Paul Heaton

Paul Heaton biography

Paul David Heaton (born 9 May 1962; Bromborough, Cheshire, England) is an English singer-songwriter. He was a member of The Housemartins, who disbanded in 1988, and a member of The Beautiful South, who disbanded in 2007. He is currently pursuing a solo career. He is a pub landlord of a Salford pub - the Kings Arms.

Early life

Heaton was born on the Wirral on 9 May 1962. At the age of four his family relocated to Sheffield, South Yorkshire (then the West Riding of Yorkshire). While living in Sheffield, Heaton became interested in football, and while his father and elder brother elected to watch Sheffield Wednesday, Heaton chose to support Sheffield United. After moving to Sheffield, Heaton's father took a job in management and Heaton described his childhood as being "fairly middle class, although you wouldn't know it given the schools I went to and the friends I had". After a childhood in Sheffield, Heaton moved to Chipstead, Surrey during his adolescent years, an early life Heaton described as "bred in Sheffield, fed in Surrey".

Football hooliganism

Throughout his childhood, Heaton's main interest was football, and he regularly attended Sheffield United games. Heaton also ran with the Blades Business Crew, a hooligan faction of Sheffield United supporters. When he began singing, Heaton used to bait his early audiences by mocking their football clubs, he later admitted. For example, at an early Beautiful South performance in Manchester, Heaton baited the crowd by shouting "fuck off, you Manc twats", after which some members of the audience began throwing chairs towards the stage. Despite this, he now lives in Didsbury

Heaton, then billing himself as P.d. Heaton, formed The Housemartins in the early 1980s. This band featured Stan Cullimore on guitar, Ted Key on bass and Hugh Whitaker on drums. Shortly afterwards Key left the band and was replaced with Norman Cook (later Fatboy Slim). 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 cappella version of the Isley Brothers' "Caravan of Love", which was their only Number 1 hit in the UK. For the second album Hugh Whitaker was replaced with Dave Hemingway on drums. Shortly afterwards the Housemartins split up.

The Housemartins' lyrics were a mixture of Marxist politics and Christianity. (The back cover of London 0 Hull 4 contained the message "Take Jesus - Take Marx - Take Hope".) Heaton has since stated on many occasions that he is an atheist.

thumb In 1988, Heaton formed The Beautiful South from the ashes of The Housemartins. It had Dave Rotheray on lead guitar, former Housemartins roadie Sean Welch on bass, David Stead on drums and probably most surprisingly, Housemartins former drummer Dave Hemingway, now in the role of joint lead singer and frontman. The writing partnership of Heaton and Rotheray proved very successful. The Beautiful South released two top ten singles, "Song for Whoever" and "You Keep It All In"; the latter featured Irish singer Briana Corrigan on vocals. In 1989, the band released an album, Welcome to the Beautiful South. The band's biggest success to date is the single "A Little Time", released in 1990; it reached number 1 on the charts. The band went on to release eight more albums, including two (1996's Blue Is the Colour and 1998's Quench) that reached the #1 spot on the UK album charts, as well as releasing the best-of compilation Carry on Up the Charts, which also reached #1 and achieved platinum status, before the band split up in January 2007.

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