Switzerland-based soul sensation Berry Window & The Movements recorded three soul-infused LPs during 1967-1968 and a clutch of superb 45s before finally breaking up in spring 1969. Despite also gaining a degree of popularity in southern Germany and northern Italy, the band were complete unknowns in Britain.
Formed by singer Barry Window aka Berry Window (b. 25 November 1946, Basel, Switzerland), the original formation comprised bass player Peter Rietmann (b. 14 June 1945, Switzerland; d. 2009); sax player Ferdinand Keller; drummer Dietmar Carl; keyboard player Fritz Trippel (b. 10 December 1937, Chur, Switzerland, d. 2010); and – last to join – lead guitarist Ronald William Bryer (b. 23 April 1947, London, England; d. 25 June 1973).
Window (whose real name is Urs Fenster; Fenster being German for window) started his career as the drummer for R&B/soul band The Sam Wee Five, a popular Basel outfit that never recorded, in 1964.
Window’s grandfather was born in Brazil while his father Kurt had arrived in Basel via Düsseldorf with the American Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Like his father, Berry mastered the drums but at heart had aspirations to be a singer. He certainly had the voice and stage presence to suggest he could be a dynamic front man and, by June 1967, was ready to step out from behind the drum kit and make his mark.
One of the first musicians he lined up for The Movements was Peter Rietmann, who had first come to prominence with The Dynamites in spring of 1964.
The bass player worked with this band until April 1966, leaving to join The Blue Sounds for two months. This fascinating outfit, featured two English musicians – singer/harp player Robert Muir and guitarist Mike Whitlock, who’d come to Basel with Merseyside band The Marksmen.
Rietmann, however, didn’t hang around long and soon joined top Austrian outfit, The Slaves, working with them until around March/April 1967 before he briefly gigged with The Countdowns. By early summer, he was ready to join Window in putting The Movements together.
While Dietmar Carl (aka Karl) was formerly a member of Basel group The Kettles, the much older Fritz Trippel was a seasoned musician steeped in jazz and well connected in music circles, notably in Stuttgart (more of which shortly).
According to the singer, Berry Window & The Movements secured an important engagement at Seiler’s Atlantis, a former coffeehouse that had specialised in jazz when it opened in the late 1940s, within a month of forming. By the mid-1960s, Seiler’s Atlantis had remodeled itself as a rock venue and had hosted a number of visiting British bands to the city.
At the time The Movements were still without a guitar player but the club booking necessitated a photo session and so a “stand-in” was brought in to pose with the other musicians sitting in a boat in the middle of the River Rhine.
Window, however, already knew who he wanted as the guitarist – British musician Ron Bryer who until recently had been working with expatriates The Big Wheel, a popular R&B outfit that had played at the Hotel Hirschen in Zurich and the Tanzrad in Basel among others.
Bryer had started his career with Bexley, Kent group, The Loose Ends but had departed in mid-1965 before they signed with Decca Records and cut two great Mod 45s, including a cover of George Harrison’s “Taxman”.
Briefly adopting the stage name Ron Spence, the guitarist next worked with The Revellos for six months or so before joining The Carl Douglas Set with future “Kung Fu Fighter” Carl Douglas, and recording some unreleased tracks that were later issued by the Acid Jazz label.
In June 1966, however, he replaced Del Grace (ironically on his way to replace him in Carl Douglas’ band) in The Big Wheel. Keyboard player Andy Clark, later of Clark-Hutchinson and Upp fame, was instrumental in bringing Bryer into the group.
After releasing a lone 45 in Switzerland in February 1967– Clark’s “Don’t Give Up That Easy” c/w “You’re Only Hurting Yourself” on the Eurex label, Bryer was ready for a fresh challenge.
Debuting at Seiler’s Atlantis, Berry Window & The Movements proved so popular with local fans that the club’s owner extended their residency (a photo shows them performing on stage that August). By then, Trippel had used his contacts to secure a recording deal with the Bertelsmann Group Intercord label, based near Stuttgart in West Germany.
