Jude Davison
Overview
Jude is a composer, author, musician and recording artist. He has written and produced 21 albums of varied musical styles and genres with songs that include Americana, rock, pop, country, soul, gospel, blues, mariachi, Dixieland, and even a trilogy of spoken word/music albums. His songs have been licensed to numerous TV shows - Baywatch, Cold Squad and feature films - Return to Turtle Island, The Raffle (with the soundtrack album featuring Elton John and Dan Hill), and his first single, Lifeline, reached no. 25 in the USA adult contemporary charts. In 2015 Jude turned his attention toward writing prose. He has now published seven books – three novels (Cybersoul, The Underwater Birds, A Writer’s Prerogative), three collections of short stories (Cripples and Creeps, Small Cruelties, and The Goldfish and a Ticket to the Moon) and a musical memoir (Uncertain Heaven).
The Early Years
Growing up between England, Australia and eventually Canada where his family settled in 1975, Jude first picked up a guitar when he was fourteen. Quickly mastering the basics, he also began writing his own songs. Upon graduating from high school Jude attended the prestigious Fanshawe College Recording Engineering programme where he won Best Composition Award in both years and the Silver Reel Award for outstanding academic and creative achievements. It was at college that Jude really started to take songwriting seriously, and the idea of a career as a recording artist began to take shape. Early bands included the college punk band – The Wogs, and then new wave/Motown band – The Sensations, which played in and around Toronto and landed a song on the 1984 radio station Q-107’s Homegrown album.
Back to the Wonderful
Crusoe
Jude played solo gig residencies in Stratford Ontario over the course of three summers in the mid-1980s, writing, recording and releasing three cassette albums – his first venture into being an independent recording artist. Moving to Vancouver in 1987, Jude attracted a management contract with New Hayden Music and began seriously woodshedding and crafting songs for what would evolve into his first real big budget album. Recording under the name Crusoe, that album became Back to the Wonderful – released in the USA and Germany. The album produced a number 25 hit in the USA – Lifeline, and several songs were used in films and two were licensed to the world’s most syndicated TV show, Baywatch. The follow up Crusoe album was recorded in 1996 and titled Strange Fruit and featured a harder-edged rocking sound.
The Nelson Years
Drop Dead Scene & Leland Frank
Now living in Nelson BC and after a year of teaching music at Selkirk College, Jude embarked on a more expansive creative path. A road trip to Los Angeles inspired the creation of an edgy imaginary rock band called – Fetish, and the writing and recording of their album Neurotic Erotica. Working in partnership with poet, Blake Parker, the pair wrote the screenplay – Drop Dead Scene which featured the story of the rise and fall of Fetish and featured songs from their album. Quickly following on from this expansive project Blake and Jude wrote another screenplay titled: Slow Resurrection – the life and times of Leland Frank. Jude crafted an album of traditional country songs – God’s Big Radio, to be featured in the project which eventually evolved, and toured, as a multimedia show of poetry, music, video and storytelling.
The Nelson Years - part 2
Producing
During this time Jude continued playing solo gigs in restaurants and pubs and over the course of several years produced three albums of acoustic-oriented material: Uncertain Heaven, Ordinary Dream, Bread & Bones. These albums featured Jude originals augmented with eclectic covers by the likes of Kate Bush, Radiohead, Prince, and Tom Waits. Jude’s work as a record producer during this time was just as varied. He produced albums ranging from heavy metal, country music, a Tibetan prayer album, to a Doukabour choir CD, a Waldorf School CD, a couple of Americana CDs by Seattle artist Eva Tree, as well as numerous singer/songwriter projects.
Cybersoul
The next major creative project was hatched during a conversation with Blake about cyborgs. Jude quickly began writing songs in the style of 1970s soul/Motown for what he envisioned would be presented as a stage musical. Work on this project took place throughout 2003 with Jude writing and recording 18 new songs and a libretto for the musical now titled Cybersoul. Combining Shakespearean themes with an allegory of the Black Civil rights movement, Cybersoul is the story of a race struggle between the cyborgs and clones where true love was destined to fail.
Jude Rain
Angels in the Slipstream
In 2005 Jude wrote songs with singer and lyricist, Rain Sheilds, for what would become the spiritual album, Angels in the Slipstream. Celebrating the universal oneness of all things, the album featured a world music sound combined with pop sensibilities.
Blake & Jude
The Terminal City Trilogy
Unfortunately, in the mid-2000s Jude’s good friend and collaborator, Blake Parker, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The pair soon got busy recording Blake’s rich back catalogue of performance poems. Then Jude began to compose music for Blake’s performances. Over the course of several months this evolved into 3 CDs of spoken word and music which they titled, The Terminal City Trilogy – Highway Blues, Lizard man, Blue Martian Dusk.
Circo de Teatro
Outskirts of Eden & Head Bone Gumbo
Between 2009 and 2012 Jude released the back-to-back critically acclaimed albums, Circo de Teatro, the sprawling double disc, Outskirts of Eden, and Head Bone Gumbo, all of which are distributed in the UK and Europe by Proper Records. In April 2011 both Circo and Eden received recognition at the BCIMA Awards (Canada) winning Concept/Collaboration Album of the Year and Best CD/DVD Artwork/Graphics respectively. All these albums have garnered rave reviews, received radio airplay throughout Europe and North America, and have sparked comparisons with Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and Lyle Lovett.
Living in the UK
Books & new album
In 2011 Jude and his wife moved to live and work in England and in 2015 Jude turned his attention to writing prose. Starting with a book of short stories – Cripples and Creeps, this was quickly followed by a musical memoir – Uncertain Heaven, and then in quick succession three novels – Cybersoul, The Underwater Birds, and A Writer’s Prerogative. In 2024, after retiring from his career in the NHS, Jude and his wife moved to the north of England and settled in Carlisle. Taking advantage of additional free time, Jude wrote two new collections of short stories – Small Cruelties and The Goldfish and a Ticket to the Moon, and returned to writing music again with the 2025 release of Ghost Town along with Tomorrow's Rain (with singer Craig Bell).