The Easybeats

Sydney/UK 1964-69 
[Personnel]  [Biography]  [Discography]  [References]  [Links] 

Personnel

Tony Cahill [dr] 1967-70 
Dick Diamonde [bs, vcls] 
Gordon "Snowy" Fleet [dr] 1964-67 
Harry Vanda [gtr/vcls] 
Stevie Wright [vcls/perc] 
George Young [gtr/vcls/kybds] 
 		  
The Easybeats, 1967
L-R: George Young, Stevie Wright, Snowy Fleet (back)
Dick Diamonde, Harry Vanda (front)
 

Biography

[1964]  [1965]  [1966]  [1967]  [1968]  [1969]
To describe The Easybeats as "Australia's Beatles" is not to damn them with faint praise. They were without question the best and most important Australian rock band of the 1960s, and their string of classic hit singles set the benchmarks for Australian popular music. They established a unique musical identity, and they became our first homegrown rock superstars. For sheer quality, inventiveness and originality their work is unmatched.

The Easybeats scored fifteen Top 40 singles in Australia between 1965 and 1970, including three No.1 hits. Chief among their many achievements, the Easybeats hold the unique honour of being our first bona-fide rock group to have an major overseas hit record - the legendary Friday On My Mind. They were also one of the few major Australian bands of their day to perform and record original material almost exclusively.

Their influence - both during and after their 5-year career - cannot be understated and The Easybeats deserve to be ranked as one of the greatest bands of the last 40 years. Many leading Australian and overseas acts - Johnny O'Keefe, Sports, Divinyls, INXS, The Saints, Gary Moore, David Bowie - have covered Easybeats songs, and artists like Lou Reed and Bruce Springsteen have praised their work. It's a classic 'rags-to-riches' tale, but is also interwoven with personal tragedy, missed opportunities and bitter disappointments.

The history of the Easybeats has been recounted in detail by rock historian Glenn A. Baker, and I must acknowledge his liner notes for the LP version of The Easybeats: Absolute Anthology, which are the primary source for this essay.

 

1964

To fully appreciate their impact, it's important to understand the music scene onto which the future Easybeats were about to launch themselves. In 1964 the Australian popular music was undergoing significant changes. The previous five years had been by-and-large a bland period. The charts had mostly aped American trends and were dominated by a succession of clean-cut, innocuous acts, typified by the so-called "Bandstand Family" - Col Joye, Little Pattie, Lana Cantrell, Judy Stone, Bryan Davies, Laurel Lee, Sandy Scott, The Delltones. They all had considerable success in the early 60's, were all regular guests on the TCN-9 television network's Bandstand (a direct copy of Dick Clark's American program), and it's no coincidence that most were signed to Festival Records, for whom Bandstand proved a promotional goldmine.

One of the few stand-out exceptions to this easy-listening fare was "The Wild One", Johnny O'Keefe, who drew inspiration directly from classic rock'n'roll - Elvis, Bill Haley and Buddy Holly - and from the black R&B/soul scene which was gaining momentum in the USA. His first hit was a version of the Isley Bros Shout, and he scored an unprecedented five No.1 Australian singles between 1958 and 1963. O'Keefe was also one of the first Australian rock acts to attempt to break into the American market. In 1959 he successfully moved into television, hosting the ABC's legendary Six O'Clock Rock, but by the time the new wave of 'beat' groups began to emerge in 1962-63, O'Keefe's career was on the wane, undermined by the changing nature of the music scene and by O'Keefe's health problems (including the terrible car accident which almost killed him in 1960).

The only other significant features were the succession of imported dance crazes like The Twist, and the hugely influential surf music scene, spearheaded by vocal groups like the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean and by instrumental acts like Dick Dale, The Shadows, and Australia's premier surf band, The Atlantics, whose 1963 single Bombora is a classic of the genre. Sydney even had its own homegrown surf-dance craze. The Stomp launched the career of Little Pattie and was massively popular in the beachside suburbs of Sydney in 1963 - the 1963 Australian National Stompin' Championships, held at Lane Cove National Park, drew a crowd of some 45,000 people!

The autumn/winter of 1964 was a watershed. The emergence of the Beatles in 1962-3 had revolutionised popular music worldwide, and many young bands now looked to the Fab Four as the new paradigm. For several months beforehand there was an intense media campaign to promote the Beatles' impending Australian visit, and in June, the true scale of this new phenomenon was made apparent when the Beatles arrived for their historic three-week tour. They were greeted by massive crowds and scenes of hysteria never before witnessed in this country. On their Adelaide visit, it was estimated that at least 300,000 people - virtually half the population of the city at that time- turned out to see them.

In the wake of the Beatles' visit, hundreds of new "beat" groups were formed around the country, by teenage kids fired by the Beatles' example. With Australia so far from the centres of the new music - London, New York and Los Angeles, the scene was ripe for a local band to reap the level of success that the Beatles had shown was possible.

The origin of The Easybeats was at the Villawood Migrant Hostel, in Sydney's south-western suburbs. The hostel was a halfway-house for hundreds of thousands of new arrivals from Europe and the UK. Johannes "Harry" Vandenburg (b.1946) arrived at Villawood with his family early in 1964. Back in Holland he had gained notoriety in a Shadows-style instrumental band band called The Starfighters, and although only 17 he was already an accomplished lead guitarist. Through his interest in music he soon met fellow Dutchman Dingeman "Dick" Vandersluys (b.1947); Dick's family had migrated in the early 50s and lived nearby. (They were also were staunch Jehovah's Witnesses, and remained bitterly opposed to Dick's pursuit of worldy fame and success throughout his career, seeing it as a form of idolatry). The hostel played host to a thriving musical scene, and the pair became part of the many regular jams and temporary bands that formed and played at the hostel dances. The hostel's kitchen and shower blocks were favoured venues, partly because of the acoustics and partly because they were well away from the living quarters!

