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Respect is
the word that keeps cropping up in accounts of the life and career of
Max Merritt. The statements quoted above are just two among countless
expressions of praise for Max, evidence of the high and enduring regard
for the man who is without doubt one of the finest performers ever to
emerge from the Antipodes. Still going strong after an extraordinary
45 years in music, Max is a one of the pioneers of Australasian rock,
and one of its most enduring and best-loved figures. His amazing career
spans the entire history of Australasian rock & roll, and he is the
senior figure among the remarkable group of performers who began their
careers in Christchurch, New Zealand in the early 60s -- a talent-packed
scene that also produced Ray Columbus
& The Invaders, Dinah Lee
and Dave Miller & The Byrds.
The Max Merritt story
goes back to the very start of the rock'n'roll era in New Zealand. Max
was born in Christchurch on 30th April 1941, and he started taking guitar
lessons at the age of twelve. In the mid-50s, like countless other teenagers,
he was bitten by the rock'n'roll bug and fell under the spell of Bill
Haley and Elvis Presley. In 1956, just after leaving school at 15, Max
formed The Meteors with friends Ross Clancy (sax), Peter Patene
(piano), Ian Glass (bass) and Pete Sowden (drums). They
started out as a part-time group, playing at dances, and at charity concerts
at the local Odeon theatre; over the next six years the band played many
such shows, raising thousands of dollars for local charities. During the
day Max worked his apprenticeship in his father's bricklaying business.
Remarkably, in an
era when rock'n'roll was supposedly anathema to the older generation,
Max had the enthusiastic support of his parents, and with the help of
Odeon manager Trevor King, they launched Max in the music business, esetting
him up in his own venue in the Railway Hall in Christchurch, which they
dubbed "The Teenage Club". Dave Miller was one of the youngsters who regularly
piled in to see Max and The Meteors, and he fondly recalled these days
in our MILESAGO interview in 2000:
"He was somewhere
in our own age group ... but he had a family that really pushed him
to the fore, and that's why he got there before us. Right to the point
where the family actually hired halls, and created The Teenage Club,
so he a venue to work from - so that gave him a hell of a big head start
over the rest of us.
There was a place
in Carlisle St, which was just in behind the railway shunting yards
[Railway Hall]. It was a bit of a run-down old hall, but that was run
by Max's mother and father. I suppose of all the venues it would have
come closest to what maybe The Cavern was in Liverpool ... it had probably
one of the best atmospheres. But the great thing about it was that it
was a Sunday afternoon venue, and for most of us, who could only hear
music out of the juke boxes in the two or three town hamburger joints,
that's where we all went, of course."
Held every Sunday
from 3-10 pm, The Teenage Club was an instant success. The first and only
attraction of its kind in town, it drew hundreds of local kids every week.
Original sax player
Ross Clancy was replaced by Will Schneider during 1958. By 1959
the Teenage Club had added Wednesday nights, and The Meteors were the
hottest attraction in The Garden City, pulling a regular crowd of 700
or more. Max occasionally borrowed players from other bands if a Meteors
member was unavailable, and one of the groups they tapped was The Invaders,
fronted by another ambitious and charismatic Christchurch lad, Ray
Columbus. This was how Max met Ray's two guitarists, Dave Russell
(for whom Max was a major inspiration) and young multi-instrumentalist
Billy Karaitiana (a.k.a. Billy Kristian).
Max relieved the ultimate
seal of approval in January 1959 when New Zealand's #1 rocker Johnny
Devlin played in Christchurch. Then at the peak of his meteoric career,
Devlin played his own riotous show before 3000 fans, after which he went
across town especially to meet Max, who was playing at a "Rock'n'Roll
Jamboree" charity concert. According to John Dix, the meeting also made
a big impression on Devlin's manager Graham Dent, who enthusiastically
sang their praises to Auckland promoter Harry M. Miller.
Although it was primarily
a university town, Christchurch gained a unique advantage as the 60s began.
In 1959, the United States government launched a huge paramilitary project
to establish an American Antarctic base, imaginatively code-named "Operation
Deep Freeze". By luck, Christchurch had the only airfield in the region
large enough to handle the huge transport planes that the Americans used
to ferry staff and materials to and from the base. The US presence brought
many benefits for the locals and helped make Christchurch a hotbed of
rock'n'roll music. Young US servicemen who were stationed there discovered
the Teenage Club and were soon raving about the gravel-voiced young Kiwi
singer. Before long, their precious original rock'n'roll and R&B records
were finding their way onto local jukeboxes -- and into the hands of fans,
including Max. And there was another invaluable musical advantage conferred
by the Yanks' presence -- through these new American connections, both
The Meteors and The Invaders were able to equip themselves with the full
armory of prized Fender guitars and basses, which were still very hard
to get in Australia and the UK.
