"Brother acts" are an odd phenomenon -- unless you're talking about the Winter brothers, they're usually cash-in efforts by managers and record labels, and often present (usually) younger siblings blinded by (or desperate for) the prospect of some success and a shot at a brass ring with some semblance of similarity to the one the more famous relatives had grabbed. (Remember Jim Rafferty, Gerry's sibling, on the London label?) Reading of Al Wycherley, one immediately thinks of Colin Hicks, the younger brother of Tommy Steele, and his band the Cabin Boys. Al Wycherley, like his older brother Ronald, was born in the Liverpool Dingle, whose most famous resident was Ringo Starr. Ronald Wycherley had an outgoing personality, some serious musical talent as a singer and a songwriter, and an easygoing manner that made him a natural -- with the help of manager Larry Parnes, he became Billy Fury in the late 1950s and became one of England's top early rock & rollers. Al Wycherley came up in his wake in the early 1960s, working under the name Jason Eddie. He had something to offer in the way of strong vocals and good backup from a group called "the Centremen." Signed to Parlophone in 1965, he issued a pair of excellent singles over the ensuing year. A strong singer, he never enjoyed the success that Whatcha Gonna Do Baby, Come On Baby, Singin' the Blues, or True to You deserved -- apparently that next-to-last cut was produced by Joe Meek, who also may well have had a hand in Eddie's 1968-vintage song Mr. Busdriver; a slightly too short but catchy track that has elements of the Move's sound in its guitar and bass parts, it opens like Telstar. By the end of the decade, he had moved to the much smaller Tangerine label and was doing less enjoyable work. His music began turning up on various Merseybeat and English freakbeat compilations in the 1990s and in the new century. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi