Russell Morris ca. 1969
| Russell
Morris (including
Somebody’s Image)
Melbourne 1966 - |
Personnel
Russell Morris ca. 1969
Russell Morris [vocals, guitar] was initially a member of Melbourne pop group Somebody’s Image. His subsequent solo recordings and tours featured an array of musicians too large to individually list here, but certain pertinent details are supplied in the biography text.
It all began around ‘65-’66, when a gangly 17-year-old blond mop-topped rock enthusiast used to hang around gigs by The Groop, trying to get attention for his fledgling young band of hopefuls called Somebody’s Image. Russell Morris and his cohorts were committed to their cause. They practised fervently for five months before even playing their first live dance gig, which happened to be one where The Groop (a favourite among Melbourne’s discerning punters during 1966) were headliners. Russell and his band immediately attracted the notice of their future mentors (particularly Brian Cadd and Ronnie Charles), and a long, valuable and fruitful musical friendship was forged.
Somebody’s Image quickly developed a strong following at Melbourne’s premier venues, and word got around. It wasn’t long before the band came to the notice of Go-Set’s staff writer Ian Meldrum, who had already championed The Groop ruthlessly in his columns. Ian certainly spied potential in Russell, if not in the band that Russell was currently with, and he encouraged them with typical "Molly" flair, as their manager, wanna-be record producer and behind-the-scenes "ideas man".
Somebody’s Image began their recording career with a single called Heat Wave, released on In Records, the pop subsidiary of indie label W&G. The Meldrum production was a reasonably convincing cover of the Holland – Dozier – Holland classic, but this first single failed to chart. However, its successor, an arresting version of Joe South’s Hush gained extremely strong notice from Melbourne radio and, eventually, reasonably strong national chart attention (number 15 placing). As was often the case with Australian covers so such songs (viz The Throb, The Aztecs) this version was superior by far, it must be said, to Deep Purple’s comparatively feeble rendition from around the same time. That distinctive signature guitar riff, which opened the song and provided its backbone rang out relentlessly from so many radio sets in late ’67, and anticipation grew for what this exciting new band would do next.
Meldrum’s interest and hard work touting the band first manifested itself with his fast-developing clout in the Melbourne music industry helping to secure them a firmer recording deal with EMI. The result was the single Hide And Seek, a wonderful pop production (penned by former Throb member Marty Van Wynk) that sadly only achieved moderate chart success (number 32 in Melbourne). If the writing was on the wall for Somebody’s Image, they didn’t yet know it, and the band even continued on after Morris’ departure in September ‘68, with new singer/guitarist Brian Holloway (ex-Dream) taking over, and given continued support from Ronnie Charles and other Groop friends. But by this time, Russell Morris was uppermost in Ian Meldrum’s plans for grooming as a future megastar. Molly was not, on this occasion, to be denied!
The first chapter in this new phase of Morris’ career was the March 1969 release of the single The Real Thing, backed with the bright pop of prolific Aussie songwriter Hans Poulsen’s Only A Matter Of Time. [Note: Because of this record’s significance as a bona fide classic of Australian rock, it is examined in considerable detail in the Reflections section of this profile]. Molly had carefully built up the public expectation with exclusive articles in Go-Set previewing the new single. By late April this tour-de-force single was all over the radio and hit the national number one position at te end of June, elevating Russell Morris almost overnight to the status of the nation’s undisputed leading pop star, and vindicating Meldrum’s faith in his protégé. It was a status that the shy, reticent Morris himself was to find uncomfortable and stultifying, but the juggernaut was already on a runaway course, with scenes of screaming fan hysteria whenever he appeared live or on TV music shows like Uptight.
