A journalist who wrote for a regional daily for almost two decades has died aged 62.

Tributes have been paid to Colin Somerville, who was Edinburgh Evening News entertainment editor between 1994 and 1998 before becoming a freelance music writer for the News and its sister titles, The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday until 2012.

He also spent time as a music controller and presenter on Forth FM, six years presenting for BBC and was also comedy critic for Glasgow-based daily The Herald until 2012.

Colin’s children, Joe, Jake and Rachel Somerville announced his death on Facebook last Thursday evening.

EEN editor Euan McGrory said: “Colin was a great champion of Scottish pop music and had endless entertaining tales from his encounters and friendships with everyone from Prince to Fife’s Jackie Leven.

“Alongside his outstanding work in broadcasting, he will be known and treasured by many of our readers as a result of his long and distinguished association with our titles, particularly 15 years reviewing albums for Scotland on Sunday.

“He was much-loved and will be greatly missed by his former colleagues as well as everyone who loves great Scottish music.”

Announcing his death on Facebook, Joe wrote: “Jake, Rachel and I are heartbroken to announce that our Dad passed away this evening peacefully.

“We appreciate that he was a man with many friends and you all would want to pass on your messages in some way in these awful circumstances that we regrettably can’t be together. We couldn’t think of a way to break such horrible news.

“We will very much miss his stories, he never seemed to run out of a wild adventure to recall.

“We appreciate this will be hard news for a lot to hear and we would appreciate any stories people wished to share. Please look after yourselves. We will miss you dad.”