John Bryant - Lights Of Town/ Milkman (Demos on acetate)

 

John Bryant's early demos for his 1971 LP

John Bryant was probably the first ever musician whose work I owned yet whose identity was something of a mystery. His scarce Fontana 45 "It's Dark" sat in my parents pile of old singles and my Dad, who shared his name and clearly had mischief on his mind, concocted a story that he had tried his hand at becoming a singer and this one effort was all he had to his name before he opted to take a more mundane working life. Obviously, I believed him.

It wasn't until I was about six years old that he burst out laughing and admit I'd been had, and I went from being proud of what I thought was my father singing a perfectly good song to feeling slightly cheated. "What?! What?! You didn't seriously think it was me, did you?" he asked, and a clear life lesson that parents were neither God-like figures nor obscure artists signed to Fontana was cruelly realised. 

From there, the single lived on in my own collection and I decided to carry the joke on, occasionally telling friends that it was my Dad's attempt at a hit record "but don't talk to him about it - he gets a bit funny. It's a real sore point". 

Back in the real world, this particular John Bryant came from Tooting, not Peckham like my Dad, and spent some time in the gigging beat group The Shifters in the sixties with future Groundhog Tony McPhee. He was then signed as a solo artist to Fontana and issued a trio of folk singles which highlighted his skills as an intimate performer, from the rough beatnik stylings of his first 45 "Tell Me What You See" through to the smoky shoreline contemplation of his final effort for the label, the aforementioned "Million Miles Away". 

Later on, he signed to MCA to issue the much fancied psychedelic pop effort "I Bring The Sun", before emerging on Decca to release the super-obscure "I Believe I Love You", then shunting over to Polydor in 1971 to finally issue a full-length LP. It's from that record that these two tracks stem, but unlike the versions you'll find there, these are stripped bare and boil the tunes down to the essence of Bryant and his acoustic guitar. While, for instance, "Lights Of Town" features a whining country guitar and Americanised arrangements on the commercially issued version, this acetate is acoustic, reflective and maudlin and altogether more English sounding (and actually better, from my point of view). 

Meanwhile, the other side features him bluesily considering murdering the local milkman, something I hope he managed to get over before a Richey Rich styled incident emerged to ruin his promising musical career. 

It's not clear what the purpose of either of these recorded versions was, but I suspect both are just early demos to either take home and work with or deliver to Polydor. It's not entirely impossible that both were used as bait to get Polydor to sign him, but sadly that's not easy to conclusively prove.

As for how I came by them, I put in a fairly low bid on an eBay auction and won, failing to immediately realise that both were likely to be John Bryant's work. Truly, the man haunts me time and time again. 

He has his own website here where you can dip into his back catalogue and read more about his career. 

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