New single release – Silent Running (Jun 2022). An unreleased live solo version of BA’s iconic song (originally a hit for Mike & The Mechanics), with all proceeds going to Ukraine charities.
Multiple Grammy nominee, PRS, and BMI award winner, Scots born composer, author, singer BA Robertson was educated at Allan Glen’s School Glasgow, and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, where he studied piano, clarinet, harmony and counterpoint.
An almost 50 year, award winning career in the music business has produced 100 silver, gold, platinum, and multi-platinum selling records, awards nominations including several Grammy and Ivor Novello nominations and an Ivor Novello Award for Best Song for The Living Years.
A cultural polymath, BA is also a Hollywood producer, film score composer, TV and radio presenter/writer, and a theatre actor and playwright.
BA has worked with some of the best known names in the business including a long and productive relationship with Mike and the Mechanics and Burt Bacharach (with whom he has more writing credits than anyone other than Hal David and Carole Bayer Sager).
As well as chart success in his own right, with 5 solo albums, he has written hit songs for many people including Cliff Richard and Mike and the Mechanics (including their first hit single Silent Running (aka Can You Hear Me (recently sampled by US rapper Killer Mike)) – Billboard’s #1 Rock Song of 1986 – and the worldwide #1, The Living Years).
The Living Years is one of the finest lyrics of the last 10 years… Burt Bacharach (1996)
A new solo version of BA’s Ivor Novello award winning song The Living Years, was released in 2020 (worldwide, digital), with BVs by Taka Boom (Chaka Khan’s sister) and Viola Wills.
The original version, by Mike and The Mechanics was a #1 worldwide hit, including 4 weeks at the top of the US Billboard charts, multiple Grammy nominated, and is one of the most played songs on US radio (over 5 million plays) by a UK writer.
The new version is all about the vocal, and is quite stunning. A powerful pop ballad about fathers and sons, it has a place on many people’s favourite song lists, and this new version (which BA claims to have found “behind the sofa”) delivers all the emotions in spades.
BA also wrote what is widely acclaimed as the most popular Scottish football song of all time – We Have A Dream.