David Heavenor: Press

The Traitor's Kiss 'A truly wonderful song. There's perfection in that performance....'

I'm Watching Rosanna, 'Gorgeous...'

De discografie van de Schotse singer-songwriter David Heavenor is een staaltje van vakmanschap en meesterschap in de kunst van het componeren van mooie luisterliedjes met een verhaal. Eind 2004 schreven we bij Rootstime voor het eerst lovende kritieken voor zijn toenmalige cd “Winter’s Children” en ikzelf heb met “The Automatic Eye” in 2006 en “In Northern Towns Like These” uit 2009 ook al uitgebreid mogen kennismaken met het songschrijvertalent van deze niet meer zo jonge troubadour uit Edinburgh.

“Another Eden” is zijn jongste muzikale realisatie en is een collectie van twaalf mooie liedjes die in het bijgevoegde infoblad en op de ‘CD-Baby’-pagina uitvoerig worden toegelicht door de zanger zelf zodat je als luisteraar perfect op de hoogte bent van wat hem heeft geïnspireerd tot het schrijven en zingen van elke song.

Op zijn MySpace-site meldt hij dat men hem vaak vergelijkt met andere zangers-verhalenvertellers als Nick Drake, Damien Rice en Al Stewart maar dat hij voornamelijk muzikaal beïnvloed werd door poëtische tekstschrijvers als Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne en Leonard Cohen.

We kunnen stellen dat in elke song op “Another Eden” inderdaad fragmentarische stukjes van al deze namen kunnen teruggehoord worden, maar onze eindconclusie is toch dat David Heavenor vooral zichzelf is en eigenlijk geen nood heeft om met anderen in deze stiel vergeleken te worden. Een Britse collega-recensent noemde de liedjes van David Heavenor ‘gemaakt om voor altijd te blijven’ en wij denken dat je zijn songs inderdaad tot het einde der tijden kan blijven beluisteren om ze dan nog altijd even mooi te vinden.

Toch zijn er geen echte uitschieters uit de tracklist van “Another Eden” te selecteren omdat ze allemaal in eenzelfde - weliswaar uitstekende - stijl gebracht worden. In de titeltrack bezingt hij de pracht van zijn eigen dagelijkse leefomgeving in Schotland als zijn persoonlijke ‘tuin van Eden’. “In Northern Towns Like These” blikt hij terug op zijn jeugdjaren en het huis aan de kust waar hij een breed uitzicht over de eindeloze zee had. “The Hard Road To Heaven” gaat dan weer over alle hindernissen zoals verraad, geveinsde vriendschappen en verdriet die we ooit allemaal in ons leven moeten overwinnen.

Ook politiek geïnspireerde songs kregen een plaatsje op deze cd zoals “The Idiot Slot” waarin hij alle pseudoreligieuze goeroes die haat en revanche prediken een serieuze veeg uit de pan geeft. De laat verworven onafhankelijkheid van Litouwen en de impact daarvan op zijn uit dat land afkomstige vriend en buurman maakt het onderwerp uit van “Latvian Lantern Nights”. Ook andere songs als “Candide”, “Marmion Road” en “My Lady Headstrong” zijn reflecties over de gebeurtenissen in zijn leefwereld in Edinburgh waarmee hij zijn onvoorwaardelijke liefde voor zijn thuishaven nog eens extra onderlijnt.

Dat David Heavenor een supergetalenteerde songschrijver is hoeven we dus eigenlijk niet meer te herhalen, maar voor de moeilijk overtuigbaren onder u zeggen we tot slot nog eens dat u “Another Eden” van deze man best in huis kan halen om er veelvuldig in de rust van uw eigen leefwereld ten volle van te kunnen genieten.

