Paul Heaton - The Beautiful South

The Beautiful South

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.

On the ITV documentary music series Faith & Music screened 29 October 2006, Heaton talks openly about his atheism and his battle with alcoholism.

After a band meeting on 30 January 2007, they decided to split. They released a statement on 31 January, in which their reasons for splitting were "musical similarities". "The band would like to thank everyone for their 19 wonderful years in music," the statement also said. On an interview with BBC Breakfast in July 2008, Heaton clarified this statement by stating the Beautiful South had made similar sounding albums for the past ten years.

The New Beautiful South were formed shortly after by David Stead with other members of the band, but without composers Paul Heaton and Dave Rotheray, playing old hits live to small venues.