Barry Blue

b. Barry Ian Green, 4 December 1950, London, England. Briefly famous in the early 70s as the pop artist Barry Blue, the young Barry Green’s early forays into music included playing in Spice (a forerunner to heavy rock band Uriah Heep). He recorded a number of singles as Barry Green for Decca Records in 1971, but during the early 70s singing in public was secondary to his composing skills, which peaked commercially with an international smash in 1972’s ‘Storm In A Teacup’ (co-written with Lynsey De Paul) for the Fortunes. His confidence boosted by this syndication, Green sought more prestigious customers. As it turned out, the act that derived most benefit from his songwriting talents was himself. Adopting the Barry Blue moniker, he scored UK hits in 1973 with ‘(Dancin’) On A Saturday Night’ (a number 2 smash) and ‘Do You Wanna Dance?’ (written with Gerry Schury and Ron Roker). The following year brought more chart entries with ‘School Love’ and ‘Miss Hit And Run’.


After ‘Hot Shot’ completed a five-week chart run in late 1974, Barry Blue the performer disappeared from the public eye. He remained busy, however, issuing singles under a variety of aliases and composing music for the films The Eyes Of Laura Mars and The Long Good Friday. In the 80s and 90s, Blue wrote songs for and produced acts as diverse as Toto Coelo (1982’s UK Top 10 novelty ‘I Eat Cannibals’), Bananarama, Celine Dion, Diana Ross, Dana, Dina Carroll, and Cry Sisco! (1989’s club hit ‘Afro Dizzi Act’). In 1995, he founded the music company Connect.