Australian Geographonic - tracks from Pat Aulton, Philip Merifield and Barry Hall At The Conn Organ.

The Place I Want To Be - Pat Aulton (1980). Pat Aulton is quite a celebrated musician and producer who was particularly successful in the sixties and seventies, producing hit records for people such as Normie Rowe. I was familiar with Aulton through a fantastic library track called Barrier Reef that he contributed to Standard Music Library ESL 126 alongside John Sangster and Sven Libaek. On The Place I Want To Be he is front of the microphone and singing this somewhat awkward paean to Great Eastland - a chunk of northern New South Wales and south Queensland. Aulton forges ahead with gusto, even (almost) selling artless lines like, ‘We’ve got people peanut picking up in Kingaroy’ or ‘All through the inland and right along the coast, when you look at people’s faces, you can almost see them boast’. I suspect this was the theme song for the regional television network Great Eastland Television as they commissioned the track and the term ‘Great Eastland’ isn’t widely used in a geographical sense. The B-side, Country Nights fares no better lyrically but has some lovely production touches.

It’s Another World - Phillip Merifield (198?). It’s Another World is actually the B-side of this single, but I like it better than the A, so here it is. This is another promotional single either for the Gippsland region in general, or a business called ‘Lakeland Wonderland’ in Lakes Entrance, that rare thing that has basically zero Google presence, so I haven’t the faintest idea. Anyway, the song itself is in the same ‘list as many towns as you can’ school of songwriting as The Place I Want To Be, but feels a little bit more natural. I haven’t found any information at all about Merifield, but the single was produced by John Wallis, a folk muso who has been active since the eighties and is still playing today. (And, to illustrate the incestuousness of the Australian music scene, on his 1984 LP A Singer Of The Bush he was joined on keyboards by Ian Eccles-Smith, whose progressive releases I have previously showcased on Urban Bowerbird.)

The Lights Of Adelaide - Barry Hall At The Conn Organ (1969). Barry Hall is a bit of a star organ player who released a number of LPs in the sixties and seventies and at 77 years old still has new CDs for sale on his website today. This track is off his Choose Your Own LP which was the name of Barry’s radio show on Adelaide’s 5DN. On this show, Barry would ‘spin records, give cheerio calls to listeners, handle competitions and play the organ’. Little wonder that Barry remained a ‘firm favourite with housewives over the years’. One competition that 5DN held in 1968 was an Australia wide songwriting contest for a song about Adelaide. The winner, The Lights Of Adelaide written by Mr. Cliff Johns of Belair, is given Barry’s organ-driven treatment with accompaniment from Kevin Roper on drums and Roy Wooding on guitar. Sure, it’s a daggy and antiquated tune (have you ever been to Adelaide?) but it’s pretty charming and the addition of live guitar lifts it above the general standard of op-shop organ music. All in all, it perfectly sums up Adelaide, or ‘Radelaide’ as it is regularly, sarcastically referred to by Melbournians and Sydneysiders alike.

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Qantas's marketing team get hip: The Kangaroo Hop - Qantas Air Cargo (1971)

How you going to swing down there on the ground? This is the question posed by the hip young man who sings The Kangaroo Hop - a groovy new sound which incongruously extolls the virtues of the usually prosaic business of air cargo. The Kangaroo Hop is featured on a transparent red flexi-disc that I found at last year's Kew Record Fair. 

The A side has The Kangaroo Hop 'single', a rockin' piece of seventies pop with an exciting male vocal punctuated by a horn section and accompanied by some funky drumming. I've no idea who the players are, as the information on the disc indicates that the song was 'invented, arranged and performed by Qantas Air Cargo'. The B side has a few snippets of the aforementioned song but is mainly taken up by a typical old-style Australian announcer - a man, of course, this is business sweetheart - describing the benefits of using Qantas air cargo for your company. (The best part is the very beginning where he awkwardly repeats the first couple of the lines to the song, vaguely in time with the music.) The Kangaroo Hop was featured in Australian newspaper advertisements in 1971 with pretty much the same sort of copy that appears on the record. 

I often wonder how these sorts of promotional vinyl releases were meant to be received. Some are obviously intended to be played on radio, but based on the presentation of the disc and the nature of the information on the sleeve and B side, I suspect this one was intended to be played by the businessmen themselves. The language positively screams that using Qantas air cargo is modern, groovy and in tune with the times. Although, this does seem at odds with the graphics they chose for the disc of old fashioned ballroom dancers - perhaps they were just stock pictures from a library. 

