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Ben Watt (born 6 Dec 1962, London) is best-known as half of the duo Everything but the Girl, which first performed together in 1982.

Watt released his first solo album in 1983 entitled North Marine Drive. It went to number 1 on the U.K. indie charts and included a cover of Bob Dylan’s You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.

Everything but the Girl’s early material was lite-jazz, but their major international breakthrough came in the dance music genre with Todd Terry’s 1995 remix of the song Missing which originally appeared on the album Amplified Heart. The duo successfully made the transition to the “new jazz” of techno, house, and trip-hop with the release of 1996’s Walking Wounded.

That shift can be seen as a rebirth musically and personally. After the completion of the duo’s 1992 album, Acoustic, Watt contracted the rare autoimmune system disease Churg-Strauss Syndrome, which nearly killed him. Complaining of chest pains, Watt was hospitalized for eight weeks and in that time lost more than 40 pounds and 85 percent of his small intestine. Recovery took a long time and was never a certainty. Out of his struggle with the deadly disease, Watt wrote a personal memoir, entitled Patient: The History of a Rare Illness, which was published by Grove Press.

The interest in technology affected the band’s music and Watt began to work with sequencers and computers more in his compositions. With the encouragement of friend, producer, and DJ Howie B, Watt began spinning in the world of underground DJs.
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hull

15 Oct 2008 | from blog.myspace.com/benwatt

i have nothing but fond memories of hull. it is often mocked and ridiculed for being the dirtiest or the most violent or the ugliest city but i loved it. …

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