Rick Astley (real name - Richard Paul Astley) is an English singer, songwriter and musician. He was born  on February 6, 1966 in Newton-le-Willows, St Helens, Lancashire, England.

In 1985, Astley was playing the club circuit as a drummer with a soul band named FBI, when he was seen by the record producer Pete Waterman and persuaded to come to London to work at the PWL recording studio.

His first single was the little-known "When You Gonna" credited to Rick & Lisa, but his first solo outing was "Never Gonna Give You Up," released in 1987. It became an immediate success, spending five weeks at the top of the British charts and becoming the year's highest-selling single. It was the first of 13 (world-wide) Top 30 hit singles for him. In that year he also made the single "Mi Amor", together with the Vanden Dungen band but this was not a great success, only about 10000 copies were sold, mainly in Germany.

The album “Whenever You Need Somebody” also reached Number One in the UK, and the hit singles continued, including the title track and a cover of Nat King Cole's "When I Fall In Love."

On 12 March 1988, "Never Gonna Give You Up" had also topped the U.S. singles chart and was followed by a second U.S. #1 on 18 June with his second U.S. single release "Together Forever."

His next album “Body & Soul” was released in 1993. The album did not chart in the U.K. and managed to make The Billboard 200 peaking at a lowly no 182. The two singles, “The Ones You Love” and “Hopelessly” performed very well on the adult contemporary chart, peaking at no 19 and no 4 respectively.

Based on various music charts in the UK, U.S. and Canada, Astley has charted a grand total of 14 (different) hit singles and 6 (different) hit albums as of March 2006.