Brian appeared on the popular Charlie Chester music show for twenty years, made other frequent appearances on Radio 2 and was part of the house band for the illustrious Pebble Mill at One and Saturday Night at the Mill BBC television shows throughout the 70s, where he cemented his reputation as a musical director, working with the likes of Roy Orbison and Gene Pitney. Brian was a pioneer of the art of generating authentic string sounds from electronic organs and because of his unique sound his many solo tours during the early 1970s were often billed as showcases by organ companies, such as Hammond, Lowrey and Bentley. Particularly in Japan, Brian would receive star treatment as one of the day's top organists when he would make extended tours playing the Kawia organ in front of thousands of fans. It was during this period that Brian embarked upon his own recording career. Despite early reticence on the part of Grosvenor Records to use Brian for a session, a local music shop owner WJ Taylor financed Brian's first album, the quality of which then saw Brian welcomed into the Grosvenor fold, recording many albums with them through until the middle of the 1980s when the label disbanded. "Plays Mainly Hammond" was the first in the series of Grosvenor albums, and "String and Swings" the following release. The Grosvenor label evolved naturally from Hollick & Taylor Studios - assembled in the home of Jean and John Taylor - John was a former BBC radio employee and constructed his own in-house set up to start out making classical recordings in 1960. Down the years Grosvenor Studios played host to the birthing of such pop-tastic moments as the Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band's "Floral Dance" and Jasper Carrott's "Funky Moped". Hollick & Taylor was used as an imprint for many private pressings; the slightly more formal Grosvenor Records did have a small level of distribution throughout the UK, but were still largely sold by mail order and live performances, with pressings runs of around two thousands copies. For "Plays Mainly Hammond" Brian is accompanied only by drummer Kelvin Barnes but on "Swings and Strings" he was joined by his by then regular team of Alan Wilks on guitar, John Cleford on drums and John McCulloch on bass, who featured on his broadcast work down the years until the demise of the BBC Radio outside broadcast in the early 1980s, upon whose last event Brian was featured. After this Brian took up a fifteen year solo residency at a very up-market holiday centre at Poole in Dorset. After this changed hands a few years ago, Brian rediscovered the cinema organ, on which he had first learned his craft, and what he refers to as his Sunday job now involves appearances playing cinema organs across the nation. Brian continues to record, produce and release his own albums, clocking up around 35 releases to date. |
