David Heavenor | en

David Heavenor is a Scottish singer-songwriter, born in Kingston, Jamaica, who has produced five albums: Private: The Night Visitors (1993, with Simon Jaquet); Winter’s Children (2001, Sticky Music, Produced by Steve Butler); The Automatic Eye (2006, Produced by David Scott); In Northern Towns Like These (2009) and Another Eden (2010). An EP The Traitor's Kiss was released in August 2010 featuring the title track and a live version of his song Hesitation (Winter's Children) recorded live at The Queen's Hall Edinburgh. He's often featured on The Iain Anderson Show on Radio Scotland, The Late Show on BBC Radio Ulster and has been played on Ken Bruce and Bob Harris on BBC Radio 2.

He has been called the mystery man of Scottish music by David Scott, Radio presenter and musician in Scottish Band The Pearlfishers. Journalist and broadcaster Tom Morton writing in The Scotsman called his song Linger and Go 'a masterpiece of songwriting.' Other plaudits for songs also appearing on his first album Private (The Night Visitors 1993) come from Ricky Ross who called Jenny and the Cold Caller 'One of the best songs ever written'. He subsequently featured it as one of his Tracks of My Years on The Ken Bruce Show on BBC Radio 2. Winter's Children appeared in August 2001 on the Glasgow based Sticky Music label.

In his Scotsman review Tom Morton described it: ' Songs made to last. Delicate and full of diffident power. The cool delivery remains somewhere between Al Stewart and Nick Drake, the unexpected guitar runs, the lyrics you can't quite pin down, but which echo round you brain, shifting meaning, ornate yet direct, complex and with an overwhelming sense of Edinburgh in winter.'

Senior BBC Music producer Stewart Cruickshank said: ’ A beautiful album in every respect…’

David's track I'm Watching Rosanna from his album Winter's Children was included in a 49 track, 2 disc compilation showcasing the best in contemporary Scottish Music. The CD, Seriously Scottish produced by The Scottish Music Centre in Glasgow, is not commercially available but acts as an educational tool and industry shop window.

A live solo version of his song Candide was also included in a CD marking the 25th Anniversary of Radio Scotland.

‘Support came from the hugely talented David Heavenor. His songs about space and religion could warm up any gig …’ Sunday Mail

His songs cover the well plumbed depths of lost love but also range through more unusual material like a song about South African political activist Joe Slovo (Private) and Second World War pilots Oxford Street in the Blackout (The Automatic Eye) seemingly partly inspired by the novel That Summer by Scottish writer Andrew Greig. His song I’m Watching Rosanna (Winter’s Children) is a lyrical treatment about a girl caught up in a religious cult in Ireland. My Heart Beats Like a Dream (Winter’s Children) is a rage against the ‘juggernaut’ which ‘wheels out’ the mindless and hateful creeds which is especially pertinent in today’s world. An interesting connection here is that Deacon Blue songwriter Ricky Ross used this line in his own song The Undeveloped Heart (New Recording (1997) and Ooh Las Vegas (Deacon Blue (1990)) giving ‘My friend David’ a name check and perhaps stems from the days when they knew each other in the seventies playing in various long lost local bands. The City of Edinburgh takes a central role in the setting for many of the songs most notably in the song Change Me Like Snow (Winter’s Children) which is an homage to friends who stuck by the writer in a troubled time.

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