Stephen Duffy | |
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Birth name | Stephen Anthony James Duffy |
Also known as | Tin Tin, Duffy |
Born | Alum Rock, Birmingham, England | 30 May 1960
Occupation(s) | Musician, singer, songwriter |
Instrument(s) |
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Years active | 1978–present |
Labels | Virgin Records Sire/Warner Bros. Records |
Formerly of | The Lilac Time, Duran Duran, The Devils, The Hawks, Tin Tin, Dr. Calculus, Barenaked Ladies, Me Me Me |
Stephen Anthony James Duffy (born 30 May 1960 in Alum Rock, Birmingham, England) is an English musician, singer, and songwriter. He was a founding member, vocalist, bassist, and then drummer of Duran Duran. He went on to record as a solo performer under several different names, and is the singer and songwriter for The Lilac Time with his older brother Nick. He has also co-written with Robbie Williams [1] and Steven Page. [2]
While attending the School of Foundation Studies & Experimental Workshop at Birmingham Polytechnic (now Birmingham City University) Duffy met John Taylor. Together they formed the group Duran Duran, along with Taylor's childhood friend, Nick Rhodes. While Taylor was the guitarist (later switching to bass) and Rhodes played the synthesizer, Duffy was the band's vocalist/lyricist and bassist. When bass player Simon Colley joined, Duffy moved to drums. [3] He left both the school and the band in 1979, before Duran Duran signed with EMI in 1980. [4]
He went on to form Obviously Five Believers, sometimes known as The Subterranean Hawks or The Hawks, and he made his first four-track recordings. The Hawks' only single, "Words of Hope", was released in 1981. [4]
In 1982, he created the band Tin Tin, with John Mulligan and Dik Davis (both then of Fashion), Andy "Stoker" Growcott (of Dexys Midnight Runners) and Bob Lamb (original producer of Birmingham band UB40). Originally called Holy Tin Tin before being shortened, the band was signed with WEA Records in the UK, and released the single "Kiss Me" in 1982 but was unsuccessful. By 1983, Tin Tin had signed with Sire Records in the US, and "Kiss Me" hit the dance charts there.[ citation needed ] Another single, "Hold It", was also released in 1983 which peaked at no.55 in the UK. [4]
After a stint of working in the US, Duffy returned to England and signed a deal as a solo artist with Virgin 10. Now working under the name Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy, he recorded a new version of "Kiss Me" which was released in 1984, this time only in the local West Midlands area, followed by a nationwide release of "She Makes Me Quiver" which peaked at no. 88 in September 1984. At the end of 1984, Duffy recorded a third version of "Kiss Me", produced by J.J. Jeczalik and Nicholas Froome, which was released in February 1985. It debuted at no. 22 and peaked at no. 4 in the UK and stayed in the Top 10 for five weeks. Duffy followed it with the single "Icing on the Cake", which peaked at no. 14 in June 1985.
Duffy's first full album, The Ups and Downs (produced by Duffy, Froome, Jeczalik, Booker T. Jones, and Stephen Street), reached number 35 in the UK. [4] Prior to the release of The Ups And Downs, Stephen Duffy and his brother Nick formed their own design office called "DUFFY and DUFFY". For the album's preview release, they had an exhibition of about 80 paintings, drawings, photographs, and video. [5]
A new single, "Unkiss That Kiss", was released in September 1985 and peaked at no. 77 in the UK. For this single, Duffy had become known as Stephen A.J. Duffy after dropping the "Tin Tin" reference from his stage name. The single was the first to be taken from the album Because We Love You, released in early 1986, for which he was credited simply as Stephen Duffy. Additional singles from the album were "I Love You" (which peaked at no. 86) and "Something Special" which was a collaboration with Sandii (of Sandii & the Sunsetz), [4] however this single (and the album itself) failed to chart.
Duffy also recorded a non-stop forty-minute early chill-out / house album in 1986 called Designer Beatnik with Roger Freeman of Pigbag, released under the name Dr. Calculus mdma. The cover photo shows the "Spirit of Ecstasy" Rolls-Royce car mascot and the album's two singles were "Programme 7" and "Perfume from Spain".
In 1986, Duffy began writing and recording music that would become The Lilac Time's first album, released on Swordfish Records. The album, entitled The Lilac Time , came out in November 1987, and was subsequently reissued in remixed form by Fontana on 8 February 1988.
The Lilac Time have gone through various line-up changes with the Duffy brothers as mainstays. The group originally consisted of Stephen Duffy, his elder brother Nick Duffy, and friend Michael Weston, who recorded the first album together; Michael Giri and Fraser Kent joined when the band was ready to go on tour. The Lilac Time put out the albums Paradise Circus in 1989 and & Love For All in 1990 for Fontana before being dropped.
