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ABOUT THE WRITER
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Barry
K. John (alias B.J) was born in London, England during WWII. At
that time London was enduring regular bombing by the Luftwaffe, like
so many other Londoners his family evacuated the capitol. The John
clan headed for the relative safety of Oxford, where Barry attended
his first school. At the end of the war the family returned to
London. On completion of his education, Barry joined one of London's
major brewing companies, thus starting a long career in the industry,
eventually he was appointed Brewing Manager of one of Britain's most
famous breweries.
During the 1950's, like so many other teens of the era, he got hooked on the Rock'n'Roll craze, spending most of his Friday afternoons at the local record store along with his pal and music mentor Brian Taylor, both invested much of their hard earned pocket money on the latest 'hot waxes'. Unimpressed by the advent of the '60s 'Liverpool Sound', and realising that Rock'n'Roll as we had known it was about to be buried by this new music, he turned his interests towards the roots of rockabilly, such as early country, bluegrass and hillbilly boppers.
Still a keen collector of both rockabilly and hillbilly music after well over 30 years, he is now able to devote more time to his hobby, having decided to take a premature retirement from his work as a Brewmaster in England. He moved to Arizona in 1994, along with his family who run a successful High-Tech recruitment company.
Through the years, B.J has helped to organise Rockabilly tours of the U.K and Europe by a number of American artistes, many of whom he got to know well. To name a few they include; Rose Maddox, Sonny Burgess, D.J. Fontana, Glen Glenn, Joe Poovey and Eddie Bond. But with all due respects to his friends, he admits his greatest thrill was spending time with Marty Robbins in Nashville during the early '80s. It was through a friend of Marty's that Barry got interested in songwriting. B.J wrote the title song for Glen Glenn's album 'Everybody's Movin' Again' released in 1982, and two years later he penned 'Spellbound' for Sonny Burgess.
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