DESIGN: A PERSONAL HISTORY

by Barry Johnston

1968 - 1970

At the beginning of January 1969 I received a phone call from Tony Smith, a friend of my sister’s. Although born in Cambridge, he had spent most of his life abroad because his father was in the armed services. He now worked at the BBC Gramophone Library in London, but he was also a songwriter, and he had heard that I had a songwriting contract with the Beatles’ company, Apple Publishing. Tony said he had just started a vocal group and he would like my opinion. It sounded interesting.

The group had been together for less than a month. In mid-December 1968 Tony had wanted to record a couple of his songs and had enlisted a colleague from the BBC, Alec Reid, to produce the session for him. They needed some backing singers and Alec had suggested Gabrielle Field, a secretary with the BBC World Service and an actress with the BBC’s Ariel Theatre Group. She brought along her best friend, Kathy Manuell, who worked in the research department at an advertising agency and was also studying classical singing at the Guildhall School of Music. The girls had been friends since the age of three and had gone to a convent school together in Bexleyheath, in Kent, where they sang in an amateur group called The Stevettes.

Another of Tony’s colleagues in the BBC Gramophone Library was John Mulcahy-Morgan. John’s father had also served in the army. Born in Cairo, he now lived in Northwood, in north London, and he played the drums for a semi-pro rock group called Free Expression. John came along to the session and he brought with him the group’s singer, Geoff Ramseyer. They recorded two songs and when they listened back afterwards it sounded so good that Tony suggested they form a group.

I went to see them rehearsing at the girls’ flat in Baron’s Court, in west London. The harmonies were glorious, the songs were catchy and original, and the girls had beautiful soprano voices that gave the group a unique sound. Over the next few weeks I attended several more rehearsals. I have always loved singing harmonies and I started to sing along on some of their songs. One day Tony invited me to join them and on 24 February 1969 I became the sixth member of Design.

We were all aged 19 or 20. The girls were convent educated and the boys had all been to private fee-paying schools. I was an Old Etonian and John had been to Wellington, so we were very different from most groups at that time. Later the press would describe us as ‘an upper-crust chorus’, but we always believed our education was irrelevant. We were serious about creating an original vocal harmony sound using our various musical influences – Tony and I were folk-based singer-songwriters, while Gabrielle and Kathy had received classical training, and John and Geoff were from a rock group.

Things started to move fast. We all had day jobs and we used to rehearse in Tony’s flat every night after work. But we lived miles away from each other and wasted half the evening getting to and from the rehearsals. We decided it would be simpler to rent a flat together, so we could rehearse whenever we liked. Just two weeks after joining the group, I left home, and we all moved into a basement flat in Collingham Road, in Earl’s Court.

Soon afterwards we had a visit from Adrian Kerridge, who had engineered several of the hits by the Dave Clark Five, and was now head of Lansdowne Studios. One of his engineers, Peter Gallen, knew Tony and had persuaded Adrian to listen to us. We sang him all the songs we knew. A few days later he offered us a recording contract, and on 21 April 1969 we signed with his production company, Motive Music International, which he owned jointly with the musical arranger and composer, Sydney Dale.

We soon encountered a serious problem. The group had only ever sung with Tony playing his 12-string guitar and we had developed a harmonic style in which our six voices filled the gaps normally played by the other instruments. When we sang with backing musicians for the first time, it simply did not work. We decided that the only way we could preserve our distinctive sound was to record the tracks with our voices and Tony’s guitar and for Syd Dale to add the other musicians later. It is the complete opposite to how recordings are usually made but it worked for us and we recorded the whole of our first album in this way.

