BARN MUSIC
BARN MUSIC was established in 2010 and it administers the music publishing of Barry Alexander and the recording catalogue of the vocal group Design.
BARRY ALEXANDER
Barry Johnston started writing songs at Eton and in 1968, when he was eighteen, he signed a publishing deal with The Beatles’ company Apple Publishing. Four of Barry's demos for Apple – 'Fairytale Princess', 'Kingfisher', Emily Jane’, and ‘Love You Nicola’ – were included on the 5 CD box set Good as Gold: Artefacts of the Apple Era 1967–1975 that was released by Grapefruit Records in 2021.
In February 1969 Barry joined the vocal harmony group Design and he sang with them for the next eight years. Before their television debut on ‘The Golden Shot’ in 1971, Design had to join the actors’ union Equity and Barry adopted the professional name BARRY ALEXANDER to avoid conflict with an existing Equity member.
Design released 13 singles and 5 albums in the UK and appeared on dozens of television shows in the early 1970s. Barry wrote many of the group's album tracks and b-sides as well as the singles "Love Is" and "Losing You". After they split up in October 1976, Barry released two solo singles and continued writing, on his own and with producer Mick Flinn, and his songs were covered by such groups as Pussyfoot, Galaxy and Cambridge & Thomas. He also became the personal manager of The New Seekers for two years.
Barry left the music business in 1983 when he started his broadcasting career on KLOA-AM in California and he reverted to using his real name when he joined BBC Radio Sussex two years later.