13 Apr 2025
“We’ve always said to the audience, our job is to make you leave with a smile. If we’ve done that, then we’ve done our job. If they can get up and dance with their mates, great. If they can sing at the top of their voices even better, it’s all about getting involved and enjoying brilliant music, really.”
There’s certainly no shortage of brilliant music from The South, the spiritual successor to wry pop combo The Beautiful South, the legends behind such classics as Song for Whoever, You Keep It All In and Perfect 10.
Although the group disbanded in 2007 for “musical similarities” – as they joked at the time – a selection of former members resurrected their acclaimed back catalogue a few years later, including female vocalist Alison Wheeler and lifelong sax player Gaz Birtles, who joins her in fronting the band since the departure of original singer Dave Hemingway in 2016.
Having now enjoyed a longer career than their predecessors, The South are coming to legendary St Albans music venue The Horn on Sunday May 4.
Alison is actually no stranger to the city, regularly visiting her sister-in-law here for big family gatherings, and previously auditioning at the Alban Arena for a gig with Warner Hotels performing Beautiful South songs as jazz standards.
But despite her past forays into this part of the country, Alison hasn’t played The Horn before: “I’ve heard it’s a really nice venue, it’s very cosy and the fact that we’re performing on a Bank Holiday Sunday should be a good excuse for people not to worry about school the next day.”
The South are strong supporters of independent music venues, and of course The Horn is one of the most iconic on a list which is sadly getting shorter each year.
“It’s more important than ever to give our backing to these independent venues. Everybody’s so aware of the struggle that the grassroots venues have had since Covid onwards.
“Gradually more and more music venues are only doing weekend music and obviously you’ve got the ticket touts and obviously the Noel Gallaghers of the world, that kind of fiasco that happened with the overpriced tickets.
“So yeah, I think it’s great because it obviously brings music at an affordable price to people and keeps the community hub alive and well and keeps the live music culture going.”
When the band are on stage, it’s obviously crucial to get a rapport going with the audience and engage with them throughout the gig, but Alison says in many ways they have it easy.
“Well I can frankly say we lean heavily on these amazing songs because everybody connects with them and we’re only as good as our audience, I always joke that that’s the rule.
“We’ve been blessed for almost 18 years with the most amazing supportive audience and I think they’ve all got a story to tell, whether it’s about Rotterdam or A Little Time or whatever. People come up to us after the gig and chat and say ‘this song means so much to me because it got me through a hard time’ or ‘it was my first song at my wedding’, and they can all connect with the lyrics.
“I think Paul [Heaton]’s penmanship is phenomenal and has really stood the test of time even though these are 40-year-old songs now.”
It’s arguable that if you were introduced to a song like A Little Time today, you wouldn’t be able to guess what period it was first written, as it’s a classic pop song which simply transcends any particular era. People can identify with the material, whether they can relate to needing space from a partner or being torn between two different lovers..
However, Alison says there can be the odd curveball, such as when she first joined the band and her mum started listening to their music.
“You have to be careful when you’re listening to lyrics and really absorb them. She’s said to me, ‘I love that song that Paul wrote about women helping out in the war’. I was like, ‘what?’!
“I realised that she was talking about ‘Woman in the Wall’, which is about a man who murders his wife and buries her in the wall!
“So I was like, ‘mum, you need to go and listen to those lyrics!’”
“But yeah, he’s definitely tapped into the British psyche, and I think that they’re songs that are just going to stand the test of time. We’re fortunate now to have multiple generations come to gigs – we’ve got grandkids and we’ve got grandparents and we’ve got people who’ve obviously been brought up by their parents who were originally into the music. So yeah, it can be quite a wide demographic at our gigs.”
Incredibly, there are now five greatest hits albums featuring the music of The Beautiful South and he South, which says a lot for the ongoing appetite for their songs.
“It’s lovely to see the compilations pop up and to know I’m sat there side by side with [former vocalists] Jacqui [Abbott] and Briana [Corrigan] on the same album.”
Alison actually enjoyed quite a varied career before joining the band, including a period in girl band Virginia, who featured regularly on BBC radio shows with the likes of Janice Long, Jonathan Ross and Nicky Campbell.
“It makes me feel old, but we brought our album out before the internet, so before digital streaming and downloads. We’re still good friends and even though we’re dotted around the country, during Covid I thought wouldn’t it be nice to get it out on the internet for a bit of nostalgia.
“So I think we’re going to re-release that first album, First Bite by Virginia, and it’ll be lovely to get it out there because a lot of people want to know what I’ve done in the past.”
She also has a sideline writing music for children with Amanda’s Action Club, an award-winning host of baby and toddler classes, kids’ parties and events for children aged between six months and four years.