For the next six months we went to our jobs during the day and then returned to the flat and rehearsed every evening. Whenever a new song was ready, we would go into Lansdowne Studios, often at five o’clock in the morning, or at midnight, when the studio was not being used. By the end of the year we had completed enough songs for an album.
Most of the album was written by Tony. There were pop songs like ‘Coloured Mile’, ‘Thinkin’’ and ‘Marguaretta’, story songs like ‘Matchbox Man’ and ‘Buttercup Stranger’, and the beautiful ballad ‘The Lonely’, sung by the girls in perfect unison. Our favourites were the more unusual tracks, ‘Speak’, ‘Children of the Mist’ and ‘Dawn Chorus’, which ignored the traditional verse and chorus structure of most pop songs and were more like song cycles with different themes and movements. Not very commercial, perhaps, but exciting to sing and unlike any other group at the time. The final song, ‘The Minstrel’s Theme’, had been written by me when I was at Apple and was about my girlfriend, Josephine, but by the time Design recorded it, she had left me and married someone else!

During the summer we had auditioned for BBC Radio and our first radio session was for the late night Radio Two programme Night Ride with Jon Curle. It was broadcast on 29 October 1969, the first time any of Design’s music was heard on the air. By the end of the year we had been booked to record five more radio shows and we started to earn some money for the first time.

Now the album was finished, in January 1970 Syd Dale decided to use his publishing contacts in the USA to secure a record deal. At the last moment Tony wrote a song called ‘Willow Stream’, his most commercial so far, so we rushed into Lansdowne to record it, and it was added to the album only hours before Syd flew off to the States. A week later he returned in triumph. His great friend Al Gallico, a leading independent music publisher, had introduced Syd to Larry Cohn at Epic Records. After listening to the first three songs on the album, Cohn had offered Design a worldwide record deal for two albums and an advance of $25,000.

We were amazed. Very few British artists had ever signed a record deal with an American label. Especially an unknown vocal group. We thought it would open the door to the American market but we did not realise the problems it would cause later.

Now that the group was earning some money we were able to give up our jobs and we all moved into a much larger flat a few streets away in Rosary Gardens. We even had space for a grand piano in the living room. The radio bookings continued to come in and we recorded more than a dozen sessions for Radio Two. To fill out our sound, we started using an extra guitarist, Jeff Matthews, who had been the lead guitarist in John and Geoff’s old group Free Expression. When they split up he had returned to college in Brighton to study for his Bachelor of Science as a quantity surveyor. After qualifying he had slept on our floor for a while before moving into the flat upstairs from us. Jeff was a superb guitarist and could play acoustic or electric and even bass guitar when necessary. He soon became an indispensable member of our team.

Epic Records released ‘Willow Stream’ as our first single in the USA on 25 May 1970. It was chosen by Cashbox and Variety as one of the best singles of the week, with Variety describing the song as ‘a smooth flowing pop-rocker with an emphasis on Fifth Dimension-like harmonies’. It also picked up some airplay from a few radio stations, but without any promotion it failed to take off.

‘Willow Stream’ was released by CBS Records in the UK on 17 July 1970. We had been introduced to a young American agent called Alan Frey, who had recently arrived in England to set up the London office of the talent agency IFA. He offered to help us and almost immediately he came up with our first television show. It was a TV special called South Bank Summer and was filmed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s South Bank.

Before it was transmitted we were booked on two more TV shows. The Golden Shot went out live from Birmingham and in order to appear on the show, we had to join the actors’ union Equity. There was already another member with a similar name, so I had to change mine, and I adopted the professional name of Barry Alexander. All went well on The Golden Shot until the journey home, when Tony collapsed in agony. We rushed him to hospital where he was diagnosed with an ulcer and a ruptured hernia. We had to appear on Stewpot for the first time without him.

The single had received some good reviews but it did not sell. Alan Frey told us we needed to get some live experience before he could book us in America and he arranged a month-long tour of US army and NATO bases in Germany and Italy. Against the advice of his doctors, Tony was wrapped up in bandages, and in September we set off for Germany. The tour went wrong from the start. We had never performed professionally on stage before and our expensive new PA system did not work properly. Tony had to sing sitting down because of his hernia, and the American servicemen did not like our music. To make it worse, when Alan Frey heard what had happened, he became unavailable on the phone, and our hopes of performing in America suddenly evaporated.