(valsam)

Dear David was a fan at uni and even more so now ... have winter's children and cheque is on the way for one more and i want the whole set ... you are the leonard cohen of our beloved grey city. your concert last year was impressive. you're a really serious guy and very clearly a seeker after truth and I admire it. What integrity. It matches my slightly 'grim' world view! Having left it 30 years before being in touch, I thought it might be dangerous to leave it ANOTHER 30!!!! Iain

Dear David,

I got your latest CD at the end of last week. The first time I listened to it I was struck by some phrasing that I thought you had done better in earlier versions of some of the songs. But I listened again, an again, and again, and while I still think there is truth in my first impression, I have also to say that I think this new offering contains some of your very best work ever!

The version of Marmion Road is quite simply mesmeric. Brilliantly arranged and wonderfully sung; an absolute classic. But the great surprise was The Night Window. I searched in vain for an earlier recording, convinced that there must be one. But no, it is simply a song that has remained in my head and heart all these years; so much so that I knew most, though obviously not all, of the words and even the chords. I was around when you wrote it. I loved it then, and I adore it now. Well done!

In Northern Towns Like These 'Exquisite....'

(Jenny and the Cold Caller) One of my most favourite songs.

Listener comments on PRIVATE: The Night Visitors http://www.davidheavenor.com/hostbaby/website?stage=products&edit=9

In the Pantheon

Think of the best songwriters you know. Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits , Joni MItchell for example. Choose what you think are their two best songs and then listen to just two songs from this album (Linger and Go and Jenny and the Cold Caller) and tell me we're not talking pantheons here. Then go and check out all the others. You won't regret it.

BOBBY IN THE WIRE

Just listened to your song. It was sent to me because I'm a subscriber to the Bobby Sands Trust website. It is wonderful! I look forward to exploring your music more!
Thank you again!

IF YOU SPEAK DUTCH (OR IS IT FLEMISH) HERE YOU ARE...

http://www.rootstime.be/CD REVIEUW/2009/OKT1/CD117.htm

Eind 2006 mochten we een lovende recensie op onze site laten verschijnen over het album ‘The Automatic Eye” van de Schotse singer-songwriter David Heavenor uit Edingburgh. De muzikant was blijkbaar ook tevreden want hij plaatste in letterlijke vertaling van onze recensie op zijn website en op de CD-Baby website. Twee jaar eerder had ook zijn tweede cd “Winter’s Children” al veel bloemetjes van onze redactie toegeworpen gekregen.
Nu ligt hier alweer een nieuwe cd van deze productieve componist toertjes te draaien in de cd-speler. “In Northern Towns Like These” is een nieuwe verzameling van 14 verhalende liedjes met betekenisvolle songteksten. Meermaals bedenk ik bij beluistering dat dit genre toch wel zeer nauw aansluit bij het werk dat we van de Ierse bard Luka Bloom en diens broer Christy Moore aangeboden krijgen.
Je moet echt ergens in een rustige hoek gaan zitten om ten volle te kunnen genieten van de woorden die David Heavenor in zijn liedjes declameert. Deze nieuwe cd kreeg de ondertitel ‘Demos, Outtakes And Rarities” mee, maar zo zou ik deze tracks zeker niet zelf durven te benoemen. Wel vooral akoestisch gebrachte liedjes met David Heavenor op gitaar en zijn muzikale vriend Simon Jaquet die voor wat subtiel toegevoegde bas, banjo en elektrische gitaarwerk mag zorgen bij enkele songs.
Het is vooral genieten geblazen bij liedjes als “Bad Man’s Pride” over een ‘oog-om-oog, tand-om-tand’ wraakmoord, titeltrack “In Northern Towns Like These” over jeugdherinneringen aan het stadje waar hij zijn jeugd doorbracht, “Headlong” over liefdesverdriet en de verkeerd gemaakte keuzes, het van een uitstekend drumprogramma voorziene “The Broken Appointment” over een teloorgegane liefde, “Bobby In The Wire” over Bobby Sands, de Ierse vrijheidsstrijder die tengevolge van een hongerstaking de dood vond in een gevangenis en het sfeervolle ”Memory Bled Back” dat naar onze bescheiden mening de beste song uit deze serie is.
David Heavenor is een moderne troubadour die vooral wil dat zijn publiek geïnteresseerd naar zijn teksten luistert en tegelijkertijd rustig kan genieten van de gemoedelijke en rustgevende muziek die hij op het podium ten gehore brengt. Zijn afgeleverde product in de vorm van deze nieuwe cd is zoals gebruikelijk van hoogstaande kwaliteit en verdient onze aanbeveling tot aanschaf bij de fans van de betere luistermuziek.
(valsam)