Early in the year Harry and Dick met a diminutive 15-year-old singer called Stevie Wright (b.1948) fronting a band called called The Outlaws at Susie Wong's Coffee Lounge in Sydney. Stevie, from Leeds in England, had come to Australian in 1958 and after a few years in Melbourne his family settled in Villawood, near the hostel. Stevie soon moved on to another teenage band called Chris Langdon and the Langdells (who were converted from a surf band into Beatles clones after being introduced to The Fabs' music by The Bee-Gees). After meeting Harry and Dick, he fell in with the jamming scene at the hostel, and there he also became firm friends with another of the hostel's aspiring young rockers, guitarist/singer George Young (b.1948) whose family had recently migrated from Glasgow. One of George's primary musical influences was his older sister Margaret, who turned George and his six brothers onto rock and R&B at an early age via her collection of classic R&B and early rock. (George's oldest brother Alex was already a rising musician and had remained in the UK when the family emigrated).

Drawn together by their love of music, and their shared admiration for the Beatles, Harry, George and Dick had decided to form their own band. Undoubtedly, for hostel boys from such disparate backgrounds, trying to fit into a strange new culture, being in a group gave them a sense of unity, purpose and identity that would otherwise have been hard to come by. And the "fringe benefits" were even more important, and a good deal more tangible to teenage boys: their long hair immediately marked them out as 'rebels', and perhaps most importantly (thanks to the Beatles) boys with guitars and moptops were now a very desirable item for members of the opposite sex!

They tried out a number of singers, eventually offering the spot to Stevie, who snapped it up. They still had no regular drummer, but that problem was fortuitously solved when they met another English immigrant, Gordon Fleet (b.1940), on a Sydney train. Fleet (whose jet black hair earned him the nickname "Snowy") had two invaluable assets - he was from Liverpool, and he was a drummer, who had only recently left a working Merseybeat band (The Mojos) when he came to Australia. They exchanged addresses and a few days later he was invited to join.

Snowy was several years older than the rest of the band, and already married with a daughter. At first he took on the role of leading and managing the group; he suggested their stage outfits and it was he who came up with their name: The Easybeats, which of course included that all-important reference to The Beatles. The next step was the adoption of "anglicised" stage names for the two Dutch members of the group - Hendrickus Vandenburg became Harry Vanda, and Dingeman Vandersluys became Dick Diamonde. With the group established, they rehearsed solidly for two months, and over the latter half of 1964 they began playing at dances and clubs, often for no fee. After being kicked out of a pub in Goulburn St, Sydney (for being "too loud and too filthy") the band walked up Oxford St and came upon the now legendary Beatle Village. In the first of several lucky breaks, the doorman turned out to be Dutch, enabling Harry and Dick to talk their way into a late-night spot. The management and patrons were impressed enough for the group to be offered a regular Thursday night residency. This was soon extended to three nights per week, and the band were on their way to becoming a major attraction. They were offered a better-paying gig at rival venue The Bowl, and then were snapped up by impresario John Harrigan for his famous venues Surf City and The Beach Hut. As the end of the year approached, the Easybeats were becoming the leading rock band in Sydney.

December 11, 1964 was a significant day for the band: in the morning, Harry married his girlfriend Pam and at a dance that evening in the northern suburb of Hornsby they had a fateful meeting with real-estate agent Mike Vaughan, who immediately offered to manage them. Although they declined at first, they did agree to his getting extra work for them, but after being ripped off by the unscrupulous promoter of their two-week Xmas residency in Mildura, S.A. they went back to Vaughan and accepted his offer.

 

1965

Although they were critical of his management in later years, Mike Vaughan undeniably provided crucial breaks for the band. In January, he hosted a successful cocktail party and dance, to launch the band to local DJs and industry people. The major break for the Easys came through Vaughan's friendship with a young Sydney music publisher and aspiring record producer. Ted Albert had already had some success producing Billy Thorpe and when Vaughan introduced the Easybeats to him, one private performance was enough to convince Albert that he had a hot property on his hands. Although a relative novice, Albert had an intuitive gift for selecting material, finding the right sound and honing the 'feel' of a song, skills later highly praised by George Young. He took over as the groups's producer, and it proved to be a great collaboration. Within a week they were signed Albert Productions and had a recording contract with Parlophone. Albert taped a series of demos in the old 2UW Radio Theatre in George St, Sydney - The Bells, Say, I Who Have Nothing and For My Woman and selected For My Woman as the first single, released in March 1965.

Although the recording itself is pretty rough, many beat groups of the time would have killed for a first single as good. It shows the band's abilities in place virtually from the first - they had great original material, filled with catchy vocal and instrumental hooks (George Young was already developing into one of the very best pop writer/arrangers of the 60s). Their sound was tight, raw and aggressive, and what they may have lacked in polish they made up for with energy to burn. They were backed by the rock-solid (and hugely underrated) rhythm section of Dick, Snowy and George, and it must be said that in Harry Vanda they possessed one of the era's finest guitarists, providing exemplary lead breaks which were fluid, assured, inventive and concise. Stevie Wright was one of the truly great rock frontmen. Although perhaps not the greatest singer in technical terms, Stevie's strengths were his power, his sure delivery and his innate sense of musical drama and fun. His livewire stage presence - the onstage leaps and backflips, his tambourine technique - became a trademark, and a huge influence on later singers like the late Bon Scott of AC/DC). Above all - they rocked.