I love hearing promotional releases from the sixties and seventies of Australia. There's a sort of unintentional honesty to this music which evokes the time they come from with a sincerity and veracity that pop music simply doesn't have. So come on, grab a jet and go with the groovy new sound - it's the Kangaroo Hop! It's the Kangaroo hop!



Label: Private Qantas label.
Released: 1971 (based on newspaper advertisements)
Players: None identified. 

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Hymn For Holy Year - Kim and Leanne (1974)

This is a lovely religious/psychedelic pop tune attributed to two singers known only as “Kim and Leanne”. Did they go on to achieve musical success? Did they go on to achieve ecclesiastical success? This, like the holy trinity, is a mystery that will probably never really be known by mankind. The label says that the track was written by Julie Atton and produced by Peter Martin - an online record shop I found says that this is “jazz heavyweight” Peter Martin (and such a man does exist) but I’m unsure as to how they would have distinguished between that Peter Martin and some random Peter Martin from the congregation of Kim and Leanne’s church. 

The single was released by Sydney’s 2SM radio station which was enormously popular in the seventies and eighties and pretty much molded the Top 40 radio format as we know it in Australia. However, despite their populist appeal, until 1992 2SM was in fact owned by the Catholic Broadcasting Company which in turn was controlled by the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney. (The ‘SM’ apparently refers to Sydney’s St. Mark’s Church) I won’t go into it in depth here, but yes, running a popular radio station that was controlled by the Catholic Church did have it’s challenges; various songs couldn’t be played, such as obvious examples like Skyhooks’ sleazy seventies stuff but also songs like The Ballad Of John and Yoko due to its conspicuous use of the word ‘Christ’. (All information on 2SM stolen from the excellent Australian vintage pop site, Milesago.)

Anyway, the song itself is great, Kim and Leanne are sweet, unpretentious singers, the phrasing of the melody kind of reminds me of Radiohead’s Optimistic and you literally won’t believe their use of primitive synths. The lyrics are rubbish and are in reference to the Catholic holy or jubilee year of 1974 - now this weird: the B-side features Father John Murphy talking about the Holy Year of 1974, but all the media I can find on the web says that the year in question was in fact 1975. Another Biblical mystery, on par with the resurrection, no doubt. So, enjoy this unique gem and give thanks to reader Rex who sent me this single. Amen.

Label: 2SM

Released: 1974

Players: Kim and Leanne - vocals

Peter Martin - production

No other musicians credited.

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Hayman Island Promo Single - Jimmy Parkinson (1957)

Sandy Scott was glad he lost his heart in Sydney - and Jimmy Parkinson lost his heart on Hayman Island. Presumably in the fifties and sixties you couldn’t walk around a popular Australian tourist spot without tripping over some pop-star's lost, dismembered heart. This recording is a nice little Oz exotica single from the late fifties featuring crooner Jimmy Parkinson singing a couple of tunes about Hayman Island.

From Wikipedia: Hayman Island is the most northerly of the Whitsunday Islands, part of the Cumberland Islands, which are located off the coast of Central Queensland, Australia at 20°03′S 148°53′E. Hayman is a private island open to the public, most famous for its luxury resort which was built in the 1950s by millionaire Reg Ansett, who also founded Ansett Australia. The island is a significant drawing point for tourism in Queensland.

Jimmy Parkinson was an Australian born singer who had a significant hit in the UK with ‘The Great Pretender’, released a few singles and one LP. This single features two tunes about the tropical wonders of Hayman Island with backing by Bob Gibson, His Orchestra and Chorus. It was a promotional single produced by the Royal Hayman Hotel. The two tracks are (Pack Up A Dream) And Head For Hayman Island and I Lost My Heart On Hayman Island - both done in a late fifties exotica style; Queensland via Honolulu.

My copy has no picture sleeve, but apparently one exists (picture above borrowed from popsike.com who borrowed it from eBay).