Just thougth I'd say how much I'm enjoying Northern Towns - it's great. And despite my reservations about your habit of messing around with great songs and changing all the best lines I have to confess that 'Blues they Call Tomorrow' is a gem and beautifully re-worked. It really suits that laid-back style. Oh, and there now has to be a new entry in the catalogue of great song lyrics: 'Think I'll drive to Swanston in the rain'. What a classic Heavenor line!!

In Northern Towns Like These

'A lovely album ....'

' Very emotional songs...

'Intriguing.....'

In Northern Towns Like These

'It's wonderful...love it...'

IN NORTHERN TOWNS LIKE THESE
EDINBURGH TAKES CENTRE STAGE IN NEW ALBUM BY SCOTTISH SINGER SONGWRITER
DAVID HEAVENOR
Edinburgh based songwriter David Heavenor’s fourth album is released on 1st April 2009. In Northern
Towns Like These features 14 songs which are a collection of demos, outtakes and rarities and range from a
ballad about a revenge killing (Bad Man's Pride) to a piece (Bobby in the Wire) about Bobby Sands the
Irish Republican who died from hunger strike in Long Kesh prison. Glasgow's Squinty Bridge gets a mention in
a beautiful love song about a girl (Carleen on the Phone) who brings the writer 'love and laughter' and
'truth with beauty but then this is tempered by numerous songs about lost love: (The Broken
Appointment) which takes a Thomas Hardy poem as its inspiration and (Headlong) which is a lyrical
treatment about the girl who can't see where her true love lies. Like other tracks on the album both
these songs having specific settings in Edinburgh (Blackford Hill , Abbey Strand and The Netherbow Port) .
The standout track is (Memory Bled Back), a voyage into existential angst 'the live butterfly stuck fast on
a pin' this theme also covered in (The Blues They Call Tomorrow) where the singer can't face up to the
truth that might free him. (The Shadow of Her Fear) is a poignant treatment of physical abuse in a
relationship with the girl longing to escape with her new lover. (In Northern Towns Like These) is a song
about childhood with images conjured about the coastal town of North Berwick by one of Scotland's
finest lyricist. (God Inside Your Skin) relates the story of the death of a friend and is set around Ainslie
Place in The New Town. (Another Eden) has the drama of lost love taking place along ‘the cobbled mile’
of The Royal Mile and the ‘Eden’ of the Pentland Hills, south of the city. There may also be a play on words
here as the old name for Edinburgh is Dunedin.

David Heavenor is a Scottish singer-songwriter, born in Kingston, Jamaica, who has produced four 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) and In Northern Towns Like These.
2009. He works as Development Manager at The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh’s mid-scale Concert Hall and his
song Bad Man’s Pride was written in his basement office one evening while he was waiting after work
for an evening concert to begin. ( He lived out of town at the time)
Plaudits for his songs have come from Ricky Ross who called Jenny and the Cold Caller (Private) ‘One of
the best songs ever written. Tom Morton writing in The Scotsman called his song Linger and Go ..’ a
masterpiece of songwriting.’ Recently he was featured as songwriter of the week on The Iain Anderson
Show on BBC Radio Scotland. 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. The 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 Christian 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 a theme 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 early eighties playing in various long lost local bands.

Contact: David Heavenor 0792 904 3446 davidheavenor@hotmail.com www.davidheavenor.com

RICKY ROSS interviewed on The Iain Anderson programme on BBC Radio Scotland 2nd March 2007 keying up David's song Sign in a Stranger from The Automatic Eye

This an artist you play regularly. Happens to be one of my best friends. It’s wonderful because I knew David Heavenor way back in the 70’s and we were friends then and I’ve kind of learned everything I ever really thought I knew about songwriting from David. He sort of missed the boat that I was on, to use that metaphor, and then went off and made a couple of solo records which I know people listening to on this programme have just loved. It was great to get him together with Davy Scott and I think he made his best work on this last album. I was over skiing in France just a couple of weeks ago and there’s a great line about snow and France in this song and it’s a real pleasure to play this stuff.