For My Woman was in fact the very first Young-Wright song, and Stevie and George co-write most of the bands's early Australian hits. It was a productive partnership and even before the first session, they band had at least 20 more originals stockpiled, all written around the piano at the Young's Burwood home.

"Stevie and George were amazingly prolific writers, Stevie having a knack for knocking out quick succinct rock lyrics, and George with his exceptional capacity for melody and intense musical structure." [Baker, 1980]
Radio interest in the single was moderate at best, but the Easybeats' local popularity helped it nudge into the lower end of the Sydney charts. (The Beatle-ish flipside Say That You're Mine was also the first product of the soon-to-be-legendary Vanda-Young team, but since Harry was still learning English at that early stage, the main lyric-writing duties usually fell to Stevie).

The follow-up single - and the record that changed everything - was another hard-driving original, She's So Fine. Stevie's wild opening scream and Snowy's pounding drumbeat left no doubt about the band's intentions, and Australia said "yes, please!". Released in May, the single rocketed to No.1 in Sydney within a couple of weeks, and by June it was a smash in Melbourne, and around the country. The crucial Melbourne breakthrough had largely been thanks to the help of veteran manager Ron Blackmore who at that time was manager of pop duo Bobby & Laurie. He was collared by Vaughan outside the 2UW studios early in 1965, andhe was inveigled to come and listen to the Easybeats. Blackmore was knocked out and he immediately recommended that they visit Melbourne, where, he said, there were literally hundreds of dances being run every Saturday night.

Blackmore generously loaned the destitute band £150 to get them there; at that stage they were so broke that they had to hide their gear to save it from repossession! Vaughan nobly traded in his prized Jaguar to buy a station wagon, and they headed to Melbourne for their first visit in March 1965. Blackmore had prepared well - by the time the Easys arrived, they had over £1000 worth of bookings, playing up to five gigs per night. In spite of the amount of work, the first Melbourne trip was rough going - they stayed in a squalid boarding house in St Kilda, and had barely enough money for food. According to Glenn A. Baker, they were reduced to boiling potato peelings for soup, except on paydays, when they could lash out and share a bag of hot chips between them. Stevie apparently became so weakened that he collapsed on the set of the 0-10 Networks The Go! Show and had to be taken to hospital.

The Easybeats were an instant success with Melbourne audiences, and while there they recorded the backing track for the new single, She's So Fine (produced by Roger Savage). But it was their second Melbourne trip that really cracked them commercially - albeit by accident. As recalled by George Young, Vaughan organised a reception for Melbourne DJs in the bar of the luxurious Windsor Hotel, to promote the new single. A group of labourers who were drinking there began abusing the boys; never scared of defending their honour, the group rose to the challenge and within minutes a fight had erupted. The diminutive Easybeats took a hiding, and left thinking that they had ruined the event. It turned out that the reverse was true - they found out that the DJs thought it was the best reception they had ever attended, and the single hit the Melbourne airwaves the next day.

With She's So Fine now at the top of the charts, For My Woman was re-released and by July it peaked at No.5. Almost overnight, The Easybeats were a household name. But with instant success came all the attendant problems, as George Young recalled to Rolling Stone in 1976:

"...with a No.1 record, that's where all the bullshit started. We weren't really playing anymore, we were just trying to satisfy demand ... It took all the enjoyment out of actually playing. From then on the gigs became a chore. We went out and did our half hour, nobody could hear us ..." [Baker, 1980]
Like so many other popular groups of the era, the Easybeats' career was tightly controlled by their manager and record company, who were keen to make the most of their good fortune while it lasted. (Even the Beatles at that stage had not foreseen their success becoming a long-term career.) Their lives became an blur of concerts, photos shoots, promotional appearances, TV shows and interviews. They were insulated from the outside world and had all their material needs catered for but - apart from the music - they had little control over what they did or when they did it. Vaughan put the band on an allowance (a paltry $10 per week) and even fined them for "bad behaviour". Just like the Beatles, their public image was carefully 'massaged' to maximise their appeal - Snowy's age was 'trimmed' by 5 years, Snowy and Harry's marriages were concealed; visits to or from wives/girlfriends were strictly controlled, sometimes even forbidden, and when permitted had to be conducted in strict secrecy. Fan hysteria was carefully whipped up by Vaughan, in collaboration with radio, TV and teen magazines like Everybody's. The Easybeats' popularity rapidly escalated, and the phenomenon was soon dubbed "Easyfever" by the media. Glenn Baker sums it up admirably:
"It is not naive to say that that no incident of Beatlemania or Rolling Stone fever anywhere in the world surpassed the absolute peak of Easyfever. Airports, TV stations, theatres and hire cars were reduced to rubble, fans were hospitalised and general mayhem reigned wherever they turned up." [Baker 1980]
And just like the Beatles, the Easybeats became prisoners of their own fame. Fans followed them everywhere, routinely mobbing them at airports, hotels and venues. On several occasions the group had genuine reason to fear for their safety. When a fan magazine stupidly printed the address of the Young's family home in the Sydney suburb of Burwood, 300 female fans invaded; twenty managed to force their way inside, trampling George's little brother Angus and pillaging the house before being removed by police. The madness escalated through 1965 - a near-riot broke out at a TV appearance in Sydney, and the hysteria peaked in December with their notorious appearance at the 4BC Sound Spectacular at Brisbane's Festival Hall.