Label: EMI Custom

Released: 1957

Players: Jimmy Parkinson - vocals

Bob Gibson - Orchestra

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I'm Glad I Lost My Heart In Sydney - Sandy Scott with Edwin Harrison and His Orchestra (1969)

To follow on from my last post on the brilliant A Place To Stand, a song extolling the virtues of Ontario, here’s a track a little closer to home. I’m Glad I Lost My Heart In Sydney is a charmer of a song with a musical theatre swing and a few local references to keep the New South Welshmen happy. The vocals are by Aussie crooner Sandy Scott, who was huge in the sixties and seventies. The b-side is an instrumental version, showcasing the talents of Edwin Harrison and his Orchestra. I can find very little information about this single and the people involved, but it’s a nicely done piece of late-sixties Australiana. 

Lest you think I’m not bringing you the quality music you’ve come to expect, fear not: this song is award winning! According to the information on the disc, this song, written by one Freddie Morgan, was the winner of Sydney radio station 2GB’s International Song Competition. If any one has any information on this tune, let me know in the comments.

Label: ATA Records (Distributed by Festival)

Released: 1969

Players: Sandy Scott - vocals

Edwin Harrison and His Orchestra - music

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Bush Theme/Lonely Australian Landscape - Sven Libaek (1966)

Here's another gem from Urban Bowerbird favourite Sven Libaek. These two tunes are taken from the nature documentary soundtrack Nature Walkabout, however these are quite different versions to the tracks that appear on the LP. These versions are shorter and have faster tempos than the album versions and a few changes in orchestration and arrangement. The two tracks also seem to be played by a more stripped-down version of Sven's usual ensemble - there are no saxophone, flute or trumpet parts, just piano, guitar, bass, vibes and harmonica on Bush Theme. I am unsure why different versions of these songs were released on the single - is this a standard practice? I have a 7" single from Libaek's Inner Space soundtrack (Thatcherie/Sounds Of The Deep) and it contains exactly the same versions as featured on the LP. Weird.

I always felt that Bush Theme was one of the weaker tracks on Nature Walkabout and I think the increase in tempo and the concision of this arrangement improves it immeasurably. Lonely Australian Landscape on the other hand is one of my favourite of Sven's compositions and I like it even better with this pacing and arrangement. It takes what is already a great melody and gives it an incredible urgency and energy.

Label: Festival
Released: 1966 (I assume; that's when the Nature Walkabout soundtrack was released.)
Players: Unsure, but here's an educated guess: Sven Libaek - piano 

George Golla - guitar
John Sangster - vibes, percussion
Ed Gaston - bass
Derek Fairbrass - drums
Richard Brooks - harmonica

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Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - Incredible Penguins (1985)

Here's a concept: I'm going to share a piece of music which I really don't like. Think of it as an act of vigilance on my part, as I don't want to ever be doomed to repeat the kind of history which is represented by this release by the Incredible Penguins. This is a benefit single released in '85 by a number of actual and semi Aussie musical celebrities in the aid of the Little Penguin (Eudyptula minor). Allow me to outline the crimes committed by this single:

1. The abysmal artwork and title of the band. What the hell were they thinking? Is that snow in the background? Little Penguins are native to the southern coast of Australia and coastal New Zealand - they live on beaches, not snow. Then again, it does perfectly compliment the slap-dash attitude exuded by the single as a whole.

2. And speaking of slap-dash, what's with the choice of song? They've taken a very well known cover (which was rereleased after Lennon's murder only five years earlier), which was probably good for sales, but what has the song got to do with penguins? What's worse is that in order to create some kind of relevance from the song choice, they play samples over the outro of politicians talking about the Falklands War! What the hell does that have to do with the plight of this native Australian penguin species?

3. The musicians involved in making this record were frankly, pretty uninspiring. This single was the brainchild of Aussie music industry legend Molly Meldrum, who I would have thought could have assembled a pretty impressive mob of musos, particularly during his heyday in the eighties. Instead we get Angry Anderson and Brian Mannix! Granted, Meldrum also got Colin Hay, John Farnham and Bob Geldoff (who during this era evidently got involved with absolutely any charity single that would have him) but they are swamped by a chorus of no name Aussie singers and the Hare Krishna Chorus(?).

4. After you've handed over your hard-earned cash to help out the penguins, what sort of value do you get with this single? An extended version, a radio mix and an instrumental mix of the same song which was already done ten times better on the original - the listenability potential is just overwhelming.

5. Maybe this is going to sound like a weird complaint, but the Little Penguin isn't even endangered (and as far as I'm aware, wasn't categorised as such when this was recorded). Don't get me wrong, any money going towards the conservation of native species is great, but there are loads of other less well-known bird species in this country that could have done with the sort of financial boost that this recording would have brought in - such as the insanely endangered Orange-bellied Parrot. One can't help but think that the Little Penguin was chosen as an easy animal to identify with regardless of other potentially more pressing conservation issues at the time.

