Billy Harrison - Bad Night

Billy Harrison is in many ways the unsung hero from the big bang of Irish R’n’B. He formed The Gamblers in Belfast with Alan Henderson and Ronnie Millings - the band that later became Them with the addition of Eric Wrixon and Van Morrison - stepping back from front-man to lead guitarist behind Van’s dominant persona. He remained band leader and manager until the music biz professionals took over, but Billy was an integral part of the original Them sound, with his distinctive raw guitar playing to be heard all over their first album, and apparently much more input into the writing process than he is credited with. After a confrontation with manager Phil Solomon over vanishing royalty payments, and finding little solidarity from the rest of the band, Billy packed it in. He was briefly involved with a rival line-up of Them (which evolved into The Belfast Gypsies) and did some session work with Van’s Them, Joe Meek and The Pretty Things, and was eyed-up by Belfast group The People before Henry McCullough joined and they became Eire Apparent. Billy then left music completely and took a regular job with the Post Office, returning from London to Belfast in 1975.
That was it until 1979, when Billy Harrison decided to revive Them one more time, inviting Eric Wrixon and Alan Henderson along with new guys Mel Austin and Billy Bell. They convened in Hamburg and the resulting Shut Your Mouth album - all written or co-written by Harrison - was an enjoyable return to their R’n’B roots. Again the band was incapable of holding together and Billy was fired from the group he had started, to be replaced a second time by Jim Armstrong for a subsequent German tour.
Perhaps surprisingly, Billy decided to make one further album. This 1980 record, with the self-deprecating title Billy Who?, is essentially a follow-up to Shut Your Mouth, being entirely written by Harrison and recorded once again at Hamburgs TELDEC-Studio by engineer Klaus Bohlmann and producer Frank Dostal. This time Billy was singing as well as playing guitar