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Underachieving pop-puppet twins take control, book an orchestra and zoom to the Getty top.
HANDSOME TWINS from Leeds in Mod-friendly suits, Paul and Barry Ryan, the sons of ’50s British TV variety star Marion Ryan (“the Marilyn Monroe of popular song”) broke through in 1965 with songs written by Tom Jones stalwart Les Reed. Too unruly for cabaret but not exactly hip, well-liked for their youthful charm, but seen as slightly gimmicky – a cover of The Paris Sisters’ I Love How You Love Me retooled with bagpipes wasn’t what anyone ordered – their decent pop singles often ended up as turntable or mid-table hits. For example, their rousing pirate radio fave, Keep It Out Of Sight, written by Cat Stevens, should have risen higher than Number 30.
Listening to contemporary interviews, you can’t tell them apart. But there was one marked difference. Paul mistrusted the limelight, whereas Barry basked in it. After a run of flops, Paul proposed a new arrangement. Barry would go solo and Paul would provide all the material. A particularly bold plan, as he’d not written any songs before. But at a showbiz party in 1968, Richard Harris gave the brothers a sneak preview of MacArthur Park. Impressed and inspired, Paul was convinced he could write something with similar scope, locked himself away for three days and emerged with Eloise, an unignorable six-minute pop epic that starts with someone cackling maniacally over an orchestra and builds from there. It actually rose higher than MacArthur Park, to Number 1 on some charts.
It was a promising start. Barry Ryan was soon having hits all over Europe with his brother’s extravagant compositions. He was especially popular in Germany. But excellent singles like The Hunt and Magical Spiel failed to match Eloise’s success at home, stalling mid-table again. Barry had first crack at Cat Stevens’ evergreen Wild World but missed its potential as a single (perhaps because the chorus wasn’t quite finished!). The preposterous Red Man, a big hit in France, complete with a huge choir and Cossack-style “Hey!”s failed to get a UK release.
All of the above appear on a brimming 5-CD set, Barry Ryan – The Albums
1969-79 ★★★★ (Cherry Red), a complete overview of his disparate and fascinating output, including two Europe-only albums and one unreleased, plus loads of non-album singles. Hear
