Jamie Lawson: I sang to cope with the grief of losing Dad

JAMIE LAWSON tapped into the healing power of music to help him come to terms with the death of his father.

In a candid catch-up with Guilty Pleasures, Ed Sheeran’s protégé opened up about the tragedy, which happened when he was a teenager. ‘I’m the same age as my dad when he had me, so I’ve been thinking about him quite a lot,’ said the 41-year-old.

Jamie threw himself into singing as a coping mechanism. ‘I lost my dad when I was 19, quite a young age, and I was singing all the time,’ he recalled. ‘I was singing it out, wailing it out. It probably held me together.’

Now Jamie has put pen to paper with his upcoming track Sing To The River. ‘It’s a positive thing to take anything you’re going through and write it down. I do encourage people to write because it’s what helped me,’ he said.

However, he admits he’ll struggle to perform the emotional tune. ‘It’s going to mean a lot to me but I can imagine it’s going to be very hard to sing on tour,’ Jamie added. ‘I don’t know if I’ll do it very often.’

Back with new album Happy Accidents, out on September 29, he says the title refers to his chance encounters with Ed, 26, and also his missus — both of which took place at London music venue The Bedford. ‘The two most life-changing events happened there,’ explained the Wasn’t Expecting That singer. ‘It’s odd to have met Ed AND my wife there!’

Jamie was the first signing to Sheeran’s label Gingerbread Man Records — and beat his mentor to the best song musically and lyrically gong at last year’s Novello awards.

Sheeran ‘did well in his GoT cameo’

JAMIE jumped to defend his pal Ed following a recent wave of criticism against the star.

Trolls turned on Sheeran after his cameo in Game Of Thrones, and then complained his album Divide was too successful to qualify for a Mercury Prize nomination.

‘I thought he did really well in GoT, I enjoyed it!’ said Jamie. He admitted Ed’s album was ‘quite an unusual record’ for the Mercury panel, adding: ‘I’ll be interested to see how he does.’

And Jamie pointed out that Sheeran ‘just added an extra 20 dates to his stadium tour, so there can’t be that much hatred’.

Author: Tom Stichbury