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Brian Connell and the Roundsound History
During the year 1966, the famous year that England beat West Germany in the world cup; seven amateur musicians got together and formed a band called ’Brian Connell and the Roundsound€’. This started out as being three guys from one band and three guys from another, calling in an organist to make a demo recording and it just continued from there. Barry Morgan, Bill Boston and Ed Spevock played with a band called ’The State Quintin Five’ and Brian Connell, Roger Shipp and Tony Moore were with ’The Index’. Brian knew Ed from a boy, it was decided that the three guys from ’The State Quinton Five’ would amalgamate with the three guys from ’The Index’ to form the Roundsound in 1966. The seven musicians, Brian Connell - vocals, Barry Morgan Bass Guitar, Bill Boston Baritone Saxophone, Trumpet and Flute, Ed Spevock Drums, Roger Shipp Tenor Saxophone and Tony Moore Lead Guitar, all played around London with different groups and Rob Miller, the Australian organist who plays cello for the BBC Concert Orchestra, completed the line up. Rob appeared on one demo and two releases which were ’Just My Kind Of Loving’ and ’The Same Thing's Happened To Me’ playing the cello.
During the early part of 1965, Brian was introduced to Harold Franz who worked for the music publisher B. Feldman & Co Ltd., in Dean Street, London, which is now part of EMI Publishing. Harold was also part of the management team together with Ronnie Beck and Ben Nesbit at 'Green Lane Productions' and he encouraged Brian to write a whole series of songs. In November the following year when the Roundsound was formed, a demo was produced entitled "Just My Kind Of Loving." Brian then took this demo to Harold at Feldman and instantly, he fell in love with it. This song was to become the for-runner for an official two-year recording and writing contract with Philips. "Just My Kind Of Loving" was released on the 30th December, 1966. Side B was "Some Thing's You've Got," written by Brian Connell the night before it was recorded with only one take.
From 1966 - 1968, the Roundsound produced 3 releases, 2 of which were produced on the Mercury label and the last release was on the Philips label. In January 1967, the Roundsound made there first appearance on ’BBC Saturday Club’ hosted by Brian Matthew. During Brian Connell's interview, he explains the style of music the band was playing, which was based on the American rock and soul sound. In late 1966 the band were looking for a name and the idea of the 'Roundsound' possibly came about from the influence of another band call 'Simon Dupree and the Big Sound'. The name may have evolved from the dominance of the two saxophones in the band that produced the big 'Round Sound'. This could be how the band got its name, but then again, maybe not!
During 1967, when the Roundsound made their second release titled ’The Same Thing's Happened To Me’ on the A side. To support this number, Johnny Franz who was the A/R Manager for Philips booked Dusty Springfield's backing singers who were Madeline Bell, Ki Ki Dee, and Leslie Duncan.Ā Brian Connell wrote this number together with Ed Spevock.Ā The B Side ’Mr. Porter’€¯ was written by Tony Moore. Today, this number is still being played on a regular basis in clubs internationally and comes under the category of ’Specialist Music’.
The third and final release made in 1968 was ’Just Another Wedding Day’, side A written by Barry Morgan and Tony Moore and the side B was ’What Good Am I’ written by Brian Connell.
In a business where speed and timing are all important, where fans can literally come overnight and where a hit record can blast a new artist from obscurity to fame in a matter of days, it has to be a speedy move indeed that warrants any notice. That is exactly the case with Mercury Records latest signing Brian Connell and the Roundsound. Four weeks ago, they did not exist! Today they are a seven-piece group with a song writing contract and a recording contract in their pockets.
Vocalist Brian Connell (24) explains, ’We were all playing for other groups within the London area, but weren't satisfied with the sort of music being made in them. We believe that the forward trend of pop music is moving towards the richer, fuller sound of the larger group, but not the raw brass sound of a big band, so we decided to create such a unit’.
Because the ’The Roundsound’ broke up before the end of their recording contract had expired, Brian Connell made a fourth release as a solo artist. The 2 numbers recorded with the Johnny Arthey Band in 1968 were ’I Know’ written by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazelwood on Side A and Side B was ’Mr. Travel Company’€¯ written by Brian Connell.
Now, nearly forty years on, Brian Connell has still kept up his singing career and over the years has sung with various famous people - Jimmy Hendrix being one of them. His current group The Runner Brothers regularly plays gigs around the London area. Bill Boston, the multi-talented musician, is also still playing and has been a member of various jazz bands, (including the famous Temperance Seven), playing trumpet, tuba, flute and various saxes. Ed Spevock is still a professional drummer and has played with innumerable stars all over the world. He passes on his experience and skills by giving lessons to aspiring younger drummers. Roger Shipp, their brilliant tenor sax player, who continued playing with a top jazz group after the Roundsound, is now a retired commercial artist and lives in Hertfordshire. Barry Morgan, the bass player, cut his music career short and went to France to marry his beautiful French girlfriend called Dominique. He later returned to England and is now a language teacher and still plays guitar and piano. For the marriage of his two children, he sang and played Beatles songs at both the church wedding ceremonies.
There has been no contact with Tony Moore, lead guitarist, since the group split up nor with Rob Miller the organist (and cellist for the BBC Concert Orchestra), who left Britain to play for the Danish Concert Orchestra. Rob, who met his Danish wife in Canada, told the guys that he hoped to return to Australia after a stint in Denmark as he thought it only fair that they should spend time in each other’s country before deciding where to settle down. The Roundsound’s ’roadie’, Dave Miles, who never played an instrument in the days of the group, has since taken up playing the guitar and learnt many of their songs. He is a chartered accountant and still keeps in touch with members of the group via Barry Morgan. He, Ed and Barry all went to Elliott School in Putney which was featured in the film ’Love Actually’.
Andrew Shipp, son of Roger, has produced a CD of the Roundsound’s releases and demos but the releases have been pirated and sold under the name of ’Brian Connolly 68 was 68. On this CD were 9 tracks of which 6 of them belong to Brian Connell and the Roundsound and the track ’I Know’ belongs to Albert Hammond and Mike Hazelwood and ‘Mr. Travel Company’ belongs to Brian Connell. The 9th track on this CD called ’Slow Motion’ was produced by Brian Connolly before he joined the band called ’The Sweet’. Production and sale of this pirated CD have now been banned.
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