This was when we began to realise our recording deal was a mistake. Our first album had still not been released in the USA because Epic were waiting for us to go there to promote it first, and CBS in the UK were refusing to release it before America. We had to ring Larry Cohn in New York and persuade him to issue the album and another single, ‘Coloured Mile’.

The failure of the tour affected Tony more than anyone. He was still not well and he became gradually more depressed. He says now, ‘I realised that I didn’t enjoy being on television or having to perform on stage with the group. I hadn’t really thought it through. I preferred writing and being in the studio.’ One morning in November we awoke to find he had gone. A few days later, we had a call from Alec Reid to say that Tony was leaving the group. We were stunned. Tony had created Design, wrote most of the songs, arranged the harmonies, sang lead vocals, played the guitar, co-produced the records, and even managed our bookings. In hindsight, it was all too much.

Once the shock of Tony’s departure had sunk in, we had to decide what to do next. It was Geoff who pulled us all together and said, ‘Come on, we can do this without Tony.’ We had no money, or work, but our first album was about to be released in the States and if we could finish the second album we could collect the rest of the advance due under our contract with Epic.

We also had no manager or agent. We had always handled everything ourselves but it was obvious we needed help if we wanted any success. Syd Dale introduced us to an impresario called John Coast, who represented some of the world’s leading opera stars, as well as singers such as Nana Mouskouri. He and his partner, Frank Powis, agreed to take us on. Finally, things started to happen.

Our first album was released in the USA at the end of 1970. We had intended to call it Children of the Mist and had commissioned a cover drawing by an art student called John Ireland. It showed four children looking out over a mythological landscape. When we saw the American album cover we were horrified. They had created their own artwork – a huge ear with a rainbow over it. We protested but it was too late to change it. Since then, the obscure cover has helped to make our only US album release a favourite with collectors. One Italian website has even described it as ‘the Holy Grail of soft rock’!

1971 - 1972

Jeff Matthews agreed to join us as a full-time member of the group and in January 1971 we went into Lansdowne Studios to record our second album. We included three songs that we had started earlier with Tony – ‘Sad Fisherman’, ‘Jennifer No One’ and ‘Butterfly Catcher’, as well as a new song by him, ‘Celestina’, with John singing lead. Without Tony playing guitar, we were able to experiment more with our sound. The arranger Lew Warburton was brought in to oversee the rhythm sections and we booked top session musicians such as Clem Cattini on drums, Herbie Flowers on bass, Roger Coulam on keyboards and Chris Spedding on electric guitar.

We recorded four of my songs, ‘Tomorrow Is So Far Away’, with a wonderful guitar solo by Jeff, ‘Ladybird Don’t Fly’, ‘Love Is’ and ‘The Time Has Come’. The latter was again about my ex-girlfriend, and the soaring string arrangement by Syd Dale brought a tear to my eye when I first heard it in the studio. ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ was one of the earliest songs we had learned as a group and it is a good example of how we liked to use our voices as instruments. ‘Man We Was Lonely’ was taken from Paul McCartney’s first solo album McCartney, and I believe we were the first artists in the world to cover the song. It featured just the six of us, with all the guitars being played by Jeff, and the percussion by John.

The final session was arranged by Alan Parker, the guitarist from Blue Mink, and was a major change of direction for us. We had been given an advance pressing of an album by an American vocal group called The Groop. We knew nothing about them but we loved ‘The Jet Song’, written by Chris Ducey of The Penny Arkade. It involved a totally different vocal style for us, with the girls singing an octave lower instead of their normal soprano. The other track was the excellent ‘Take A Boat’, our first recording of a song written by John.

Now came the pivotal moment in our career. John Coast arranged an audition for us with John Ammonds, the producer of The Morecambe and Wise Show on BBC television. This was the most popular TV show in the UK. We sang him several of our own songs but he insisted that we had to perform one that was already well known, and he chose our arrangement of ‘Sunny’ by Bobby Hebb. We could have refused but it was hard to turn down such a popular show. We had an album to promote and we knew it would give us nationwide exposure, which it did, but it also branded us as ‘family entertainers’. We went on to appear on more than fifty television shows but it would take us a long way from our folk-rock roots and in a completely different musical direction.

