SHELLEY

John Burke Shelley (born 10 April 1950) is a Welsh bass guitarist and vocalist of the Welsh rock band Budgie.

Budgie formed in 1967 in Cardiff, Wales under the name Hills Contemporary Grass. Their original line-up consisted of Burke Shelley on vocals and bass, Tony Bourge on guitar and vocals, and Ray Phillips on drums. After performing several gigs in 1968, the band changed their name to Budgie the following year and recorded their first demo. The band had initially considered going under the name "Six Ton Budgie", but decided the shorter single word variant was preferable. Burke Shelley has said that the band's name came from the fact that he, "loved the idea of playing noisy, heavy rock, but calling ourselves after something diametrically opposed to that".

Their debut album of strong, blues-oriented hard rock was recorded at Rockfield Studios with Black Sabbath producer Rodger Bain and released in 1971, followed by Squawk in 1972. The third album, Never Turn Your Back on a Friend (1973), contained "Breadfan", which was covered by Metallica in 1987. Metallica had covered another Budgie song, "Crash Course in Brain Surgery", earlier in their career.

Shelley is often compared to Rush bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee, as they both share the position of bassist/vocalist in power trio bands, both have distinctive high pitched singing voices, and during the mid to late 1970s they bore a striking resemblance to one other, with long straight hair and huge glasses. Like Lee, Shelley possessed a high tenor vocal range. In addition to singing and playing bass for the group, Shelley also performed keyboards on its early albums, most notably Mellotron on "Young is a World" from their second album Squawk.