The first half of the show, featuring local bands, went smoothly but trouble started right after interval. As MPD Limited began their set, fans tried to rush the stage and police were called in to keep them off. By the time the next act Tony Worsley & the Blue Jays came on the capacity crowd of 5000 was near-hysterical, and when the Easybeats hit the stage pandemonium ensued. Hundreds of fans repeatedly broke through the police cordon, threw chairs and other objects on stage, and dozens were injured in the crush. The police stopped the Easybeats' performance after only 17 minutes. When the boys tried to make their escape in a taxi it was pursued through the streets and caught when the driver foolishly stopped at traffic lights. The car was surrounded and the terrified occupants were trapped inside as the fans trampled over the car and even tried to overturn it, causing considerable damage. (This was an experience repeated by Melbourne fans who broke through police barriers and nearly succeeded in toppling their limousine).

On the road, long-serving road manager Sam Horsburgh (who was married to George's sister Margaret) regularly had to scout cafes to ensure it was safe for the band to enter, since they were often victimised for their long hair and 'mod' clothes; yet another hazard was the anger of female fans' boyfriends.

From June 1965 until their first trip to England in July '66, the Easybeats were Australia's top pop act, and they dominated the charts with hit after hit. The band worked like slaves; yet somehow, during the torrent of concerts and other commitments, they managed to write, record and release four singles, three EPs and two albums within a year. Their third single, released in August, was another classic, and an instant hit: Wedding Ring (later covered by Sports). In September the first LP Easy was released and rapidly became one of the best-selling albums of 1965.

Ironically the band had already set high (perhaps unachievable) standards for themselves, and were disappointed with their performance in the singles charts. Young recalled:

"..as early as it was, we went through that musician's phase where we just tried to get clever ... With that track we tried to be commercial, but at the same time, be a little bit different. It paid off, but it wasn't as big as hit record as it should have been. We decided then that we wanted to get out of Australia." [Baker 1980]
Another EP, She's So Fine was issued in October '65, and their fourth single Sad & Lonely & Blue the following month. Although their popularity was unchallenged, each successive single had charted progressively lower - No.1 with She's So Fine, No.5 with For My Woman, No.13 with Wedding Ring, and No.26 with Sad & Lonely & Blue. Young and the band responded by abandoning "all the pretensions" and knocking out what was - for them - formulaic and deliberately chart-friendly material. Whatever the Easys' personal feelings, the fans loved it and 1966 took them to even greater heights.

 

1966

The first Easybeats single for 1966 was issued in January and immediately became a Top 10 double-A hit. Women (Make You Feel Alright) was co-written by Stevie and George, and backed by In My Book a soppy, melodramatic Vanda/Young ballad custom-written for Stevie, who by now was the 'face' of the band. (According to Young, Stevie used to stick his fimgers in his eyes, or rub onions into them, in order to get the tears flowing on cue for TV performances!) The flow of records continued unabated - the Easy As Can Be EP in February, their second album It's 2 Easy in March, and their sixth single (another Top 10 hit) in April.

Come and See Her was written to spotlight bass-player Dick Diamonde. The song is a masterpiece of sexual drama, played out through the call-and-response between Stevie and Dick, whose booming bass voice intones the tag line ("Come and see her") through the verses, in response to Stevie's increasingly frantic pleading. The arrangement inexorably builds the tension, increasing in volume, adding more sounds, shifting up through the keys, until it reaches the climax with Stevie's wailing lead vocal, Harry and George moaning orgasmically in the background, against the relentless drone of Dick's voice. Harry's superb 16-bar solo is yet another masterpiece.

As the band toured endlessly around the country through early 1965, Vaughan had been busy preparing for their departure. He visited the US and after initial disinterest was able to win over the United Artists label - on what was supposed to be his last day in New York! 10 days of negotiations led to a ground-breaking 5-year contract for overseas releases, and Vaughan returned home in triumph. Meanwhile, Albert and the group had been hard at work recording, and prior to departure they had a new EP and LP in the can to keep the flow of records going while they were away in England. Their departure was now set, scheduled for July 14, 1966,

In late June the band did a three-week tour of South Australia, and then flew straight to Sydney to record a 'farewell' television special for the 7 Network on Sunday July 3. The Easybeats Coca Cola Special is one of the icons of Australian rock and is, to quote Glenn A. Baker, "undiluted magic". Supported by Janice Slater, Tony Worsley (Tony & the Blue Jays) and Billy Thorpe, the special culminated with band performing a 20-minute set, presenting their past hits, including Women, In My Book, Come And See Her, Wedding Ring. She's So Fine and previewing the forthcoming tracks Sorry and I'll Make You Happy. The fact that it is mimed does not detract at all, and it remains a vital and enduring document of the band at their peak. Surrounded by a enthusiastic live audience, and augmented by a truly fab troupe of go-go dancers, it captures the essential excitement that the band generated, and we also see some of the real hysteria, through intercut film footage of the band being mobbed by fans and performing in concert.