The Automatic Eye
On Sign in a Stranger

'Gorgeous sounding as you would expect from producer David Scott

ROOTSTIME RADIO
Review of The Automatic Eye by David Heavenor Produced by David Scott.

David Heavenor, singer-songwriter from Edinburgh, a.k.a. "The Mystery Man of Scottish Music" received a fabulous review of his second CD "Winter's Children" only two years ago. 10 years earlier he released his first album "Private (The Night Visitors)". His incomparable lyrics and extraordinary guitar playing get stuck in your mind and can also be found on "The Automatic Eye" with typical Scottish sound. Just listen to the beautiful "Boys With No Love" or "Oxford Street In The Blackout", which gives you the feeling you're walking through this street with the singer and you can actually see the girls (of joy) in the door openings. The beginning of the titletrack "The Automatic Eye" is very original and sets the pace throughout the song. The final song "Linger & Go" rightly receives the label "masterpiece of songwriting" from the Scottish press. Listening to this album you're in Edinburgh on a winter's night, close to the fire with David Heavenor as your personal entertainer. From time to time you wander off to comparable artists like Nick Drake and Al Stewart from "The Year Of The Cat". Two members of the Glasgow-bands The Pearlfishers and Teenage Fanclub assist David Heavenor: David Scott on f.i. keyboards, bass and piano and Stuart Kidd on drums. In some songs Iain Barbour adds pedal steel and electric guitar, which completes the atmosphere of the opening track "Sign In A Stranger". A tremendously fresh and unique piece of work in this genre, with an excellent vocals of home-made music and lyrics by a singer who is 100% into his work. A renowned BBC producer simply described The Automatic Eye as "a beautiful album in every respect…". We could not have described it any better. Enjoy the album.

Sunday, November 05, 2006
AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE
My mother travelled from Scotland to Hong Kong a few weeks ago, and she brought with her a CD by a Scottish singer/songwriter, David Heavenor, called "The Automatic Eye". This was a more personal gift than it sounds: David is a family friend who used to spend time at our house in the 70s and he is one of those figures from the past who I remember through the filter of summer gardens and heat on the tarmac with the strumming of a guitar as backdrop; he seemed to like spending time with the kids, the price for which was always a story; and the tales he used to tell us ("and the captain said, tell us a tale!") , including the legendary story of the hut in the woods, with its genuinely terrifying denouement, still burn in my mind. The gentle, unmistakeable Scottishness of his voice and its clear timbre contain so many things that I can't even name which are all to do with my memories of childhood, and my undeniable nostalgia for the place where I come from, which, at the risk of sounding sentimental, often seems even further away than 6,000 miles.

I've always been distrustful of people who sing unnaturally, in an accent other than their own, as if ashamed ("Brown Sugar! Just like a young girl should!") ; and I love those voices which in song are no more than a gear shift away from the spoken word: like David's.

The best track on the CD (what cheesy radio DJs call "the standout track") is called "Sign In a Stranger" and lines keep recurring to me, sitting at my desk in the office in the glass edifice where I spend my day, or lying awake at night worrying about work:

building up like storms,
bursting in mid-air

When David sings, in a hush, "I'm walking behind you, I'm climbing the stairs", I'm in a darkened, damp Edinburgh close with someone I can't have. It's strange being transported by something as simple as a song, but I realise that that's what I love about good music, that it can speak to you on so many levels: even though I now know nothing about David, his experiences, his life, I feel as though I know everything I need to know.
posted by LottieP at 3:01 AM

On Jenny & the Cold Caller

'Of all the love songs we've played tonight I wish I'd written this one...'

