31 December 2011
VVN Music
Producer Steve Lillywhite has been named a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Britain's Queen Elizabeth in her New Year's Honours List.
The CBE is the third level in the Order of the British Empire after the Knight/Dame Grand Cross (GBE) and Knight/Dame Commander (KBE/DBE). Only those top two ranks receive the official title of Knight and the use of Sir or Dame.
Lillywhite began his career in 1972 as a tape operator at Polygram in England and eventually moved to Island Records as a staff producer. He first hit it big by producing Siouxsee and the Banshees first single, 1978's Hong Kong Garden.
Over the next three decades, he would produce numerous major albums, including:
Boy - U2
October - U2
War - U2
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb - U2
The Joshua Tree (some cuts) - U2
Achtung Baby (some cuts) - U2
All That You Can't Leave Behind (some cuts) - U2
No Line on the Horizon (some cuts) - U2
Under the Table and Dreaming - Dave Mathews Band
Crash - Dave Mathews Band
Before These Crowded Streets - Dave Mathews Band
Dirty Work - Rolling Stones
Peter Gabriel (III) - Peter Gabriel
Naked - Talking Heads
Vauxhall and I - Morrissey
Ultravox!!! - Ultravox
The Psychedelic Furs - Psychedelic Furs
Exile on Mainstream - Matchbox Twenty
Lost and Gone Forever - Guster
Time on Earth - Crowded House
The Crossing - Big Country
This is War - 30 Seconds to Mars
Lillywhite also produced one of England's perennial holiday songs, Fairytale of New York by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl who was married to the producer.