The group were then briefly signed to Creation Records, and were subsequently managed by label head, Alan McGee. Their sole release on Creation was Astronauts in 1991.
In 1991, the band split up (temporarily, as it turned out) and Duffy subsequently pursued a solo career.
The 1993 Stephen Duffy album Music in Colors (Parlophone) was recorded with Nigel Kennedy, and featured the singles "Natalie" and "Holte End Hotel".
The next album was called simply Duffy, released in August 1995 on Indolent Records. "London Girls" and "Sugar High" went to the top 10 on the UK indie chart. ("Starfit" was also released as a single in the US.) The album was reissued on CD in 2000 by BMG Fun House.
He participated in a temporary supergroup called Me Me Me, consisting of Duffy, Alex James of Blur, Justin Welch of Elastica, and Charlie Bloor. The one-off single, "Hanging Around", was released 5 August 1996, and reached Number 19 on the UK chart.
I Love My Friends was released in 1998 by Cooking Vinyl Records, who also released the singles "17" and "You Are".
Virgin released a compilation album entitled They Called Him Tin Tin in 1999.
In 1999, Duffy found a tape recording of 1978–1979 Duran Duran music that was in storage. Shortly afterwards, he had a chance meeting with Nick Rhodes. Reminiscences led to a desire to collaborate, and they ended up re-recording the music on the tape. They did not change any of the lyrics, and used only late-70s-era instrumentation with modern recording techniques. The result was the album Dark Circles , released under the name The Devils.
Duffy reformed The Lilac Time with brother Nick and Michael Giri, along with new members Claire Worrall and Melvin Duffy (no relation). They released Looking for a Day in the Night in 1999 on spinART Records, [6] and lilac6 on Cooking Vinyl in 2001. Compendium – The Fontana Trinity, a collection of tracks from their singles and first three albums was also released in 2001.
The album Keep Going was released in 2003 on Folk Modern records under the name 'Stephen Duffy & The Lilac Time'.
In 2007, Duffy released a new album and limited edition (2000 copies) book called Runout Groove and held a few rare performances with the full Lilac Time ensemble, notably headlining the Green Man Festival.
In 1987, Duffy was contacted by Steven Page, then of the band Scary Movie Breakfast, and was impressed by his writing and demo tape. Duffy and Page began co-writing songs. Their work together produced popular Barenaked Ladies songs like "Jane", "Alcohol" and "Call and Answer"; the final two included on the platinum-selling album Stunt , as well as material on Page's solo album The Vanity Project.
Duffy's songwriting ability earned him his first Number 1 in October 2004, as the co-writer of the Robbie Williams single "Radio", one of two new tracks recorded for Williams's Greatest Hits album. [7]
In October 2005, Robbie Williams released Intensive Care , fully co-written and co-produced by Stephen Duffy. [8] The album gained him a great deal of exposure, critical acclaim and went on to sell over eight million copies becoming Williams' best selling studio album around the world. Duffy then went on to work as the musical director for Williams' Close Encounters World Tour.
The Douglas Arrowsmith documentary Memory & Desire: 30 Years in the Wilderness with Stephen Duffy & the Lilac Time was filmed over six years and includes vintage footage of the band. The film [9] was released at the London Raindance Film Festival in October 2009, accompanied by a Universal Records album of the same name, bringing together songs from Duffy's thirty years of music making.It was not picked up for general distribution however and was withdrawn to be re-edited to include live footage. As of 2022, it is no longer titled Memory & Desire and it is described as an ongoing project.
Duffy agreed to a request to sit by sculptor Jon Edgar in London in 2008. The terracotta work [10] was coincidentally documented during the filming of the Douglas Arrowsmith documentary Memory and Desire. An image appears on the CD cover for the Memory and Desire (2009) album.
In 2021, an album by The Hawks called Obviously 5 Believers arrived more than 40 years after their single "Words Of Hope", [11] with the project overseen by Duffy, drummer Dave Twist and producer John Paterno. The album came about after Duffy got heckled [12] by the band's guitarist Dave Kusworth (also formerly of The Dogs D'Amour and Jacobites) [13] at an event at Birmingham's Glee Club in 2019, with the album being released by Easy Action Records, almost a year after the death of Kusworth. [14]
Squeeze are an English pop rock band that came to prominence in the United Kingdom during the new wave period of the late 1970s, and continued recording in the 1980s, 1990s and 2010s. In the UK, their singles "Cool for Cats", "Up the Junction", and "Labelled with Love" were top-ten chart hits. Though not as commercially successful in the United States, Squeeze had American hits with "Tempted", "Black Coffee in Bed", and "Hourglass", and were considered a part of the Second British Invasion.
