Bob Heatlie

Bob Heatlie (born 1946) is a Scottish songwriter and record producer who has collaborated with many music acts, both bands and solo artists. He has also been successful in producing musical scores of television entertainment series.

Biography

Early life

Born in 1946 in Craigmillar, in Edinburgh, Scotland, he started learning the saxophone from his father when he was six years old. He later played drums in his father's band.[1]

Chart hit songs

His most successful and prominent songs are "Japanese Boy" and "Merry Christmas Everyone", both substantial 1980s pop chart hits across Europe and beyond: the first being a 1981 novelty hit, recorded by Scottish singer Aneka and released by the German record label Hansa,[1] which sold over 4.5 million copies; while the latter being a 1985-released Christmas hit, recorded by Welsh artist Shakin' Stevens. This last song reached no. 1 of the chart that year, and has since then become an annual mainstay of radio airplay in and around the December holidays.[2] This song was written by Heatlie in the middle of a heatwave during the summer.[3]

Heatlie wrote, always for Stevens, the songs "Cry Just A Little Bit" in 1983 and "Breaking Up My Heart" in 1985.[1] Heatlie wrote also another track for Stevens entitled "Woman (What Have You Done To Me)", included on the recording artist 1988 album "A Whole Lotta Shaky". Heatlie also co-produced and remixed nine songs on this Stevens' album. A remixed version of the same song was featured in Stevens' 2009 release "The Epic Masters Box Set". The last single Bob Heatlie worked on with Shakin' Stevens was "Radio", which was released in 1992 and featured Roger Taylor from Queen.

Current status

In later years, Heatlie is concentrating on doing musical compositions for children's television. He also composed the music for the documentary series Worlds Apart and the television special The Curious Case of Santa Claus.

Personal life

One of the partners of Bob Heatlie was Hungarian singer "Eva Csepregi", lead-vocalist of famous disco band "Neoton Família". Bob Heatlie produced her solo albums from 1985 to 1992, which were released in Europe and South Korea and were popular in Soviet Union and in Asia generally. In 1992 Eva and Bob had a son, David.

Songwriting credits

Solo

With Gordon Campbell
  • Local Hero – "Why Don't You" (B-side to the single "Daydream Believer")
  • Anya – "Moscow Nights" (single, 1985)
  • Shakin' Stevens – "Radio" (single, 10 October 1992, UK No. 37)

For TV

References
  1. Scougall, Murray (15 December 2020). "Shakin Stevens' Christmas song writer, Bob Heatlie: Snow wasn't falling all around me and children weren't playing, having fun... but I still knew it was a hit". The Sunday Post. Retrieved 6 October 2021.
  2. Moore, Sam (21 December 2020). "Seasonably rich: here's how much musicians make from our favourite Christmas songs". NME. Retrieved 6 October 2021.
  3. "The end of the Christmas Number One era". The Independent. 6 December 2015. Retrieved 6 October 2021.
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