Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott have announced a series of tour dates to take place in February 2023– including The SSE Arena, Belfast.
Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott’s new album ‘N.K-Pop’ is released on 7th October. They have already made two songs available from the album – the poignant ballad ‘Still’, which was described as ‘beautifully heartbreaking’ by Dawn French, and the gospel pop song ‘Too Much For One (Not Enough For Two). Paul & Jacqui’s previous album ‘Manchester Calling’ went straight to No 1 on its release in March ’20.
Paul Heaton’s songwriting genius was recognised at the prestigious Ivor Awards 2022 where noted author/radio DJ Stuart Maconie presented him with a long overdue gong for ‘Outstanding Song Collection’. Heaton is one of the UK’s most successful songwriters with some 15 million album sales under his belt. He first came to prominence in the early 80s as front man of The Housemartins (the same group that gave us Norman ‘Fatboy Slim’ Cook).
Paul Heaton went on to release two further solo albums: ‘The Cross-Eyed Rambler’ (’08) and ‘Acid Country’ (’10). In 2011 Heaton wrote a musical called ‘The 8th’ based on the Seven Deadly Sins and asked Jacqui to sing one of the parts. They have since released four acclaimed albums as a duo. In 2019 Paul released a career spanning compilation of his biggest hits entitled ‘The Last King Of Pop’.
2022 saw Heaton reach a significant birthday, which he celebrated in typically idiosyncratic style by putting £1,000 behind the bar of 60 carefully chosen pubs across the UK and Ireland so that fans could have a drink on him.