Brittan, Bobby - Just for You b/w Does Your Daddy Know

Tracks

Side 1

		Track Name	Length
	1	Just for You	03:37

Side 2

		Track Name	Length
	1	Does Your Daddy Know	02:37

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Information/Write-up

I think I was 17 at the time I wrote these songs and played guitar with Bobby. He and I worked together as shipper/receivers in a fabric warehouse. I realized he could sing and he realized I could play guitar. So we put a band together. These two records actually had about 13 or 14 members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra playing on the recording which was done at RCA Studio on Mutual Street, Toronto. We asked Paul Hoffert (Lighthouse) to arrange and conduct the songs for the orchestra during the recording. It was pretty exciting at the time. I was just between high school and university. I went off to university after that summer. Bobby continued to sing and gig around southern Ontario for the next year or so, then kind of faded away. I felt badly that I left the band, but I thought I’d get my degree, and then go back to music afterward. I got a job as an accountant in training instead. Lots of water under that bridge ever since.

Paul Hoffert, in addition to arranging and conducting the recording, also played harpsichord on “Just For You”, kind of a bluesy-jazzy break in the middle of the song, kind of unheard of in the mid-60s. Frankly, it is undoubtedly the best part of the song and I had nothing to do with it. These were Poli’s pre-Lighthouse days. He was a fairly young writer and arranger at the time.

Our songs gained some air-play at a few stations across Canada, and Walt Grealis tried to help us by publishing the odd article and promo pieces in his RPM Magazine during mid-1966, before I left for school. I guess it was just not destined to happen. Too bad, ‘cuz Bobby had a pretty great voice. One of the problems back in those days was that if you weren’t being “played” on 1050 CHUM, most other stations weren’t interested. We had spent so much money on these recordings that we didn’t have any money left to pay CHUM to be played on their airwaves, so CHUM ignored us, and then so did most other radio stations.

I introduced Shannon Conway to the group, and she joined the band as back-up singer just as I was leaving the band at the end of the Summer of ’66. Shannon actually had a pretty amazing voice, too. Her rather exotic stage presence and voice eventually gained her joint billing as they continued to tour Ontario in late 1966 and into 1967. Not much is known of any of the band after that. Kind of a mystery as to how they just disappeared without a trace. When I returned to Toronto after finishing university, I couldn’t find any of them.
-Gord Evans, Aug 24, 2024

R&B singer Bobby Brittan was initially "discovered" by RPM magazine’s Stan Klees. Brittan released one single in the summer of 1966 on the newly formed REM Records. The song “Just For You” and its B-side, “Does Your Daddy Know” were co-written by Brittan and Gord Evans. Both sides were arranged and produced by Paul Hoffert (Lighthouse). “Just For You” reached #98 on RPM’s 100 chart, and #13 on its Canadian Content chart on July 4, 1966. By 1967 he was managed by Don Brewer and formed the Bobby Brittan Group featuring Shannon Conway doing the Southern Ontario R&B/Soul clubs.

Written by Bobby Brittan and Gord Evans
Conducted and arranged by Paul Hoffert
Recorded in RCA Studios on Mutual Street, Toronto, Ontario
Joined by musicians from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra

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