Steve Lillywhite

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Steve Lillywhite

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

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

1 Early career
2 1980s
3 1990s
4 Recent work
5 Partial discography
6 External links

[edit] Early career

Lillywhite 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.

[edit] 1980s

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 The Psychedelic Furs debut as well as 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 produce work by Simple Minds, Big Country, Toyah, Talking Heads, Eddie & the Hot Rods, The Rolling Stones and Anni-Frid 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 Simple Minds where he met his future 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.

[edit] 1990s

During the '90s, he made his mark with albums by Morrissey, Travis, Phish and several sets by Dave Matthews Band. In 1990, he co-produced U2's Achtung Baby, along with Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Flood. In 1991 he returned to Dublin to produce debut album, A Sonic Holiday, with Kilkenny band, Engine Alley. He was brought in to produce the debut (and only album) by The La's, who were unhappy with the results (criticizing Lillywhite's production techniques and use of guide tracks on the final versions of songs). He was also a subject for a BBC Radio 1 documentary series on record producers.

In 2000, Lillywhite was fired from his fourth album with the Dave Matthews Band (DMB) when certain band members did not like the direction it was going. The unfinished tracks appeared online as The Lillywhite Sessions and most of the tracks were re-recorded, without Lillywhite, for the 2002 DMB album Busted Stuff.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Recent work

In 2002, Universal boss Lucian Grainge invited him to become a major-label Managing Director. Lillywhite 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. He also signed Razorlight who have become one of the biggest bands in the UK. Following a staff role as managing director of Mercury Records in London, he produced Jason Mraz's Mr. A-Z.

In September 2005 Lillywhite joined Columbia Records as a Senior Vice President of A&R. During his tenure he signed MGMT, a Brooklyn-based band. He left the label at the end of 2006. 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, 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 late 2006 he began working with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audioslave fame on Carry On, his second solo album, which was released in June 2007. He also produced two songs on Switchfoot's album, Oh! Gravity., which was released on December 26, 2006. In February 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. Lillywhite's next project was working with US rock band Matchbox Twenty on a six song EP that comprised a portion of a greatest hits package entitled Exile on Mainstream. The two disc album entered the US charts at #3 and Australian charts at #1 and includes the radio single "How Far We've Come".