Basically, this recording feels like a soulless, vapid enterprise entered into by people who may well have had their hearts in the right place but ended up creating something so pointless and tacky, that it's no wonder that no one (and I mean no one) plays or has even heard of this recording today. It's hard to avoid being reminded of the brilliance of the Simpsons and their own vapid celebrity benefit single We're Sending Our Love Down The Well.

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We Saw It All With Trans Tours - The Seekers (197?)

Q: When are The Seekers not The Seekers? A: When they are The Pacific Seekers and they're singing jingles for a travel company! As you can see from the artwork, this promotional single is credited to 'The Pacific Seekers', however the disc itself is credited to 'The Seekers'. The Seekers first disbanded in 1968 and this release represents a time in the late seventies when original member Bruce Woodley reunited the band (without Judith Durham) to record new material. The track itself is actually quite listenable and enjoyable due to a catchy melody and canny arrangement. There's also a great vintage synthesiser solo and an arpeggio which rings through most of the song which gives it a dated charm. Now, just in case you thought that The Pacific Seekers and Trans Tours would treat this promotional single as a slapdash affair, you'd be dead wrong: you get not one, but two versions of the song, with two sets of lyrics referring to New Zealand and Fiji. And they haven't just interchanged the word 'New Zealand' with 'Fiji' either, the verse has been completely altered to reflect the rich histories of both of these pacific nations. You'll be singing along in no time - Oh, we fly through the air, we drive on the land; yes, we've always been a travelling band. There's so much to see, it's a beautiful land. And we saw it all with Trans Tours. We saw it all with Trans Tours!

Label: EMI

Released: Between 1975-1977

Players: Bruce Woodley - guitar

Athol Guy - bass

Keith Potger - guitar

Louisa Wisseling - vocals

(I have some uncertainty on who played what on this single, but this was the lineup of 'The Seekers' at the time, and the instrument they generally played.)

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Getaway (Consulate cigarettes) - Bob Young & His Orchestra featuring Helen Reddy, Errol Buddle and George Golla. (~1963)

This is the first in a number of posts featuring promotional records. I purchased this record because it appeared to be some kind of cigarette advertisement but also because it featured Oz jazz greats Errol Buddle and George Golla. After trying to find out about this record, I also found out that it was apparently the very first vocal appearance of Helen Reddy. It's a nifty little track featuring a full horn section (courtesy of Bob Young's orchestra, we presume), an extended, though safely accessible, solo from Buddle and some nice guitar work from Golla. The lyrics are pretty much what you'd expect: Get away from the everyday - swing to Consulate. The Virginia menthol cigarette. Cool, clean Consulate - the Virginia menthol cigarette! - the melody of the last line is so catchy that it surely could have been the basis of a hit single. Despite Ms. Reddy's exuberance in singing these lines in the early sixties, I am told that she does not endorse smoking and gave up the habit in later life. The people at Rothmans of Pall Mall were good enough to include a vocal and an instrumental take of this track.

Label: Promotional - Released by Rothmans of Pall Mall (Aust.) Ltd.

Released: ~1963

Players: Helen Reddy - vocals

Errol Buddle - tenor saxaphone

George Golla - guitar

Bob Young and his Orchestra: everything else, I guess.

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Sally/Dive - Andrew Richardson (1982)

I'm really into the flute these days. The presence of a flute on a record will pretty much tip me over into buying it if I'm otherwise unable to decide. This independent release by Andrew Richardson features a lovely picture of him playing the flute on the front and on the back has a disembodied arm defiantly grasping a flute - naturally I bought it and the Salvos made an easy $1. When deciding on a genre tag on this post, I wasn't quite sure what to call this instrumental record. Prog? Pop? 'Flute' seemed most appropriate. Sally is a slow, soundtrackesque piece with quite a simple melody that builds to a nice dramatic plateau which then gets washed over by some very eighties synth sounds. Dive is a strange, upbeat pop track with Richardsons doubled flute accompanied by synth bass and drums. Andrew is still actively playing, but now goes under the name Howlin' Wind.

Label: Private? Andrew Richardson Music, produced by Andrew Richardson.

