached #37, the theme to the television series The Protectors.

He played the role of Magaldi in the original 1976 album recording of the theatre musical Evita, and sought to represent the UK in the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest, with the song "The Queen of the Mardi Gras" but came third in the national contest to select an entrant, behind eventual contest winners Brotherhood of Man.

Although his popularity waned in his native Britain through most of the 1980s and 1990s, he maintained a successful singing career in continental Europe in this period. (Especially in Germany - with his songs in the Schlager style. e.g. "Oh Mi Amor" (Oh My Love) and "We're Gonna Stay Together" (A duet with Vicky Leandros)

In 1999 he was the vocalist on the Jarvis Cocker-penned UK top ten hit "Walk Like A Panther" by the Sheffield band All Seeing I.

In 2002 "Is This the Way to Amarillo" was used in the comedy series Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights, leading to a resurgence in his popularity. The song was re-released on 14 March 2005 to raise money for the Comic Relief charity, and reached number one in the charts (outselling all the first release's chart run put together). This led to the biggest sales for a #1 single for the whole year, with 7 weeks at number 1. It also became the longest running chart-topper since Cher's "Believe", almost 7 years earlier.

The single was credited as "featuring Peter Kay", though Kay only appeared in the video; the audio track was the original 1971 issue. His album, The Definitive Collection also climbed to the #1 spot the following week, breaking all records when he also came in at number one on the downloads chart.

In 2005 the Dutch singer Albert West covered his single. This release even reached 25th position in the Dutch hit parade Top 40.

Following the song's success he was awarded the freedom of Amarillo, Texas, and a guest appearance on the Yorkshire-based British soap opera Emmerdale.

A few months later he re-released another single "Avenues & Alleyways", as a follow-up to the success of "Amarillo". Though this only reached #26 on the UK Singles Chart, it once again outperformed the original release, which reached #37 in 1973.

Following on from this success in 2005, Tony Christie released a new single, a big-band cover of Slade's 'Merry Xmas Everybody' on 5 December 2005. The B-side contained a big band version of '(Is this the way to) Amarillo' and a live recording of 'If It Feels Good, Do It' plus videos of the first two tracks. However, it only reached #49 on the UK Singles Chart.

To coincide with the 2006 World Cup, a new version of "Amarillo" was released on the novelty single "(Is This The Way To) The World Cup?" on May 29 2006, reaching #8 in the UK Singles Chart [1].

On 6th november 2006 Tony will release a new album called 'Simply In Love'.