Hugh Cornwell

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Hugh Cornwell 2006
Hugh Cornwell 1983

Hugh Alan Cornwell (born August 28, 1949 in London ) is a British musician . He became known as the singer and guitarist of the Stranglers , of which he was a member until 1990.

Life

School and education

Cornwell grew up as the third of four siblings in the London borough of Tufnell Park . He went to elementary school at Burghley Road Primary School in Kentish Town and attended the William Ellis Comprehensive School in Highgate from 1961 , where he played in a school band with the later Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson until 1965.

Cornwell dropped out of school after graduating from college . Before beginning his studies, he worked in the spring and summer of 1968 as a temporary worker in the medical laboratory of St. Bartholomew Hospital in the City of London and in the medical laboratory of Lund University Hospital in Sweden. In September 1968, Cornwell began a three-year biochemistry course at the University of Bristol , which he completed in 1971 with a Third Class Honors Degree. For further studies he returned to the Biochemical Institute of Lund University to do his doctoral thesis under Kai Lindstrand . However, he broke this off at the end of 1973 without any results and returned to London.

Johnny Sox (1972 to 1974)

In autumn 1972 Cornwell founded his first band Johnny Sox in Lund (Gyrth Godwin - vocals / Hans Wärmling - lead guitar / Hugh Cornwell - rhythm guitar / Janne Knuda - bass / Chicago Mike - drums). After a few concerts in Lund and the surrounding area, Cornwell decided to become a professional musician and moved to London with the band (with the exception of Wärmlings) in late 1973. Johnny Sox moved into a squat on Maitland Park Road in Camden and gave a few concerts in London pubs in January 1974. The drummer Chicago Mike was then replaced by the 35-year-old Jet Black and the band moved to Guildford in the country. A demo tape was rejected on May 8, 1974 by Island Records , a dispute broke out and Godwin and Knuda left the band.

The Stranglers (1974 to 1990)

Cornwell and Jet Black found a replacement in the 22-year-old Jean-Jacques Burnel (bass), who rehearsed with the two for the first time on May 30, 1974, and brought Hans Warmling back as lead guitarist. After intensive rehearsals, the new band gave their first concerts in Guildford and the surrounding area in the summer of 1974, initially under the name The Guildford Stranglers . On September 11, 1974, the band finally registered under the business name The Stranglers .

The band moved into a house in neighboring Chiddingfold from late 1974 to early 1976, at which time Cornwell was a substitute teacher for biology at St Mary's Tutorial College in Guildford, an experience he later incorporated into the Stranglers song "School Mam". As the Stranglers began to gain popularity, Cornwell moved back to London in early 1976.

On December 6, 1976, the band finally signed a recording deal with United Artists Records for an advance of £ 40,000 . Hugh Cornwell's first record release followed on January 28, 1977 in the form of the Stranglers debut single "(Get a) Grip (on yourself)," a song Cornwell wrote alone.

On January 6, 1980, Hugh Cornwell was sentenced by West London Magistrates 'Court to eight weeks' imprisonment and an additional £ 300 fine for drug possession. Cornwell appealed unsuccessfully and served the sentence from March 21 to April 25, 1980 in Pentonville Prison in Islington .

On June 21, 1980, Cornwell was arrested in France for public incitement to criminal offenses . At a Stranglers concert in the University of Nice the evening before, there had been riots and property damage. Cornwell was transferred to the Maison d'arrêt de Nice , Nice's remand prison , for a few days and released on bail on June 27, 1980. On January 13, 1981, he was sentenced in absentia to suspended prison and an additional fine of the equivalent of £ 2,000.

In 1990 Cornwell surprisingly left the band. The day after a concert recording at Alexandra Palace in London (August 11, 1990), he announced his decision by telephone to the other band members, who would continue with a new singer instead of breaking up the band.

Solo activities (since 1978)

As early as 1978/79 Cornwell recorded a first solo album "Nosferatu" with the help of Captain Beefheart drummer Robert Williams, on which Devo (on "Rhythmic Itch"), Clash members (background vocals on "Puppets") and Ian Dury (vocals "Wrong way round") participated. In 1988 a second solo album "Wolf" followed.

After Cornwell left the Stranglers in 1990, he took a break. Since 1992 he has published material again at regular intervals, but without the commercial success of the Stranglers' times.

Cornwell lives in Wiltshire .

writing

After his release from prison, Cornwell described his experiences in Pentonville Prison in the brochure "Inside Information," which was available from October 1980 through the Stranglers Information Service fan club . Until 1990, Cornwell published regularly articles and cartoons in the Stranglers fan club magazine Strangled .