Released: 1982

Players: Andrew Richardson - flute

Mike Toddhunter - keyboards

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Para Ti/Warmer - Bryce Rohde (1963)

This is a single released in 1963 by Bryce Rohde, probably best known for his work in the Australian Jazz Quintet. I found this single at a second book shop in Leongatha with a bunch of other jazz 45s that were all from 1963. Both tracks on this 7" are great and have something of a cool, almost exotica, bossa feel - it reminds me of the sort of stuff they reissue on Trunk Records. This single was released by CBS during the reign of Sven Libaek who produced both tracks.

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Murray Song/Riverbird Cries - Peter Harris (~1977)

I found this single in an op-shop in Brunswick for about a dollar. I bought it because the information on the sleeve indicated that this had been recorded in Mildura - a small town on the Murray in northern Victoria where surely very few records were ever produced. It's also where I grew up. Both tracks on this single are deceptively likeable and feature a sort of pretentious-free folk sound with the welcome addition of some fearsome sounding early synths. I found it hard to find out much about this record (the name Peter Harris isn't exactly distinctive) so I struck upon the bright idea of asking an old family friend from Mildura whose surname happens to be 'Harris', if Peter was a long lost cousin or something. Peter was no relation, but I still got a very informative reply. My friend had talked to a longtime community radio volunteer and obtained the following information:

Peter Harris was a school teacher within the NSW school system and was posted to the area around 1974. He wrote a song about the PS Ruby and recorded a full album back in Sydney which was released on Ritz records, a subsidiary of Festival. Ruby was the title track of the album (and we have a copy at HOT FM)

When I was on the tourist Board we had two goes to get a good song on Mildura. In 1975 we got the late Tex Williams to record locally a single "The Paddleboat Song" and "The Mildura Song". It was recorded at the Norco Studios in Mildura by the late Brian Norris and issued as NCP 208. Both sides were written by Tex and Paul Williams, who were living out at Ruby Hayles place at Trentham Cliffs.

Around 1977 we did a similar experiment with Peter Harris and he wrote and recorded "The Murray Song" and "The River Bird Cries" It was recorded at Nor-Co and issued with the catalogue number of NCP 243.

Soon after that Peter left the district and from memory went to the Casino area of NSW [...] Peter did a lot of work with school kids on both sides of the Murray River during his time here.

Harris's album Ruby is a very sought after record today and regularly sells for well over $100. Harris also recorded an album with one of his students Dave Madden, called Fool's Paradise which is equally revered by LP collectors (and priced accordingly) but is also available on iTunes in a slightly more affordable format.

Label: Private/NOR-CO

Released: ~1977

Players: Peter Harris - piano, guitars, synthesizers

Owen Zibbell - bass

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Northern Territory/Theme From Black Orpheus -Andy Sundstrom (1963)

(EDIT: I have found the EP from which this single was taken. It contains an additional two tracks Free Fall and Theme From An Unwritten Movie. Check it out here.)

To follow on from the previous post, here is a version of Sven Libaek's song Northern Territory recorded by Andy Sundstrom in 1963. Libaek's version of this track can be found on The Music Of Sven Libaek and based on the liner notes of that LP, was presumably featured on some sort of documentary about the Northern Territory. I can find very little information on who Sundstrom actually is, but he recorded a couple of folk LPs with Leonard Teale back in 1969 and 1970. He's clearly a guitarist as these two instrumental, guitar-based tracks attest. Northern Territory is a jaunty, tremolo-number with a distinct western feel. The B-side, Theme From Black Orpheus is an exotica-tinged, melody driven Brazilian bossa nova taken from the soundtrack of the 1959 movie of the same name.

EDIT: Found some information on Mr. Sundstrom on the back of an LP he did with Leonard Teale. Here it is verbatim:

Andy Sundstrom was born in Denmark. He studied almost every string instrument imaginable, paying particular attention to the guitar and balalaika. Most of his early youth was spent playing in various bands. He decided he wanted to travel, and with a friend, two guitars, a balalaika and $60 in his pocket he left Hanover, Germany. After 10 days the money had been spent, then the boys ‘played’ their way to Italy, Marseilles, Spain. Andy continued the journey alone to the Canary Islands, and from there helped sail a 38-foot ketch to Australia where he settled for several years. Andy has now returned to his native Denmark, and recently travelled extensively throughout Europe furthering his musical career.

Label: CBS, produced by Sven Libaek.
Released: 1963
Players: Andy Sundstrom - guitar

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