Francis Dunnery

Born on Christmas Day in 1962 in Egremont, Cumbria, U.K., singer and songwriter Francis Dunnery once fronted the progressive rock band It Bites. He entered the lineup in 1984 and stayed through three albums until his exit in 1990, a span during which he devised the Tapboard, an unusual guitar-style device equipped with atypical attachments such as a shower hose and an egg timer. Shifting toward mainstream pop, Dunnery launched his solo career with the 1991 album Welcome to the Wild Country, then served as guitarist in Robert Plant’s touring group in 1993; his debut Atlantic release, Fearless, arrived the next year. Following the 1995 Fearless, he issued the live set One Night in Sauchiehall Street, and after parting ways with Atlantic he moved to Razor and Tie for the 1998 album Let’s Go Do What Happens. An adherent of astrology and metaphysics, he also supplied Billboard magazine with the weekly “MusicScopes” horoscope column.