David Paton (; born 29 October 1949)
is a Scottish bassist, guitarist and singer. He first achieved success in the mid-1970s as lead vocalist and bassist of
Pilot
An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...
, who scored hits with "
Magic
Magic or Magick most commonly refers to:
* Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces
* Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic
* Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...
", "
January
January is the first month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is also the first of seven months to have a length of 31 days. The first day of the month is known as New Year's Day. It is, on average, the coldest month of the ...
", "Just a Smile" and "Call Me Round" before splitting in 1977. Paton is also known for his work in the original lineup of
The Alan Parsons Project
The Alan Parsons Project was a British rock band active between 1975 and 1990, whose core membership consisted of producer, audio engineer, musician and composer Alan Parsons and singer, songwriter and pianist Eric Woolfson. They were accompanie ...
(1975-1985), and for working with acts such as
Kate Bush
Catherine Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and dancer. In 1978, at the age of 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single "Wuthering Heights (song), Wuthering Heights", ...
,
Camel
A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...
and
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
.
Biography
Early life
![Albert Hammond & David Paton 2018](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Albert_Hammond_%26_David_Paton_2018.jpg)
Born in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
, Scotland,
Paton grew up in the south-eastern suburb of
Gilmerton
Gilmerton ( gd, Baile GhilleMhoire, IPA: paləˈʝiːʎəˈvɔɾʲə is a suburb of Edinburgh, about southeast of the city centre.
The toponym "Gilmerton" is derived from a combination of gd, Gille-Moire– a personal name and later surnam ...
, Edinburgh, where he attended Liberton High School. At the age of 11 he got his first guitar, which he learned to play as an autodidact. His first band was called 'The Beachcombers' and they signed a recording contract in 1968 with
CBS Records CBS Records may refer to:
* CBS Records or CBS/Sony, former name of Sony Music, a global record company
* CBS Records International, label for Columbia Records recordings released outside North America from 1962 to 1990
* CBS Records (2006), founde ...
. They changed their name to The Boots and published their first single, "The Animal In Me". This was soon followed by "Keep Your Lovelight Burning". Because of financial problems, the band split up in 1970.
Career
Paton initially joined the
Bay City Rollers
The Bay City Rollers are a Scottish pop rock band known for their worldwide teen idol popularity in the 1970s. They have been called the "tartan teen sensations from Edinburgh" and one of many acts heralded as the "biggest group since the Beat ...
for a short period of time but never recorded with them. He joined in 1968, as their bassist, when bassist
Alan Longmuir
Alan Longmuir (20 June 1948 – 2 July 2018) was a Scottish musician and a founding member of the 1970s pop group, the Bay City Rollers. He played the bass guitar in the band whilst his younger brother Derek Longmuir was drummer.
Biograp ...
switched to full-time guitarist. After leaving them in October 1970, Longmuir switched back to bass, and Paton became a member of another band called 'Fresh', which changed their name to Christyan and released a single, "Nursery Lane", in 1971. While still playing with the band, he took a job as a musician in a nightclub called Tiffanys where he met
Ian Bairnson
Ian Bairnson (born 3 August 1953 as ''John Bairnson'') is a Scottish musician, best known for being one of the core members of The Alan Parsons Project. He is a multi-instrumentalist, who has played saxophone and keyboards, although he is best ...
.
Pilot
In 1973, Paton was a co-founder of
Pilot
An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...
. With
Ian Bairnson
Ian Bairnson (born 3 August 1953 as ''John Bairnson'') is a Scottish musician, best known for being one of the core members of The Alan Parsons Project. He is a multi-instrumentalist, who has played saxophone and keyboards, although he is best ...
,
Billy Lyall
William Lyall (26 March 1953 – 1 December 1989) was a Scottish musician, known for his work with Pilot, The Alan Parsons Project, and the Bay City Rollers.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Lyall was a singer, keyboard player and flautist with Pi ...
and
Stuart Tosh
Stuart Mcbeath Tosh (born 26 September 1948), also known as Stuart Tosh, is a Scottish drummer, songwriter and vocalist. He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. He recorded and toured with a succession of bands during the 1970s and 1980s, including ...