Duran Duran are an English band formed in Birmingham in 1978 by singer Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor. With the addition of bassist Simon Colley and drummer Roger Taylor the following year, the band went through numerous personnel changes before May 1980, when they settled on their most famous line-up by adding guitarist Andy Taylor and lead vocalist Simon Le Bon.
Nick Rhodes is an English keyboardist and producer, best known as a founding member and the keyboardist of the band Duran Duran. He is also informally monikered as "the Controller", after being introduced as such on stage by bandmate Simon Le Bon during the Astronaut album world tours of 2004–2005.
Simon John Charles Le Bon is a British singer. He is best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the new wave band Duran Duran and its offshoot Arcadia. Le Bon has received three Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, including the award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music.
The Devils is the name of an English electronic pop band, formed by Nick Rhodes and Stephen Duffy.
Me Me Me were a one-off English Britpop supergroup formed in 1996, consisting of Alex James of Blur, Stephen Duffy previously of Duran Duran/the Lilac Time, Justin Welch of Elastica (drums), and James' friend Charlie Bloor. The band's first and only single, "Hanging Around" was released on 5 August 1996 and reached number 19 on the UK Singles Chart.
Brilliant were a British pop/rock group active in the 1980s. Although not commercially successful and mauled by the critics, they remain notable because of the personnel involved – Martin Glover a.k.a. Youth of Killing Joke and subsequently a top producer/remixer; Jimmy Cauty, later to find fame and fortune as one half of The KLF; and Ben Watkins a.k.a. Juno Reactor. Equally notable was their management, their record company A&R manager, and songwriting and production team.
"Kiss Me" is a song originally released in 1982 by the British band Tin Tin. The song was allegedly written within 24 hours after the band had signed a record deal with WEA Records. Released as the band's debut single, it failed to chart on the UK Singles Chart. In 1983, it was released on Sire Records in the U.S., where it made the Billboard dance chart. The lead singer and guitarist in Tin Tin, Stephen Duffy, later re-recorded the song twice and released it as a solo single using the name of Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy. The first re-recording was released as a single only in the West Midlands region in 1984. Another version was recorded in late 1984 and released as a single on 25 February 1985. This version peaked at number 4 in March, selling more than 250,000 copies within three weeks and thus being certified silver.
John Joe Salvatore Martinez Marion (John) Mulligan is a Birmingham, England-born new wave musician. He is most prominently known as the bassist and keyboardist of the band Fashion from 1978 to 1984.
Sandii & the Sunsetz were a Japanese synthpop band that collaborated from 1979 until the 1990s. The Sunsetz, led by Makoto Kubota, and Sandii started as separate artists, and each have a separate discography. However, their collaboration provided a particular body of work that is representative of the period, and which successfully blended Eastern, Western and pop influences.
The Hits Album 2 or Hits 2 as it is often called, is a compilation album that was released in April 1985 in the UK. The spine of the album as well as the inside cover lists the title as HITS 2 THE ALBUM. It was released by CBS and WEA. It reached #1 in the UK Top 100 Album Chart for 6 weeks. Selected tracks from this and the first album were released on VHS and Betamax by CBS/FOX Video, under the title The Hits Video.
60 Ft. Dolls were a Welsh rock trio active in the 1990s, known as the Cool Cymru era.
Jacobites were an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1982 by Nikki Sudden and Dave Kusworth, following the breakup of their respective previous bands, the Swell Maps and the Subterranean Hawks.
Douglas Arrowsmith is a Canadian film director and writer. He has produced award-winning documentaries for CBC Television, music videos, and feature-length films for BBC Four, The Movie Network and HBO Canada.
The Ups and Downs is the debut album by the English singer/songwriter Stephen Duffy. It was released in April 1985 and reached No. 35 on the UK Albums Chart.
The Lilac Time is the debut album by English band the Lilac Time and was released in 1987 by Swordfish Records. The album was partially remixed and re-released by Fontana Records in 1988.
Private Lives were a British new wave band, active in the early to mid-1980s, who are best known for their 1984 charting single, "Living in a World ".
Paradise Circus is the second album by English band the Lilac Time and was released by Fontana Records in October 1989. Initially intended to be a double album, consisting of one album of songs by band leader Stephen Duffy and one of instrumentals, it ended up being condensed into a single album at the record company's insistence. The album is regarded by critics as being bolder and fuller-sounding than the Lilac Time's first album, with a greater country & western influence.
& Love for All is the third album by English band the Lilac Time and was released by Fontana Records in 1990. It saw the band move away from the folk pop sound of their first two albums towards an electric guitar and keyboard heavy sound indebted to 60's pop and psychedelia.