Helensburgh Heroes record charity single

Jan 30 2009 by Amanda McKendrick, Lennox Herald (main ed)

A CHARITY has been given a helping hand in its bid to transform a town by music legend David Bowie.

The music idol’s record company Fairwood Music has given Helensburgh Heroes permission to record his iconic hit ‘Heroes’.

On Saturday almost 300 Helensburgh residents – including Helensburgh and Lomond Fiddlers, Dorian Choir, Enable and Helensburgh Savoy – crammed into the town’s Victoria Halls to record the charity version Band-Aid-style.

As well as raising awareness of Helensburgh’s most famous sons and daughters – including John Logie Baird and Rangers founder Moses McNeill – the Heroes intend to use proceeds from sales of the record to realise their vision of bringing much-needed music and arts facilities to the town.

Phil Worms, a director of the Helensburgh Heroes charity, said: “I’m originally from London but moved up here with my family nine years ago and although Helensburgh is a lovely town there is nothing to do.

“Over the years I’ve realised there are quite a lot of like-minded people out there and we have got together to form Helensburgh Heroes.

“We want to see things like a cinema, recording studios and rehearsal facilities and realised we can’t expect the council to provide those kind of facilities.

“We came up with the idea of recording a song, firstly, to raise awareness of the men and women who were born in or have associations with this area and have contributed so greatly to the society in which we live.

“And secondly, it is to get the community involved in a fun and innovative project which will hopefully lead to the establishment of a permanent arts and cultural centre within the area.

“We thought the song Heroes was appropriate and approached David Bowie’s record company, and they came back and said ‘go ahead, guys’.

“When we told local people they just came right out and supported it. We plan to launch the single at a big, fun event in the spring with a sing-along in the town.”

As well as a CD and professionally-filmed accompanying video, including footage from Saturday’s recording session, the Heroes are also planning to make their hit available for download from the internet.

Musical director Alan Craig, currently head of music at Langside College, guided the choir while the musical arrangement for the track was produced by Helensburgh-born drummer Kenny Hyslop, who has played and toured with Simple Minds in his 25-year career.

Kenny said he wants to encourage the area’s undoubted talent and ensure that people could achieve their goals without the need to move to Glasgow or London.

He added: “If we can get an arts centre established locally, I guarantee that it will be the best centre in the west of Scotland, designed to nurture the talents and dreams of our future heroes.”

The recording was supported by the Scottish Community Foundation.