The first album was finally released in the UK on 19 March 1971. By then it was already more than a year old and Tony was featured as a singer and songwriter, but he had already left the group. CBS would not pay for John Ireland’s colour drawing, so we had to settle for a black and white photograph of the new line-up. The album picked up some good reviews. It was named album of the month on Radio Two and Melody Maker said: ‘Sitting listening to Design, storm clouds collecting outside the window, threatening a wet night, it could be summer all year. Soft harmonies, pretty words and theatrical arrangements float around the room … Design come as a break, a welcome break.’ Record Mirror said, ‘It’s no rock-hard group. It’s a group that builds round delicate harmonic imagery and works for a subtlety of approach that registers well.’

At the same time we released ‘Jet Song’ as our second single, but it received hardly any airplay. It was a major disappointment. A couple of years later I heard Tony Blackburn play the single on his radio show with the comment, ‘That’s Design. Why don’t they make records like that anymore?’ The answer was that nobody would play it at the time!

Fortunately, ATV liked our album and booked us for a series of six Sunday night television shows called Songs That Matter. We had to choose songs with a religious connection and they came in useful when we were invited to be the choir at the wedding of Melody Maker journalist Mark Plummer and the singer Christine Harwood. The organist was Rick Wakeman of Yes. Later that year we were the backing singers on Christine’s debut album Nice To Meet Miss Christine, which has now become a collector’s item.

In August we made our first professional stage appearance in the UK with Rolf Harris in Bournemouth, billed as ‘Television’s new sensational vocal group’. All this exposure persuaded CBS to release our second album in the UK. The title was Tomorrow Is So far Away and we were finally able to use John Ireland’s cover artwork from the first album.
The album received great reviews. Record Mirror said: ‘1972 simply must prove the real breakthrough year for this six-strong group – two girls, four boys. With backing musicians who read like a who’s who of top session men, the voices blend with an intuitive musicianship that really scores. They are wistful, then joyous … switching moods with positive ease. Despite the current glut of releases, this one stands out. Way out.’
In the book Galactic Ramble, published in 2009, Simon Crisp wrote later: ‘Well orchestrated and produced, it’s sunshine harmony pop with a light hippy vibe. The vocals are outstanding, and if it had been released in 1968 it might well have been huge. By late 1971, however, it didn’t stand a chance. In particular, ‘Jet Song’ sounds like the biggest hit the Mamas and the Papas never had.’

Our third single, ‘Love Is’, was released on 15 October 1971 and it immediately started to pick up considerable airplay on Radios One and Two. New Musical Express wrote: ‘It’s difficult to categorise this group – there are so many different influences, yet the approach is essentially individualistic. This haunting rhythmic ballad was composed by group member Barry Alexander, and is outstanding for the outfit’s brilliant counter-harmonic treatment. A classy disc, not too commercial, but a routine for the more discriminating fan to savour.’ We sang it on The Morecambe and Wise Show and Noel Edmonds described us on Radio One as ‘one of the best vocal groups in the world … and British to boot!’

Then the blow fell. CBS suddenly discovered that our contract with Epic in the USA was about to expire. The head of CBS in London had never liked the fact that we had signed direct with the American company and he refused to renew our contract. ‘Love Is’ was bubbling under the charts. We pleaded with the A & R department but they were told to stop work on Design instantly. I was told, ‘That’s it’…and it was. All promotion stopped and within a couple of weeks the single had disappeared from the radio. It was the closest we ever came to getting a hit record.

At the time, of course, we did not know that. As far as we were concerned, the future was still looking bright.
We started 1972 with mixed fortunes. On 14 January we signed a long term contract with EMI Records and Peter Jones, editor of the Record Mirror, tipped us as the group destined for stardom in 1972. He wrote: ‘I’m a Fifth Dimension fan, but my belief is that Design get deeper than the Americans into the world of voice-matching, scene-switching brilliance. Quite simply they make beautiful sounds. We’re just about ready for them.’ Soon afterwards we released our fourth single ‘Colour All The World’ but it failed to enter the charts.

