Hugh Cornwell is one of the UK's finest song-writing talents and accomplished live performers. His new live album 'Dirty Dozen' including superb rearrangements of Stranglers classics, was released on September 25TH on Invisible Hands Music in the UK (tracklisting below) and a twelve date 'Dirty Dozen' tour in support of the release started in the UK on October 11Th culminating at the London Scala on October 26TH before a 14 date German tour and special one off appearance in Paris. Please see www.hughcornwell.com for full tour details.

A full triple live album is also available on mail order only from October 9TH containing 45 tracks spanning the whole of Cornwell's career and is available from www.peopleplacespieces.com

Cornwell, the original guitarist, singer and main songwriter in the Stranglers, enjoyed massive success with ten hit albums and twenty-one top forty singles in the 17-year period that he was in the band. He has revelled in his musical freedom ever since he stepped off the stage after a Stranglers' sold out gig at Alexandra Palace in the summer of 1990 and announced that it was the last time he would be fronting the group.

Hugh felt it was "a bit like having a noose" around his creative neck and that it was time to do something different. He said: “To leave a band you've been with for seventeen years is an emotional decision and you feel it internally. The hard thing was not being able to talk to anyone about it. But I wanted to do it and that was that. With the Stranglers no chances were being taken any more. Although we continued to experiment with our music, the band had become an institution which meant that all the danger and risk had gone".

Risk is clearly something Cornwell relishes: "I love venturing into the unknown. It is the only way to get emotional feedback and it drives the creative focus. If you carry on along the same safe and familiar route, you'll never experience anything at a new level, and you begin to lose the ability to judge what's good around you."

He has released six studio albums, 'Nosferatu' (1979) 'Wolf' (1988) 'Wired' (1993), 'Guilty' (1997) 'Hi-fi' (2001) which included the song 'Leave Me Alone', featured in its entirety in the Neil Morrissey (Men Behaving Badly) film 'Trigger Men' and 'Beyond Elysian Fields' (2004) The studio catalogue is completed by 'Footprints in the Desert', a compilation of rare and unreleased tracks.

Cornwell's book 'The Stranglers: Song By Song' was published in November 2001 and gained massive media coverage. In the book he sets the record straight, displaces the myths and explains for the first time the real stories behind the Stranglers' extensive catalogue of songs.

The Stranglers etched themselves into the nation's musical psyche with many hit singles, including 'Peaches', 'No More Heroes', 'Golden Brown', 'Always The Sun', 'Grip', 'Nice N' Sleazy', 'Duchess', 'Walk On By', 'Strange Little Girl' and 'Skin Deep', all of which were written against a background of spectacular success, dismal failure, drug dependency, infighting, misfortune and financial ruin.

The band's most successful song, 'Golden Brown', featured on the soundtrack to Guy Ritchie’s Hollywood blockbuster 'Snatch'; whilst 'Peaches' appeared in its entirety in the opening sequence of the hit film 'Sexy Beast', as well as in the Nike TV ad for 2002's Football World Cup. Hugh's songs maintained their association with cups when Wonderbra used 'Hanging Around' in their Winter TV campaign in the same year. HSBC bank utilised 'Peaches' in an extensive television campaign and Vodafone have used 'Waltz In Black' for another.

October 2001 saw the release of the Tori Amos album 'Strange Little Girls', named after the Stranglers' song 'Strange Little Girl', which was released as the first single on 1st September in the USA. Cerys Mathews of Catatonia released a previously unheard Hugh Cornwell/Roger Cook composition, entitled 'Chardonnay', as the lead track of her first solo album, released in May of 2003.

In March 2004 Cornwell completed his last studio album 'Beyond Elysian Fields' in New Orleans and NYC with Danny Kadar (My Morning Jacket) and Tony Visconti, who produced the last two David Bowie albums and co-produced tracks on the last 'Manic Street Preachers' album. Visconti mixed the Stranglers' two biggest worldwide hits, 'Golden Brown' and 'Strange Little Girl'. Cornwell has also contributed the lead vocal to the opening track 'Underground' on the latest 'Mousse T' album 'All Nite Madness' and also performed to a capacity house on the Left Field stage at Glastonbury 2004.

'Beyond Elysian Fields' was released on October 4th 2004 alongside his eagerly awaited autobiography 'A Multitude of Sins' published by Harper Collins.
Cornwell was also the only non Czech artist to be formally invited to perform at the Prague Street Festival to celebrate 15 years of the Velvet Revolution and to open Speakers Corner in the Czech Republic.

In 2006 Cornwell has performed very successful Canadian/Australian/New Zealand/German and UK tours in support of 'Beyond Elysian Fields' and 'Dirty Dozen' and recently wowed UK audiences at various summer festivals unveiling the 'Dirty Dozen' set before the winter tour. He has also performed in Paris/ Spain/Athens/Dubai and Bahrain wowing audiences everywhere with his unique songwriting; guitar and vocal ability that is still second to none. See Website for more details.