John Dawson Read
Encyclopedia
John Dawson Read is an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

.

Born in Wokingham
Wokingham
Wokingham is a market town and civil parish in Berkshire in South East England about west of central London. It is about east-southeast of Reading and west of Bracknell. It spans an area of and, according to the 2001 census, has a population of 30,403...

, Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, Read first came to prominence in 1975 with his debut album A Friend of Mine Is Going Blind, released on Chrysalis Records
Chrysalis Records
Chrysalis Records was a British record label that was created in 1969. The name was both a reference to the pupal stage of a butterfly and a combination of its founders names, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis...

. The album's title song was written by Read for a friend of his who suffered from Muscular Dystrophy
Muscular dystrophy
Muscular dystrophy is a group of muscle diseases that weaken the musculoskeletal system and hamper locomotion. Muscular dystrophies are characterized by progressive skeletal muscle weakness, defects in muscle proteins, and the death of muscle cells and tissue.In the 1860s, descriptions of boys who...

. Read credits his friend with having been a writing inspiration for years, as well as being responsible for his debut album, having sent Read's songs to publishers.

Read’s second album, Read On, was released in 1976, again on Chrysalis. After this release Read seemed to disappear from the music business. Fans had little success finding information on Read until singer-songwriter Michael Johnson
Michael Johnson (singer)
Michael Johnson , is an American pop, country and folk singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for his 1978 hit song "Bluer Than Blue". To date, he has charted four hits on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and nine more on the Hot Country Songs charts, including two Number One country hits...

put an MP3 of “A Friend of Mine Is Going Blind” on his website. Many Read fans began communicating through the site, and this was one factor which encouraged Read to re-enter the music world after spending most of the time between 1976 and 2005 in a business partnership in marketing.

Read credits his discovery of Pristine Audio as being “the second most influential factor in ‘getting back into it.’” Andrew Rose of Pristine Audio remastered A Friend of Mine Is Going Blind and Read On. http://johndawsonread.com/jdr_links.html

In 2005, Read released his third CD after a nearly 30 year absence from the music world. This CD, entitled Now...Where were we? begins with “Days of Sweet Remembrance (reprise)" from the album Read On.

External links

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