ArtistInfo

Brian Bennett

org, *1942
Rock and Pop

Born in 1942, Brian later attended Archbishop Tennyson's School in Croydon and his first (and only) job was with Chappell’s the music publishers, leaving when The Hi-Fi.s made the big leap to become full time musicians in 1962. In 1980 Bryan wrote the music and collaborated with Jeremy Browne, who was a professional script writer. This was to produce a musical based on the legend of Sinbad the Sailor which they called “Splash”. A band was formed for the production called the Bagdad Big Band (Bryan Bennett MD/keyboards-Alan Pinches/guitars-Dave Smith/bass-Dave Tosh/percussion), This was then performed June 30th to July 4th 1980. He was very enthusiastic about this work at CYTO and felt it was important that professionals should always be prepared to give their time and talent, to promote the cause of the musical theatre amongst the young. He joined The Hi-Fi Rock-n-Roll Band after the first formative weeks in 1957 and was the only member to stay with the group until it came to its natural end in 1969. Further details are within the website and times and events Brian was involved with are mentioned within member’s profiles; in particular Len Ford and Malcolm Lenny have included a dedicated memory of him. Other memories may follow, hopefully from Brian’s time in musical theatre. After The Hi-Fi's disbanded in 1969/70, Brian (later on he changed his first name to Bryan), possibly wanting to separate himself from any confusion with the Shadows drummer Brian Bennett. even Brian Mathew on Saturday Club (now Sounds Of The Sixties) remarked about this confusion within a BBC broadcast programme that The Hi-Fi’s featured in with Jess Conrad, an audio recording of this is being produced. After returning from Germany for a short while he joined up with Len Ford/guitar vocals, Malcolm Wright/drums, Frank Jackson/bass, Brian on keyboards/vocals in The Chess Set.

Instruments

• Organ
• Vocals

Genres

• Rock
• Pop

Plays With

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Acknowledgements

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