, they recorded several demos with
EMI Records
EMI Records (formerly EMI Records Ltd.) is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British flagship label by the music company of the same name in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the succ ...
and recorded their first album ''
From the Album of the Same Name
''From the Album of the Same Name'' (known as ''Pilot'' in the US) is the 1974 debut album by Pilot (band), Pilot, containing the international hit Magic (Pilot song), "Magic" and the minor hit, "Just a Smile" (UK #31, Australia #49, US #90).
...
'' which was published in 1974. On it was included their first major hit, "
Magic
Magic or Magick most commonly refers to:
* Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces
* Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic
* Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...
" and Bairnson, who was still not an official member of the band, joined them after the recording of the first album. They released their second album ''Second Flight'' in 1975, and its single "
January
January is the first month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is also the first of seven months to have a length of 31 days. The first day of the month is known as New Year's Day. It is, on average, the coldest month of the ...
" topped the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
for three weeks, ironically beginning week ending 1 February. and it was followed in 1976 by their third, ''Morin Heights'' which was recorded at Le Studio in Morin Heights in Quebec, Canada, and produced by
Roy Thomas Baker
Roy Thomas Baker (born 10 November 1946) is an English record producer, songwriter and arranger, who has produced rock and pop and songs since the 1970s.
Career
Baker began his career at Decca Records at the age of 14 and later worked as an a ...
.
The Alan Parsons Project
The same year, he and Bairnson started working with producer
Alan Parsons
Alan Parsons (born 20 December 1948) is an English audio engineer, songwriter, musician and record producer.
Parsons was involved with the production of several notable albums, including the Beatles' ''Abbey Road'' (1969) and ''Let It Be'' ( ...
and published a first album under the name ''
Alan Parsons Project
The Alan Parsons Project was a British rock band active between 1975 and 1990, whose core membership consisted of producer, audio engineer, musician and composer Alan Parsons and singer, songwriter and pianist Eric Woolfson. They were accompani ...
'', ''
Tales of Mystery & Imagination
''Tales of Mystery & Imagination'' (often rendered as ''Tales of Mystery and Imagination'') is a popular title for posthumous compilations of writings by American author, essayist and poet Edgar Allan Poe and was the first complete collection of ...
''. Paton played bass and sang with the band until the 1986 album ''
Stereotomy
''Stereotomy'' is the ninth studio album by The Alan Parsons Project, released in 1985.
Not as commercially successful as its predecessor '' Vulture Culture'', the album is structured differently from earlier Project albums: containing three ...
'' as he continued to work with other artists as a
session musician
Session musicians, studio musicians, or backing musicians are musicians hired to perform in recording sessions or live performances. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a recording artist on a ...
. He briefly returned to sing and play acoustic guitar at the Project's only live appearance in 1990 for the
Night of the Proms
Night of the Proms is a series of concerts held annually in Belgium (since 1985), the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg. Regularly there are also shows in France, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Denmark, the United States and Sweden. The co ...
, while
Laurence Cottle
Laurence Cottle (born 16 December 1961) is a Welsh bass guitarist and composer.
Career
His solo recordings have been mostly in jazz and jazz fusion. He was a member of the fusion quartet The Fents and appeared on their second album, ''The Ot ...
played bass guitar as he'd done on ''
Gaudi'' and ''
Freudiana''. Paton wasn't asked to participate in any further Parsons albums or tours.
Solo
His first solo album was released in 1991, titled ''Passions Cry'' (under the name of Davie Paton), and the second album ''Fragments'' in 1996, that was also under the same name. In 1980, Paton already recorded an album with the title ''No Ties No Strings'' at the
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Recording Studios) is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music c ...
, which was never released. In 2003, however, the album ''The Search'' was released, which was a new recording of the "lost album" from 1980. In the following years, David Paton released other solo albums.
Later works
He also played on the first two albums by
Kate Bush
Catherine Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and dancer. In 1978, at the age of 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single "Wuthering Heights (song), Wuthering Heights", ...
in 1978, ''
The Kick Inside
''The Kick Inside'' is the debut Album#Studio, studio album by English art rock singer Kate Bush. Released on 17 February 1978 by EMI Records, it includes her UK No. 1 hit, "Wuthering Heights (song), Wuthering Heights". The album peaked at No. 3 ...
