Duncan Browne's Journey - and comparisons with Nick Drake

One of my absolute favourite songs from the summer of 1972 was 'Journey' by Duncan Browne. It wasn't a massive hit single - number 23 in the UK charts - but it's one of those forgotten gems that evoke a more innocent time, driven by some nifty acoustic guitar playing. 

He released an album in 1973 called Duncan Browne. It contained Journey and several other similarly pretty and sometimes melancholy songs, such as My Only Son.

Browne accompanied himself on Spanish and electric guitar and there was some piano accompaniment from John 'Rabbit' Bundrick and bass and drums by Argent's Jim Rodford and Bob Henrit on some tracks. 

The mood evoked was not dissimilar to Nick Drake and there are clear parallels in how their careers progressed, or rather how they didn't progress.

Like Drake, Browne came from a well-to-do background. His father was an Air Commodore. Browne had initially planned to join the Royal Air Force himself, but chose instead to follow a musical path. He attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, developing skills as a player and an arranger that would serve him well later.

Duncan's 1973 vinyl release

His first break into the music business came in 1967, when Andrew Loog Oldham signed Duncan to his Immediate label. The resulting album, Give Me Take You is a fine example of the classical and medieval-influenced folk music of the period. 

It didn't sell though and Duncan focused instead on work as an accompanist and arranger for the next couple of years.

In the early 1970s, Mickie Most signed him to RAK Records and the first fruit of this new patronage was the single 'Journey'. It was the surprise hit of the summer in 1972, a quirky tune with a bright and breezy lyric:

"Pack up your sorrow, put away your evening star
But don't change your clothes, I like you just the way you are"

and: "Soon we'll be sailors, sailing on the salty sea
Where the waves of the world would be the one and only company"

Artist and label were taken by surprise at the single's success, it seems, because it was many months before an album was ready for release. By then, the momentum had been lost and the Duncan Browne album was another commercial failure. 

Which is a shame because it's a fine album. The songs have a distinctive character and the guitar playing is excellent.

Clearly, the competition among singer/songwriter/guitarists was intense in the early '70s. It's not hard to see why artists like Richard Thompson and John Martyn succeeded. It's less clear why talents like Nick Drake, Dave Evans and Duncan Browne didn't. 

With Nick, we can say he failed at least partly through his own refusal to play live; his shyness and lack of stage banter (in marked contrast to John Martyn, for example) making it hard for him to tough it out on the gig circuit.

Duncan did at least try to gain a wider audience. He toured and gave interviews on the back of 'Journey'. He appeared on the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test in February 1973, playing two songs from the album - the opening track Ragged Rain Life and My Old Friends. 

Watching the clip of Duncan, it's easy to imagine how it could have been Nick Drake up there being introduced by Bob Harris. I wonder if the BBC approached Nick. He did do at least one radio session for John Peel's Top Gear show in 1969. What a shame he didn't do a Whistle Test session, so at least we would have film of him performing.

As with Nick, Duncan's recorded legacy is fairly slim. One of his most engaging songs from the early 70s was the 7-minute B-side of Journey, called In A Mist. It displays his natural dexterity as a guitarist and conveys the story of a love lost, reflecting on the nature of fidelity, commitment and possession. It is open and beautiful in its melancholy, just as Nick Drake's songs are.

Again, the low sales of the Duncan Browne album convinced him that he was better suited to being a backing musician and arranger for others. 

It's not such an unusual choice for musicians who, for whatever reason, find themselves fated to be a sideman. Like Mick Ronson, who most often played second fiddle or arranger for other artists (Michael Chapman, Bowie, Ian Hunter, Dylan even). 

In the late 1970s Duncan tried again. He had a hit single in the Netherlands with The Wild Places and formed the band Metro with Peter Godwin; sales were modest. 

In keeping with the more polished stylings of Metro, his solo album Streets of Fire at the turn of the 1980s had hints of Dire Straits, especially in the opening track Fauvette. The pattern of commercial failure remained intact though.

His biggest commercial success came later, when David Bowie recorded the Metro song Criminal World on his massive selling 1983 album Let's Dance. By that time though, Metro had disbanded. Later in the decade Duncan was diagnosed with cancer. He died in 1993, aged 46. 

Duncan Browne sustained a reasonable career as a musician without ever making the big time. And perhaps he was content with that. He certainly hasn't enjoyed the same posthumous success as his contemporary Nick Drake.

Also on this blog:
A Visit To The Annual Nick Drake Gathering

Nick Drake: Better Album Programing Might Have Helped