UNLESS you are a real music expert the name Mark Nevin may be unfamiliar to you - but his songs certainly won’t be.

In the 1980s he wrote all the major hits for Fairground Attraction including the number one single Perfect and subsequently his songs have been performed by Morrissey, David Bowie and Ringo Starr.

Now Mark is heading out with his own band for a show at Bury Met next week.

With five solo albums to his name - the most recent, My Unfashionable Opinion was released last year - he’s just put out a four-track EP; the wonderfully-titled Dolly Said No To Elvis.

The title track was inspired by the story of Dolly Parton turning down a request from Elvis Presley to record her song I Will Always Love You after his manager, Colonel Parker insisted she pay half the royalties to his client.

“That story always stayed with me,” he said. “It was such amazing courage to say ‘I don’t think so Elvis’. As a songwriter I found it inspiring.”

Mark, as you might expect, is a passionate advocate for the songwriter’s art.

“I do think the song has been devalued over the years, since the dawning of MTV probably,” he said.

“When there was just the radio, the song was so important - you’d either have a great song or nothing at all. Then with the arrival of the video it became more about the celebrity and what was on the video than the song itself. I think that was the beginning of the end of the golden era of pop music really.

“For the songwriter, the songs are the most important thing. It’s incredible how little respect people give to the songwriter. As a fan of music I grew up with them as the gods and that’s what I wanted to be. Then I began to realise they were beginning to be marginalised to the point that on Spotify they don’t even put the songwriters name on at all.

“In classical music they put the name of the composer in big letters and the performer in small letters. Now in pop music it’s completely the other way round so that the composer isn’t even on there.”

The death of David Bowie was something which had a profound effect on Mark as a songwriter.

“I’d said it many times that I thought I would run out of songs,” he said. “But when I heard how David Bowie had written almost maniacally when he knew he was dying it made me appreciate that you have to take risks and songs will come.

“I have feeling that any song I finish expresses something and for that moment has captured that little butterfly in a cage. More and more I find I want to write songs that are about something unique.”

For all his success, Mark firmly believes that he is enjoying making music now more than ever.

“I do love it,” he said. “To go on tour with guys I have played with for years is just so enjoyable. It all jut slots together effortlessly. When I’ve tried to play with other musicians it’s been as though I’m trying to shoehorn something that didn’t fit.”

Mark Nevin, Bury Met, Tuesday, February 20. Details from www.themet.biz