Paul Heaton
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Paul David Heaton (born May 9, 1962) is an English born singer and songwriter. He is a member of The Beautiful South, and a former member of indie band The Housemartins, who disbanded in 1988.
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[edit] Early years
Heaton is the third son of Horace and Doris Heaton. He was born in West Kirby, England. His father, Horace, was a football player and came quite close to having a professional career with Liverpool, Everton and Tranmere Rovers. Paul was brought up in Sheffield and was very athletic as a boy; he was a profound cross country runner. When he was 14 years old, the Heaton family moved to Surrey, where Paul became known as a class eccentric. He was expelled from his school for numerous incidents of bad behaviour, the most serious involving throwing bricks and setting off fire alarms. Due to his lack of O-Levels, his mother insisted he follow his brother, Adrian, into college, where he met several students who played in their own bands.
[edit] Early music career
Paul's first musical experience was in a four-piece called Tools Down alongside brother Adrian and friend John Box. They only made one serious recording, "All I Want", although they gained experience from playing in pubs. At Reigate College, Paul decided he was going to be in a band, though his poor behaviour continued, as he set off bangers and robbed the college safe. However, it was at Reigate that Paul met Quentin Cook, vocalist with A Disque Attack. Cook and Heaton formed a band with John Laurenson and Chris Lang, called The Stomping Pond Frogs, who busked at the weekends. Heaton described the Pond Frogs' music as "Cabaret." After leaving college, Paul worked as a ledger clerk for 3 years before moving to Norway with his girlfriend.
[edit] With The Housemartins
Paul Heaton formed The Housemartins in the early 1980s. It featured Stan Cullimore on guitar, Ted Key on bass and Hugh Whittaker on drums. Shortly afterwards Ted left the band and was replaced with Quentin Cook, now known to all as Norman Cook (later Fatboy Slim) on bass guitar. The Housemartins released a number of singles and two studio albums, London 0 Hull 4 and The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death. Their most famous hit was an a-capella version of the Isley Brothers' Caravan of Love, which was a Christmas number one in the UK. For the second album Hugh Whitaker was replaced with Dave Hemingway on drums. Shortly afterwards the Housemartins split up.
[edit] With The Beautiful South
In 1988, Paul Heaton formed The Beautiful South from the ashes of The Housemartins. It had Dave Rotheray on lead guitar (who at the time bore a stunning resemblance to Stan Cullimore of The Housemartins), former Housemartins roadie Sean Welch on bass, David Stead on drums and probably most surprisingly, Housemartins former drummer Dave Hemingway, thrust forward to perform as a frontman. The Beautiful South released two top ten singles, Song for Whoever and You Keep It All In, which featured Irish singer Briana Corrigan on vocals. In 1989, the band released an album "Welcome to the Beautiful South" by which time Corrigan had joined the band as a full time member. The band's biggest success to date is the release of the single "A Little Time" in 1991. It reached number 1 on the charts. After the release of the second album, the band went on a tour of Europe and America which was relatively successful, although the band have never been big in the States. In 1993, the band toured Japan after the release of their third album, "0898"; however, the language difference posed a massive problem and the band never became popular there.
In 1994, Briana Corrigan left the band and a new female vocalist, Jacqui Abbott, was brought in. During the recording of the band's fourth album "Miaow", Heaton was increasingly irritated with the band and at one time told them to get their act together or he would leave. "Miaow" is some of Heaton's most depressing songwriting (only their fifth studio album, "Blue Is The Colour", is considered sadder). Heaton was going through a break-up with his girlfriend and other problems at the time. After the release of Miaow's third single, "Prettiest Eyes", the record company was worried about the band's sales, so they proposed a greatest hits release to save the band. Heaton hated the idea as he was trying to keep the band as far away from mainstream as possible, but nevertheless, "Carry on up the charts: the best of" was released in December 1994 and it sold overwhelmingly, going platinum and becoming one of the biggest selling albums of all time in the UK.
The band returned to form a number one album, "Blue Is the Colour". Their sixth album, "Quench", also hit the top spot. In 2000, after the release of "Painting It Red", Jacqui Abbott left the band to care for her son. A second compilation album, "Solid Bronze", was released and two more studio albums with a new female vocalist, Alison Wheeler. The first, Gaze, became the first Beautiful South album to fail to reach the top 10, and the band were then dropped by Mercury Records.
The following year (2004), newly signed to Sony, they released the curiously named covers album Goldiggas, Headnodders and Pholk Songs, an eclectic album that featured the Beautiful South's unique take on a wide variety of tracks by the like of ELO, Blue Öyster Cult, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, S Club 7, and Rufus Wainwright. Again, despite considerable publicity and promotional TV appearances, the album failed to make the top 10.
2006 saw the release of yet another album of new material, "Superbi." Reviews were generally positive. "Superbi" has more of an alt-country sound (plenty of slide guitar, for example) than previous Beautiful South releases. The album maintains the band's trademark eccentricity, however, featuring a dobro on one song.
On the ITV documentary music series Faith & Music screened 29th October 2006, Paul talks openly and honestly about his atheism and his battle with alcoholism.
Heaton is the father of two daughters, although he has never married.
[edit] With Biscuit Boy
In 2001, Heaton released an album with his side project Biscuit Boy (a.k.a Crackerman). However the album, called Fat Chance was not a success, with a single 'Mitch' reaching only Number 75 in the UK Singles Chart. Due to this failure, the album was re-issued by Mercury records under Heaton's own name. The record charted even lower in the charts.