Performance-wise, Russell was kept thoroughly busy throughout 1969. [Note: One area of detail we here at Milesago are unable to report on at the moment is just who provided backing band support for Russell during this phase. Can anyone out there shed any light?]. A particular highlight for him was when he joined a huge roster of 1969’s biggest acts for an unprecedented national package tour, dubbed Starlift. The frantic fan response to Russell’s early slot in the bill regularly upstaged his co-stars, Johnny Young, Ronnie Burns and Johnny Farnham. Even accomplished and extremely popular band entities on the tour, like The Valentines, Zoot, Doug Parkinson In Focus and The Masters Apprentices, often had the burnish slightly taken off their own exciting sets by the incredible reaction that Morris’ fans accorded him throughout the tour. Incidentally, the Starlift tour may have been a financial disaster for the promoters, unfortunately, but it presented one of the heftiest feasts of quality pop for the punters yet mounted in Australia… and this author, for one, goes a bit gooey knowing the line-up he missed out on seeing!
(One can only marvel at the fortitude of the musicians who attempted to bring such complex studio creations to the stage. Describing those early tours, Morris recalled that performing The Real Thing was a relatively easy task, even without the studio flummery. Apparently the tough one to play live was Paper Walls, with it tricky staccato brass lines and frequent changes.)
The Real Thing was still selling strongly by July ’69, when its follow-up was released. The new single was an even more ambitious production, coupling two fresh Johnny Young numbers on a single which clocked in at a total playing time of just under twelve minutes (unheard of for a 45 at that time). Part Three Into Paper Walls (co-written with Morris) was intended as the a-side – a deliberate sequel to The Real Thing [Part Three Into… is also discussed in depth in Reflections. However, in the short time it took for the record to reach the top of the national charts, many radio stations had begun to flip over and play the lush b-side ballad The Girl That I Love, thereby lengthening the single’s shelf life - and revealing to radio listeners another facet of Russell’s singing talents.
Interestingly, some observers had already noted a strong melodic resemblance between The Real Thing and British minstrel Donovan’s heavy, "Led Zeppelin"-backed ’68 hit, Hurdy Gurdy Man. Similarly, many listeners to The Girl That I Love noted that its middle-eight melody line and chord structure was a little too close to The Beatles’ Hey Jude for comfort. Retrospective debate as to whether Johnny Young was (snicker) the Noel Gallagher of his day, might afford mild diversion, but it cannot be denied that this was an astonishing, lovingly crafted record which confirmed that Russell Morris had truly "arrived".
To a certain extent, things may appear to have gone a bit pear-shaped for Russell after this point. But let’s face it, with an opening one-two salvo like those first two mammoth hit singles, it was not only Morris himself left pondering where his future direction lay. He was struggling to come to terms with the trappings of pop fame, while itching to gain credibility as a songwriter in his own, er, right. Yet "Morris Mania" was in full swing, with a demanding schedule of live appearances and the continued invaluable support from the Uptight and Go-Set (particularly Molly of course). One particular edition of the weekly music paper, emblazoned with the sensational headline "Russell To Marry", became its biggest-selling issue ever, such was the enormity of his (largely female) fanbase! Years later, Russell recalled these frantic fantasy times with the telling comment:
A somewhat dejected and homesick Morris returned to Melbourne in December ’69 and immediately set about fresh recording sessions with EMI house producer Howard Gable. The result was a re-recording of Rachel which with its rich orchestration and war-protest storytelling gambit reached its highest national chart position, number 23, in May 1970. On the surface, a distinctly disappointing performance compared with the success of its predecessors, but this single’s fate was in part determined, as that of many other single releases at the time, by the crippling radio ban on most Aussie and all British records. But Russell’s determination to introduce his own songs was rewarded some months later, with the follow-up to Rachel which was the first outing for a Morris composition (apart from the vignette he penned for Part Three…). Mr America was a riff-heavy, gospel-chugging single with a catchy, soaring female-backed chorus, coupled with the equally strong self-penned b-side, Stand Together and the single returned Morris to the national top 10 in January 1971. Mr America also won him TV Week’s Music Awards accolade for Composer of the Year.
