WHERE ARE THEY NOW? James Fox

28 year old James Fox represented the UK at Eurovision in 2004, but was there much love for anyone to hold on to that night?

James Fox (no relation to the actor with the same name) was born in Wales in 1976, James Richard Mullett. By the time he went to high school, he could play the piano, drums, harmonica and the mandolin. He played local pubs as a teen and formed the boyband Force 5 at the age of 24. Despite supporting Liberty X, they achieved no commercial success themselves and broke up three years later. James auditioned for the 2003 series of Fame Academy using the name ‘James Fox’ and came fifth. He later wrote a song for that year’s winner Alistair Griffin’s debut album. James used his new found fame to enter the Eurovision Song Contest the following year and performed the song “Hold Onto Our Love”, written by Gary Miller and Tim Woodcock.

As with most of the UK entries in the early 2000’s, “Hold Onto Our Love” did not do well and came 16th out of 24 finalists, still better than Jemini’s awful 2003 entry that earned 0 points! The song did do fairly well commercially and reached No.13 on the singles chart. James took his time in coming back with a follow up or an album and spent the next few years supporting and touring with the likes of Lulu, Wet Wet Wet, Will Young and Natasha Bedingfield. He finally landed a deal with independent label Plastic Tomato and released the EP “Six String” in 2007. The following year he wrote and recorded “Bluebirds Flying High” for his favourite football team Cardiff City as they made it to the final of the FA Cup. The single went to No.15 in the chart. 2008 finally saw James release his first full album. Titled “Rocking Chairs And Lemonade”.

Neither the album nor the singles “Higher” or “Say What You Like” made the UK top 40 and James made for the London stage appearing in Chess and The Beatles stage show, Let It Be, where he played Paul McCartney. James has only released a couple of singles since, “Landlocked” in 2012 and “Hope” in 2018. He mostly confines himself to stage work and the odd occasional music gig to small, selected audiences. His last known appearance was on the Eurovision show Let Me Be The One in 2022, where he shared the stage with Lindsay Dracass, who represented the UK in 2001.