John Pantry is a British singer/songwriter, who has also worked as an audio engineer with such acts as the Small Faces, as well as on the first three Bee Gees LP's. While growing up around Leigh on Sea in Essex he played keyboard for the local band, Sounds Around, who recorded two singles in 1966 and 1967. Pantry's next group was Peter & The Wolves, who were essentially the same band under a different name, and Pantry wrote all of the songs on their five single releases between 1967 and 1970. His early songs were very much in the beat-group style, but gradually his writing blossomed until he was producing songs of the quality of 'Lantern Light' and 'Woman On My Mind'. In 1969 Pantry was asked to write two tracks for The Factory, a legendary psychedelic group who had previously released the classic 'Path Through The Forest' single, and he wrote and sang lead on the two Factory standouts, 'Try A Little Sunshine' and the more folk-like 'Red Chalk Hill'. There is currently a complete career-spanning retrospective CD available called 'The Upside Down World Of John Pantry', which collects all of his work with Sounds Around, Peter & The Wolves, The Factory, Wolfe, Norman Conquest and The Bunch, as well as including some of his solo tracks and demos, but for this post I've extracted just the Peter & The Wolves songs, to try to imagine what an album of theirs would have sounded like if they'd ever made it into the studio to record one. As well as both sides of all five singles, there are some previously unreleased songs from the band, and an alternate version of 'Lantern Light', which all make up a nice 40 minute representation of the band from around 1968/1969. To be honest I'd never heard of Peter & The Wolves before I found this CD, but I can now see why Pantry is billed on it as 'Southend-On-Sea's resident pop genius', as he certainly is a neglected talent that needs a wider exposure. 
Track listing
01 Birthday02 We Sold The Farm03 Lantern Light04 Woman On My Mind05 Break Up - Break Down06 Salt07 Little Girl Lost & Found08 Do I09 The Old And The New10 If You Want Me11 Julie12 Lantern Light II13 Is Me14 Still15 Something In The Way She Moves16 The Lady And Me