On Sign in a Stranger

'It's fantastic!..'

FAIRLY UNKNOWN IN BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS, BUBBLING WITH MELANCHOLY ~ JOY AS WELL
Ten years ago David Heavenor made his debut with the splendid album "Private". In spite of the fact that it was so good a tremendous album followed. David Heavenor remains fairly unknown in Belgium and The Netherlands. Scotland, however, regards this singer-songwriter as one of its biggest talents of the moment. His second album "Winters Children" contains cleverly modest rootsongs, which can be classified between the works of Al Stewart or Nick Drake. These songs are bubbling with melancholy, yet they bring joy as well. They immediately stick in the mind, yet they´ll not cease to surprise you. David Heavenor and his guitar form a special entity. He is a master performer who uses various moods paying little heed to any of the laws of music. He manages to find the perfect balance between voice and instrument. Piano, bass, percussion, acoustic guitar and the backup vocals of Steven Butler
(Heavenor´s producer) complete the songs on Winters Children. The discreet accompaniment enhances the melancholic character of the songs.
While Private (1993), with frequent performances from Simon Jaquet, might be known as his best album, Winters Children certainly is his most impressive one. Once again David Heavenor has proven to be unique.

Wed 30 Jan 2002

TOM MORTON on a potent reminder of his own musical past
THE CD arrived, bubblewrapped, potent with names from the past, another life: 20 years ago, I remember, they were all consumed by music, addicted to religion, juggling faith and fretboards; they were agonising over art and spirituality, politics and poetry. And I was there too, the fingertips of my left hand calloused by Gibsons and Guilds, hustling a creaking belief and a love of The Great Twang. Somewhere between the Rolling Stones and the Rock of Ages.

We were, for the most part, white middle-class boys, brought up in various permutations of evangelical Protestantism, obsessed with God and Bob Dylan, Jesus and Jackson Browne. Calvin and Marvin Gaye. We wanted to explore the divine, communicate it. Most of all we wanted to play music. And maybe get famous.

One or two did. Ricky Ross formed Deacon Blue, along with a bass player called Ewen Vernal. Graeme Duffin’s superlative guitar skills found a home in Wet Wet Wet and the charts. But two decades and longer ago, names such as Steve Butler, Brian McGlynn and David Heavenor were of equal status at events like the Greenbelt Festival and Dundee’s Street Level. Charlie and Dot Irvine’s band, Talking Drums, was signed up with Miles Copeland, manager of The Police. It was all are you a Christian musician, or a musician who happens to be a Christian? Are you an entertainer or a propagandist? Does the Lord really approve of punk, blues progressions, or on-stage pelvic thrusting?

I remember David Heavenor as being slightly, quizzically apart from all that overheated huffing and puffing. Always friendly and around, but somehow more inward and intense. And there were songs many recognised at the time as masterpieces, some of them captured on the CD he made with Simon Jacquet a couple of years ago: Linger and Go, and the shocking, for evangelical lads who lacked David’s artistic bravery, examination of depression and doubt, Wildcat. They were songs made to last. Delicate and full of a diffident power.

Now David is a weel-kent face in Edinburgh’s and Scotland’s artistic circles, thanks to his senior administrative role at the Queen’s Hall. But the music never stopped, and the CD which dropped through my letterbox at the weekend is his latest collection of songs, Winter’s Children. There were those names: Steve Butler is now an Episcopal priest in Edinburgh, still singing, who released his own excellent album last year. But he has produced and recorded Winter’s Children for David, playing and singing on it along with old pals Charlie and Dot, Ewen Vernal and some generous, deserved accolades from Ricky Ross.

It’s an inspiring, emotional experience for me, listening to this album. Because it retains the questioning, deep belief and the eternal doubts I remember, matured in a hard, hard world. 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 around your brain, shifting meaning, ornate yet direct, complex and with an overwhelming sense of Edinburgh in winter.

Twenty years ago, we thought all that stuff mattered: music, faith, art. Listening to Winter’s Children, you could almost believe it still does.

This article: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=110882002