The Beautiful South's musical legacy will be celebrated in Worthing

The tour marks The South’s tenth year and also 30 years since The Beautiful South released Song For Whoever.

Singer Alison Wheeler was a member of The Beautiful South from 2002-2007 and recorded three albums with them. After the band split, she was pulled back into the fold in a new guise, as she explains.

“A series of fortunate coincidences led to me meeting Dave Hemingway, and we did those albums, and it was great. It was all beautiful shiny new for me, which is why it was so upsetting when Paul Heaton decided to call time on the band. I was still new. I was chomping at the bit, but you could understand because they had been doing it for years. They had gone back a long time.

“But it was hard for me and I remember going back and thinking ‘Now what?’ I went back and had a meandering couple of years.

“I had my second child and regrouped, but then I got a call from the drummer saying it was what he really was, it was all he knew and he wanted to carry on.

“He approached everybody to see if they were interested.”

And so The South was born: “At the time there were five out of the six of us in the band and three on tour.

“We have had a few line-up changes on the years. Dave Hemingway retired a few years ago.

“It all might have folded when Dave Hemingway left, but we all agreed that we wanted to keep going and also to see if the following would still come with us without Dave Hemingway as part of it.”

The following certainly did – and so it has continued: “We have had a great time. It has always been a really nice atmosphere.

“We don’t struggle. It is like a natural progression. Five of us have been working together for years, and we were adamant that whoever came into the band should not be on cold auditions.

“They had to have a connection with the band and the past.

“We have done one album which is quite old now, and we would want to get back into the studio, but the problem with nine people in the band spread across the country is the difficulty of getting everyone together. But we have got some ideas floating around.

“It would be nice to show people that we are not relying completely on the back catalogue, but at the same time it is a celebration of The Beautiful South and that’s what people want to hear. But it is good to have one or two new tracks of our own just to help keep it all fresh and show that we can do it.”

As for the old magic, Alison reckons it has a lot to do with the penmanship of Paul: “He writes very good tunes, and I love the way he spins the lyrics.

“ I think that they really speak to people, and the songs really haven’t aged at all.”

The South are: Alison Wheeler (vocals), Gaz Birtles (vocals), Phil Barton (guitars), Steve Nutter (bass), Dave Anderson (drums), Karl Brown (percussion), Gareth John (trumpet), Su Robinson (sax) and Andy Price (keys).

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