Simon Le Bon (born 27 October 1958) is an English musician, singer, songwriter and lyricist, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the band Duran Duran and its offshoot, Arcadia. Le Bon has received three Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, including the award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. Le Bon was born near Bushey, Hertfordshire, England, the first of three boys for Ann-Marie Le Bon, followed by his younger brothers, David and Jonathan (b. 1965). His surname is of Huguenot origin. His mother encouraged his artistic talent when he was six years old by entering him in a screen test for a Persil washing powder TV advert. He was a member of the local church choir from a young age, but was also trained as an actor. Simon Le Bon went to Pinner County Grammar School, the same school that Elton John attended some years earlier. He also attended Nower Hill High School, the same school his mother attended and in 1978 studied Drama at the University of Birmingham. Duran Duran was founded by childhood friends John Taylor and Nick Rhodes along with singer/songwriter Stephen Duffy in 1978, but Duffy left a year later, convinced they weren't going anywhere. The band went through a long succession of lineup changes after Duffy's departure, but finally settled on a guitarist and drummer. The band had a powerful pop sound flavoured with disco, funk and electronics, built on a solid rock rhythm section, and all they needed was a charismatic singer with a distinctive voice.^[ Le Bon's ex-girlfriend, Fiona Kemp (a barmaid at the Rum Runner nightclub where Duran Duran were rehearsing), introduced him to the band in May 1980, recommending him as a potential 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 albums. 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 supporting Hazel O'Connor led to a record deal with EMI Records in December that year.The band's first album, Duran Duran, was released in 1981, and they quickly became famous as part of the New Romantic movement. Three more albums followed in quick succession: Rio (1982), Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983) and the live album Arena (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 the 1984 Band Aid charity single, "Do They Know It's Christmas". Following the departures of Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor, Le Bon, Rhodes and John Taylor continued on as Duran Duran, recording and releasing Notorious (1986) and Big Thing (1988). The group added guitarist Warren Cuccurullo and drummer Sterling Campbell and recorded the album Liberty (1990), but the band's success had begun to wane in the late 1980s.^[ Duran Duran had a resurgence in popularity in 1993 with The Wedding Album, featuring the top-10 single "Ordinary World". Several months into the extensive worldwide concert tour supporting this album, Le Bon suffered a torn vocal cord, and the tour was postponed for six weeks while he recovered.^[ In 1995, Duran Duran released the covers album Thank You, and Le Bon had the chance to cover some of his favourite artists, (Jim Morrison, Lou Reed and Elvis 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 opera tenor Luciano 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 bass guitarist 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 albums with Le Bon, Rhodes and Cuccurullo, Medazzaland (1997) and Pop Trash (2000) were not commercial successes.