'' and ''
Lionheart''.
In the 1980s, Paton was known for his work with
Camel
A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...
and
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
in studio albums and touring around the world. Other credits include bass guitar and backing vocals for several albums by
Fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...
, as well as
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman (born 18 May 1949) is an English keyboardist best known as a former member of the progressive rock band Yes across five tenures between 1971 and 2004, and for his solo albums released in the 1970s.
Born and raised ...
in the 1990s, such as ''The Classical Connection'', ''African Bach'', ''Softsword'', ''The Classical Connection 2'' and ''Prayers''. In 1984, he was a member of
Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...
. In 1985, he participated to the original score for the movie ''
Ladyhawke'' which was written, composed and played by
Andrew Powell
Andrew Powell (born 18 April 1949) is an English musical composer, arranger and performer, born of Welsh parents. He himself moved to Wales in 2003.
Early life
Powell was born Surrey, England. He began piano lessons at the age of four and late ...
and produced by Alan Parsons.
Paton also appeared solo in the Countdown Spectacular 2 concert series in Australia, between August and September 2007, as a performer and musical director.
In 2014, Paton, Bairnson and also Stuart Tosh re-released as the full band Pilot an album called ''A Pilot Project'', which contains exclusively tracks from the ''Alan Parsons Project''. That same year, on 6 September 2014, David Paton, Ian Bairnson and Stuart Tosh played Midfest in Edinburgh for the first time in 39 years with the original line-up (minus the late Billy Lyall).
In 2016 and 2017, Paton, along with Ian Bairnson, was back live as Band Pilot, primarily in Japan, the UK and Germany. They were supported by Kenny Hutchison (keyboards, vocals), Calais Brown (guitar, vocals), Dave Stewart (drums, vocals) and Irvin Duguid (keyboards, vocals).
In 2019, David Paton sort of single-handedly released a follow-up to ''A Pilot Project'', ''The Traveller - Another Pilot Project''.
Official website of ''Another Pilot Project''
/ref> With a few exceptions, he recorded all the instruments himself. In 2020, Paton's next solo album ''2020'' was released.
In July 2021, Pilot (Paton and Bairnson) released ''The Magic EP'', featuring 4 completely re-recorded older songs: ''Magic'', ''January'', ''Just A Smile'' and ''Over The Moon''. The latter was completely rearranged for this purpose. On 21 March 2022, the long-announced follow-up album ''The Magic Collection'' was released, on which the EP tracks are also included.
The publication of his book ''Magic: The David Paton Story'' is planned for 30 June 2023.
Discography
Solo
With David Paton & Friends
With Boots
Singles
With
Pilot
An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...
Studio albums
Singles
With
The Alan Parsons Project
The Alan Parsons Project was a British rock band active between 1975 and 1990, whose core membership consisted of producer, audio engineer, musician and composer Alan Parsons and singer, songwriter and pianist Eric Woolfson. They were accompanie ...
Studio albums
With
Kate Bush
Catherine Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and dancer. In 1978, at the age of 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single "Wuthering Heights (song), Wuthering Heights", ...
Studio Albums
With
Camel
A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...
With
Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...
Single
Studio albums
With
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman (born 18 May 1949) is an English keyboardist best known as a former member of the progressive rock band Yes across five tenures between 1971 and 2004, and for his solo albums released in the 1970s.
Born and raised ...
Single
EP
Studio albums
With Fish
Studio albums
Live albums
Singles
With Sadie Paton
Singles
With
Eric Woolfson
Eric Norman Woolfson (18 March 1945 – 2 December 2009) was a Scottish songwriter, lyricist, vocalist, executive producer, pianist, and co-creator of The Alan Parsons Project. Together with Parsons they sold over 50 million albums worldwide. F ...
Studio album
References
External links
*
*
Official Pilot website
A Pilot Project
Another Pilot Project
Another official Pilot website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paton, David
1949 births
Living people
Musicians from Edinburgh
Scottish pop guitarists
Male bass guitarists
Scottish bass guitarists
Scottish session musicians
People educated at Liberton High School
Pilot (band) members
Camel (band) members
Elton John Band members
The Alan Parsons Project members
Bay City Rollers members
Progressive rock bass guitarists