Innes, dubbed Opera Man and the People’s Tenor, exudes an air of quiet confidence as he sets up his equipment before launching into song.

Regular observers may have noticed an occasional second singer, dressed in equally dapper style, singing Sinatra numbers. This is John’s brother, Moray.

Also known as Sgt Innes, Moray is more often seen playing saxophone with the band of the Royal Regiment of Scotland.

This Friday, John will make it past the front door of the building which has so often formed the backdrop to his al fresco performances.

A concert with the Scottish Festival Orchestra will feature a duet with Moray and pieces by the Royal Regiment of Scotland, the only full-time regular Army band in Scotland. Monies raised from ticket sales will go to Help for Heroes, a charity for injured war veterans.

For Moray, it is a relief to be performing with his brother indoors for once. While John has been braving the elements for more than a decade, Moray admits he finds it a less than comfortable experience. “If you’re going to be a musician, you want to be on a stage somewhere, where you feel you’re in a safe environment,” says Moray, 45. “But John’s been knitting these concerts out of thin air for many years and feels completely at home with it. I find it terrifying.”

Younger brother John, 44, says he loves the challenge of street performing but is not immune to the odd stomach lurch. “Because I’ve been there so much, people know what I’m going to do, but even now, during the first song, you think, ‘Am I going to get a clap? Is someone going to acknowledge my existence here?’”

Originally from Edinburgh but now based in Kent, John says that Glasgow continues to give him one of the warmest receptions of any UK city.

Occasional stage-crashers, usually drunk, do push his professionalism to the limit. “Sometimes it’s difficult not to laugh,” he says. “You get all sorts of people who come out on the street, and you get some desperate people that don’t have anyone and it’s their way of striking up some communication and feeling like they’re not on their own.”

In April when John was completing his album with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, he used the facilities to record a CD for Help for Heroes. With his own military background and Moray in the Army, it seemed like a logical choice of charity.

Since then, many people have approached him to tell him about veterans they know. “This chap came over and told me about his cousin who’d been in Afghanistan and he was supposed to go on a manoeuvre,” says John. “The cousin and his friend had joined up on the same day and were in the same unit. At the last moment, the commanding officer changed his mind and sent the cousin’s friend on the manoeuvre instead and he was blown up. This man’s cousin struggled to get over it -- the fact it was meant for him.”

For Moray, and many of his band colleagues, who were posted to Iraq during the second conflict, the observations are first-hand.

“I’ve seen people with horrific injuries and obviously going through emotional turmoil but within weeks that turmoil had turned round to a determination to get better and move on with their lives.

It was a massive lesson to me about how hard it is to break the human spirit. You can suffer an awful lot and come through the other side.”

Music and the military have intertwined the brothers’ lives. They were brought up in Pilton in Edinburgh and have played musical instruments -- Moray, the clarinet and John, the saxophone -- since childhood.

In his 20s, John played the saxophone with the Royal Scots Military Band and Moray was a struggling musician. On John’s invitation, Moray went along to watch John play and made a life-changing decision. “I went to see the military band a couple of times and thought, ‘Let’s go for it!” So I joined up and got my basic training.”

In what was essentially a life-swap, John packed in the military band and took up the precarious life of busking. He went to London and took singing lessons and began honing his skills on the street.

Last year, they performed together at John’s first concert at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

Today, John holds up to four street concerts a week. He wants to take this orchestra-backed show on the road and fill a major concert hall in London. However, he says he’ll never stop the street singing. “I’d always want to go out and do that because it is in my blood now. Even if I was to get some recognition for what I’m doing -- at the same level as say Russell Watson or Paul Potts -- I’d still want to do the street performances.”

 

John Innes: The People’s Tenor is at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Friday, October 2, 7.30pm. For 
tickets call 0141 353 8000.