With Russell’s increasing fastidiousness, he scrapped an entire album recorded with Howard Gable, citing Gable’s "misinterpretation" of his ideas. There have been few rock artists whose record label would have indulged them to the extent of funding a complete re-recording of their debut album, but that’s what EMI did, and let’s give thanks for their faith in their valuable artist, for the result was astonishing!
Bolstered by the support of "big brother" Brian Cadd, who had recently returned from battle stations with Axiom in England, Russell re-assembled the songs that were to form the Bloodstone album, while Cadd gathered together a touring band for him (Cycle). With new confidence, Russell crowned the year with a well-received national support slot on the Bee Gees 1971 tour, and a debut album that fulfilled, in every respect, the promise that the now estranged Meldrum first saw in Morris in what seemed like eons ago. The contribution of Brian Cadd cannot be underestimated here. He was crucial in assembling the musicians who realised Russell’s splendid batch of new songs for Bloodstone. This studio lineup comprises a "Who’s Who" of OzRock heavyweights: Barry Sullivan and Barry Harvey (the "Big Goose" and "Little Goose" rhythm section from blues stalwarts Chain), Mark Kennedy, Duncan McGuire, Billy Green, Brian Holloway, Phil Manning, Matt Taylor, Peter Jones, Marcie Jones, Beeb Birtles, Rick Springfield, and of course, Cadd himself.
The album was produced at Armstrong’s in Melbourne by the welcomed-back and mollified [groan! – Ed.] Howard Gable, with magnificent, crisp and punchy sound engineering from John Sayers and John French. The album highlighted Russell’s command of a range of pop and rock idioms, not to mention his maturing voice, which now displayed appealing tinges of world-weariness and melancholy, and a newly-acquired honeyed timbre - an improvement on the limited nasal whine of yore. These features were exemplified by the plaintive, introspective, and quite lovely single pulled from the album, Sweet, Sweet Love, backed with the funky, Band-ish album cut Jail Jonah’s Daughter. Impressive sales figures resulted: the single deservedly made number 7 in July ’71, while the album charted at number 12 soon after its release in September of that year, earning great acclaim from critics as well.
That acclaim was an important fillip for Russell Morris, as he entered possibly the most interesting phase of his long career. Backed by Cycle, he presented the songs from Bloodstone on a gruelling round of touring, culminating with a reception of surprising affection and solidarity from fans when he appeared at the soggy 1972 Mulwala Pop Festival, alongside a dynamite line-up consisting of Chain, Carson, Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, The Coloured Balls and the La De Das – not to mention popular overseas evergreens Canned Heat and Steven Stills and Manassas. Russell Morris & Cycle wowed the crowd with his new repertoire, sprinkled with the obvious hits, and according to reports at the time, the band kicked considerable arse.
Still with the stolid background support of mentor Brian Cadd during 1972, Morris and he co-wrote the follow-up single to Sweet, Sweet Love, an exultant declaration of platitudes and credos, firmly in the Cadd country-gospel mode called Live With Friends, which with its flipside, the quirky country stomp Alcohol Farm, made healthy chart impact; a national number 13 placing in April. The follow-up to that worthy single also peaked at number 13 in December1972. It was titled Wings Of An Eagle - a beautiful, lushly-produced and typically multi-faceted song from Russell’s own pen, and he put in an astonishing vocal performance. With this number, Russell explored his growing interest in theosophy and the concept of Red Indian spiritual guides.
Morris again turned his attention overseas, returning briefly to London before settling in New York. In 1975, he issued another album, on Wizard here and on RCA for US release. Led by the fanciful yet strident single Let’s Do It (maintaining typical chart placing in Oz at around number 14 in November ’75), this impressive, eponymous album featured contributions from such respected studio veterans as Hugh McCracken (gtr) and David Spinozza (dr), fresh from sessions with both Lennon and McCartney, as well as Will Lee (bs), Ken Archer (keys), Rick Marotta (dr) and the Brecker Brothers on horns. The album carried re-recordings of Wings Of An Eagle and Sweet, Sweet Love, bolstered by ten new Morris-penned songs, and its strong critical reception augured well for Russell’s future ventures into the late seventies.