Rushed into the studios, the band kicked off with two German-language recordings, penned by Trippel: “Abschiedslied” and “Ich Bin Allein”, which were coupled for the band’s debut 45 on the German label.
Soon afterwards, the group recorded its debut English-language single for Intercord, a cover of Bobby Robinson and Irral Berger’s “Warm and Tender Love” backed by Steve Cropper, Eddie Floyd and Alverts Isbell’s “I’ve Got Everything I Need”, issued in late 1967.
The same line-up was responsible for the follow-up release: an impressive reading of Isaac Hayes and Dave Porter’s “Hold On, I’m Coming” backed with Eddie Floyd and Steve Cropper’s “Knock On Wood”. Both English-language singles proved popular locally.
During this period the musicians were still heavily reliant on cover material and recorded their debut LP Soul & Love at Bauer Studios in Ludwigsburg, north of Stuttgart over two days.
Drawing largely on the material they played live, this included impressive takes of Otis Redding and Arthur Conley’s “Sweet Soul Music”; Mack Rice’s “Mustang Sally”; James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”; and Smokey Robinson and Ronald White’s “My Girl”.
On 25 November 1967 (Berry’s 21st birthday), the band made a rare TV appearance, guesting on the “Hits A Go-Go” programme, aired in West Germany and Switzerland before resuming their busy live schedule, taking in the Chemilhütte in Basel and the Hazyland in Zurich among others.
Soon afterwards, Fritz Trippel departed and Belgian multi-instrumentalist, composer and keyboard extraordinaire Joel Vandroogenbroeck (b. 24 August 1938, Brussels, Belgium; d. 23 December 2019) took over, raising the standard of musicianship in the process.
Having made his first appearance on classical piano when he was only six years old, Vandroogenbroeck had toured Europe with The Quincy Jones Orchestra in the late 1950s but had a long and distinguished career. When he met Barry Window & The Movements he was playing with American singer Dee Dee McNeil (more of which shortly).
Around the same time Peter Rietmann followed Trippel out of the door and briefly reunited with the Chur-born keyboardist in the popular Swiss band Les Sauterelles.
Bass player Peter Giske (b. 1947, Basel, Switzerland) took over from Rietmann, who later progressed to work with Swiss band Crusade in 1969. Giske had Polish ancestry, adding to the diverse mix of nationalities that comprised The Movements.
During early 1968, the group returned to the studio with new drummer Hans-Peter Schweizer to record material for a Swiss-only EP entitled I Like Soul, which featured reworked (and superior) versions of “Knock On Wood”; “Hold On, I’m Coming”; and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”. By this point Ferdinand Keller had departed.
Thanks to Joel Vandroogenbroeck’s connections with Dee Dee McNeil, the musicians next got the opportunity to record an LP with the American singer for the German MPS Records label in spring 1968. Entitled Soul Hour, the record was credited to Dee Dee, Barry & The Movements.
With new drummer Wolfgang Paap (b. 1944, Danzig, Germany) behind the kit, the sessions for the LP took place in Basel on 16 and 17 April 1968 and included powerful covers of Allen Touissaint’s “Get Out of My Life Woman”, Wilson Pickett and Steve Cropper’s “In the Midnight Hour”, plus yet another re-recording of “Hold On, I’m Coming”.
Soul Hour also came with some interesting sleeve notes about the individual musicians’ backgrounds. In addition to new member Wolfgang Paap on drums, the album also featured French sax player Barney Wilen (b. 1937, Nice, France), who’d previously worked with Miles Davis among many others.
Around this time Berry Window & The Movements appeared on West German TV show “We Like Soul” playing “Hold On, I’m Coming”. On several tracks Dee Dee McNeil joined Window for a duet and the recording also shows a second sax player.
Not long after, Berry Window & The Movements started work on their second studio LP Soul In Action, which remains arguably one of the best continental LPs recorded during the 1960s. Gone was the reliance on cover material, replaced by superb band originals, mainly co-penned by Vandroogenbroeck and Bryer, such as “I Gave You My Heart”, “Go Away” and the horn- driven soul-rocker “Give Me the Time”.