We decided it was time to move on from the acoustic guitars and folk-rock sound of our first two albums and we asked Herbie Flowers, the bass guitarist from Blue Mink, to arrange the rhythm sections for our next album. We began recording in February at Lansdowne Studios in London, with a percussive arrangement of ‘I Feel The Earth Move’ by Carole King, from her album Tapestry, and three new songs written by John – ‘Meet My Friends’, ‘Yellow Bird (Have You No Home)’, and the magnificent ‘Nature’s Children’, with a mesmerizing lead vocal by John.

We also included a new song by Tony Smith, ‘Fallen Angel’, sung beautifully by Gabrielle, and three songs of mine, ‘Can This Be Love’, a sensitive solo performance by Kathy, ‘If You Think About Me’, and ‘When Morning Comes’, featuring some dynamic electric guitar from Chris Spedding.

We did not ignore our folk-rock roots altogether and recorded ‘Pisces Hymn’, a stunning choral piece with multiple harmonies by Dave Shannon of the folk band Therapy, as well as our version of ‘You’d Better Believe It’ by folk legend Tom Paxton and Ed Welch, and the title track, ‘Day of the Fox’, a brilliant traditional-style folk song written and sung by Geoff Ramseyer.

In March we were voted 19th best Mixed Group in the world by readers of Record Mirror. We were amused to learn that we had received only three votes less than Wings and five more than Sonny and Cher!

A month later we made our London debut in cabaret at the Savoy Hotel. On the day we opened at ‘London’s top people’s nightspot’ Gabrielle was pictured on the front page of The Sun newspaper, but during rehearsals we were asked to leave the Savoy coffee lounge because we were not wearing ties. Later that evening (still without ties) we appeared on the stage and the critics applauded our ‘shining brand of youthful exuberance’ and ‘infectious enjoyment’.
On 21 July 1972 we released our fifth single, ‘Mayday’. This was written by Herbie Flowers and Sandie Shaw and was a twenties-style number we had recorded for the album as a bit of fun. We were surprised when it was chosen by EMI as the single, but television producers loved it and we sang it on several TV shows including Morecambe and Wise and Sez Les. However Radio One gave it the thumbs down and one reviewer described it as having ‘too much gimmickry’. It became one of the most popular songs in our live act, because it was so catchy, but it seemed we were further away than ever from that elusive hit.

We continued to appear frequently on television and in the cabaret clubs around the country and in the autumn we were booked as the supporting act on Gilbert O’Sullivan’s first nationwide tour. Gilbert was then number one in the UK charts with ‘Clair’ so the tour was sold out instantly. It started on 31 October at the National Theatre in Dublin and most of the reviews were complimentary, apart from Charles Shaar Murray in the New Musical Express, who wrote: ‘Also on were Design, who took a perverse pleasure in massacring such good songs as ‘Eli’s Coming’, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘My Sweet Lord’. Awful, awful, awful.’ I don’t think he liked us very much!

1973-1976

We were now being billed as ‘the most televised group in Britain’ and we started 1973 with a seven week television series called It’s All In Life with the comedian Al Read. We sang a track every week from our new album Day Of The Fox. It was released on 9 February and the cover featured a brilliant illustration of a guitar-playing fox by John Ireland.

The reviews were mostly good, praising our choice of songs. Disc wrote: ‘Why haven’t they had that hit? Could be they are seen so often on television that the public forgets they make records. They sing with class – and maybe that’s the answer to their lack of hits.’ Record Mirror agreed but added, ‘There’s room for all types of group sound, and this one is softly applied, confident, and produces some of the finest harmonic touches in the business. Barry’s voice is particularly effective on his own song When Morning Comes. The big, major breakthrough can only be a short time away.’