Russell Morris has continued with a varied but always vital career in OzRock. He has fronted a variety of outfits during the eighties - Russell Morris & the Rubes, The Russell Morris Band and The Lonely Boys prominent among them – and has notched up a number of solid hits and fine, well-received albums over the years. He appeared as Riff Raff in a Melbourne production of The Rocky Horror Show and a few years later reprised his musical acting chops as Simon Zealotes in the 1992 staging of Jesus Christ Superstar alongside John Farnham, Kate Ceberano, Angry Anderson and Jon Stevens. Most recently, Russell has been performing in a highly-successful hits showcase with old muckers Darryl Cotton and Ronnie Burns on the club circuit. The popularity of this presentation with rabid, nostalgic audiences demonstrates the affection and esteem that Russell Morris still commands as a true OzRock icon and a worthy survivor of those heady earlier days.
The Real Thing
[Johnny Young] © Chappell 1969
Come and see the real thing, come and see the real thing,
come and see
Come and see the real thing, come and see the real thing,
come and see
There’s a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn’t
really mean a thing
Come and see the real thing, come and see the real thing,
come and see
I am the real thing!
Oo mama mow-mow (repeat x 4)
Oo mama mama mama mama mama mama mow
Tryin’ hard to understand the meaning that you’ll see
in me
Tryin’ hard to understand the meaning that you’ll see
in me
There’s a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn’t
really mean a thing
Come and see the real thing, come and see the real thing,
come and see
I am the real thing!
Oo mama mow-mow (repeat x 4)
I am not seeing you
I am not seeing you
Ahhhhh!
I am the real thing!
(ad-lib fade-out)
Part Three Into Paper Walls
[Russell Morris - Johnny Young] © Chappell 1969
(ad-lib fade-up)
I am the real thing…….
Now you know that nothing is real
The only truths are feelings you feel
Seen a picture in my mind
Telling me on and on and on and on and on it goes
On and on and on and on it goes
Life is burning in my soul
The thought of dying leaves me cold
It’s only a picture in my mind
Telling me on and on and on and on and on it goes
On and on and on and on it goes
Seen the light now in my eyes
And a feeling in my soul
And a yearning in my heart
But the story still goes on and on and on and on it goes
On and on and on and on and on it goes
The phony life is getting me down
The inside’s out, and upside is down
Keep seeing this picture in my mind
Telling me on and on and on and on and on
On and on and on and on and on
On and on and on and on and on….
(ad-lib interlude)
In my room I see the wall is painted green and brown
The spread is like those coloured lights, they’re in
the heart of town
I think I want to make myself as happy as can be
I’ll find some pretty colours and I’ll pour them over
me
Paper walls, that’s where they’ll find me
Paper walls, you look at me – see!
Paper walls, that’s where they’ll find me
Me!
In the street there’s boys and girls, there’s others in
the park
I hear their laughter ringing out, I hear their doggies
bark
If I can’t be happy like them, happy as can be
I’ll find some pretty colours and I’ll pour them over
me
Paper walls, that’s where they’ll find me
Paper walls, you look at me – see!
Paper walls, that’s where they’ll find me
Me!
