Trios Becoming Duos

Let’s start with indie duo, Uh Huh Her. I think that it would have been more symbolic and more coherent pun-wise if the name was Uh Her. Besides, Uh Huh Her is not an original name. It was the title of a 2004 PJ Harvey album. Leisha Hailey’s band formed in 2007. Joining herself and Camilla Grey was drummer Alicia Warrington.

This reminds me of another ethnic minority leaving a trio. When Joe Leeway left Thompson Twins in 1986, it was too easy to assume that it was because of a conflict in interest due to romance where it would be easy to be outvoted two to one. Rather tellingly, Tom Bailey and Alannah Currie created a child who was born in 1988. The couple could only produce three more albums under the band name before changing gears by producing music under a new name (Babble) where they recruited a white guy and got as far as releasing two albums.

The Pointer Sisters are a different breed altogether. They began as a four piece but became known as a trio, similar to how Thompson Twins originally had more members. Their final album was released in 1993 but they still performed now and then. Two of the sisters, June and Bonnie, performed as a duo in the early noughties but they never had the guts to release an album as one. Bonnie hadn’t been with the group since the late seventies whereas June alienated the other sisters due to her drug problems. At one point, the duo was billed as “Bonnie and June Pointer, formerly of the Pointer Sisters.”

You compare that with Bananarama who became a duo and never changed their name at all. Unlike Thompson Twins, they tried to continue as a trio with a new member. This didn’t work, so they continued as a duo. Despite bombing with their sixth album, Please Yourself (1993), under this new arrangement, they have gone on to release more albums as a duo than they ever did as a trio…albeit with limited success. They never felt the pressure to change their name although they could have done so with a catchy name like Duo-wop (a reference to the doo-wop genre).

Then there’s Bros. The Goss brothers, Matt and Luke, began as a trio with Craig Logan as their bassist but they only did one album with him and he wasn’t even their step brother or foster brother. Ironically, they achieved less success with their second and final albums.