In April we returned to the Savoy for three weeks and then started work on our fourth album. This time we asked Gerry Butler to arrange the rhythm sections. The first session included ‘A Famous Myth’, originally sung by The Groop, from the soundtrack of the movie Midnight Cowboy. We also recorded ‘Dirty Work’ by Steely Dan, as well as two songs of mine, ‘End of the Party’ and ‘Losing You’, and ‘One Sunny Day’ by Ed Welch. This sounded like a possible single, so we finished that first, and it was released on 13 July. It was our first single since ‘Mayday’ a year before and was an attempt to make more of a pop record, with John and Geoff singing the lead vocals. It had a strong chorus but once again it failed to chart.

We had always turned down offers of summer seasons but now we agreed to be guest stars with the comedian Tommy Cooper at the Pier Theatre in Skegness. It was for only two months, it was not too far from London, the money was good, and it meant we could stay in the same place for a while. We rented a farmhouse about five miles inland from Skegness and moved in with the six of us and Gabrielle’s two cats.

None of us felt happy doing this type of show. At heart we were still a folk-rock group with a love of intricate vocal harmonies, but we had adapted our music to satisfy the television and cabaret audiences, and the cracks were now beginning to show.

The only saving grace was Tommy Cooper. I watched him on stage every night and I have never laughed so much. But he was not a great fan of our music. His wife came to see the opening night and the next day Tommy said to me, ‘My wife thinks you’re really good … she must be mad!’

Back in London we recorded some radio sessions and taped a guest spot on The Two Ronnies TV show. Then came one of those things that made it all worthwhile – two weeks, all expenses paid, in the Seychelles. We were booked to appear in cabaret for seven nights at the Coral Strand Hotel on the main island of Mahé and to be the guest stars at the Miss Seychelles contest. It was an unforgettable experience. We visited some of the other islands and had drinks with the Prime Minister, James Mancham. At the end of our stay we organised an open air concert for the local islanders at the football stadium, with all the proceeds going to the Old Peoples’ Fund. Several thousand turned up and it was a memorable event.

As soon as we returned home we went back into the studio to finish the album, with Herbie Flowers and Gerry Butler in charge of the rhythm sections. We recorded two uptempo tracks written by John, ‘Teach Me How To Fly’ and ‘Wherever You May Go’, and two slower songs by me, ‘After The Rain’, featuring a string quartet, and ‘I’ll Be Back Again’, as well as a great new folk tune by Geoff, ‘I Am The Greene Manne’, and a thirties-style jazz number called ‘Archie Franks’ by Jeff. We also included two songs we liked by other writers, ‘Second Love’ by Dominic King and ‘Don’t Apologize’ by Charles Merriam and Kathy Ward, from the Californian group Sonoma.

After that we flew to Scotland and Portugal to appear on some television shows and recorded The Benny Hill Show in London. But Geoff and Gabrielle were now talking seriously about leaving the group and they announced they did not want to do any more cabaret. We had been approached by the Thorndike Theatre in Leatherhead, Surrey, about doing a special concert of An Evening with Design. So we contacted John Robins, who had directed us on TV shows with Val Doonican and Benny Hill, and he agreed to produce and direct our performance. He brought along his lighting and sound technicians, and the choreographer Berry Cornish, and we created a totally new stage act, including songs from our albums, dance routines, and even comedy.

The concert took place on 17 February 1974 and the theatre was sold out well in advance. The whole evening was a complete success. We proved to ourselves that with the right musicians, staging and direction, we could be as good as anyone. Now all we needed was a hit record.

Our seventh single ‘Second Love’ was released on 11 February. One reviewer wrote: ‘Despite all the hazards of predicting what will be hit singles, I haven’t got the slightest hesitation in saying this is going to go right the way up to No.1. It has everything it needs for success – a beautiful melody, fine harmonies and excellent lyrics.’ But Rosemary Horide in Disc summed up the general reaction: ‘The nearest Design ever got was ‘Love Is’ and since then they’ve been moving further away. Not a hit, and unless they put a bit more guts into something, they’ll never have one.’ Unfortunately, she was right.

