ABBA
1973
 
One of the best known pop groups of all time, Abba, was formed in 1973 by combining the successful songwriting partnership of Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson and the distinctive vocal talents of their partners Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. Together this quartet of Scandinavian musicians would dominate the pop music scene for a decade.
In 1974 they started on the path to superstardom by winning the Eurovision Song contest with a catchy tune called Waterloo. The contest was held in the UK at the Brighton Dome and Abba swept to victory. In the next eight years they produced nine UK number ones and eight albums including Abba the Album which instantly reached platinum status. World-wide chart-topping singles included Dancing Queen, Mamma Mia, Knowing Me, Knowing You, The Name of the Game, Take a Chance On Me and The Winner Takes It All and Abba hit the top in Australia, the US, Germany, Sweden and many more countries around the globe.
By 1982 the group had disbanded. Bjorn and Benny continued to work together, most notably collaborating with Tim Rice on the musical Chess and the smash West End hit Mamma Mia. Angetha and Frida pursued solo careers before retreating from the glare of publicity.
Today Abba are as popular as ever with new generations of fans who donít know that they began their career as Eurovision winners. They have spawned a number of tribute bands. One of the most successful, Bjorn Again, continues to bring the magic of Abba to Brighton, regularly performing in the city to sell-out audiences.

Norman Cook
31 Jul 1963, Kent
 
Norman Cook`s music career began as the bassist for the House Martins who had several UK number 1s in the 1980s. On leaving the group he formed eats International and went on to perform solo or in collaboration under a number of pseudonyms including Freak Power, Pizzaman and the Mighty Dub-Katz. In the 1990s he created the style known as Big Beat and is the driving force and headlining DJ at Brightonís famous Big Beat Boutique club nights.
As Fat Boy Slim he has become an international superstar DJ, selling millions of singles and albums around the world. In 1999 he was named Best Producer by UK Muzik Magazine and in 2000 won Best Producer for one of his three Brit Awards. He has also won a Grammy and 10 MTV awards.
Norman`s links with the city go back 20 years. He studied at Brighton Polytechnic (now the University of Brighton), is signed to Brighton-based Skint Records, is a director of Brighton & Hove Albion FC and, of course, a keen supporter. He lives in Hove and has held two of the largest and most successful free beachfront events the city has seen. Fatboy Slim Live On Brighton Beach was released on CD in summer 2002.

Gaz Coombes
8 Mar 1976, Oxford
 
His first band was called The Jennifers, but in 1993 Gaz Coombes formed Supergrass and their first album, I Should Coco, went platinum almost immediately. It was also nominated for a Mercury Music prize. Their second and third albums, In It For the Money and the eponymous Supergrass were equally successful. Much decorated (Q Awards, Nordoff Robins Awards) and acknowledged as one of the premier live British bands of the 1990s, Supergrass has won a Brit for Best Newcomer, as well as an Ivor Novello award for the single Alright.
Supergrass released their fourth album, Life on Other Planets, in September 2002.
Gaz has lived in Brighton with his long-term girlfriend, Jools, since the mid-1990s.

Steve Ellis
7 Apr 1950, Edgware
 
Front man for the 1960s band Love Affair, Steve Ellis sang lead vocals on their hit single Everlasting Love. Other hits include Bringing On Back The Good Times and A Day Without Love, Rainbow Valley and One Road. He fronted his own band Ellis and toured the USA extensively with 1970s supergroup Widowmaker. After more than a decade in the music business he became disillusioned after the death of his friend Keith Moon and decided to take time out to re-evaluate. He moved to Hove and started working as a docker. In 1978 a serious accident crushed both his feet and put him into an eight-year recovery programme.
He returned to the music scene in 1983 as a songwriter. In 1991 he started touring again with his band Steve Ellisís Love Affair featuring many of Brighton`s top musicians. He is currently recording a new album and has just completed his autobiography.

Nigel Kennedy
28 Dec 1956, Brighton
 
Since his debut in 1977, Nigel Kennedy has been acknowledged as one of the world's leading violin virtuosos and one of the most important violinists Britain has produced.He was a protÈgÈ of the great Yehudi Menuhin and attended the Menuhin School. He made his name with his landmark recording of Vivaldiís Four Seasons which earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the best selling classical work of all time. It has sold over 2 million copies worldwide and remained at the top of the UK classical charts for six months.Returning to the concert platform in 1997, following a five-year sabbatical, Nigel Kennedy continues to tour major venues throughout Europe, Australia and North America. He is also Artistic Director of the Polish Chamber Orchestra, a position once held by his teacher and mentor the late Lord Menuhin.
In 2002 he celebrated the 25th anniversary of his London debut and marked the occasion with a number of celebratory performances.
Kennedy is passionate about football and has long been a supporter of Aston Villa, attending as many matches as possible. He is married to Agnieska, has one son, Sark, and divides his time between homes in Krakow, London and Malvern.

