The Helensburgh Heroes charity has triumphantly brought off one of the most inspirational, ambitious, complex and inclusive community projects imaginable – and it has legs for the long road.

The project

As we reported back in January this year, Helensburgh Heroes was the first community ‘Live Aid’ event, bringing together people of all ages from across Argyll’s biggest town to record a version of David Bowie’s unforgettable 1970′s song – you’ve guessed – Heroes.

Every single person involved, including musical Director Alan Craig, Head of Music at Glasgow’s Langside College and Kenny Hyslop of Simple Mind – both Helensburgh born -  donated their time and talent for the love of the project.

Fairwood Music Publishing gave the organisation permission to do this in their effort to raise awareness of both the area’s famous sons and daughters – and of its efforts to bring some vital music and arts facilities to the town.

Now the achievement is almost competed. Helensburgh Heroes heard last Monday that Bowie’s company is delighted with the recording and has given the all clear to release the single commercially – describing the recording as ‘very professional and passionate’.

This permission means that the recording can now be sent off off for mastering and production.

The Helensburgh reveal

Saturday 1st August at 7.30pm at Helensburgh’s Victoria Hall will be the big reveal of the band (in all possible senses) – the Helensburgh Heroes Experience, has created.

The Helensburgh Heroes Premiere Night will be a family evening of music and film. It’s in our Events Celendar- linked to this article – to remind you as the date approaches but put it in the diary now. This cannot be anything other than a night to remember – and here too, in the programme, you can see the scale of ambition and ‘can do’ attitude that is a credit to Helensburgh. The schedule for the event is:

• 7.30 pm – Doors open
• 8.00 pm – Introduction, welcome and presentations of framed artwork to the Primary School Children that designed the covers
• 8.15 pm – ‘World Premiere’ of the Heroes Video + Recording
• 8.30 pm – Dance & Sing A Long to Mamma Mia! (yes that Mamma Mia! – we have a giant screen coming up from London and have applied for a single screening license for the film)
• 10.00 pm – Disco
• Midnight – Carriages

Tickets will be £5 for adults and £1 for children – and anyone who contributed to the record or film will be given a free VIP pass. There is liely to be an audience of around 400 so don’t hang about in getting there.

The CD will be available for sale on the night at £3.99 but it will also be available on Itunes etc for around 99p. The video which will be shown highlights the aims of the project and actually manages to name-check all 70 identified Heroes who have links to the area.

Chink in the curtain now

Not the full reveal, but Helensburgh Heroes has produced a teaser clip for You Tube, with snatches of the images and voices fuelling the full video and heard in th CD – and here it is:

The facts

These facts gives an immediate sense of the scale of the project, the range of challenges and opportunities it offered and the widespread commitment to it from all parts of the Helensburgh community. It involved:

• 60-strong choir of volunteers aged 7 to 80
• 12 Lead Vocalists – aged 15 to 60+
• 6 Musicians
• 5 Film Crew
• 9 hours of rehearsals
• 20 hours of studio time
• Over 200 primary school pupil entries (P5, P6 & P7) from 7 Local schools for the Design the Cover Artwork competition
• 14 hours of art and design for CD/Sleeve etc
• 50 Hours of film footage
• and around 20 man days on location and in the film edit suite

The future

The PR campaign to raise awareness of what has been done and of what is planned is now beginning and For Argyll is delighted to celebrate an unparallelled and serendipitous achievement that offered involvement of all kinds for anyone. It will indicate a moribund national media if this project does not receive serious attention. It has something to say to anyone anywhere.

Already this project has had outcomes for the long term. It has formed a record company  – Helensburgh Heroes Records – and has got a cinema operators license. It has done both of these things as part of its determination to create facilities to support creative production by Helensburgh groups in the future.

It is to the enduring credit of Phil Worms, the project’s Director, that a huge community like Helensburgh could come together, inspired and motivated. Who say nows that urban ‘community’ is a contradiction in terms?

We will be talking to Phil Worms on another occasion about the planned development – for which there is already a business case – to be built on this foundation.

In our view, anyone who can pull together an operation as complex as this across a community as large and diverse as Helensburgh and create such a sense of common ownership of it has all the CV he needs for backing.

The authoritative source of information is the Helensburgh Heroes website.

The photographs above, from top left, show:

• Kenny Hyslop – Ex Simple Minds & Slik – Producer & Drummer for the Heroes Recording
• Emma Craig in Carlton Studio Recording
• Robert Kirk in the Carlton Studio recording
• Lead vocalists on location in Hermitage Park during video shoot
• On location in Helensburgh’s Colquhoun Square

Related Posts

• Helensburgh Heroes’ ‘Heroes’ now on iTunes and CD – and Dick Whittington beckons (0)
• Helensburgh’s ‘Heroes’ on target for Spring commercial release of Bowie cover – still time to get involved (0)
• Helensburgh Heroes go for a community ‘Live Aid’ record remix of David Bowie’s Heroes (2)
• Helensburgh Heroes Premiere Night (0)
• Conservatives sprinkle the Goldie dust on Argyll – but are they a team? (11)

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