Barry Ryan
Eloise
1968
Marion Ryan was a popular singer. She had two sons, twins, Paul and Barry who also sang. Being twins made them unusual as an act.
They had some success, but then Paul decided to retire from performing. He wrote, for his brother, this song which has huge orchestrations, manic vocal and a sense of drama.
A classic.
Chris Rainbow (Harley) was a Scottish singer, keyboard player and producer. You may not know his name, but it is very possible you have heard his work. Rainbow is noted for his fantastic singing which is always clear and accurate.
Let’s start with the solo stuff. Rainbow made three albums. The first is Home Of The Brave (1975):
This is a superb album. There is great variety in the songs, including a couple of out-and-out pop tunes and some more serious and reflective stuff, even some funk. It is mature and enjoyable.
The second album is Over My Shoulder.
As the cover might suggest, this is decidedly more poppy and instantly enjoyable, but not as good as the first record.
Third is White Trails (1979):
Rainbow’s multi-layer harmony vocals come out clearly on all these. White Trails is a fine album but the tracks seem too repetitive
All three albums are worth a listen, if you can track any vinyl copies down. Only White Trails is available on CD. There is also an anthology album. Apparently it was available on CD but is now not. I downloaded a copy from Amazon as MP3 files and it sounds OK. It features all his well-known songs, best album tracks, demos, jingles he did for Capital Radio and jingles Kenny Everett did for him.
Here’s a clip of Rainbow singing one of his hits. I don’t know who produced this video, but it seems all over the place. Anyway, it is relentlessly poppy, and certainly the first album is not in this style:
If you are a Beatles fan, you may well have heard of the group The Analogues. They are a Dutch/Irish group of musicians who specialise in doing something The Beatles never did – play their later works live. ‘Later’ really means from Sgt Pepper onwards.
The Analogues don’t try to look like the lads. There’s no fake accents, no silly wigs or uniforms, just a group of musicians who take pride in performing with as much authenticity as possible some of the greatest pop music ever written.
An Analogues concert always has a great atmosphere. The band has supplementary musicians, brass and strings plus percussion and guest singers.
So, they are on tour again. Some UK dates and many mainland Europe. We will miss them this year, but you should try to catch them if you can.