Levellers
1988, Brighton
 
The Levellers are five Brighton musicians who found chart success and a cult following in the 1990s with their unique brand of punky folk-rock. The original line up was Mark Chadwick, Jonathan Sevink, Jeremy Cunningham, Charlie Heather and Alan Miles.
Their first record label was Brighton-based Hag Records, but in 1989 they signed to French label Musidisc and released their first album, A Weapon Called the Word the following year. Alan Miles left the band and was replaced by Simon Friend and just one year on, they moved again to China Records and released Levelling the Land. The album made it into the Top 20 album chart and gave them their first taste of singles success with One Way.Always a popular live act, the Levellers toured the US, UK and Europe extensively in the 1990s and at the 1992 Glastonbury Festival played to the biggest audience the event has ever seen. They also had a string of UK Top 20 hits with Hope Street, Fantasy and Just The One, and had more platinum, gold and silver albums in the 1990s than any other act in the UK.
The band run their own 10,000 square-foot Metway studio complex in Brighton, providing space for studios, producers, managers, musicians and artists. Their seventh studio album is called Green Blade Rising.

Kevin Rowland
17 Aug 1953, Wolverhampton
 
Always original, slightly wayward and often uncompromising, Kevin Rowland`s first band was a punk outfit called the Killjoys. In 1978 he formed Dexy`s Midnight Runners with Kevin Archer and in 1980 the band had a UK top 40 hit with their debut single Dance Stance. This was followed by the number 1 hit Geno ñ a tribute to soul singer Geno Washington. Searching for the Young Soul Rebels was, at the time, called it the finest debut album ever issued. Rowland was the inspiration behind the band`s image, termed New York Docker chicí.
More success followed in 1982 with Come on Eileen, number 1 in the UK and US.
Rowland lives in Brighton and continues to make forays into the music business.

Leo Sayer
21 May 1948, Shoreham
 
 Gerard Hugh Sayer was born just outside Brighton and studied as an art student in Sussex before moving to London in 1971 and forming a pop band, Patches.
His early success came as a song writer rather than performer when The Who`s vocalist, Roger Daltrey, heard some of Sayer`s songs (written with his writing partner David Courtney) and decided to record a few, scoring his biggest solo hit with Giving It All Away. The songwriting partners wrote many of their early hits in Courtney`s Brighton basement flat.
Sayer achieved his first UK number 1 in 1973 with The Show Must Go On and followed with One Man Band and Long Tall Glasses. By the mid-1970s, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing had sold millions across the world as well as winning him a Grammy in the US. At home When I Need You had made Sayer sufficiently high profile for the BBC to give him two television series.After a fallow period in the 1980s Sayer bounced back in the 1990s as the subject of a media campaign to reinstate him as a living legend. In 2002 his records were re-released by RPM Records and Sayer`s own Silverbird label.

Dusty Springfield OBE
16 Apr 1939, London
 
 The best female vocalist that Britain has ever produced, Dusty Springfield came to prominence in the early 1960s with her debut single and now pop classic I Only Want to be With You. Her famous blonde beehive hairdo, black panda eye makeup and a career that spanned four decades has made her one of the divas of pop.
From the very start she campaigned for and supported black music and caused a political storm in 1964 when she played to a mixed race audience in South Africa.Critically successful albums from the 1960s such as DustyÖDefinitely, Dusty in Memphis and singles such as Son Of A Preacher Man and You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, a world-wide number 1, are still regarded as brilliant and definitive.
She returned to the spotlight in the 1980s thanks to Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys with whom she recorded two hits Nothing Has Been Proved and In Private.In 1994 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and eventually succumbed to the disease in 1999. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and awarded an OBE that same year.
Dusty and her family lived in Wilbury Road, Hove and in the early 1960s she and her brother Tom were based in the city when their group, The Springfields, were at the height of their fame.

Stomp
1991, Brighton
 
 Brighton performers Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas created Stomp in 1991. The concept emerged from a ten-year collaboration between the two that began with street band Pookiesnackenburger and theatre group Cliff Hanger in the early 1980s.
A performance group that uses unusual and often very large objects as percussion instruments and involves incredibly energetic movement and acrobatics, Stomp premiËred in Edinburgh in 1991 and won the Daily Express Best of the Fringeí award as well as being named the Guardianís Criticís Choice.For the next three years the original cast toured the world playing sell-out shows in Hong Kong, Barcelona, Dublin and Sydney. The tour culminated in a season at London`s Sadler`s Wells theatre and an Olivier award for Best Choreography in a West End show and a nomination for Best Entertainment.In 1995, an expanded Stomp created a new show for the Brighton Festival which went on to break box office records at the Royal Festival Hall in London. In New York they scooped an OBE and a Drama Desk award for Most Unique Theatre Experience.
Today five Stomp companies are constantly touring in the UK and US and taking their unique brand of performance to most corners of the world. They have recorded film scores, appeared at the Academy Awards and created a television special Stomp Out Loud for Home Box Office in the US. Their latest projects include PULSE: a Stomp Odyssey which takes the audience on a spectacular global journey of the great percussion ensembles of the world including Kodo and Timbalada, and Vacuums, a feature film exploring the musical concepts of Stomp.
Stomp`s parent company has recently acquired the Astoria Theatre in Brighton. They may be a world-class phenomenon but Stomp`s roots are still firmly in Brighton and Hove.