At the age of 24 Ali Whitton has been writing and playing since he was 17 years old. Originally hailing from a remote village in the North Yorkshire countryside, Whitton moved to Leeds to study in 2001 where he began performing his own compositions at open mic nights.
Before too long he had a good following locally and by 2005 was recognised as a winner in the city’s Bright Young Things competition. The very same year – Whitton and his band – also won a place on the unsigned stage at Leeds Festival beating off hundreds of hopefuls and still only playing as an acoustic band.
During 2004 and 2005 Whitton had begun playing alongside other musicians. The most constant of these was Lee Potter - a long-time friend and accomplished lead guitarist. In late 2005 Lee had a liver transplant. During his mend period in early 2006, Whitton assembled a much larger permanent backing band that would become the BrokeRecordPlayers. By the end of the year, Lee was back to full health and Ali and the band had completed the recording of their debut album which was self-funded.
Whitton has recently moved down to London in the hopes of gaining some more industry interest and he his playing solo acoustically again for the first time in a few years whilst still doing occassional gigs with his loyal backing band.
Whitton has supported such respected musicians as Tom McRae, Holly Golightly, Jonathan Rice, Scott Matthews, and Duke Special, it surely can’t be long until Ali is playing his own headlining gigs up and down the country.