Colours glowing, colours bright
Colours running in the night
They just sneer, but they don’t hear
To find me there, to live in fear
(ad-lib fade-out)
Lyrics transcribed by Paul Culnane (please excuse any
glitches). Copyright rests with the composers and publishers as noted.
| An appreciation of The
Real Thing and Part Three Into Paper Walls
and their importance in Australian rock history "Oo mama-mow-mow, oo mama-mow-mow"… Does that simple, nonsensical refrain bring back special, pleasant memories, or does it simply irritate? If the latter is the case, read no further, for if you do, you will cop an almost scholarly account of how this singular tune has taken on the proportions of profound legend in the annals of OzRock – The Real Thing is the embodiment of "seminal", "important", and all of those other superlatives, and remains a bloody wonderful record to boot! Let’s examine this exceptional recording then (but while we do, if you have a copy, why not pull it out and put it on right now!)… The Real Thing was born with Johnny Young (born John De Jong) a fading mid-60s pop idol [Step Back, Cara Lynn] who was becoming an important pop/rock songwriter. Ensconced in London at the peak of the psychedelic era, he worked closely with (and picked up valuable tips on songwriting from) his British-based mates The Bee Gees. Young began noodling around with a chord pattern on an acoustic guitar and gradually evolved a melody not too far removed from that of Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man. The song was, by Young’s own account, an oblique swipe at the advertising industry, inspired by the a current (1967) Coca-Cola advertising campaign which declared the ubiquituous cola soft-drink to be "the real thing". Young’s song started out as a skeletal, simple, plaintive ditty, which he intended to record as a Strawberry Fields-style chamber piece with acoustic guitar and a few strings. It developed into the full-blown widescreen extravaganza we know and love via the intervention of Russell Morris’ manager and mentor, Ian "Molly" Meldrum. When he arrived back in Australia in early 1968, Young concentrated on developing his songwriting career, and finding singers for his material. The Real Thing was originally earmarked for Ronnie Burns, former lead singer of The Flies, and by then a major solo star. Young was playing it to Burns in the dressing room of the Channel 0 studios in Melbourne during the taping of pop show Uptight. As luck would have it, Molly chanced by, heard the song and was smitten. Here was the vehicle he’d been searching for to launch the career of his young protégé – he had to have it for Russell Morris, he decided, and nothing was going to stop him. Young wasn’t particularly keen, but according to legend, Molly turned up at Young’s house in the early hours of the morning armed with a tape recorder and refused to leave until Young had taped a demo of the song for him. In late 1968, Meldrum, as producer for this proposed new landmark recording, assembled a group of friends, all denizens of Melbourne’s healthy and congenial rock fraternity, at Armstrong’s studio, then the pre-eminent recording facility in the country. Enlisting the seasoned skills of engineer John Sayers, and arranger John Farrar (former guitarist with The Strangers), Sayers and Meldrum began to fashion the basic tracks that would form The Real Thing. He built the musical "bed" with The Groop’s rhythm section: Brian Cadd (organ, piano), Richard Wright (drums) and Don Mudie (bass). The track was augmented with guitar embellishments from Zoot’s Roger Hicks, along with backing vocals from Russell’s mate Ronnie Charles (also from The Groop) and falsettos courtesy of Maureen Elkner (who later became famous for her Bob Hudson-penned novelty hit Rack Off Normie!). Tracking began in late 1968 and continued over several months into early 1969. As the sessions progressed, Meldrum was building a sound collage idea in his mind and played his cards close to his chest, and at these early sessions, the musicians could not have envisioned how their short recorded segments would fit into the greater scheme of things. As with Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds, or Lennon’s Strawberry Fields Forever, The Real Thing was built from composite parts. The headphone-wearing trainspotters among us might, in retrospect, be able to detect a number of edit points, where disparate song elements were patched together to form the continuous whole. But it was a deftly-accomplished