Harry Lyon


More than five decades after joining his first proper group, Harry Lyon’s music career has come full circle and he’s back hollering away in a bedroom, getting his voice in shape for a run of gigs where he’s the singer in a band.

The last surviving member of Hello Sailor’s original Three Musketeers, Lyon has embraced that band’s legacy and finally come to terms with continuing under the banner of one of New Zealand rock’s biggest names despite the passing of his brothers in arms Dave McArtney in 2013 and Graham Brazier in 2015.

Harry Lyon, England, 1962.
Live at Mainstreet - The Legionnaires (1983)
Harry Lyon, 2019.
Beam in Gisborne, PopCo Sing Show, Gisborne January 29, 1975. Brent Brodie and Angela Ayres are on vocals, backed by Beam: Harry Lyon (guitar), Tony McMaster (bass), Don Mills (keyboards). Don Mills: "The tail end of Beam before Harry Lyon formed Hello Sailor and I left to join Think with Phil Whitehead. These tours were great with promoters like Mike Corless etc setting them up. Fun days for sure."
Photo credit: Gisborne Photo News
Harry Lyon and Neil Hannan with Coup D'Etat
Photo credit: Simon Grigg collection
Harry Lyon and Craig Murray.
Harry Lyon in Crying Shame.
The Legionnaires - You Bring Out the Worst in Me
Harry Lyon and Hammond Gamble.
Sailor's Voyage (2007)
Nat and Julie - the characters played by Harry Lyon and Beaver - perform together in the 1985 film Should I Be Good? 
Harry Lyon in Crying Shame on C'mon, 1968.
Brian Smith and Harry Lyon at the 1992 APRA Silver Scrolls
Coup D'Etat - Doctor I Like Your Medicine (1980)
Hammond Gamble, Beaver and Harry Lyon, at the time of the 1985 film Should I Be Good? 
Harry Lyon and Delaney Davidson.
Coup D'Etat: Jan Preston, Harry Lyon, Paul Dunningham and Neil Hannan
Lisle Kinney and Harry Lyon at rehearsals in LA.
Photo credit: Photo by Jeremy Templer
More awards - Dave McArtney, Graham Brazier, Harry Lyon
Harry Lyon - To The Sea (2018)
Dave McArtney, Andrew Boak (No Tag, 89FM), Harry Lyon backstage
Photo credit: Photo by Bryan Staff
Harry Lyon, album tour 2018.
A 1985 Zulu/CBS publicity shot: Dave McArtney, Ricky Ball, Harry Lyon, Graham Brazier
13th Floor MusicTalk with Harry Lyon, 2020
Harry Lyon - Christmas in Dublin (2018)
Harry Lyon tour band, 2018. From left to right: Stephen Small, Josh Sorenson, Jimmy Taylor, Harry Lyon, Tony Waine.
Coup D'Etat's second lineup, 1981: Neil Hannan, Harry Lyon and Paul Dunningham
Harry Lyon in Crying Shame on C'mon, 1968.
Harry Lyon, Auckland University Café, 1977
Photo credit: Photo by Simon Lynch
Harry Lyon and Hammond Gamble.
The 1983/84 Pink Flamingos put together to support the release of The Catch album. L to R: Karen Hill, Paul Woolright, Harry Lyon, Dave McArtney, Lyn "Vinnie" Buchanan
Hello Sailor - Lyin' In the Sand (1978)
Crying Shame at The Bowl - "Auckland's Premier Teen Spot".
Labels:

Key


Vertigo


CBS


Polydor


Zulu


Liberation


Norm Records

Crying Shame at the Oriental Ballroom.
Crying Shame at Monaco, Auckland.
Crying Shame at Bo-Peep.
Crying Shame at Oriental Ballroom.
Trivia:

With Hello Sailor and Dragon on their last legs in Sydney in 1979, they sometimes shared the same bill. On one occasion, Harry Lyon and Ricky Ball filled in for absent Dragon members while Todd Hunter shouted chords to Lyon as they went.

When Harry Lyon heard filmmakers were looking for musicians for a movie being made in Wellington in 1984 about a band, he called rock photographer Phillip Peacocke to snap some publicity photos. Peacocke’s images had adorned LPs by John Hanlon, Street Talk, Toy Love, Dave McArtney & The Pink Flamingos and others. His shots did the trick for Lyon when they crossed director Grahame McLean’s desk and he offered Lyon the role of ex-con Nat Goodman in Should I Be Good?

On the strength of his lead role in Should I Be Good?, Harry Lyon signed with The Robert Bruce Ugly Agency and appeared on TV screens in Heroes, Hercules and adverts. He did endless auditions for Shortland Street but never got a gig.

Harry Lyon wrote the Hello Sailor song ‘Bungalow Ave’ on the drive from Admirals Bay to Kerikeri the day after a disastrous gig with Hammond Gamble in Kaitaia on Easter Weekend 1998. The first set was packed out but nearly everybody left during the break for another bar that was giving away a Volkswagen and a surfboard where you had to be there to claim the prize.

Harry Lyon shares the same birthday as former Go-Go’s singer Belinda Carlisle. In 2004 he found himself part of her backing band when she supported John Farnham at the Mission Estate in Napier. Thinking she would be using Farnham’s band, she was grumpy when she found out her musicians were a NZ scratch band. That is until a run-through in a back room when it became evident they had learnt her songs inside out.

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