Marti Pellow

Born Mark McLachlan in Clydebank, Scotland, Marti Pellow first made his mark on British pop as the lead singer of Wet Wet Wet, a band formed in 1982 with Tommy Cunningham, Graeme Clark and Neil Mitchell, blending pop, soul and accessible melodic rock. After an initial departure from the group in the late 1990s, Pellow pursued a solo career beginning with the album Smile in 2001, co-written in part with Chris Difford of Squeeze, and broadened his repertoire with Between the Covers in 2003. His subsequent work reveals a pronounced taste for reinterpretation and shifts of register: Moonlight Over Memphis (2006) embraces a Southern soul aesthetic, Sentimental Me (2008) explores a vocal-jazz format, while Devil and the Monkey (2010), Love to Love (2011), Hope (2013), Boulevard of Life (2014), Mysterious (2017) and Stargazer (2021) continue a songwriting approach oriented toward songcraft, balladry and soul-pop. At the same time, Pellow has maintained a regular presence in musical theatre on the West End and Broadway, with roles in Chicago, Chess, The Witches of Eastwick, Jekyll & Hyde, Evita, Blood Brothers and The War of the Worlds — a stage dimension that also illuminates his phrasing and interpretive approach.