Stephen Anthony James Duffy (born May 30, 1960 in Birmingham,
West Midlands, England) is a British
songwriter,
vocalist,
and guitarist.
He has recorded as a solo act under several different names, and is the
lead singer for the group The Lilac Time. He has also
co-written many songs with Robbie Williams, and Steven
Page of Barenaked Ladies. Names he has
used, both as a member of a group and solo, include: Steven Dufait (on
posters advertising gigs by a pre-signed Duran Duran), Stevie Duffy (on
the The Hawks' single, "Words Of Hope" (1980), Stephen AJ Duffy,
Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy, Duffy.
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Contents
- 1 Duran
Duran & Other Early Work
- 2 Tin
Tin
- 3 Reference
to The Adventures Of Tintin
- 4 The
Lilac Time
- 5 Solo
- 6 The
Devils
- 7 Return
to The Lilac Time
- 8 Work
with Robbie Williams & Steven Page
- 9 External
links
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Duran Duran & Other
Early Work
While attending Birmingham Polytechnic (now University
of Central England), he and school friend John
Taylor formed an obscure, arty new romantic group called Duran
Duran, along with Taylor's non-student friend Nick
Rhodes. Duffy was the lyricist and vocalist, but left both
the school and the band in 1979, well before their 1980 signing with EMI.
From there, he formed the band Obviously Five Believers,
sometimes known as The Hawks, and did his first four-track recordings.
Their only single, "Words of Hope", was released in 1980.
Tin Tin
In 1982, he created the band Tin Tin with Mulligan and Dik
Davies [deceased] (both formerly of Fashion),
Andy "Stoker" Growcott (of Dexys Midnight Runners)
and Bob Lamb (original
producer of Birmingham band UB40). The band was signed with WEA
Records in the UK, and released the song "Kiss Me", which went to #155
on the UK chart. By 1983, Tin Tin had signed with Sire
Records in the US, and "Kiss Me" hit the dance charts there as well.
Another single, "Hold It", was also released in 1983.
After a long stint working in the US, Duffy returned to
England and signed another deal, this time with Virgin 10, and worked on recording his
first full album, The Ups and Downs (produced by
Stephen Duffy, Booker T. Jones, J.J. Jeczalik,
Nicholas Froome and Stephen Street), under the name
Stephen "Tintin" Duffy, a nickname parodied by BBC
Radio 1 DJs as 'Stephen "Duff-Duff" Tinny'. A re-recorded "Kiss Me"
single was released in 1984, this time only in the local West Midlands area, followed
by a nationwide release of "She Makes Me Quiver".
At the end of 1984, Duffy recorded a third version of "Kiss
Me" with Nicholas Froome and J.J. Jeczalik (a programmer
at Trevor
Horn's ZTT Records, who was also a member of Art
of Noise). The new version of "Kiss Me" was released on February
25, 1985. It
debuted at #22 and peaked at #4, staying in the UK top 10 for 5 weeks.
It was the last song played on the medium wave service of Radio 1 before it
became an FM only station, at 9am on July 1, 1994. The final single
released from The Ups and Downs album was "Icing on
the Cake", which peaked at #14 in June 1985.
"Unkiss That Kiss", released in September 1985, was the first
single from the album Because We Love You released
in early 1986; additional singles from the album were "I Love You" and
"Something Special". He was then dropped from the Virgin 10 label.
He also recorded an album in 1986 called Designer
Beatnik with Roger Freeman of Pigbag,
released under the name Dr. Calculus. The album's
two singles were "Programme 7" and "Perfume from Spain".
Reference to The Adventures Of
Tintin
The name Tintin was taken from the Belgian
Comic character of the same name, created by Hergé. Duffy would
later release his experimental album Designer Beatnik
under another Tintin-derived pseudonym, Professor
Calculus.
The Lilac Time
In 1986, he 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 February
8, 1988.
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. (See The Lilac Time for more
detail on the band's history.)
In 1991, the band split up (temporarily, as it turned out) and
Stephen Duffy subsequently pursued a solo career.
Solo
The 1993 album Music In Colours (Parlophone)
was recorded with Nigel Kennedy, and featured the singles "Natalie" and
"Holte End Hotel".
During this period, he co-wrote several songs that appeared on
the 1994 Barenaked Ladies album "Maybe You Should Drive":
"Jane", "Everything Old is New Again", "Alternative Girlfriend", and
"The Wrong Man Was Convicted."
The next album was called simply Duffy,
released August 1995 on Indolent Records. "London Girls"
and "Sugar High" went to the top 10 on the UK indie chart, but "Needle
Mythology" did not. ("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 August 5, 1996 and reached Number 19 on the UK chart.
Duffy then left Indolent Records in the summer of 1997, just
before the album I Love My Friends was to be
released. The album was picked up by Cooking
Vinyl Records, which released the singles "17" and "You Are".
Virgin released a compilation album entitled They
Called Him Tin Tin in 1999, with tracks chosen by Duffy.
The Devils
In 1999, Duffy found a tape recording of 1978-1979 (pre-Simon
Le Bon) Duran Duran music in storage; shortly after, he had a
chance meeting with Nick Rhodes, Duran's
keyboardist. 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 instruments, but brought modern
production techniques to the project. The result was the quirky album Dark
Circles, released under the name The Devils.
Return to The Lilac Time
Finally, Duffy reunited with other members of The Lilac Time,
releasing Looking For A Day In The Night in 1999,
and lilac6 in 2001. Compendium - The
Fontana Trinity, a collection of tracks from their first
three out-of-print albums, was also released in 2001.
The album Keep Going was released in 2003
under the name 'Stephen Duffy & The Lilac Time', to the usual
critical acclaim and limited commercial success.
Work with Robbie Williams
& Steven Page
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' Greatest Hits
album. "Radio" was released at exactly the same time as "(Reach Up for the)
Sunrise", the comeback single from Duran Duran after the 2004 reunion
of their "original" line-up (or at least the first line-up to gain
massive exposure). Duran Duran peaked at number 5 in the official UK
Singles Chart the week that the Williams/Duffy collaboration went
straight in at number 1.
In October 2005, the Robbie Williams album Intensive Care
was released. Fully co-written and co-produced by Stephen Duffy, it
gained him much exposure and critical acclaim. Duffy went on to work as
the musical director and guitarist for the Robbie Williams Close
Encounters world tour in support of the album.
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 1994's
"Jane", as well as much of the material from Page's solo album "The
Vanity Project".
External links
| Persondata |
| NAME |
Duffy, Stephen |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES |
|
| SHORT DESCRIPTION |
Songwriter, vocalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
May
30, 1960 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH |
Birmingham, England |
| DATE OF DEATH |
|
| PLACE OF DEATH |
|
