Photo by Jason R. Burgess

Heather Enid Wells (bass), Pete Allen (drums) and the late John Bartram (guitar)

Bright Spark formed as a band in 2004 on Guy Fawkes' Night, 5th November, and began gigging two months later, though John and Heather had been playing live gigs as a duo for some months previously, also under the name Bright Spark. Our trio had two identities, one as a working live band playing mainly functions, clubs and festivals, and the other as studio recording artistes, writing, arranging and producing our own original tracks for release on Travelling Records. You can get an idea of both sides of Bright Spark from our video presentation by multimedia artist Jason R. Burgess.

Our album, Here Comes the Rain, Mama! with twelve original tracks, mostly written by John Bartram, and a glossy full-colour 12-page booklet of artwork, lyrics and info, was launched in March 2007, to excellent reviews (see Linda Barrington-Smith's four-star review from the EDP Event magazine below). On the Bright Spark CD page you can play clips of all the tracks, read more reviews, and buy this and other CDs via Paypal. Tracks from the CD have featured on BBC Radio Norfolk and several other stations, also on web-based radio. We have a band-page and free-to-play recordings on the international music download site SoundClick, where we've had three different songs from our album in the Top Twenty of their respective genre charts, including a Number One.

Listen now! Click the title of any track you'd like to hear. These songs are available for free mp3 download.

Here Comes the Rain, Mama! The title track of the album, which reached No.14 out of 2,360 songs in the BritPop chart on SoundClick.

Don't You Know Who I Am? John Bartram's heart-rending but witty ballad with a great melody, harmony-building choruses and two-guitar solo break reached No.2 in the Pop:Ballad chart on SoundClick.

The Imposter Bluesy guitar instrumental. This version, from our Golden Years album, was recorded on a Gibson 335. There's a different version played on a Telecaster, which you can listen to here, from the Here Comes the Rain, Mama! album.

The World Sings for You An unusual track, part song, part instrumental, written by John Bartram as a tribute after the loss of a dear friend. The closing track of the Here Comes the Rain, Mama! album.

Evie A melodic instrumental featuring electric and acoustic guitars. This was written by John to celebrate the arrival of Pete's first grandchild, and would have been on our next CD.

The sudden and tragic death of John Bartram on 14th May, 2013 brought the original era of the band to a close. Thanks, John, for all the great music and happy times over these eight and a half years. Your glorious voice, awesome guitar work and, above all, your outstanding songwriting have been an inspiration. But most of all, we are missing a decent, kind and lovely person, our well respected leader and a deeply loved friend.