job of sonic juggling, much to the credit of patient engineer Sayers. Even tambourines and maraccas were recorded with uncanny fastidiousness and given prominence in the lavish final mix! And lavish is indeed the word – Molly reputedly spent far more on this one track than was usually budgeted for an entire LP at that time - reportedly over $10,000, which in 1969 was a serious amount of money!. It was far and away the most expensive and complex single ever recorded to that time, and set new standards of production for Australian rock music. As a result of his profligacy, Meldrum was supposedly sacked from the project, but he refused to let it go. When EMI decided to release the single only in Victoria, Meldrum personally took it to Sydney to get it played on local radio stations. Engineer John Sayers recounted some fascinating details of this epic production when interviewed by John Doyle on Sydney radio station 2BL several years ago. According to Sayers, the basic track was laid down in only a few takes. The song was intended to be much shorter than what was eventually released. The Groop and Hicks played the basic track through, and then began to jam and improvise on it. The quick ears of Molly and Sayers picked up that this was good stuff, and they wisely kept the tapes rolling, exhorting the musos to "keep going" until the take eventually broke down after about ten minutes. It was this spontaneous jam which provided the foundation for the extended ‘freakout’ sound collage that makes up the second half of the song. The finished recording begins with the lovely acoustic guitar motif supplied by Roger Hicks, (actually one of the last pieces added to the mix) before folding out into Russell’s breathy delivery of the main refrain (this is the part that resembles Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man). As the song develops, so too do the startling sound treatments that Meldrum and Sayers had designed to bring the song into its otherworldly, epic realm. The first verse has an almost pastoral feel – Morris’ gentle vocal, backed only by Mudie’s beautifully plunky bass, and some fluid acoustic guitar by Hicks. Into the second verse, the groove unfolds, with drums added and Cadd supplying supremely mod Hammond organ; the overall sound tight and close. The spacey, raga-flavoured middle eight opens out with an ethereal choral backing, and various Eastern embellishments such as sitar. Into the third verse the sound gets much broader and heavier: Cadd switches to grand piano, its signal is heavily compressed and equalised to remove the "bottom-end", and fed thru a echo chamber, creating the tinny yet dramatic sound so popular at the time (e.g. on The Beatles’ Lady Madonna). A reprise of the middle-eight, and then it’s off into the freakout zone. Another unsettling effect is the dual vocal in the later verses, with Morris’ voice mixed to the fore and another strange, whispery vocal behind it. It’s an effective trick, later used by The Doors on their classic Riders On The Storm. Funnily enough, according to Sayers, the other voice was actually a guide vocal prepared by Molly, to instruct Russell as to how he wanted the singing to sound. Molly is by all accounts a fairly awful singer and the tape was apparently received with some scorn. Morris sang pretty much as he pleased, but Sayers and/or Meldrum had the bright idea of keeping the guide track, and mixing it into the second verse. And then there’s the phasing … Although there had been examples of the use of "phasing" on Aussie records before this (The Wild Cherries’ That’s Life, Cam-Pact’s Drawing Room and The Twilights’ Comin’ On Down) The Real Thing was the first major Australian recording to employ this trick, and to such a devastating extent. Phasing is a recording technique in which the original sound signal is fed back upon itself with a miniscule delay, which creates a swooshing, "out-of-phase" distortion of the original signal, which sounds to the listener like his or her head is immersed in a large sea-shell. Phasing creates a lush, swirling, turbulent, bubbling wash of sound, akin to the disorientating sensory effects some people have reported experiencing while under the influence of LSD or similar hallucinogens. Consequently, along with reverse tape effects, it became one of the hot studio tricks of the psychedelic era. The discovery of phasing (in late 1996?) is credited to George Chkiantz, house engineer at London’s famed Olympic Studios. It’s also called sometimes called ‘flanging’ because the effect was (in those days) obtained by playing two synchronised tape recordings of the same sound source. A delay in the playback of one tape could be produced by simply pressing a finger onto the outer edge (the ‘flange’) of the tape reel; the length of the delay – and thus the ‘depth’ of the phasing - could be manipulated by how much pressure was applied. (The term also survives in the ‘flanger’ guitar pedal, which produces the same effect electronically.) One of the earliest (and best) examples of the phasing effect is its use on The Small Faces’ 1967 single Itchycoo Park. (Not surprisingly, being effectively the ‘house band’ at Olympic at that time, they picked up on the effect as soon as they heard it). That astonishing drum-roll motif, drenched in phasing, was a distinct distinguishing feature of that record, and Meldrum loved it. He slapped the effect all over The Real Thing, which imparted an alien, tripped out feel to what, after all, began as a simple acoustic ballad. Another production hallmark Meldrum employed was the massed choir effect. The vocal call-and-response arrangement that’s introduced early in the piece ("I am the real – REAL!", etc) reaches an apotheosis in the song’s closing stages, which throws in everything including the kitchen sink. Throughout this glorious melange of sound is the solid and driving underpinning of the Groop rhythm section rocking out, with insistent bleating guitar squalls and heavily processed vocal and percussive decorations (including what sounds suspiciously like a crazed Molly delivering a "buyer beware" message to potential trippers). Another notable feature is the way the second section is punctuated by deliberate edits and ‘dropouts’ of various instruments, which anticipates the studio explorations of dub music in the 70s. At the end of its heady six-plus minutes (unheard of for an Australian single then – only the Fabs’ Hey Jude had previously managed to break the 3-minute constraint for airplay 45s), The Real Thing descends (or ascends?) through a wild spiral of sound and fury. As the song concludes, the vocal chorus reaches its climactic note, which is provocatively undercut by a wartime recording of a choir of the Hitler Youth singing their anthem, the Horst Wessel Lied! And then – as the massed German voices shouting "Seig Heil!" – the song simply explodes, ending with the apocalyptic sound of an atomic bomb blast! "What was all that lot about, then?" The sequel to The Real Thing maintained this production ethic, but took it to further extremes. Part Three Into Paper Walls sounded similar, but was sonically far superior, utilising as it did the rhythm section from The Groop, along with most of the other musicians featured on TRT (plus a horn section). But this time it was recorded with even more punch and clarity than on the first single. Part Three…picks up where The Real Thing left off, opening with an explosion and followed by a brief, heavily phased reprise of TRT’s guitar coda. It then moves into Russell’s introspective examination of the power of bright colours, sung over a rich blend of soft phasing-drenched strings and choral pleading with freaky ghost-vocals replicating Russell’s vocal parts, before unfurling into the brass-laden bravura finale that to listen to, feels like you’ve just stepped into Phil Spector’s darkest dreams. And, in a neat touch of tying it all together, the song fades into a reprise of the gorgeous, phase-drenched acoustic guitar figure that introduced TRT. While re-examining these astounding recordings for this piece, your writer tried a little experiment. Looping two CD players together, you play The Real Thing first, then bring Part Three…in at the point of TRT’s final explosion. Let the second song run until its acoustic guitar outro, then carefully blend it back to the original single. It works! And it creates a surreal listening experience that, if you wish, can go "on and on and on and on and on". Try it if you can, or want to, it’s fun, and listening to these songs in this manner also supports the notion that here we have a supreme example of one of Australia’s few ventures into the progressive music "suite" mode that would soon form the basis for some of the more preposterous but endearing "concept" ideas peddled by our UK friends during the late 60s/early 70s, like, f’rinstance, Excerpts From A Teenage Opera by Tomorrow’s Keith West. As stated, the two debut Morris singles were recorded and mixed at Armstrong’s Studios in South