Everything looked rosy for the Easybeats - a string of hit records behind them, a TV special in the can, a record deal with a major overseas label in place, and a trip to England imminent - but it was at that moment that tragedy struck. After filming the Coca Cola Special, Harry Vanda went home to his Sydney flat in the early hours of Monday July 4 and found his wife dead. Distraught that she was not to be allowed to go to England with him, Pam Vanda had committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. In spite of this terrible tragedy and the ensuing media frenzy, the plans for the trip were not altered and the band had to soldier on with all the requisite media commitments. The grief-stricken Harry sent his 5-month-old son to be cared for by his parents in Holland, and on the following Thursday (July 10), The Easybeats,Vaughan and Horsburgh flew out for London.

The band was scheduled to do a brief 'farewell' gig for Perth fans during the stopover there, playing on a temporary stage on the tarmac - but it turned into another 'Easyfever' riot. As soon as they touched down, 4000 assembled fans broke down the perimeter fence and surrounded the plane; the planned performance had to be immediately cancelled. Then an anonymous bomb threat was made, requiring all the passengers to leave the plane - which would have forced the group out into the waiting arms of the frantic crowd. After a brief panic, the Easybeats were smuggled out an emergency exit into a catering van and driven to the end of the runway, where they hid for half an hour until they rejoined the plane.

Arriving in London the Easybeats contingent crammed into a flat in Willesden Green and immediately did the rounds of the London clubs. The first band they saw was The Move at the Marquee, who according to Harry were "... so good we almost packed up and went home."

Their absence did nothing to affect their popularity back in Australia: the Easyfever EP was released in July and sold so well that it charted as a Top 10 single. It included another instant classic, I'll Make You Happy (covered by Divinyls in 1982 on the b-side of their Science Fiction single). The song was another mark of George Young's songwriting skills, with a solid-gold riff, a great vocal hook, in which Stevie "reveals" the opening line of the verses word by word, and a superb solo by Harry.

Ted Albert arrived in August, and the band recorded at least one track (Baby, I'm A Comin') with him at Abbey Rd. They were satisfied with the results, but United Artists were not, so they handed the group to renowned producer Shel Talmy, who was already world-famous fame for producing The Kinks and The Who. Thus ended the 'golden era' of their collaboration with Ted Albert, although they remained friends and business associates in years to come.

Although they were now perilously short of money (Vaughan had to wire home for more), The Easybeats returned to the studio in September with Talmy and cut four new tracks - Remember Sam, Made My Bed, Gonna Lie In It, Pretty Girl and Friday On My Mind. The choice of single was obvious. Friday On My Mind is a perennial classic, and a genuine working-class anthem. It contains one of Stevie's best vocal performances, and has daunted generations of aspiring guitarists with its fiendishly tricky, Eastern-influenced interweaving guitar parts. Friday was also notable as a 'changing of the guard' in the band - it was the first major A-side release written by Vanda & Young, and from this point on, their development as a songwriting team became the major focus in the group. It was a huge leap forward for them as writers. Interestingly they also dispensed with one of the most enduring features of the earlier singles - Harry's marvellous guitar solos.

Over the years Friday has been praised by scores of writers and critics, and lauded by many of the world's best singers and songwriters, including Bruce Springsteen. David Bowie paid tribute to the Easybeats by covering the song on his 1974 album Pinups. Friday On My Mind was released in the UK in October, but in the flood of outstanding singles and albums being released at the time it received a poor response. Luckily it was picked up by Radio Luxembourg, and by loyal Australian DJs working in the popular pirate stations (like Radio London) and it began getting heavy airplay.

The last three months of 1966 were undoubtedly the zenith of the band's recording career. Back in Australia, October saw the release of the new single Sorry, and the Easybeats Volume 3 LP, both recorded in the months prior to the England trip. Sorry's killer 'hook' was George's innovative (and much-imitated) guitar technique, in which he 'scratched' the pick across the stopped strings to create an arresting percussive effect. Harry again excels, contributing an extraordinary, almost backwards-sounding, raga-like solo, and some fiery lead breaks during the concluding bars. Remarkably, it was not released overseas, but it immediately became a massive hit in Australia - their second No.1 single. In November with Sorry at the top of the charts, Friday On My Mind was released in Australia; by Xmas it had followed its predecessor to the top, giving the Easybeats two successive No.1 singles in as many months.

On November 13, The Easybeats' made their UK performing debut at Brian Epstein's Saville Theatre. Dauntingly, they were bottom of a bill headed by the Four Tops, Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers and Bob Miller and the Millermen, and the audience included Eric Burdon, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts and Georgie Fame. Although understandably nervous, they were generally well received. Best of all, this appearance also seemed to finally tip the balance with UK radio - within days Friday was Top 50, and by Xmas it was in the Top 10, peaking at No.6. Other artists (Rolf Harris, Frank Ifield and The Seekers) had scored hits overseas, but this was a first for an Australian rock band and it made the Easys heroes back home. Over the next six months, aided by promotion from United Artists, Friday stormed charts across the world: going Top 20 in the USA, Top 10 in Germany, Holland, France and Italy, and eventually selling over 1 million copies worldwide. Topping off an incredible year, The Easybeats were voted Best Group in the 1966 Go-Set Pop Poll.

 

1967

As 1967 began, the group were at their peak, but as Glenn Baker points out, problems were already beginning to surface. One was their management. Mike Vaughan, like many managers of the era, followed the dictum that "any publicity is good publicity" and he tried to capitalise on the success of Friday by putting the band through a series of silly and demeaning PR and publicity stunts, which they later repudiated.

