John Southworth (musician)


John Southworth is an English-Canadian singer-songwriter. He performs a diverse range of popular song genres, from AM oldies-radio to traditional folk balladry, 80s pop to art song and cabaret.

History

Southworth's orchestral debut record Mars Pennsylvania was released on Bar None Records in 1998.
He has since released a number of cross-genre albums on small labels, each stylistically varied from the other, including Sedona Arizona, Banff Springs Transylvania, Yosemite, The Pillowmaker and Mama Tevatron. The South Seas also backed John on the elegiac Human Cry reissued on UK label Tin Angel Records in August 2018.
In 2011 Southworth released Spiritual War Cassette Tape, recorded in part on a Sony Cassette Corder Model TCM-939. The following year he debuted the surreal cabaret song cycle Easterween featuring arrangements by Toronto arranger Andrew Downing at the Lower Ossington Theatre in Toronto. A collection of actual rejected jingles appeared later in the same year on Failed Jingles for Bank of America & other U.S. Corporations.
In July 2014 it was announced that Southworth would be releasing a double record on Tin Angel Records called Niagara, featuring nine songs on the Canadian side and eleven on the American side. Co-produced by and again featuring The South Seas, Niagara was named Album of the Year 2014 by Rolling Stone Germany and Canada's National Post. On September 2, 2016, Small Town Water Tower LP was announced, set for an October release. The LP Miracle in the Night was released May 3, 2019.
Southworth's songs have been covered by or written for such Canadian artists as Sarah Slean, Buck 65, Hawksley Workman, Jully Black, Martin Tielli and Veda Hille. A former film student, he directs his own videos.
He is the son of Peter Shelley, the British 1970s pop singer and songwriter, later a producer and record executive.

Discography