Melbourne. Both were mixed from the master multi-track tapes to mono, a common practice of the day where AM radio play was the prime consideration (although in this case it might also have been necessary to achieve the full phasing effects). Therefore, sadly, no stereo mixes were ever made for the two songs. The American release of TRT, on the Diamond label, was spread over two sides (parts one & two), and was emblazoned with the legend "stereo". It wasn’t. It was issued with that appalling mono, reprocessed for stereo gambit peculiar to US pressings at the time. Even the so-called remix issued by EMI on 12" in 1990 was not, strictly-speaking, a true remix at all. Rather, it was the original tape of TRT, with added drumbeats and studio-enhanced effects. Supported by a bizarre video clip that mixed wartime found footage with original black and white inserts of a young, spotlit Morris miming the song (probably Uptight from1969), this re-release made minimal impact and only really served as pale reminder of the magnificence of the original. The Real Thing manifested its important influence in other ways. In 1990, Ollie Olsen’s trance/electro outfit Third Eye released a lovingly recreated version of TRT as a single, dedicating it (fittingly) to acid guru Timothy Leary. That single was a moderate chart success, but a recording triumph. Other, slightly dodgier adaptations of TRT later abounded. In July 1999 on "Hey Hey It’s Saturday", Molly expressed his disdain for the quite tacky and inept use of the song in a tacky canned fruit advert that excrutiatingly mangled the main chorus. And original composer Johnny Young did the song no favours when he unashamedly re-created it for use in a kitsch promo trailer for his pay-TV programme, Cavalcade Of Stars. The impact of The Real Thing and Part Three Into Paper Walls was most strongly felt when these two seminal singles were first released. While hardly surprising (since Meldrum wrote was a staff writer) The Real Thing was the subject of considerable coverage in Go-Set, even to the extent of featuring photos from the sessions. While their influence and stature can be measured in the terms of the remarkable new music that was surrounding them in late 1969, their effect continues to be felt even now. They were such sublime records! Here’s a suggestion for pure fun: set aside 13 minutes and 22 seconds of your time to revisit a corner of towering OzRock innovation, by playing these 45s back-to-back (or, better still, employing the CD method outlined above). It will provide a most rewarding experience, while illustrating why we’ll never witness the like of such records again… Chart notes: The Real Thing was released in March 1969 and held the national number 1 position for two weeks in late June 1969 (sandiwched between The Beatles ' Get Back and The Ballad of John & Yoko. It remained in the top forty for a ridiculously long tenure, still charting strongly while its follow-up, Part Three Into Paper Walls smashed its way to a 3-week run at number one, to be followed by a similar long spell at the midst of the best-seller lists for most of the rest of 1969. |
- Paul Culnane
"I’ll find some pretty colours and I’ll pour them over me…"
The Real Thing commemorated in the Australian
Rock stamp series in 1998
Singles
| 9/67 Heat Wave / When I Come Home [W&G – In
S 8088]
11/67 Hush / It's All Over Now Baby Blue [W&G – In S 8116] 4/68 Hide & Seek / Livin’ In Style [EMI Columbia DO 8315; later: EMI 7MA 4463] 3/69 The Real Thing / It's Only A Matter Of Time [EMI Columbia DO 8710] 7/69 Part Three Into Paper Walls / The Girl That I Love [EMI Columbia DO 8828] 12/69 Rachel / Little Lady [EMI Columbia DO 9020] 4/70 Rachel / Slow Joey [EMI Columbia DO 9102] 12/70 Mr America / Stand Together [EMI Columbia DO 9314] 6/71 Sweet, Sweet Love / Jail Jonah's Daughter [EMI HMV EA 9539] 3/72 Live With Friends / Alcohol Farm [EMI HMV EA 9824] 11/72 Wings Of An Eagle / Satisfy You [EMI HMV EA 10030] 10/75 Let's Do It / Don't Rock the Boat [Wizard ZS 127] 5/76 Sail With Me / Hard Road [Wizard ZS 140] 8/76 Running Jumping Standing Still / Cloudy Day [Wizard ZS 141] ?/76 Wolves In White / Two Wheeled Flyer [Wizard ZS 160] ?/90 The Real Thing ("remix") / Rachel [Festival RPS 47] |
Extended Plays (EPs)
| 1967 Hush [W&G E 2766]
Hush / Heatwave / When I Go Home / Baby Blue Mr America [EMI Columbia SEGO 70199] no date
available –1970?
The Real Thing [EMI RP 217] 1990
|
Albums
|
© 1999 ICE Productions. All rights reserved.
1978
Retrospective [EMI EMC2672]