Chris Difford | |
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 Difford in September 2013 | |
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| Born | Christopher Henry Difford (1954-11-04)4 November 1954 (age 71) Greenwich, London, England |
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| Website | chrisdifford |
Christopher Henry Difford (born 4 November 1954)[1] is an English musician. He is a founding member and songwriter of therock groupSqueeze.
Difford is known for his songwriting partnership with Squeeze co-founderGlenn Tilbrook with the pair having released fifteen studio albums together as Squeeze, and an album in 1984 asDifford & Tilbrook.
Difford was born inGreenwich, London, on 4 November 1954, the youngest of three sons. His mother, Isabel (née Hamilton) was from Northern Ireland and met Difford's father Sidney Lewis Difford (1919–2001) while he was stationed in Belfast duringWorld War II.[2] Difford's mother worked in the canteen in the local police station and his father worked as a wages clerk at a gasworks.[3]
After he left West Greenwich Comprehensive School at age sixteen,[4] he wanted to start a band, but was told by his parents to get a proper job, and initially became a solicitors clerk, where he worked for fifteen months.[3] He also worked at a cardboard factory flattening boxes, and then worked at a "dodgy local warehouse".[3]
Difford has written lyrics for over 50 years, most notably in partnership withGlenn Tilbrook. The two were primary members inSqueeze andDifford & Tilbrook. According to Difford, he stole 50p from his mother's purse to put a card in a local sweetshop window advertising for a guitarist to join his band, although he did not have one at the time. Tilbrook was the only person who responded to the advert and they met for the first time shortly afterwards.[5] Some of their best-known songs are "Cool for Cats", "Up the Junction", "Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)", "Tempted" and "Black Coffee in Bed".
After the break-up of Squeeze in 1983, Difford continued writing songs for artists such asJools Holland,[6]Helen Shapiro,Billy Bremner andElvis Costello. He has also written lyrics for music by Jools Holland,Elton John,Wet Wet Wet,Marti Pellow and others.[citation needed] He was involved with Tilbrook and John Turner in the creation of a musical,Labelled with Love, which was created using the songs of Squeeze.[7] The 1983 musical performed inDeptford was short-lived. In 1984, the pair released the albumDifford and Tilbrook and had a minor hit in the UK with "Love's Crashing Waves" which reached 57 in theUK Singles Chart.[8]
In 1985, Squeeze reunited, having hits in the US with the albumBabylon and On, plus the singles "Hourglass" and "853-5937". Difford left the group in 1999 launching a solo career in 2003 with his albumI Didn't Get Where I Am.[9] Difford was also manager ofBryan Ferry[10] andThe Strypes. Squeeze reunited again in 2007, and Difford maintained a concurrent solo career alongside his work with the band. In March 2010, Difford curatedSongs in the Key of London, an evening of music dedicated to the capital at theBarbican Centre, London.[11]
Since 2014, Difford has been running the annual Chris Difford Songwriting Retreat, under the auspices of the Buddy Holly Educational Foundation,[12] providing an opportunity for artists to collaborate with one another to write new songs and create new friendships in a relaxed setting in the English countryside.[13]
In 2017, Difford published his autobiography,Some Fantastic Place: My Life In and Out of Squeeze. In August 2021, Difford launched a podcast series,I Never Thought It Would Happen, with the charityHelp Musicians, a charity he is an ambassador for, speaking to guests includingSting,Robbie Williams andKT Tunstall about the highs and lows of life in music.[14]
Difford was raised in Greenwich. He lived in New York with his first wife and their two children. He then lived inRye, Sussex, with the mother of his two youngest children. Currently, he lives just outsideBrighton, Sussex, with his wife, Louise, whom he married in April 2013.[15]
Chris Difford struggled with substance abuse, including withalcohol andcocaine, throughout the 1980s. He first entered rehab in 1990 and has been sober since 1992.[2]
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