RICHARD SUTTON
BIOGRAPHY
Richard's music
Described as a modern day Cat Stevens with a healthy splash of Passenger, Newton Faulkner and Paul Simon, singer-songwriter Richard Sutton is hard to pigeonhole.
From the beautiful medieval city of Norwich in the UK, Richard sings personally about our ups and downs, aspirations, fears and doubts, and delves into the triumphs and adversities of the human condition.
Early influences:
Richard comes from a musical family, and has music running through the fabric of his life. As a child he was exposed to everything from the great influencers of musical trends such as the Beatles, Buddy Holly, AC/DC and Metallica, through to classical composers like Beethoven, Mozart and Tchaikovsky.
After leaving school at the age of 16 Richard took a vocational cabinet making course where he met an inspirational producer, musician and songwriter, Graham Dee, who saw something special in him. This chance encounter changed the course of his life.
Richard picked up his guitar and started to write songs. By the time Graham moved away from Norwich in 2005, Richard's love of music had turned into a strong vocation.
First steps:
Apprenticeship:
Over the following 10 years Richard launched three rock bands, wrote a portfolio of songs and produced several albums including Don't Look Back, with his third band The Indebtors. This went on to receive critical acclaim, while the band reached the finals of the national Rock The House competition with A New Day.
Throughout this time, Richard studied at City College Norwich to improve his recording and production skills. While there, he met and worked with some talented and inspirational individuals and began experimenting with orchestral composition and film score writing, finally graduating with a BA Hons in Creative Practice and Enterprise.
Transition:
March 2015 was a game changer for Richard as he realised that rock music was not the direction he wanted to pursue. He went solo acoustic and refocused his efforts on song-writing and studio recording.
He released Nothing Matters Anymore, in May 2017 as a single, followed by Drifter in September 2017. The full album, Paper Plane, was released on 24 September 2018, and has sold copies to listeners in the UK, Europe, Australia and USA.
In 2017, Graham Dee came out of retirement to co-produce his album, Paper Plane, which has full band accompaniment. For Graham, this involved frequent journeys from his home in Dorset to studios in Norwich, Cambridge and London.
The intervening time has been filled songwriting, recording and performing, resulting in some of Richard's most effective and eloquent songs.
The singer-songwriter:
Richard has a number of exciting projects in the pipeline, including writing, recording and releasing another new album.
Before the advent of Covid, he played regularly at festivals, folk clubs and music venues, but since lockdown has turned to live streaming on facebook and zoom.
Like many musicians, he is looking forward to reacquainting himself with live audiences as restrictions are lifted.
Lockdown liberation:
The abrupt cessation of most normal musical activities has, however, given Richard a unique opportunity to work on some exciting co-writing projects with Graham via the internet.
Quickly conquering online songwriting, he turned his hand to recording guitar and vocals from their respective homes in Dorset and Norfolk, engineering and managing the process via zoom and skype. The Sutton-Dee partnership was born.
Songs for today:
The first Sutton-Dee release was VACCINE (For the World), a groove-driven pop plea to the people of the world to come together and save the planet for the good of us all… and our children to come. It is a topic they are both deeply passionate about.
The second was Ballad of Old Covid, a toe tapping outlaw-style country song with hints of Johnny Cash, bringing humour and warmth to the unique challenges of our times.
There are many more songs currently being written and recorded. Further announcements will be made soon.