70s Artist watch: Barry Biggs

Barry Biggs was born around 1950 in Jamaica, and became a reggae singer, that is after he worked as a cameraman and an engineer at the Jamaican Broadcasting company.


After a while he joined a group called Bryon Lee's Dragonaires where he had a successful cover the the Osmond's classic "One Bad Apple". He had a small hit in 1976 year called "Work All Day", but it was at the end of 1976 that he  would score his biggest hit in the charts with "Sideshow".

The single was actually a hit in 1974 for Blue Magic, which was a million seller USA hit for the band. The single was co-written by Bobby Eli who also wrote for Luther Vandross, Main Ingredient, Rose Royce and many more. Not only did he write he was also a guitarist for Blue Magic and played also for Teddy Pendergrass, The Jacksons and Elton John.




Barry's version of "Sideshow" got as high as No.3 in the UK charts, and the song was inspired by a trip to a museum by co-writer Vinnie Barrett who received the BMI Millionaires for One Million air plays for "Sideshow".

Although this single was a huge hit, his follow up "You're My Life" struggled to get into the top forty. The next single did much better for his 70s music career and charted at No.22 with "Three Ring Circus", this was yet another big hit from the band Blue Magic in 1976.

Barry really had his last big hit with "Three Ring Circus", and although he had two more singles out in the 1970s music charts, they were not very memorable or successful. Barry continued to make records throughout the 1980s and 90s, but he never reached the mass audience again.