Acclaimed Ivor Novello Award nominated English singer-songwriter Boo Hewerdine’s album “Swimming in Mercury” (Reveal Records) gives us a personal insight as he takes us on that journey back in time. It’s a trip furnished with a glisten and a glint in his eye as he applies style and shapes to his autobiographical memories. Hewerdine revisits and recreates music in a manner that, put simply, a band starting out just couldn’t afford.

In his own words “The new album was recorded in the spirit of the first four track recording I ever did… but instead of a chunky cassette deck we were able to use Chris Pepper’s Cambridge studio. It was an incredibly enjoyable and creative way to work. Often I would write a song in the morning and by the end of the day we would have another track done”.

As a recording artist, Boo’s first tentative steps came with the band The Great Divide before the formation of his much-loved eighties group The Bible and a career that subsequently bloomed such that he is now in constant demand as a musician, songwriter, producer, teacher and live concert performer.

In the past, Boo has toured and worked with Brit Award-winning, former Fairground Attraction singer Eddi Reader. Together they enjoyed international success with the Hewerdine-written hit single “Patience of Angels” in 1995 and Boo also produced Reader’s “Sings the Songs of Robert Burns” in 2003, an album now viewed as a folk classic.

He has also collaborated with songwriter Findlay Napier, Chris Difford of Squeeze and his duo with Brooks Williams, State of The Union.

All through Boo’s career of performing, of writing material for major artists such as Sia, K.D Lang, Kris Drever (Lau), Duke Special, David McAlmont, and Eddi Reader, being produced by Steve Earle or touring with Richard Thompson to name but a few, it is perhaps going right back to his childhood that gives us the best clues as to his motivation.

Speaking around the release of his Best Of collection, My Name in The Brackets, Boo explained “I had a Dansette and a handful of 45s. What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For? I Remember You, Seven Little Girls. Records from that strange era between Rock & Roll and The Beatles. I would study the labels. The title, the singer, the numbers, Columbia, HMV, the stuff about rights written around the edge and most intriguing – the names in the brackets. It turned out that these people had “written” these songs. Songs could be made up. Conjured out of thin air. I decided then, at the age of seven, that’s what I would do. I couldn’t sing or play an instrument but I had an internal jukebox going on the whole time.

“All I ever wanted was my name in the brackets. And it gave me this life”.

Boo Hewerdine is one of the greatest songwriter performers in the business and a unique talent.

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