Simon Hussey

Simon Cyril Hussey (born 7 July 1960) is an Australian multi-instrumentalist, songwriter-arranger, record producer and audio engineer. In 1984 he formed Cats Under Pressure on keyboards with David Reyne (ex-Australian Crawl) on vocals and Mark Greig on guitar. On the Australian Crawl album Between a Rock and a Hard Place (August 1985), Hussey co-wrote four tracks with the band's lead singer, James Reyne (David's older brother). In 1987 when James undertook his solo career, Hussey joined his backing band on keyboards, and co-wrote six tracks for James' debut self-titled album including top 10 hit singles, "Hammerhead" (October) and "Motor's Too Fast" (June 1988). In May 1988 Hussey was the producer, and provided keyboards and song writing, for Edge (November), the comeback album by Daryl Braithwaite (ex-Sherbet), which peaked at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart for three weeks in mid-1989.

Hussey worked on further solo material by both Braithwaite and James Reyne. In 1991 Hussey formed Company of Strangers with Braithwaite, Reyne and Jef Scott (backing and session musician for both artists). The group issued a self-titled debut album (November 1992) which peaked at No. 9, and provided three top 40 singles "Sweet Love" (June), "Motor City (I Get Lost)" (September), and "Daddy's Gonna Make You a Star" (January 1993). At the ARIA Music Awards of 1992 Hussey won Producer of the Year for his work on various tracks: Craig McLachlan's "On My Own"; Braithwaite's "The Horses", "Higher Than Hope" and "Don't Hold Back Your Love"; and James Reyne's "Slave". For "The Horses" Margaret Urlich provided backing vocals. He also recorded and mixed it, at Dan & Si-Fi's Recital Room, Melbourne. Cats Under Pressure "Let Me Be" (single, 1984) – Freestyle Records (FREE-0001): keyboards "On Again Off Again" (single, 1985) – Freestyle Records (FREE-0006): keyboards Company of Strangers

Company of Strangers (7 December 1992) – Columbia Records (COL 472081 2): keyboards, drums, backing vocals

Production works Simon Hussey as producer, co-producer, audio engineer and/or mixer

Lisa Bade: – single (1984) Daryl Braithwaite: – Edge (November 1988), Rise (November 1990), Higher Than Hope (April 1991), Taste the Salt (November 1994), "Golden Miles" (1994) James Reyne: – Hard Reyne (May 1989), Electric Digger Dandy (June 1991), "Silent Night" (1996) Craig McLachlan: – Hands Free (March 1992)

Awards and nominations

APRA Music Awards

These awards were established by Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) in 1982 to honour the achievements of songwriters and music composers, and to recognise their song writing skills, sales and airplay performance, by its members annually.