It was time for a change. John Robins introduced us to John House, who had worked with Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and we thought he would be the ideal manager for us. We informed our agents, John Coast and Frank Powis, that we wanted to leave them and they kindly agreed to let us go. Within a fortnight John House had also terminated our production deal with Adrian Kerridge and Syd Dale at Motive Music and negotiated a new recording contract with EMI Records.

On 26 April we released a second single from the In Flight album. This was ‘Losing You’ and it picked up some good reviews but almost no airplay. Disc wrote: ‘An absolutely beautiful single from this most unrecognised group … Do us all a favour and buy it, because you won’t regret it. Fantastic.’ It was our last single to be produced and arranged by Adrian and Syd. It had a beautiful arrangement but once again it lacked the right ingredients to be a hit.

On the day it was released there was a full page article in Record Mirror with the headline ‘Who’s The Cleanest?’ The New Seekers had split up a few weeks earlier and the battle was on to see who would take over from them as the next big vocal group. We were tipped as the main contenders, along with Springfield Revival and Rain. Under the heading ‘Designs on the top spot’ it concluded, ‘Design’s distinctive compositions, unusual arrangements and soft harmonies make them hot favourites as the New Seekers successors, but only time will tell.’ However ex-New Seeker Lyn Paul did not mince her words: ‘Design? No, they haven’t the talent. That sounds horrible, but what I mean is they just haven’t got the vocal sound’.

Our fourth album In Flight was released on 3 May. We chose the title after realising that half the songs on the album mentioned flying. At first we commissioned John Ireland to draw another cover and he produced a fantastic drawing of Pegasus, the flying horse. But we decided it would make more sense to have our pictures on the cover. We hired Edwardian clothes and had photographs taken at the Old Warden Aerodrome in Bedfordshire, where they have a unique collection of early aircraft. Afterwards we went for a drink in the local village pub, still dressed in our costumes, and that became the picture on the back cover.

The album received some wonderful reviews. ‘This is their best album to date.’ ‘The group know how to use their voices in a swirling profusion of contrapuntal harmonies and the material here is solid, jazz-tinged, yet folksy too.’ ‘At the moment Design are on the runway. In Flight will put them into orbit.’

In the book Galactic Ramble, published in 2009, Richard Falk wrote: ‘This virtually defines the word “whimsical”, offering gentle, melodic folk-pop with lush harmony vocals … while the best cuts manage a shimmering, almost psychedelic, West Coast feel. Overall, the perfect musical accompaniment to a garden in the blazing sunshine.’
In June we were invited to represent Britain at the Ljubljana Song Festival in Yugoslavia, which was then still a communist country. Most of the countries in Europe were taking part and the final contest was to be televised live across Europe and the Soviet Union. We were also chosen to perform a live half-hour show with the festival orchestra in the huge Tivoli Hall, which was also televised. The songs were all written by Yugoslav composers and ours was called ‘Potepuh’, meaning ‘The Tramp’. It was voted into third place by the audience, which won a prize for the composers of the song.

On 16 August our ninth single ‘Sing The World A Song’ was released. It was written and produced by Tony Hiller, best known for his work with Brotherhood of Man. It was a great improvement on our previous few singles. We sang it on several TV shows, including The Golden Shot, and Radio Two chose it as ‘Disc of the Day’, but we could not get it played on the all-important Radio One, and it was another miss.

Next we appeared for a week as guest stars with the legendary American singer Josephine Baker at the London Palladium. Then Gabrielle dropped a bombshell. She announced that she was leaving the group to get married. We had hardly met her new boyfriend, a Canadian, but her mind was made up and she gave us one month’s notice. First, we had to fly to Holland to promote the single on a TV show called Bingo. Then we had four theatre shows booked with Morecambe and Wise in Southampton and Blackpool. We had not told anybody Gabrielle was leaving. Our last performance as the six-piece Design was at the Opera House in Blackpool on 26 October 1974. Afterwards we agreed that Geoff would leave the group at the same time, and we would carry on without them.

