Gary Bryden - Abilene

Gary Bryden was born in Britain where he started off his career playing in a group with Chris Andrews, but he settled in South Africa in 1964. He joined The Cavaliers as a singer, together with Glenys Lynne before she joined the Four Jacks & a Jill, and then had a stint with Johnny Kongos & The G-Men for a while. He went on to form We Three with John Rice and Brenda Newfield (later replaced by Alex Malcolm) in Johannesburg in 1965. They toured Austria in 1966, settled in England and changed their name to Chapter Three. Later that year Gary met up with Barry Beattie who accompanied him to South Africa where they performed as Gary and Barry, a forerunner to Gary and Spider, a comic duo he formed with Ian “Spider” Murch (previously of Dunny and the Showmen) in 1971. Gary and Spider performed their own brand of pub songs and humour for many years, also releasing a number of albums. In 1981 Gary (guitar, vocals) formed Glam, another comedy band, together with Alex Dawson (guitar), Lamy (Fernando) D’Almeida (drums, vocals) and Marcus Kleyweg (keyboards, vocals). This song is off the album “Country Feeling”, released in 1986.