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Simon Le Bon MBE | |
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_(52873186625)_(cropped).jpg) Le Bon performing live atthe O2 Arena in 2023 | |
| Born | Simon John Charles Le Bon (1958-10-27)27 October 1958 (age 66) Bushey,Hertfordshire, England |
| Other names | Charley |
| Occupations |
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| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, includingAmber Le Bon |
| Musical career | |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1980–present |
| Labels | Various labels |
| Member of | Duran Duran |
| Formerly of | Arcadia |
Musical artist | |
Simon John Charles Le BonMBE (born 27 October 1958) is an English singer. He is best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of thenew wave bandDuran Duran and its offshootArcadia. Le Bon has received threeIvor Novello Awards from theBritish Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, including the award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. He also received anMBE fromCharles III in 2024.
Le Bon was born on 27 October 1958, on his father's birthday, in Bushey Maternity Hospital in Bushey, Hertfordshire, the first of three boys for John and Ann-Marie Le Bon, followed by his younger brothers, David and Jonathan. His mother encouraged his artistic talent when he was six years old by entering him in a screen test for aPersil washing powder TV advertisement, which proved successful.[1] He was a member of the local churchchoir from a young age, and was trained as an actor.
Le Bon went toPinner County Grammar School andNower Hill High School. In 1978, he completed an art foundation course at Harrow School of Art, before studying drama at theUniversity of Birmingham.[citation needed]
For a time Le Bon worked as a theatre porter atNorthwick Park Hospital Accident and Casualty, and also sang in a punk band called Dog Days at Harrow School of Art. He appeared in a few television advertisements and also in several theatre productions includingTom Brown's School Days in theWest End of London.[citation needed]
Le Bonworked on a kibbutz—an Israelicollective community—in theNegev desert in Israel in 1978, and then returned to England to study drama at theUniversity of Birmingham before meeting the fledgling band Duran Duran in 1980.[2]
Duran Duran was founded by childhood friendsJohn Taylor andNick Rhodes along with singer-songwriterStephen Duffy in 1978, but Duffy left a year later, convinced that the band was not going to be successful. The band went through a long succession of line-up changes after Duffy's departure, but finally settled on a guitarist and drummer. The band had a powerful pop sound flavoured withdisco,funk, and electronics, built on a solid rock rhythm section, and all they needed was a charismatic singer with a distinctive voice.[citation needed]
Le Bon's ex-girlfriend, Fiona Kemp (abartender at theRum Runnernightclub where Duran Duran were rehearsing), introduced him to the band in May 1980, recommending him as a potential lead vocalist. As band legend has it, he turned up for the audition wearing pink leopard-print trousers, and carrying a notebook containing a large collection of poems he had written—several of which would later become tracks on the early Duran Duran studio albums.[3]
After listening to the songs the band had already composed together, Le Bon spent some time fitting one of his poems ("Sound of Thunder") to one of the instrumentals, and found they had a good match. Le Bon agreed to "try [Duran Duran] out for the summer"; within six weeks the band was playing steadily around Birmingham, London and Nottingham, and a national tour supportingHazel O'Connor led to a recording contract withEMI Records in December that year.
The band's debut studio album,Duran Duran, was released in 1981, and they quickly became famous as part of theNew Romantic movement. Three more albums followed in quick succession:Rio (1982),Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983) and the live albumArena (1984). Each album release was accompanied by heavy media promotion and a lengthy concert tour. By mid-1984, the band were ready for a break. Duran Duran's only other work that year was an appearance on theBand Aid charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which was recorded atSarm West Studios inNotting Hill, London on 25 November 1984. Le Bon's vocal appears fourth on the song afterPaul Young,Boy George andGeorge Michael sing their lines.[4]
Following the departures of Roger and Andy Taylor, Le Bon, Rhodes and John Taylor continued on as Duran Duran, recording and releasingNotorious (1986) andBig Thing (1988). The group added guitaristWarren Cuccurullo and drummerSterling Campbell and recorded the studio albumLiberty (1990), but the band's success had begun to wane in the late 1980s.
Duran Duran had a resurgence in popularity in 1993 with theWedding Album, featuring the top-10 single "Ordinary World". Several months into the extensive worldwide concert tour supporting this album, Le Bon suffered a tornvocal cord, and the tour was postponed for six weeks while he recovered.
In 1995, Duran Duran released the covers albumThank You, and Le Bon had the chance to cover some of his favourite artists, (Jim Morrison,Lou Reed andElvis Costello), but the album was severely panned by critics from all quarters. That year Le Bon also performed Duran Duran's 1993 hit "Ordinary World" with operatenorLuciano Pavarotti during a "Children of Bosnia"benefit concert for War Child. Le Bon described the event to Jam! Showbiz thusly: "If you're talking about name dropping, he's one of the biggest names you could drop, Pav-The-Man".
When bassist John Taylor left the band in 1997, Le Bon and Rhodes remained as the only two members who had been with Duran Duran from the beginning of their recording career. The successive two studio albums with Le Bon, Rhodes and Cuccurullo—Medazzaland (1997) andPop Trash (2000)—were not commercial successes.
In 2001, Duran Duran's original five members reunited to record a new studio album,Astronaut, forEpic Records.Astronaut was released worldwide on 11 October 2004. The album was preceded by the single "(Reach Up for The) Sunrise", their first UK Top 10 single in a decade.