Berry Window had a hand in a few songs too, collaborating with Vandroogenbroeck and Bryer on “Rock Locomotion”, which was paired with Vandroogenbroeck and Bryer’s “I Wanna Get Moving out of Here” for a single, and the sublime, jazzy number “Stay as You Are”.
Vandroogenbroeck also came up with two gems on his own: the Hammond drenched soul outing, “Funky for Now” and the majestic “Solitude Street”, which saw the Belgian step away from the keys and demonstrate his mastery of the sitar.
In fact, his use of the Indian stringed instrument on several tracks created a unique psych-soul blend to the LP. The front cover shows him sitting on the floor with sitar in hand and Window standing over him.
Two non-LP tracks further demonstrate Vandroogenbroeck’s skills on the instrument, the hypnotic “I’ll Wait for You” and the driving, infectious “Hear Me, Help Me” again penned by Vandroogenbroeck and Bryer. Coupled as a single in the latter half of 1968, they are, as far as this writer is concerned, the band’s creative peak.
Like the group’s previous Intercord single release which paired two more non-LP Vandroogenbroeck and Bryer collaborations – “Remember The Rain” and “It Happened Once Before”, the recordings failed to achieve the commercial success the band deserved.
Undeterred by the public’s reaction to their excellent LP and cache of superb singles, Berry Window & The Movements continued to gig across southern Germany, Switzerland and also northern Italy. The highlight of this period was perhaps a 40-minute TV show that West German station ARD recorded in Baden-Baden in September 1968.
As 1968 turned to 1969, Wolfgang Paap bowed out (subsequently to reunite with Vandroogenbroeck and Bryer) and new drummer Marc Hellman stepped behind the kit. Barney Wilen also departed to record the brilliant Dear Prof. Leary LP.
At this point, Window expanded the horn section bringing in two Caribbean musicians – Roy Edwards (trumpet) and Rudy Jones (sax) for some fresh recordings at SAAR Studios in Milan, Italy.
According to Window, a friend of his was on holiday in Spain at the time and had seen the two horn players at a club in Playa de Aro called the Maddox backing singer Eddie Lee Mattison and had alerted Window, who was on the look-out for a brass section.
Four tracks were recorded in early 1969 – English and Italian versions of Doug Sahm’s “Mendocino” and Alan Bergman, Marilyn Keith and Norman Luboff’s “Yellow Bird”, which were released in quick succession on the Italian Joker Dischi label.
By then, The Movements were on their last legs. With the end in sight, Bryer and Vandroogenbroeck pieced together a new, far more experimental band, The Third Eclipse, which soon became better known as Brainticket. The pair was reunited with Wolfgang Paap who joined the group’s most famous line-up and appears alongside the duo on the classic Cottonwoodhill LP.
The Belgian would continue to lead Brainticket for decades but Bryer soon returned to England where he subsequently reunited with former Loose Ends singer Alan Marshall in his band One. Sadly he died prematurely of an accidental drug overdose on 25 June 1973.
With a restructured band featuring Roy Edwards and Rudy Jones, Berry Window changed his name to Barry and took the revamped line-up to London where, as The London Cats, they recorded two tracks for Baf Records – David Porter and Isaac Hayes “I Thank You” and Roger Penzabene, Norman Whitefield and Barrett Strong’s “End of Our Road”, which were coupled for a British-only single.
That might have been the end of Berry Window & The Movements but that same year, RCA Records combined a recent recording that the singer had cut with Italian studio musicians, a cover of Herbert Pagani and Adriano De Grandis’ “Preistoria, Preistoria” with a second (and arguably superior) version of the classic “I’ll Wait For You”, cut in 1968 when Vandroogenbroeck and Bryer were still members.
With Edwards and Jones remaining in the UK to join JJ Jackson’s band, Window returned to Switzerland and embarked on an illustrious solo career which he continues to this day.
Fortunately, anyone who wants to check out the band’s excellent legacy can hear the group’s entire work (minus Soul Hour) on the Early Years double CD.
Thanks to Rolf ‘Ray’ Rieben of Feathered Apple Records and Barry Window for their help
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