Apr 22, 2021
Stephen Duffy straddles
different genres in a way that few have ever done. He grew up in
Birmingham; our conversation is littered with local references
covering legendary studios, musos, and people. While still in
Birmingham, he scored his first huge success as Tin
Tin. In due course he went solo as Stephen
Duffy, and later with his group the Lilac
Time. During that time, he has worked with some of
the absolute biggest names in the business. Stephen has a pop past
he can't erase – and he doesn't really want to, despite the elegant
folk stylings he embraces with The Lilac Time. And he is still
cooking up some major new projects.
The first half of this chat is a who's who of Birmingham Rock and
Pop in the 80s, anyone who knocked around the Birmingham scene then
will find much to enjoy. After that, there is a torrent of huge
names. And massive, massive success arrived when Stephen was in his
40s... which also seemed to escape us all.
If you want to follow up on some of the topics that crop up in this
chat, there is a companion Radio To Go blog post on the Radio To Go
Blog at radiotogo.com: A Life In Music: Stephen
Duffy
But that's just the icing on the cake.
A footnote: the intro and outro flourishes I'm using in this series of Lives in Music podcast come from Vo Fletcher who is featured in this series, along with Loz Kingsley, here. I asked him for a bit of live impro, and this was the result.
The Lives in Music Podcast series has been
running for about two years now. These are interviews with local
musicians, looking at how music has shaped them throughout their
lives. Series 3
also looks hard at how lockdown has had an impact. There are some
lovely stories. To see all the artists, here's a link to
every episode.