Barry St. John

Elizabeth Thompson (born Glasgow, Scotland), stage name Barry St. John, was a Scottish female singer who had a No. 47 hit in the UK Singles Chart in December 1965 with "Come Away Melinda". It was her only solo chart success.

Biography

Raised in Glasgow, she sang from a young age, and performed in clubs in Hamburg in the early 1960s. After returning to England she signed with Decca Records in 1964 and released her first single, a version of the Shirelles' "A Thing of the Past". Her follow-up, a cover version of the Newbeats' hit "Bread and Butter", made the German pop charts later that year. Although she continue to release singles in the UK, they had little success. In 1965 she moved to Columbia Records, and had her only UK singles chart entry with "Come Away Melinda", a Weavers song previously recorded by Harry Belafonte. Later releases on Columbia were less successful, although several became popular a few years later on the Northern soul scene. In 1967, she recorded further solo singles, on the Major Minor label, and also released an album, According to St. John, produced by Mike Pasternak aka Emperor Rosko.

She sang with the Les Humphries Singers between 1972 and 1973. St. John was also a background singer on many records, including Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), and Andy Fairweather Low's, La Booga Rooga (1975). She was used as a session musician by a string of other artists including Alexis Korner, Long John Baldry, and Duster Bennett in the late 1960s, and with Bryan Ferry, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel and Elton John in the 1970s. Her other project work the following decade encompassed Vivian Stanshall, Kevin Coyne, John Cale, Daevid Allen, Tom Robinson and Whitesnake. Her work continued in to the early 1990s with Squeeze and Jorge Ben Jor.