Duke Special is an artist aptly named. Dynamic, musically ambitious & bracingly eccentric, with his inimitable style and lush musicality. Hailing from Belfast with a sound that is self-confessed “hobo-chic”, Duke Special – AKA the endlessly inventive Peter Wilson – is once heard, never forgotten.
Blissfully at home in his own alluring genre of beautifully bruised romanticism, Duke Special inhabits a world unlike any other – a world filled with vaudeville- esque sensibility, sing-a-longs and addictive melodies. “My sound is a bit vagabondy, but pure and soulful too,” he explains.
His critically-acclaimed 2006 album ‘Songs From The Deep Forest’ achieved platinum status in Ireland and received plaudits across the board. His 2008 follow-up, ‘I Never Thought This Day Would Come’ was recorded between Wapping, London, Champaign, Illinois and Cullybackey, Northern Ireland, and was produced by long-time collaborator Paul Pilot and mixed by Nick Terry. This was a more immediate and visceral collection than its predecessor, with many moments of beauty and hope juxtaposed with a dark, brooding edge – the trademark twist of the Duke. It was an album for sleepwalkers, skeletons and gravediggers, for those who have fallen so far down they can taste the soil between their teeth.
Duke Special’s immense creative talents have seen him involved in projects as diverse as writing the theme tune for Sesame Tree (the Northern Ireland edition of Sesame Street where he also got to sing with The Muppets) to writing the music for and appearing in Deborah Warner’s critically acclaimed 2009 production of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children at London’s National Theatre, starring Fiona Shaw in the lead role.
