Barbara Ruskin

Our pick of the pops

Barbara Ruskin was one of Britain’s few singer-songwriters in the 1960s, releasing a number of great singles between 1965 and 1972 and co-hosting a radio programme for the BBC.

She was born in East Ham, east London, in 1948, and moved to Stoke Newington, north London, before starting secondary school. Her father died when she was young. Her mother, who worked for music publisher Lawrence Wright in Denmark Street, in central London, encouraged her to pursue her love of music and bought her her first guitar.

Barbara taught herself to play it and began composing her own songs. She got her first experience of work in the industry when she joined the group the Demensions (later known as Jimmy Powell and the Dimensions) in her early teens, and played numerous weddings and youth clubs.

Having built up a portfolio of her own compositions, she began sending off demo tapes to music publishers but kept getting rejected. Eventually, she took herself down to Denmark Street with her guitar and knocked on some doors, hoping to sell some of her songs.

Her efforts paid off, and in 1964, to her surprise, she was offered a contract not as a songwriter but as a singer for Piccadilly Records, through Pan Musik. Her first single, issued in February 1965, was a version of Billy Fury’s Halfway to paradise, with Ivor Raymonde, the man behind many of Dusty Springfield’s records.

Her second release was one of her own compositions, You can’t blame a girl for trying, which she had written with Sandie Shaw in mind. The follow up was Well, how does it feel?, recorded in the style of Sonny and Cher.

In 1966 she released one of her best singles, the stomping Song without end. The song wasn’t a hit, but by this time, Barbara was establishing herself as a songwriter, and other artists such as Marilyn Powell, Judy Cannon, the Foundations and Tony Christie had recorded her songs.

Light of love was her final single for Piccadilly, before Pan Musik switched distribution to the Parlophone label and took Barbara along. Her first single for the new label was 1967’s Euston station. The song was voted a hit on Juke Box Jury – but not by the record-buying public.

She followed it up with one of her finest singles, Come into my arms again, a song she’d written on the bus on the way to the studio. It was subsequently recorded by a variety of other artists and became a good income earner for her.

She was then offered a role co-hosting a radio programme, Cool Britannia, on the BBC’s World Service, and got to interview many of the big stars and composers of the day.

In 1968, President Records took over Pan Musik. Pawnbroker, pawnbroker was her first single for the label, released in October 1968, with the even better Almost on the B-side.

Having seen the sales figures for recent British Eurovision song contest entries by Sandie Shaw and Cliff Richard, she composed Gentleman, please for the 1969 British selection, all of which were to be performed by Lulu. When the song didn’t make the final six, she released it herself (with the infinitely better The 24th day of July on the reverse). Although the single wasn’t a hit, interest in it was high enough to warrant Barbara going to Berlin to record a German version (of the same name), which was the B-side of her first German release, Hey love – So ist die Liebe. Gallic yé-yé girl France Gall also released French and Spanish versions of the song.

She carried on recording, releasing a string of singles in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Hail, love! (a song she’d performed at the 1969 Festival de Two Roses Song Contest in Antibes) and A little of this, a little of that.

A second German-language single, Irgendwann, irgendwie, irgendwo, was released in 1971, and a tour of Germany was planned, though she turned it down, as she had married and was expecting a child. Instead, she opted to do cabaret in London’s West End.

Beautiful friendship was her final single, released in 1972.