John Harley Weston


John Harley Weston is a Scottish-born Australian based singer-songwriter, who also plays a variety of instruments including guitar, keyboards and piano accordion and, in 2005, won the Australian National Songwriting Contest with the song "Last Days of Summer" from his 2004 album, Hope Harbour.

Success as songwriter and performer

Born in Glasgow, John Higgins grew up in the East Ayrshire town of Stewarton and subsequently immigrated to the Tamborine Mountain region in the southeastern part of Australian state of Queensland. Using the performing name John Harley Weston, he has been a professional musician since 1990, and the 2005 success of "Last Days Of Summer", co-written with drummer/guitarist Tony Beard, extended to its placement in the top 20 at the Unisong International Songwriting Contest 2005–2006 and receiving an Honourable Mention from the 13th annual Billboard World Songwriting Contest. In the same year, at singeruniverse.com, Weston was voted one of the top 5 best vocalists in the Independent Music World by music publisher Dale Kawashima, former executive at Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Irving Azoff's Giant Records and Mercury Records.
Another song, "Brothers and Sisters", produced by Sandy Jones at Foundry Music Lab in Motherwell, Scotland, and Graeme Duffin. about the conflict between Israel and Palestine held the number one spot on Isonlive Radio for an entire six months in 2007.
In 2008, Weston released the album Welcome Back to Reality. Two songs were chosen by Channel 7 Television Australia for their 2008 Beijing Olympic Games playlist and featured on Channel 9 Television's 'The Voice.
Readers of the Gold Coast Bulletin nominated John Harley Weston for a Gold Coast Honours Award in Entertainment for his services to music and support of charities such as Cancer Council Queensland.
Weston's latest album Music Man was released in December 2016.
In 1999, Weston wrote the song "Road To Victory" for the Brisbane Lions Aussie Rules football team.
Weston's music has been added to the National Library of Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive a joint venture by Music Australia to create a database of all written and musical works released in Australia.

Solo career

As a solo artist, John Harley Weston has supported Indigo Girls at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow, Duran Duran at Glasgow Barrowlands, John Swan at St Bernard's Hotel on Tamborine Mountain and Lighthouse Family also at King Tut's. John has also performed at the Queensland Premier's Australia Day Celebrations at The Piazza, South Bank Parklands, Brisbane as well as shows for Gold Coast City Council and the Gold Coast mayor Ron Clarke MBE, the Beaudesert Shire Mayor, Palazzo Versace's flagship hotel, Gold Coast Arts Centre, Brisbane's Acoustic In The Park Festival, Ric's Bar, Brisbane, The Centre, Beaudesert and other local venues in South East Queensland.
In the early 1990s, Weston was signed to Polygram Records Vertigo label as lead singer and co-songwriter with Scottish band Frontier Frontier released two singles in 1992, original song "Lonely Heart" and a cover of the Graham Parker song "The Sun is Gonna Shine Again". Frontier supported Wet Wet Wet during 1992 UK stadium tour which included gigs at Wembley arena. They also supported the band Gun in the same year on their UK university tour, including venues such as London Astoria.
During his solo career, and as lead singer with Scottish band Frontier, John Harley Weston has worked with producers, engineers and session players such as Gary Katz, Sandy Jones and Graeme Duffin, Ian Kewley, Dave Bascombe, Kenny McDonald, Steve Jackson, Adam Mosely, Tony Philips and session players Paul "Wix" Wickens, Tony Beard Graham Broad and Donny Little.
Weston has recorded at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire, England, George Martin's Air Studios in London, Jacobs Studio in Surrey, England, Jimmy Page's Old Mill Studio, Parklane Studios in Glasgow, Pete Townshend's Eel Pie Studios on the River Thames in London, Rooster 2 in London, Swanyard Studio, London, Red Zeds in Brisbane.
John Harley Weston is endorsed by Takamine Guitars, D'Addario Guitar Strings and Neumann Microphones.