It was perhaps understandable for the time, but there could be serious repercussions, besides the obvious risks of overexposure and loss of credibility. The dangers were amply illustrated by what happened to The Move later that year. Their manager Tony Secunda was renowned for his flamboyant style - he had the band sign their record contract on the back of a topless model - but he nearly cost them their career when he decided to include a 'satirical' postcard with their single Flowers in the Rain. The card bore a caricature of PM Harold Wilson in bed with his mistress. Wilson successfully sued for defamation and won all the royalties from the single. To this day, writer Roy Wood has not seen a penny from the song, although it is one of the most successful singles of the era and is still regularly anthologised.

But the most serious problem for the Easybeats was musical. After the Xmas euphoria of a Top 10 hit came the New Year headache: finding a suitable follow-up. This was a crucial moment in their career, and it's arguable that here is where it began to unravel . Although there was an obvious, gold-plated contender in the superb Pretty Girl (one of the other tracks from the September '67 Abbey Rd sessions) inexplicably, it was passed over, and relegated to the b-side of a later single. Instead, they opted for a new Vanda-Young track, Who'll Be The One You Love, which was probably written in haste, under pressure, and was clearly not in the same league as Friday (George later dismissed it as "crap"). It was released in March in the UK, and flopped. Ominously, UA didn't even bother to release it in America.

Meanwhile the preceding months had been used to record tracks for their new album with Shel Talmy; by all reports it was not a happy working relationship (the track Do You Have a Soul? was supposedly written about him, as was the Who's Waltz for a Pig) and this would be the last time they worked together. In April Who'll Be The One You Love was released in Australia, and went top 20, and the disappointment of the new single was relieved by news that Friday was now Top 20 in America. They also began their first, hugely successful tour of Europe this month, supporting the Rolling Stones. Their superb showmanship won many fans there, especially in Germany and Holland (where Harry was feted like royalty) and over the next few years Europe became their most loyal market outside Australia. In May the Talmy-produced Good Friday LP was released in the UK, but was not released in Australia until some time later, and then in an altered form.

At the end of the European tour the group made a triumphant return to Australia, arriving on May 13 for a national tour. Supported by the Twilights (also just back from London), Ronnie Burns, Larry's Rebels and a selection of local supports in each city, they toured around the country to a tumultuous welcome, climaxing with two rapturously received shows at the Sydney Stadium. George recalled it as "... probably the highpoint of the group's career ... we didn't come back with any of the standard excuses for failure ..." The group was given a civic reception at the Sydney Town Hall, hosted by Lord Mayor John Armstrong, and Sydney tabloid The Daily Mirror ran a week-long series on them story, entitled Million Dollar Story. Unfortunately this attracted the interest of the taxation authorities, who began inquiries into the band's financial affairs - ironic, since the band were hardly any better off than when they left for England, with the five members of this "million dollar" group still on a piddling $10/week allowance!

The tour concluded in Perth, but after this triumphant homecoming came another disappointment. The frantic Australian tours of 1966 and the trip to England had kept Snowy Fleet away from home long periods, and by his own admission he had been experiencing growing anxiety over the separation from his wife and daughter. His wife Maureen, who had gone to London to be with him, was not allowed to return to Australia for the '67 tour, and he had not had not seen his 5-year-old daughter Mandy - left in the care of her grandparents - for almost 12 months. The stress became even greater after the suicide of Pam Vanda (she and Maureen were best friends) and reached a head during the European tour. Reunited with his daughter in Perth, he made the difficult decision to leave the group. Maureen returned home, and the Fleet family settled in Perth, where Snowy became a successful builder.

Back in London, the group spent June and July regrouping and recording. They auditioned 60 drummers seeking a replacement for Snowy; the guernsey eventually went to Tony Cahill, former drummer with Brisbane R&B legends the Purple Hearts, who was then working in London. While Cahill was being recruited, the Easybeats - plus session drummer Freddie Smith and renowned session keyboardist Nicky Hopkins - went into the fabled Olympic Studios in Barnes, London (where Jimi Hendrix, the Move, the Small Faces, Traffic, Family and The Rolling Stones cut many of their seminal late 60's tracks) to record their next LP, produced by Shel Talmy's erstwhile engineer, the now legendary Glyn Johns.

This should have been the breakthrough they needed and contained some of their best material to date. But even though a complete entire album was recorded, sequenced, mastered and titled (Good Times) and a cover prepared, it was never released. The band had become involved in a complicated contractual wrangle, with five companies claiming rights over their work. The immediate result was that Albert Productions, who had been footing most of the bills, now closed their chequebook. With both Johns and Olympic unpaid, the record stayed in the can, and only two cuts - the magnificent title track, Good Times, and the psychedelic gem Land Of Make Believe managed to emerge, many months later. The remaining tracks languished for another decade, until Raven Records released them on the 1977 LP The Shame Just Drained.

In June, UA released the superlative psychedelic rocker Heaven & Hell. It was their last Talmy-produced single, with Nicky Hopkins prominent on harpsichord, and some great bass playing by Dick. It was released in June, with the wonderful Pretty Girl relegated to the b-side, and became another Top 20 hit in Australia. By rights, it should have been a double-sided hit for them worldwide. For a while it looked set to restore their chart fortunes, especially in the US, but once again bad luck intervened: just as it entered the charts, the single was banned by various US stations, due to the line "...discovering someone else in your bed..." and supposed drug references. Inexplicably, it also failed in the UK.

