Stephen Duffy

DDW: the united memory of all the fans

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 "Tintin" Duffy, Dr. Calculus, and Duffy.

[edit] Duran Duran

While attending Birmingham Polytechnic (now University of Central England, Birmingham), 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.

to be expanded

[edit] Other bands, The Lilac Time

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. After that, he created the band Tin Tin, then recorded an album as Stephen "Tintin" Duffy. In this era, he was best known for the UK top ten single "Kiss Me".

In 1986, he began writing and recording music that would become The Lilac Time's first album. 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. In the 1990s, he released several solo albums.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Return to The Lilac Time

Duffy reunited with other members of The Lilac Time in the late 1990s, and collaborated with Robbie Williams in the 2000s. The Williams single "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 "Fab Five" line-up. 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.

[edit] External links

• Official Lilac Time/Stephen Duffy Site
• Comprehensive discography, chronology, lyrics, gallery, biography, publications
• Stephen Duffy Chronology
• A good interview on Duffy's history and The Devils

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Stephen Duffy. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with the Duran Duran Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.