Ron Ryan - the story of an un-sung musical hero of the Sixties!
Ron Ryan wrote many songs for the DC5 including “That's What I Said”, “Do Dah”, “Mulberry Bush”, “No Time To Lose”, “Can I Trust You”, “Sometimes”, “Drop in the Ocean”, “All Of The Time”, “Anyway You Want It” and the worldwide hit “Because”, which was later covered by Julian Lennon for Dave Clark’s musical “Time”.
In the mean time, Ron Ryan continued writing and performing with The Walkers. Tipped for great things, The Walkers, although semi-professional, were a very promising and accomplished act that won a number of awards in London. Sadly, greater success was always just beyond their reach as a number of promised record deals fell through at the final hurdle. Ryan composed some great R ‘n’ B tinged sings for The Walkers and the few demos that still exist are testament to how good this band and its songs were.
As The Walkers were semi-professional, all the members of the group had good, steady jobs apart from Ron Ryan - Ryan was eager to turn professional and so left The Walkers to form his own band, The Riot Squad.
Ryan has said that in forming The Riot Squad, he wanted a band that would blow every other group off the stage with their 'power-house sound', and he set about putting that band together.
By this time the money was indeed rolling in for Dave Clark but Ryan wasn’t seeing any of it. Another Ryan song “Anyway You Want It” was due to be released by the DC5 when Ryan decided to instruct his solicitor about Clark’s non payment. The Solicitor advised Ryan that as the song was in contention for being the DC5’s next single, he should get an injunction to stop it being released. However, as Ryan knew the boys in the band were on a weekly set wage from Clark, he felt that any bad publicity might hurt their weekly earnings, and so waived his right to stop the record being released.
Soon the newspapers caught the whiff of a story and a report appeared in the Sunday Mirror that suggested Ryan was taking Clark to court over royalties. At this time, a large tabloid Newspaper also offered Ryan £2,000 (a lot of money back then) to tell his story, but he declined as again he felt this may have been to the detriment of the boys in the band.
The issue of royalties was eventually settled out of court and it is said that some money did change hands, albeit far from the full sum Ryan expected. It is also apparent that Clark has kept his name on all the subsequent re-releases of the songs penned by Ron Ryan, including “Because”.
Meanwhile Ryan was busy assembling the Riot Squad. He had heard good things about a drummer struggling to get into a band, but being turned down because of his young age and the fact that he had not played ‘pro' before. So Ryan arranged to test-drive the young drummer and had him stand in on a few numbers when the band played the Flamingo club in London. Having heard him play, Ryan hired him on the spot! The drummer’s name was Mitch Mitchell, who went on to play in the Jimi Hendrix Experience!
The final line-up of The Riot Squad was two guitars, organ, sax and bass with Mitchell on drums. It appears they had a great sound system too, custom-built by Ryan in his garden shed! The result though was exactly what he wanted – “a power-house, in –your-face, hard-rocking band” with a name to match! He found a manager in Larry Page, the Kinks then manager, and hit the recording studio.
In the mean time, Ron Ryan continued writing and performing with The Walkers. Tipped for great things, The Walkers, although semi-professional, were a very promising and accomplished act that won a number of awards in London. Sadly, greater success was always just beyond their reach as a number of promised record deals fell through at the final hurdle. Ryan composed some great R ‘n’ B tinged sings for The Walkers and the few demos that still exist are testament to how good this band and its songs were.
As The Walkers were semi-professional, all the members of the group had good, steady jobs apart from Ron Ryan - Ryan was eager to turn professional and so left The Walkers to form his own band, The Riot Squad.
Ryan has said that in forming The Riot Squad, he wanted a band that would blow every other group off the stage with their 'power-house sound', and he set about putting that band together.
By this time the money was indeed rolling in for Dave Clark but Ryan wasn’t seeing any of it. Another Ryan song “Anyway You Want It” was due to be released by the DC5 when Ryan decided to instruct his solicitor about Clark’s non payment. The Solicitor advised Ryan that as the song was in contention for being the DC5’s next single, he should get an injunction to stop it being released. However, as Ryan knew the boys in the band were on a weekly set wage from Clark, he felt that any bad publicity might hurt their weekly earnings, and so waived his right to stop the record being released.
Soon the newspapers caught the whiff of a story and a report appeared in the Sunday Mirror that suggested Ryan was taking Clark to court over royalties. At this time, a large tabloid Newspaper also offered Ryan £2,000 (a lot of money back then) to tell his story, but he declined as again he felt this may have been to the detriment of the boys in the band.
The issue of royalties was eventually settled out of court and it is said that some money did change hands, albeit far from the full sum Ryan expected. It is also apparent that Clark has kept his name on all the subsequent re-releases of the songs penned by Ron Ryan, including “Because”.
Meanwhile Ryan was busy assembling the Riot Squad. He had heard good things about a drummer struggling to get into a band, but being turned down because of his young age and the fact that he had not played ‘pro' before. So Ryan arranged to test-drive the young drummer and had him stand in on a few numbers when the band played the Flamingo club in London. Having heard him play, Ryan hired him on the spot! The drummer’s name was Mitch Mitchell, who went on to play in the Jimi Hendrix Experience!
The final line-up of The Riot Squad was two guitars, organ, sax and bass with Mitchell on drums. It appears they had a great sound system too, custom-built by Ryan in his garden shed! The result though was exactly what he wanted – “a power-house, in –your-face, hard-rocking band” with a name to match! He found a manager in Larry Page, the Kinks then manager, and hit the recording studio.
Ron Ryan Music