Based on the success of Friday, Vanda & Young had naturally enough continued with what that winning formula, packing remarkable musical and lyrical innovation into a concise single format (what George later called their "three minute operas"). When they saw one of their best efforts fail, they effectively gave up trying. They began making music primarily to please themselves, and according to George a lot of similar material was shelved. Their fortunes were further hindered by consistently poor timing and choices of material by United Artists, and by lack of direction and support from both label and management. From this point on, according to George "the rot set in". The outcome was doubly lamentable - abandoning any pretense of 'commerciality', the group went on to produce some of their most outstanding material over the next year, but sadly many of the tracks were only ever cut as demos, and the public never got to hear them until years later.

In July the Talmy-produced Good Friday LP was finally released in the UK and US. In August their first American tour supporting Gene Pitney and the Buckinghams. They got off to a shaky start, due to injury and illness, but their soon won hearts and minds, as they had in Europe. They cut a new track, Falling Off The Edge Of The World while in New York (where Dick also met his future wife Charlene); it was rush-released in the US and was highly praised - and frequently played - by Lou Reed, who reportedly called it "one of the most beautiful records ever made". The song was later re-recorded in England.

The next single, released in November, was The Music Goes Round My Head. Inspired by Vanda & Young's discovery of bluebeat (the ska precursor which also inspired McCartney's Ob-la-di, ob-la-da) they cut two versions - one fast, one slow, but UA oddly chose the slower, less commercial version and it only barely made it into the charts. This single is also particularly noteworthy as the first official Vanda & Young production. They had kept their eyes and ears wide open during sessions and within a year of arriving, they were producing themselves, with superb results.

At the end of the year, Australia once again demonstrated its unswerving loyalty by voting the Easybeats Top Group in the 1967 Go-Set Pop Poll.

 

1968

During early 1968 the Vanda/Young team scaled new heights of writing and production excellence with a string of superb singles - but like Heaven & Hell they were largely overlooked by radio outside Australia. In March they released the epic Hello, How Are You, which briefly took them back into the UK Top 20. The song had been an attempt by Vanda & Young to emulate the 'big ballad' style of singers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdink. It's a fine song, and although Young later dismissed it as "cornball schmaltz shit", it obviously influenced some listeners - the first line of Jeff Lynne's 1974 ELO hit Telephone Line is undoubtedly a direct quote from the Easybeats' epic. Hello was backed by the even grander Come In You'll Get Pneumonia, (which had been the b-side of The Music Goes Round My Head when it was released in Australia back in December '67). Come in was a truly amazing production, with arrangements by Bill Sheppherd (Bee-Gees), backing vocals by Olivia Newton-John and Pat Carroll (then working as a duo in London) and sax by George's older brother Alex, who was then playing in Grapefruit.

In June, a second United Artists LP Vigil was released in the UK. The album was a curious mixture of styles: straight ahead rock, mini-epics like Hello, and Come In, and classic psychedelia (plus a couple of odd covers of Hit The Road Jack, and Can't Take My Eyes Off You). The album also included the far superior UK re-recording of Falling, as well as two escapees from the doomed Glyn Johns LP, Land Of Make Believe and Good Times, which were paired on 45 in Australia in July and reached No22 in August. Land of Make Believe was coupled with a (Beatles-inspired) b-side We All Live Happily for June release in the UK, and Good Times was finally released there in September, backed by an instrumental version of the track Lay Me Down And Die.

Good Times deserves special mention and is without doubt one of the greatest rock singles ever recorded. Why this track was not a smash hit at the time is hard to explain. Looking back years later, Young suggested that Good Times should have been the follow-up to Friday On My Mind, and it's hard to argue. Good Times is gutsy, hard-driving, no-bullshit rock&roll, highlighted by tasty piano by Nicky Hopkins, a terrific guitar solo by Harry, and a knockout chorus, with blistering backing vocals courtesy of the band's new friend Steve Marriott. The famous story associated with the song is that Paul McCartney heard it on his car radio one day while driving on the motorway, and immediately pulled over to phone the BBC and ask that it be replayed. Yet In spite of such accolades, the single was ignored by radio and failed to chart.

On July 7, the Easybeats featured in an all-star lineup at what must have been a truly incredible concert: Sounds '68 at the Royal Albert Hall. Topping the bill were co-headliners The Move and The Byrds (this was the legenday but short lived Gram Parsons lineup, and was one of his last appearances with them - he left the band at that end of the month over his political objections to their impending tour of South Africa). Supports were the Easys, the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Joe Cocker and the Alan Bown Set.

Through late 1968, the formerly tight-knit band began to drift further apart. Drugs were a factor, along with the growing independence of the Vanda/Young axis. By this time they were working substantially on their own, and between them they could now play almost any instrument they needed. They were writing prolifically, but were reluctant to do more a few gigs per month, and so the band only came together for the occasional gig or for demo sessions at Central Sound studios in Denmark St.

In October, Vigil was released in an altered form in Australia and in the USA, where it was retitled Falling Off The Edge Of The World. In November the instrumental track Lay Me Down And Die was released in Australia, backed with a version of Nina Simone's See Line Woman.

