Terry Bennett was born in Nottingham, England. At thirteen years of age Terry's first real venture into music, apart from singing in the school choir, was to put together a little rock ensemble which lasted for eighteen months. At the age of fifteen Terry started another band called 'Jay Burns and the Rocking Tycons'. They played with groups such as 'The Jaybirds' who became the band 'Ten Years After' with Alvin Lee. Terry and 'Ten Years After' were destined to play together again later in life when 'Sassafras' went to the States to promote their second album 'Wheelin' n' Dealin'.
In 1963 'Jay Burns and the Rocking Tycons' signed a contract with a certain Madam Tollomie, which took them to Sarran a taining camp in Orlean, France where they played to the American guys going out to Vietnam. Afterwards, Terry and his band went to Paris where they played venues in the Moulan Rouge district which was commonly known as the Pigale district, moving on to La foret and St Germain before returning to Britain. At this time the band was doing particularly well and was playing three or four times a week.
In 1964 Terry (Jay Burns) and the Rocking Tycons went to play in Lincoln where they met Ken Turner who immediately changed the band's name to 'The Breed'. Terry and the band moved up to Lincoln and stayed with Ken, a postman, reporter, entrepeneur, and a hell of a nice guy, at his house in Horncastle.
In 1965 Terry went to London where he was offered a gig singing for Freddie Poser, the main man at Pye records. However it turned our that Freddie was interested in Terry but not the band, for Terry was just the person Freddie had been looking for take the place of David Garrick in a London musical, but Terry turned down the opportnity as he wouldn't leave the band.
In 1966 Terry and 'The Breed' returned to Nottingham where the band slowly filtered away. Terry started up an agency with Ken Turner, putting other bands out such as 'The Marbles' (remember 10 little Indians?) who's lead singer later joined up with Richy Blackmore and Rainbow, but the agency didn't last long as Terry wanted to play and perform himself.
In 1967 Terry started a new band called 'The Diary' which turned out to be highly successful, traveling to Holland, France, Belgium and also spending much time in Germany, where they followed in the tracks of 'The Beatles'. The band played in venues such as The Top Ten Club and the Star Club in Hamburg, where his backing band was 'Paul Raven and the Boston Show Band' (Gary Glitter). Other gigs were played in Garmish, and at The Crazy Horse in Berlin.
Afterwards, Terry and his band returned to Frankfurt and played at 'The K-52', he was destined to return there years later with 'Sassafras'. Whilst playing at 'The K-52' Terry was privileged to meet with the legendary Jimmy Hendrix on a night out at the club where Terry was playing. During one concert, while Jimmy's lead guitarist changed his strings around, (Jimmy was left handed) Terry was asked by Jimmy to get on stage and sing with him and the Jimmy Hendrix Experience (Mitch Mitchell and Noel). Terry became good friends with Jimmy, who came up to Terry's Frankfurt flat from time to time.
In 1968 Terry and 'The Diary' returned once again to Britain, and ended up playing two seasons in Butlins. The memorable high point, apart from the women, was when someone ran into the dressing room and said "come on quick, someone is going to walk on the moon" and in a little TV hut Terry witnessed one of man's greatest achievements.
In 1969 Martin Yale from Cleethorpes began promoting 'The Diary' with bookings such as 'Geoff Beck' and 'Rod Stewart' (although Rod Stewart wasn't famous at the time).
In 1969,'The Diary' was put forward for a talent show called 'The Hughie Green Experience' or 'Opportunity Knocks'. At one of the auditions in the West Country Hughie came down with his girlfriend and said that he wanted 'The Diary' on his show. The band had decided to do a number called 'Another Saturday Night' by Sam Cooke, however, the guy who was financing the band's trip to London to do the show wanted them to play one of his own songs. Consequently, when the band finally recorded the TV show at Teddington Lock, it wasn't a full harmony number as originally planned, and the band only came second and not first. Terry found the experience quite disillusioning, so returned to Nottingham where he formed another band called 'Exit' with some old friends. All of a sudden the band found themselves being booked, mainly for harmony and cabaret gigs, months at a time all around the country. It was in 1971 on one of the band's 'weeks away' that Terry and 'Exit' played at Alexander's in Newport, where he met Dai Shell, Ralph Evans and Peter 'Jake' Jacobs for the first time. They invited Terry to make a record at their recording studios called Ddraig, in Cardiff. Terry was unaware of the fact that Dai and Ralph were actually auditioning Terry for a part in their band, and so Terry left Nottingham once more, to become the lead singer of Sassafras.
Since the inception of Sassafras Terry has always been the focus and an integral part of the band. This was so much to the fore during the rehearsals for the shows in 2000 and since. Along with Ralph Evans Terry remembered most of the harmony's and arrangements and passed them on to the new boy's of the band in a jovial but assertive fashion. After many months of bravely commuting to do Sassafras gig's from his palatial abode in the sunnier climbs of Southern Spain Terry Bennett regrettably left the band in the autumn of 2003. The general consensus between the rest of us was that no one could ever replace the charismatic Terry.
Terry is persuing his solo show in Spain and mainland Europe.