Duke Special (born Peter Wilson; 4 January 1971)[citation needed] is a songwriter and performer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

[1] His live performances have a theatrical style inspired by Vaudeville and music hall, and often incorporate 78s played on an old-fashioned gramophone, or sound effects from a transistor radio.

He is most often accompanied by percussionist "Temperance Society" Chip Bailey, who plays cheese graters and egg whisks, a Stumpf fiddle and a Shruti box, as well as the more typical drums and cymbals.

Other musicians who perform with Wilson from time to time include Paul Pilot (guitar), Réa Curran (trumpet, backing vocals, accordion), Ben Castle (clarinet, saxophone), Ben Hales (bass guitar), Gareth Williams, "Professor" Ger Eaton (keyboards), Dan Donnelly (mandolin, backing vocals) and Serge Archibald III (saxophone, "ethereal background sounds", vibes).

His albums include Adventures in Gramophone (2005), Songs from the Deep Forest (2006),[2] both of which were nominated for the Choice Music Prize, I Never Thought This Day Would Come (2008),[3] Little Revolutions (2009), The Silent World of Hector Mann (2010), Mother Courage and Her Children (2010), Under the Dark Cloth (2011), Oh Pioneer (2012),[4] Look Out Machines!

After leaving school and a brief stint with a community arts project in Swindon, England he returned home and played piano for Brian Houston (a Belfast songwriter influenced by Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash and Elvis) under whom Wilson apprenticed, picking up a hunger for performing and a knack of winning over an audience in the process.

He featured on Later... with Jools Holland alongside Amy Winehouse and John Legend the following November[7] and the album was nominated for the 2007 Choice Music Prize.

[16] In March 2011, he performed songs based on the photographs of Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Paul Strand at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.