The Jazz Organ Scene
Great Britain
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Bryn Barklam
Bryn was born in 1966 the same week the Small Faces went to number 1 in the UK
charts with All or Nothing. He started piano lessons at the age of 5, but one afternoon
during the school holidays he first heard the sound of the Hammond Organ. While attempting to
learn to dance he and a friend listened to a tune from the Quadrophenia soundtrack over
and over again. The selected track was Green Onions by Booker T & the MG's, and it had
a greater impact on his ears than his feet. After searching music shops in the hope of
playing a Hammond that didn't have what looked like boiled sweets stuck next to the drawbars,
Bryn finally found an organ in a Welsh chapel during his summer holidays, and was lucky
enough to be allowed to practise on their M100 during the week.
In the early 90's, while working in a record shop that conveniently had an extensive jazz organ section on vinyl, he saw an advert in the back pages of a music paper from a band with a Hammond C3 looking for an organist. Bryn joined Route 73, an R&B influenced indie band, and played several pubs and clubs around London. One Sunday, struggling to carry the Hammond out of the rehearsal rooms, he literally bumped into the next band to use the room - Mother Earth. They'd just recorded a studio album, Stoned Woman, with James Taylor on Hammond, and needed an organist to join them for their debut gig at the Acid Jazz Christmas Party in 1991. Now a live act the band developed their sound during numerous tours of Europe, Japan and Australia, returning to London for recording sessions often at the Acid Jazz studios in Soho's Tin Pan Alley. More albums followed - The People Tree, due to be re-mastered and re-released in April 2007, You Have Been Watching, which the band demoed in a Welsh cottage, and The Desired Effect, a live album taken from the band's final European tour. After Mother Earth Bryn went on to record with The Chords and play organ for Buzzcocks at the Sex Pistols reunion gig at Finsbury Park. His new band is an instrumental Hammond power trio consisting of organ, drums and guitar named Captain Hammond. |
| contact: | bryn.barklam@googlemail.com |
| homepage: | |
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www.myspace.com/captainhammond |
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Click on the logo to see Bryn's tour dates. |