In April 1959 The
Meteors took another step ahead when Harry M. Miller added them as the
Christchurch support band for the NZ tour by Johnny O'Keefe; according
to John Dix, the Meteors stole the show. Mid-year the first of many major
shakeups took place, with Will Schneider, Peter Patene and Pete Sowden
all quitting. Max put together a new lineup -- Ian Glass, Billy
Kristian on piano (and occasional sax), Rod Gibson on sax and
Bernie Jones on drums.
Later in the year
Max and the Meteors began their recording career in Wellington for the
HMV label. Their first three singles -- Get A Haircut, Kiss
Curl and C'Mon Let's Go -- were all significant local hits.
In November Miller flew Max up to Auckland for a solo spot on his "Summertime
Spectacular". Over the next two years they cemented their status as the
most popular group in the South Island and scored more local hits, including
the 1961 single Mr Loneliness, but they remained almost unknown
outside their local area.
During 1960 Glass,
Gibson and Jones all left. Former drummer Pete Sowden returned, Maurice
Cook joined on lead guitar, Kristian switched to bass (his favoured
instrument) and the band held this two-guitar format (with varying members)
until 1967. Moving into '61 The Meteors continued to pack 'em out, and
they now had three regular spots per week. The third night was at the
notorious Hibernian Hall, which in John Dix's rather coy description "attracted
rough types". Dave Miller is franker:
"... it used to
be a Wednesday night gig. But you took your life in your hands to go
to it, because it was really the bodgies', the rockers' rumble venue
... like those those archetypal American movie places. There were bike
chains, all sorts of things. I remember being in there when there was
a rumble and I tell you what, I couldn't get out the door quick enough!"
By this time Maurice
Cook had been replaced by rhythm guitarist Geoff Cox. A South Island
junior boxing champion, Geoff was doubly handy, helping to sort out the
regular Hibernian brawls, but his tenure was fairly short and by 1962
he had been replaced by Peter Williams, who was to remain with
the band until 1967.
By the end of the
year both The Meteors and The Invaders had decided to move on to greener
pastures, and in November 1962 the two bands played their farewell charity
concert at Christchurch's Theatre Royal. It was attended by many local
dignitaries, including the Mayor -- a token of the esteem in which Max
was held for the large sums he and the band had raised for local charities
over the preceding years.
During December, Max
and the band played their way up through the North Island to Auckland,
where they had gigs booked at the Oriental Ballroom. They arrived just
before Xmas to find that Ray and The Invaders had hit town ahead of them
and had taken the place by storm -- an event that was to be repeated a
couple of years later.
During 1963, between
tours around the North Island, the Meteors held down a residency at Auckland's
Top Twenty disco. It this period with Viking that they also helped
to launch the career of singer, Diane Jacobs -- now famous as "Dynamic"
Dinah Lee. At the time Dinah was the co-lead singer of another up-and-coming
Christchurch band, The Playboys.
Dave Miller recalls:
"Diane Jacobs wasn't
Dinah Lee back then, but after [The Playboys] had been going for a few
months, Max Merritt & The Meteors had a residency at a disco in Auckland
called The Top Twenty. They got a national tour, and had to vacate
the place for about four weeks. So what they did, rather than bring
in the local opposition -- because that got them in too close to home
-- the thing was in those days, they grabbed someone from the South
Island, who had nowhere to go once it was finished, and they could send
them back. That way they kept the nest safe! So they chose The Playboys
from Christchurch, because they were starting to make a bit of a reputation
for themselves. But Dinah, being "Dynamic Dinah" of course, it didn't
take long for Viking to offer her a recording contract!"
Meanwhile, there had
been more lineup changes, with Billy Kristian heading off to play the
Pacific resort circuit, and Pete Sowden heading back to Christchurch.
To replace them Max recruited two Hastings musos, Mike Angland
(bass) and Johnny Dick (drums). Johnny went on to play a major
role on Australian rock over the next two decades, and he will be well
known to many for his late '60s stint in Doug
Parkinson In Focus, and as a long-serving member of John Paul Young's
All-Stars band.
