DJ Avo, aka Stephen Avison, was born in a little village in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire and grew up in the same area. He fell in love with trucking as that’s what his father did for a living. He had big dreams of driving the big rigs in the United States. The first country song he ever heard was Jerry Reed’s Eastbound & Down from the movie Smokey and the Bandit.
He started DJ’ing when he was 17 years old, doing mobile discos around the Yorkshire Dales until he became a truck driver in the UK at the age of 23, settled down, got married, had an amazing son, who very recently gave him the pleasure of his first grandchild. During that time, he was forever remixing music. His love for music of all genres was second to none. However, in 2009, he and his wife went their separate ways. He emigrated to Canada with his son in 2012 to drive the big rigs, not only there, but through America too. His dream came true. For a chap from North Yorkshire, driving through 44 American states and eight Canadian provinces was quite the achievement.
Whilst there, he fell in love with country music, head over heels, started writing lyrics and still continued to remix music, as that was his passion. He spent three years before returning to England, wearing his cowboy hat and boots.
He worked hard and built up a thriving mobile disco business, mainly funded by his truck driving in the UK. However, his love for country started to tell as he was offering and doing more and more country nights. His writing of lyrics never changed and his love for music and mixing never either and still hasn’t, but technology did. A friend gave him the idea to use AI to sing his songs and he’s never looked back since. He so wishes he could sing or play instruments, but he can’t. What he can do is write lyrics and remix and create digital music with heartfelt lyrics. One of his songs My True Hero (My Dad) is about his dad having Alzheimer’s. The song is currently raising money for the Alzheimer’s Society using it.
What he asks is, please see past the AI singing, listen to the lyrics and the sound. He hopes one day, someone will actually sing his songs. Already one artist has come forward, so maybe watch this space.
He has 2 Albums released, Born In The UK and Reborn In The UK and a third album is due very shortly called Latin Line Fusion. It will include 10 alternative line dancing songs including an additional bonus track for hen Pparties. All are available on all platforms to either listen to or download. Downloads are also available for single releases from his website.
Summer Sun, from the album Reborn In The UK, was written in December 2025 on a grey and miserable cold wet day in Wensleydale, where it mostly rains every day. DJ Avo was just sitting there thinking how he can’t wait for the summer sun.