 

1969

In the new year Harry and George took over a flat in Moscow Rd, which had previously been used as a jingle studio for pirate radio stations; with modifications, it became a 4-track home studio and Vanda & Young began churning out demos, working mostly on their own. The only official recordings they made - which proved to be the last Easybeats single - was the powerful St Louis, which was both fitting farewell, and a pointer of things to come. St Louis, and the b-side Rock & Roll Boogie, were produced in April at Olympic Studios by Ray Singer, who had made a name for himself with Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go To My Lovely - an odd choice on the face of it, but he did a good job. The single was issued in June in the UK and USA, and it ironically began to chart there as they did what would prove to be their final tour later in the year

In August St Louis was released in Australia, along with a new album released on Polydor. Friends was in fact not a real Easybeats album at all; the only true Easybeats tracks being St Louis and Rock & Roll Boogie. The rest were actually Vanda & Young Moscow St demos, intended for other artists. The album was also issued in the UK in October, and in the USA in November on the Rare Earth label.

In September the band made a short European tour and then reluctantly accepted the offer of a five-week Australian tour. Unfortunately, it was a considerable come-down from the heady days of their '67 tour; the group were worn out, disillusioned, and at odds with their with management - they saw the tour as a last-ditch attempt to bail the group out of its mounting pool of debts. Again they were victims of bad timing, having reverted to 'no frills' hard rock, while most of Australia was preoccupied with the burgeoning progressive rock and soul scenes. The situation was further complicated by Parlophone's unwelcome release of Peculiar Hole In The Sky as a single, presumably to cash in on the tour. Although a fine piece of work in its own right, it was released against the band's wishes, since it had been made purely as a demo for The Valentines. It flopped, which was no surprise for a slice of pure psychedelia which was by then about 2 years old.

The band made a valedictory TV appearance in the ATN-7 Easybeats Special, then gave their final live performances in Sydney, at the Trocadero and Caesar's Disco, in October (where they were supported by The Valentines; lead singer Bon Scott was hugely impressed by their hard-rocking style, and he would figure prominently in the Vanda & Young story in years to come).

The tour over, the Easybeats drifted apart. Although there was no official announcement, it was obvious the band was finished, and after one last gathering, for Dick Diamonde's wedding in early 1970, they went their separate ways.

After The Easybeats

There was a revival of interest in the Easybeats in the late 70s, much of it thanks to the tireless efforts of superfan Glenn A. Baker. In 1977 Baker compiled previously unreleased material, plus many of the 'lost' tracks from the scrapped Good Times LP, and released them as the Raven LP The Shame Just Drained. He also recorded his now-legendary Easybeats feature for his Rock & Roll Trivia Show on Sydney station 2JJ, centred around a fascinating in-depth interview with Vanda and Young. This sparked a new wave of interest in the group, and led to the release of Baker's superb Easybeats 2LP compilation Absolute Anthology in 1980. It made #35 in the album charts in 1980, and is an essential part of any good record collection. A series of Easybeats tributes/ covers by bands like Sports and Divinyls kept interest going into the 80s, culminating in the hugely successful version of Good Times by Jimmy Barnes and INXS.

Sadly, this new interest coincided with Stevie's life and career coming seriously unstuck. He had long struggled with a chronic drug habit, which had begun during the final years of the Easybeats, but by the late 70s he was in a terrible state. Tragically, Stevie had yet another stroke of bad luck when, desperate to kick his dependency, he put himself into the hands of notorious Sydney doctor Harry Bailey. The horrific 'deep sleep' treatments Bailey meted out to patients at Sydney's Chelmsford Private Hospital were the cause of great suffering for his patients, and resulted in several deaths. A Royal Commission eventually exposed Deep Sleep Therapy as one of the most serious medical scandals of recent years, but Bailey avoided justice by committing suicide just as the case came to light.

There were abortive plans for an Easybeats reunion in 1979, but happily there was a grand 'last hurrah' for the Easybeats in 1986. The classic lineup, with Snowy Fleet, got back together for a national tour and in spite of Snowy literally not having touched the drums since his departure in 1967, the old magic was still there. They performed to sell-out houses around the country and treated fans old and new to the magic that had made the them legends. Stevie was, at least for that time, back in good health, as vital and exciting as ever, even performing his famous leaps and backflips. The final Sydney concert was filmed and recorded and several tracks were later released by Raven.

Vanda and Young are now honoured elder statesmen of Australian music; George now lives overseas, but Harry splits his time between Australia and his native Holland. Snowy Fleet still lives in Perth where he runs his own building business, and he still plays the odd gig, we hear. Dick reportedly moved to coastal Queeensland, where he still lives, although much of his time these days is spent caring for his aged mother. Tony Cahill was last reported living and working in the U.S.

Unfortunately, in the years since the reunion, Stevie Wright's health continued to decline due to his long battle with drugs and alcohol. There was a desultory "...Sings The Easybeats" album, best forgotten, an ill-advised and embarrassing "farewell" concert at Selina's in Sydney, and he suffered further health problems after a fall at his home smashed his ankle. By the mid-90s he was a virtual recluse, living in a caravan on the NSW south coast. Although fans hoped that more of Stevie's story would be told in the recent biography by Sydney writer Jack Marx, the book proved a major disappointment and has been widely criticised, not least by Stevie himself. However, Stevie has recently spoken out, and revealed that he has beaten his twin demons, having been drug and alcohol free for several years now. He is currently working on his autbiography and we look forward to seeing it in print soon.

Discography

Easybeats Discography - compiled by Jonas Warstad

http://www.algonet.se/~jonwar/easybeats.html

References

Links