At the end of November, Design were pictured in New Musical Express as one of Radio One’s Pick of the Year – their tips for the top in 1975. Tony Blackburn had chosen us, saying: ‘They fill a slot with the departure of The New Seekers and appeal to both youngsters and their mums. Now the only thing they have to do is get the right song.’ The photograph had been taken in August – not knowing that by the time it was published, two of the group would have left.

We auditioned several girl singers to replace Gabrielle but it soon became clear that no one could match her looks or her voice. We decided to carry on as a foursome, but with a permanent bass guitarist and drummer so that we became a self-contained unit. We still had our recording deal with EMI and over the next two years we released four singles and our final album By Design. We continued to appear in cabaret and did a nationwide tour with The Hollies, including a night at the Royal Albert Hall, and a summer season with Freddie Starr in Bournemouth. But it was never the same without Geoff and Gabrielle, and after two years we decided to call it a day. On 3 November 1976 we recorded the Alyn Ainsworth Show for Radio Two and then we went our separate ways.

1977 - 2011

After leaving Design, Tony Smith went to live in France. In his own words: ‘Tony finally learnt to sing (in the Paris metro and eating spots), then became a weaver in the South of France. In 1985, when his pancreas surrendered, he was saved by the bell by a surgical team in Toulouse. He then got married to Elisabeth from Bordeaux and had two daughters, Julia and Judith, became an international consultant to the French powers-that-be, and in 2010 ended up back in music creation and recording in the glorious heart of the French countryside. A new batch of songs is expected in 2012.’

Sadly, Geoff Ramseyer died six months after leaving the group. He was only 25 years old.

Gabrielle changed her name to Gabrielle Shootingstar and went to live in New Zealand, where she released a solo single and appeared on numerous television shows. After moving to Australia, she met her second husband Steve, and they created the children’s show ‘Pirate Pete and Charlie the Cockatoo’, with Gabrielle as Cut-Throat Kate. They had five children and performed together as a family band ‘The Shootingstars’ for nearly twenty years. Gabrielle is now married to Damon and they live in Queensland.

Within a week of leaving the group, John had a part in the West End production of Jesus Christ Superstar. In 1982 he went to India on a spiritual search and met his future wife Kathy in Bombay. He served for six years with the SYDA Foundation, an international educational and philanthropic organisation, in India, UK and USA, before moving permanently to the USA in 1990. Since then he has worked in the lighting retail and design industry and he and his wife Kathy have two very musical children, Elizabeth and Nate.

Kathy Manuell also joined the West End cast of Jesus Christ Superstar. Later she went on to write and record ambient psychedelic music as the Internet Café Orchestra with her partner Dave Goodman, the former producer of the Sex Pistols. After emigrating to Malta, they ran their own record label and studio until Dave’s untimely death from a heart attack in 2005. Since then Kathy has continued to work as a musician and producer and plays with her band Mandala Malta.

Jeff Matthews (real name Geoff) resumed his career as a chartered quantity surveyor and worked on building projects including IBM’s UK headquarters and the Imperial War Museum. He carried on playing the guitar in bands and in church until 2005 and he still plays in his home studio and is discovering pre-war music. Jeff married Sue in 1985 and they have two grown-up children. She introduced him to Cornwall and they spend their summers there, walking and surfing.

I wrote songs for a number of artists, and released a solo single in Australia, before becoming the personal manager of The New Seekers after they reformed. In 1981 I moved to Los Angeles and presented the breakfast show on KLOA-AM. After returning to England I was a presenter on various BBC radio stations, where I met my wife Fiona, and we now have two teenage children. Since 1994 I have written and edited several books and produced more than 100 audiobooks for my company, Barn Productions.

We had all forgotten about Design until I contacted everyone in the summer of 2010 and suggested that we should reissue all our recordings. Now we have organised a reunion and we will be meeting for the first time in more than forty years at Tony’s house in France.

Design were together as a group for almost eight years. In that time we recorded more than 150 radio shows and appeared on more than fifty television shows. We also released five albums and thirteen singles. Looking back now, we are proud of what we achieved, and we hope you enjoy listening to our music as much as we enjoyed making it.

Barry Johnston, April 2011