In November 2001 the book "The Stranglers Song By Song" was published, an interview book in which Cornwell gave detailed information about all officially published Stranglers songs. In October 2004, Cornwell's autobiography “A Multitude Of Sins” was published, which also contained the text of the “Inside Information” brochure from 1980.

Acting

Cornwell played a few minor supporting roles in movies like L'Etiole de sang (1986) and Eat the Rich (1987), as well as television films like Lucky Sunil (1988) and Being Dom Joly (2001).

Discography

  • 1979: Nosferatu (with Robert Williams, United Artists Records )
  • 1988: Wolf ( Virgin Records )
  • 1993: Wired (Transmission Recordings)
  • 1997: Guilty ( Madfish )
  • 1999: Solo (His Records)
  • 1999: First Bus to Babylon (Velvel)
  • 1999: Mayday (His Records)
  • 2000: Hi Fi ( Koch International )
  • 2002: Footprints in the Desert ( Track Record )
  • 2003: In the Dock (live album, track record)
  • 2004: Beyond Elysian Fields (Track Record)
  • 2005: Live It And Breathe It (Live album, Invisible Hands Music)
  • 2006: Dirty Dozen Live (live album, Invisible Hands Music)
  • 2006: People Places Pieces (live album, Invisible Hands Music)
  • 2007: Beyond Acoustic Fields (Invisible Hands Music)
  • 2008: Hooverdam (Invisible Hands Music)
  • 2010: New Songs For King Kong (Live album, Invisible Hands Music)
  • 2012: Totem And Taboo (His Records)
  • 2014: Live At The Vera (Live album, His Records)
  • 2016: This Time It's Personal (with John Cooper Clarke , Sony Music )
  • 2018: Monster (Sony Music)

With The Stranglers (excerpt)

With CCW

  • 1992: CCW (UFO Records)

With Sons of Shiva

  • 2002: Sons of Shiva (Track Records)

bibliography

  • 2011: Window on the World (Roman, Quartet Books)
  • 2014: Arnold Drive: Can a man keep his faith when he's lost his way? (Novel, unbound)

literature

  • Hugh Cornwell: Inside Information . Stranglers Information Service, London 1980.
  • Hugh Cornwell: A Multitude of Sins . HarperCollins, London 2004, ISBN 0-00-719082-4 .
  • Hugh Cornwell and Jim Drury: The Stranglers: Song by Song . Sanctuary Publishing, London 2001, ISBN 978-1860743627 .

Web links

Commons : Hugh Cornwell  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hugh Cornwell: "A Multitude Of Sins" ( HarperCollins , Paperback Edition 2005, p. 20)
  2. ^ Hugh Cornwell, "A Multitude Of Sins," p. 21
  3. ^ Hugh Cornwell, A Multitude Of Sins, 23
  4. ^ Hugh Cornwell, "A Multitude Of Sins," pp. 40-41
  5. ^ Hugh Cornwell, A Multitude Of Sins, 41
  6. ^ New Musical Express of September 9, 1978: Beneath this middle class suburban casualwear lurk a bunch of Really Nice Guys So why are they banned from Top Of The Pops? ( Memento from January 29, 2011 on WebCite )
  7. ↑ Pedalens Pågar Janne Knudas current volume (biographical entry in Swedish)
  8. ↑ George Gimarc: "Punk Diary", Backbeat Books 2005, page 9)
  9. ↑ The Stranglers: "Hits and Heroes" -CD (1999) (letter from Island Records printed in the booklet)
  10. ↑ Jean-Jacques Burnel Interview (February 2003)
  11. ^ Hugh Cornwell and Jim Drury, "The Stranglers Song By Song" (Sanctuary Publishing, 2001, p. 78)
  12. ^ David Buckley: "No Mercy" (Coronet Books, Paperback Edition 1998, p. 72)
  13. ↑ David Buckley: "No Mercy" (Coronet Books, Paperback Edition 1998, pp. 155–162)
  14. ↑ David Buckley: "No Mercy" (Coronet Books, Paperback Edition 1998, pp. 162–166)
  15. ^ David Buckley: "No Mercy" (Coronet Books, Paperback Edition 1998, p. 173)
  16. ^ Hugh Cornwell: "A Multitude Of Sins" (HarperCollins, Paperback Edition 2005, p. 198)
  17. ↑ Telegraph.co.uk: The Stranglers' Hugh Cornwell looks back: 'We played America, but that was never our focus'. Retrieved June 22, 2017 .
  18. ↑ XuluComics.com: Strangled ( January 29, 2011 memento on WebCite )
  19. ↑ Entry Internet Movie Database
personal data
SURNAME Cornwell, Hugh
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cornwell, Hugh Alan (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British musician
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH London (United Kingdom)