Steve Lillywhite

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message.
This article has been tagged since September 2006.

Steve Lillywhite
Background information
Born	1955 England
Genre(s)	Pop, rock
Occupation(s)	Music producer
Years active	1977-present

Steve Lillywhite (born in 1955) is a well-known English music producer. He is the former husband of the late singer Kirsty MacColl with whom he fathered two children, Jamie and Louis.

He first entered the music industry in 1972, when he worked as a tape operator for Polygram. He produced a demo recording for the band Ultravox, which led to them being offered a recording contract with Island Records. Lillywhite soon joined Island as a staff producer, where he worked with many of the leading New Wave artists.

In 1980, Lillywhite produced Peter Gabriel (III or Melt) notable for its aggressive sound, achieved in part by the absence of cymbals throughout the album. The same year, he produced Boy, the debut album of the then practically unknown U2. Lillywhite went on to produce October and War, of which the latter proved to be the band's major breakthrough.

He moved on to helm projects by Simple Minds, Big Country, Toyah, Talking Heads, the Rolling Stones and Annifrid Lyngstad known as Frida and formerly of ABBA.

In late 1983, Lillywhite was approached by Rush to produce their album, Grace Under Pressure. The band had unanimously decided that he should be the producer, and he had agreed to work with them. However, before pre-production, Lillywhite relayed a message to them that he was not the right man for the job, and so he would not be working on the album after all. What Rush didn't know was that Lillywhite had opted to produce an unknown NYC band, Crossifire Choir, who had recently signed with Geffen Records. Lillywhite was flown to New York, where he met with the band and agreed to produce their debut album, with the stipulation that they record in London, where he would be close to his newlywed bride, Kirsty MacColl. Rush ended up doing the bulk of the production on Grace Under Pressure themselves with assistance from Peter Henderson.

In 1987 Lillywhite worked with The Pogues, producing their breakthrough single Fairytale of New York; it was due to him that his wife, Kirsty MacColl, provided the lead female vocal for their biggest hit. The single narrowly missed being the UK Christmas number one single but was still one of the biggest selling records that year.

During the '90s, he made his mark with albums by Morrissey, Travis, Phish and several sets by Dave Matthews Band. Following a staff role as managing director of Mercury Records in London, he produced U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and Jason Mraz's recent Mr. A-Z. He was brought into produce the debut of The La's, who were notoriously unhappy with modern studios and pieced together their album which they famously hated.

In 2000, Lillywhite was fired from his fourth album with Dave Matthews Band when the band members did not like the direction it was going. The unfinished tracks appeared online, and are known as The Lillywhite Sessions. Most of the tracks were re-recorded, without Lillywhite, for the 2002 DMB album Busted Stuff.

In 2002, Universal boss Lucian Grainge invited him to become a major-label Managing Director. Lillywhite promptly signed singer-songwriter Darius Danesh and exec produced Darius' debut platinum-selling album "Dive In", which spawned 3 top ten hits and Mercury Records' first number one in 18 years.

Lillywhite collected consecutive Grammy Awards for Record of the Year with U2's "Beautiful Day" and "Walk On." In 2006, Lillywhite won three more Grammys: Producer of the Year, Non-Classical, for U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, Best Rock Album also with U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb; and a partial win for Album of the Year for U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

In the fall of 2006 he begun working with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden / Audioslave fame on his second solo album which is expected to be released in early 2007.

He recently produced Switchfoot's new album, "Oh! Gravity," which was released on December 26, 2006.

In February of 2007 Lillywhite began work with Crowded House on tracks for their first studio album in fourteen years, entitled "Time On Earth". The majority of the album was produced by Ethan Johns, but Lillywhite produced four songs with the full touring lineup, including new drummer Matt Sherrod as well as studio guest guitarist Johnny Marr. The album is expected to be released in mid-2007.