Alan West
Alan West’s deep passion for country music has been with him from the age of six. Over the last three decades he has established himself as one of the UK’s finest country singers and performers. In 1978 Alan started playing the pubs, clubs and festivals around the southwest of England, working alongside some of the country’s finest musicians.
In 1985 he teamed up with bassist Steve Elliott to form the extremely successful duo ‘West & Elliott’. By 1990 they had received numerous awards and accolades throughout Britain and Europe and were voted ‘UK’s Finest Duo’ by the British Country Music Association ((BCMA) in 1990 and again in 1991 when their debut album ‘The All Day Session’ was voted BCMA ‘Album Of The Year’.
Their increasing popularity and their reputation for delivering fresh new songs with unrivalled passion and conviction led to frequent tours with such songwriting legends as Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Sonny Curtis and Hugh Moffat.
By the late 1990’s their musical palette had broadened to include folk, bluegrass and blues alongside the country music they were already so well known for and they dipped their musical toes into the realm of multimedia shows with a production called ‘Songwriter’ an homage to the driving engines of the music business, those that write the songs.
A couple of years ago the duo decided to go their separate ways to embark on solo journeys.
Out on his own, Alan took the giant step of travelling to the country music capital of the world, Nashville Tennessee, to record his next album ‘Songs From A Neophyte’ and has never looked back. He has described the Nashville experience as “life changing”, and found he had a place amongst the finest that country music has to offer. The album, produced by Pat McInerney and engineered by the legendary Bill VornDick at Mountainside Studios in Nashville, was released in early 2009, and has garnered stunning reviews from the critics and substantial airplay in the UK, European and American Country Music markets.
Never one to let the grass grow under his feet, Alan formed a strong partnership with singer/songwriter Steve Black, hit the UK Country Festival circuit and began plans to record a new album of original material backed by a hand-picked band of musicians including his long-time friends Marie Dazzler and Bruno Liger from across the channel in France.
This new album ‘The Way Of The World’ is scheduled to be released on Rido Records in early 2010 with special guest appearances by Albert Lee and Sarah Jory and a wonderful set of original songs by Steve Black.