Spirit of Smokie

Who does not remember ‘SMOKIE’? The seventies band who topped the charts with the hits “If you think you know how to love me”, “I’ll meet you at Midnight”, “Lay back in the arms of someone”, “Oh Carol”, “Wild Angels” , “What can I do” and many more. They carved their name in musical history with 15 top 20 hits including “Living next door to Alice”, selling 30 million copies worldwide.

Chris Norman, whose unmistakable gravelly voice was the ‘icing on the cake’, left the band in 1986 and a perfect replacement was found in Alan Barton, whose performance and ‘world- class’ vocals revived the fortunes of the band. They later released a further 6 Albums. Tragedy struck in 1995 when Alan, who had become ‘The face of SMOKIE’, lost his life in an accident.

With rousing guitar sounds, unique backing vocals and an early grounding playing the music of ‘Led Zeppelin’ among others, the music of ‘SMOKIE’ could never be classed as ‘boring’.

Today Alan Barton’s son, Dean Barton fronts the band ‘SPIRIT of SMOKIE’. Dean has clearly inherited the unmistakable, rugged yet sensitive voice from his father, but brings his own delivery and sense of style to the stage.

Alongside Dean is lead guitarist Andy Whelan, close friend and band mate of Alan Barton, playing and writing many original compositions with him. Andy can be heard on numerous Chris Norman albums and appears in several of his videos.

Completing the ‘frontline’ of the band is bassist Graham Kearns, a former member of ‘The Alan Silson Band’ (ex original Smokie guitarist, vocalist and songwriter of ‘What can I do’, one of the biggest ever hits in Russia). Graham also toured with Alan Barton. The collective vocal harmonies of the front 3 musicians rekindle the original vocal flame.

The ‘engine room’ of the band is world class drummer Michael Bedford, he has toured with ‘Chris de Burgh’, ‘Sting’, ‘Elton John’, ‘Tears for Fears’, ‘Ronan Keating’, ‘Tasmin Archer’ and ‘The Sweet’ to name a few. Completing the band on keyboards is Will Jackson, talented composer and record producer with many famous names including ‘The Kaiser Chiefs’, ‘Embrace’ and ‘Suzi Quatro’. Will was also a member of the excellent acoustic band ‘Magna Carta’ and has a fine ‘ear’ for harmonic construction, further enriching the band with his vocals.

In 2011 the band released the album ‘Room with a View’ under the title ‘Al Barton and Spirit of Smokie’. The album originally contained unfinished or incomplete material that Alan had worked on shortly before his death. At some expense the original tapes went through a new stage of re-processing and digitization with the addition of the missing musical parts ...... sixteen years from the original concepts and recordings the album was complete, standing alongside the great SMOKIE albums. In 2018 the band released their first original album ‘Changes’ under the title name ‘BARTON’. This progression features Dean’s voice in a combination of raw soul, pain and heartbreak but with the hopeful prospect of comfort. The band gives these emotional songs a perfect vocal and instrumental backdrop. ‘Changes’ is a thoughtful, honest and authentic album in all respects and a country mile from today’s electronically over produced music; as the band says “What’s on the album is what’s on stage” SPIRIT OF SMOKIE is a first class ‘live’ musical experience, emotional and rousing, re-creating the definitive sound of the great era of the 70’s, along with inspired, but unmistakable, original compositions.