Before Duran Duran reunited in 1986, Le Bon formed the bandArcadia with Rhodes. The band had a UK/US top 10 hit with their first single "Election Day", and released one studio album,So Red the Rose in 1985.
While Le Bon has been in Duran Duran for the band's entire recording history, he has also dabbled in solo outings. In 1985, for theWhitbread Round the World Race, he contributed a song titled "Grey Lady of the Sea" and narrated a video of that year's race calledDrum (1987). "Grey Lady of the Sea" was released as a single in Japan in 1988.
In 1989, forJonathan Elias'Requiem for the Americas project, Le Bon contributed "Follow in My Footsteps", withthe Bangles'Susanna Hoffs providing backing vocals. The track was released on 7" single in Italy that year.
In 1998, along with friend Nick Wood and wife Yasmin, he set up SYN Entertainment (SimonYasminNick) in Tokyo, Japan. Having first conceived the idea in 1988, Le Bon is currently described as SYN's "Founder and Chairman", while Wood is "Founder, President and Creative Director".
In 2000, SYN Entertainment founded SYN Records which has released a number of compilations, some of which have included contributions by Le Bon. Another solo track, "Dreamboy", was featured on the SYN-released soundtrack to theMario Van Peebles comedy filmLove Kills (1998).
Also in 2000, SYN co-executive produced the Duran Duran studio albumPop Trash along with Rhodes' and Cuccurullo's side-ventureTV Mania.
In October 2005 Dutch tranceDJ Ferry Corsten released the track "Fire", with vocals by Le Bon. It was a remix of the lesser known Duran Duran single "Serious", from the studio albumLiberty (1990).(full credits: Ferry Corsten feat. Simon Le Bon – Fire (Flashover remix), on Flashover Recordings)[5]In late 2006, Le Bon became a member of Shinzou Sound, and took part in the Japan-based onlinemanga project,Synesthesia, by co-writing the theme song "Nobody Knows" along with Nick Wood.
In 2010, Le Bon collaborated on the song "Record Collection", the title track fromMark Ronson'sthird studio album. In the song, Le Bon is heard singing the chorus, along withMark Ronson and hip hop artistWiley. Ronson later produced Duran Duran's 2010 studio albumAll You Need Is Now, and 2015'sPaper Gods.
Since 2020, he has been hosting the music showWHOOOSH! with Katy Krassner.[6] Originally on the Duran Duran website, the show moved toSpotify and then toSirius XM where it airs on The Spectrum channel 28. The duo play 11 songs per week and discuss them. Le Bon curates all the tracks.[7]
In 2024, LeBon appeared as a guest judge on season 6 ofRuPaul's Drag Race UK. The lip-sync song chosen for the episode was "Girls on Film".
In the early 1980s, Le Bon was engaged to his then longtime girlfriend, model-turned-actressClaire Stansfield. After breaking up with her, he dated fashion modelYasmin Parvaneh. Seeing her face in a magazine, he phoned hermodelling agency to track her down and they married on 27 December 1985. Yasmin suffered twomiscarriages, but the couple went on to have three daughters, includingAmber. He became a grandfather in 2018.[citation needed]
During Duran Duran's hiatus in 1985, Le Bon drew media attention when hismaxi yacht,Drum, lost its keel and capsized during theFastnet Race, just offFalmouth along the southern coast ofCornwall. Before being rescued, Le Bon and other crew members were trapped under the boat, inside the hull, for forty minutes. All of them were rescued by theRoyal Navy, using asearch and rescue (SAR) helicopter from771 Naval Air Squadron based nearHelston. The rescue earned the Rescue Diver, POACMN L Slater, aGeorge Medal.[8] Despite the accident, Le Bon andDrum went on to participate in the 1985–1986Whitbread Round the World Race, coming in third overall in elapsed time. Le Bon and his partners eventually soldDrum; the events surroundingDrum and the races were chronicled in a 1989 movie entitledDrum – The Journey of a Lifetime and the bookOne Watch at a Time[9] written byDrum's skipper, Skip Novak.
Twenty years after his accident, in 2005, Le Bon made public his desire to race again. During a touring break in August 2005, Le Bon again racedDrum in theFastnet Race, borrowing the vessel from her owner (the late Scottish multi car garage owner SirArnold Clark) to participate, and raising funds for charity theRoyal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). Le Bon had to leave the race unfinished, as light winds were slowingDrum (and the other competitors), and would have delayed the boat's arrival atPlymouth, interfering with Le Bon's obligation to perform in Japan.[10] He appears as the narrator in a documentary film project calledThe Weekend Sailor which is about aSwan 65 sailing yacht calledSayula II that won the first Whitbread Round the World sailing race in 1973–1974.[11]
In 2009 Le Bon (who describes himself as a "concerned agnostic")[12] contributed an essay to the bookThe Atheist's Guide to Christmas, edited byAriane Sherine. In 2014, he became a distinguished supporter ofHumanists UK.[13]
Le Bon injured hisvocal cords and was unable to finish his 2011 summer tour. He remarked, "I am trying to be philosophical."[14]
In 2018, Le Bon was accused by a therapist named Shereen Hariri of sexually assaulting her at the Wherehouse, a record store where she worked during a signing session on 10 April 1995.[15] He responded via the band's social media pages denying the allegation, saying in part, "I have always been one who can admit to my mistakes and apologize for my failings. But I cannot apologize for something I did not do."[16][17]
Le Bon was appointedMember of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the2024 Birthday Honours for services to music and charity.[18]
with Duran Duran
with Arcadia
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