“For me, when I was learning my stripes as far as writing’s concerned, there are not too many judgemental comments about your lyrics [in children’s songs] because you’re just trying to communicate something very simply.
“I’ve been working with Action Amanda for years now and she’s all about educating the kids, so they’re not superficial content, they’re all about brushing your teeth, washing your hands, saying thank you, just general skills of life. So it’s been a labour of love for me.
“There’s no real money in it, but I do it because it’s so much fun, and there’s nothing quite like seeing kids sing your songs back at you.”
Mother of two Alison first became involved with Amanda after taking her daughter to one of her classes: “She’s a real champion of women in work,
and she jumped on board when I said I was a singer, and we’ve worked constantly ever since.
“We’ve released a couple of songs for charity and one knocked Baby Shark off the top of the Apple charts, which was great.”
She’s now writing her own material regularly – with some of her songs now featuring in The South’s set-list.
“I was so nervous about sharing it on our WhatsApp group. I said, ‘look, I know it can be hard to get a new song off the ground, but can you have a listen to this and see what you think?’ And they’ve all gone for it, which is a real buzz for me and I can’t wait to sing a song that I’ve written in front of everybody!”
It’s fair to say that jazz is one of her big influences, with the likes of Julie London, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald at the top of her list, although she notes: “If I can keep going until I’m as old as Tony Bennett was I’ll be very happy.”
Picking up on her earlier reference to her daughter, it was while Alison was pregnant with her that The Beautiful South last played at festival institution Glastonbury in 2005.
“I think it was probably the last really, really, really wet Glastonbury. We were on tour at the time so we turned up in our tour bus and I met my husband who had gone for the whole weekend. He loked like a swamp monster, and I was like ‘get away from me’!
“We were in and out the same day, but our bus got stuck in the mud and so we had to get a golf buggy to our interviews and performances, but it was brilliant though.
“We were headlining in a tent and as is often the case at some of these festivals, they misunderestimated the numbers and didn’t think about how many people might want to come. So they had to shut the area down and open up the sides of the marquee so people outside could and enjoy, and that was really special.
“And I’m very excited to say we’ve been invited back this year as The South, which is such a lovely, lovely thing. And now that I’m childless I’m getting there on the Wednesday and I’m going home on Monday.”
As well as Glasto, her time with The Beautiful South between 2003 and 2007 also saw the band touring America and opening for Robbie Williams: “All those little tick lists I had when I was aspiring to be a singer, like doing Top of the Pops…”
Appearing on the BBC show was something of a bittersweet moment, she laughed: “Normally they cap the age range for the audience at 26, but for some reason they messed up the invite system and no invites had gone out for crowds.
“So all of a sudden there was a round-robin email at the BBC saying, ‘look, we’re lifting the age ban if you want to come to Top of the Pops’, so we ended up with an audience made up of the accounts division and HR in their ties and white shirts. It’s still out there on YouTube!”
The memories come flooding back now: “I remember meeting Fern Cotton, who is another national treasure, and then there were other experiences like going on the Jonathan Ross Show and being sat on the sofa next to Martin Scorsese and thinking, ‘oh my God, pinch me now’!
“Touring round the world and singing Don’t Marry Her in San Francisco, where obviously one of the key lines references San Francisco Bay, and the response we got from the audience was phenomenal. So yeah it was fairytale stuff, and I really, really enjoyed every moment of it.
“It was very, very sad when Paul decided it was time to call it a day, but it was his decision. There was no animosity, it was just time for him to move on.”
That Alison was part of the band at all was one of those right-place, right-time moments, after she was introduced to Dave Hemingway.
“It’s very surreal to have been knocking on every door you possibly can, and working at a record company to pay the rent, which was really interesting.
“But if I hadn’t been working there I wouldn’t have been making a cup of coffee in the kitchen when a girl in sales said to me ‘would you like to join my gospel choir?’ I almost didn’t because I’m not religious, but she was like, ‘no, no it’s out of the church’. So I was regularly performing with them for two years, and then three of us were asked to do backing vocals for Dave Hemingway’s solo album…”
Dave recommended her as a replacement for female vocalist Jacqui Abbott, something which immediately impressed Paul Heaton.
“So it was a series of really fortunate events, and all of a sudden I was airdropped into this British institution, which was phenomenal.
“And joining when I was 30 was really a blessing because they’d done all the partying and rock ‘n’ roll and were keen to work, but not absolutely break their backs. They wanted to tour on a smaller scale but still do arenas, so I could do all of that and fit in having two children as well!”
Tickets for The South’s gig at The Horn are available now from https://www.ticketweb.uk/event/the-south-the-horn-tickets/13960393?pl=horn