In November '63 Max
and the Meteors made their first sortie across the Tasman but, on arrival
in Sydney, they found that again their old rivals from The City of Churches
had beaten them to the punch and Ray and the Invaders were already one
of the hottest acts in town. The Meteors stayed for six months, and it
was a pretty gruelling experience by all accounts. To rub salt into the
wound, the Meteors' homecoming coincided with Ray and The Invaders smashing
their way to top of the Aussie charts with She's A Mod.
On the up side, once
back in New Zealand they cut a new EP, Giddy Up Max!, for Viking
Records. Although a fine recording, it was not a chart success, but it
did make a big impression on the label, who immediately installed the
Meteors as the house band, and they backed label mates like Tommy Adderly,
Peter Posa and Dinah Lee -- indeed The Meteors backed Dinah on her breakout
hit Don't You Know Yockomo?. By the end of the year there had been
another lineup change, with Angland moving on to be replaced by former
Sundowners member Teddy Toi, and they had taken on Graham Dent
as their manager.
In December '64 Dent
took the band back to Sydney for a month-long engagement at the Rex Hotel,
and while there they made their first Australian TV appearance on Johnny
O'Keefe's Sing Sing Sing. The Rex gig was successful, so that they
decided to stay on. Over the next six months Max and the group rapidly
gained respect from fans and fellow musicians alike, with even overseas
visitors like Liza Minnelli and Mick Jagger enthusiastically singing their
praises.
In April '65 they
released their first Australian single, So Long Baby, which coincided
with the NZ release of their second album, Max Merritt's Meteors.
Recorded in late '64 with NZ producer Eldred Stebbings, the album demonstrated
the heterogeneous approach to material the band was following at the time,
with tracks as diverse as Frankie Laine's I Believe, soul perennials
Heat Wave and Rockin' Robin and Nat Adderly's Work Song.
John Dix and others
have seen this as a something of a weakness in the earlier Meteors, but
to be fair, it came straight from the tradition of the dance and concert
scene in New Zealand aduring Max's early years. One simply had
to be able to play just about every style going, from current pop hits
to standard foxtrot numbers, in order to satisfy the audiences. In late
'50s Christchurch, dances were literally that and bands had to be able
to play a variety, including a lot of dance music, and have a wide repetoire
a lot of material. Originals made their way into the sets, but the public
demand for old favourites and the latest hits made it virtually
compulsory for bands to have a wide range of covers in their repertoire.
In September there
were yet more lineup changes -- both Teddy Toi and Johnny Dick were poached
by Billy Thorpe to join his 'new' Aztecs, after his original group quit
over a pay dispute. Bassist John Blake (later of Tully)
and drummer Bill Fleming (both of whom had distinguished careers
before and after their Meteors stint) filled in briefly until they were
replaced by drummer Jimmy Hill (from The Invaders) and the erstwhile
Billy Kristian, back from a less-than idyllic stint playing the Pacific
resorts.
The new lineup cut
only one single, released in early '66, a version of the Disney song Zip-A-Dee-Doo
Da, which had more recently been covered by Bobb B. Soxx & The Blue
Jeans. John Dix sees this as a rather odd choice for the time, further
evidence that manager Dent was grooming the band for a future career on
the cabaret circuit. But as mentioned above, a number like that was not
at all out of keeping with what a working band of the day might have to
play from time to time.
Jimmy Hill's stint
in The Meteors proved to be pretty short -- he left the band six months
later, after a punch-up with Max. He was temporarily replaced by Bill
Fleming, who filled in while the group supported the Rolling Stones/Searchers
package tour in February 1966.
Hill's permanent replacement
was a remarkable figure -- the late, great David Charles "Bruno"
Lawrence. Bruno started his music career in the early 60s as the drummer
in an Auckland jazz combo with singer Ricky May. He headed across
the Tasman with Ricky and former Johnny Devlin sideman Claude Papesch
to join the house band at Sydney's Latin Quarter nightclub, which also
included sax player Bob Birtles. A couple of months later Bruno
fell ill with hepatitis, and his place was taken by Melbourne drummer
Stewie Speer. But thanks to Ricky May, Bruno took over the The
Meteors drum stool as soon as he recovered. After leaving the Meteors
in Auckland in 1967, Bruno played in a string of NZ and Australian bands
including The Brew and Electric Heap (with Claude Papesch,
Dave Russell and Tim Piper) but most of these were short-lived projects.
In the 70s Bruno founded and led the legendary travelling multimedia troupe
BLERTA, the "Bruno Lawrence Electric Revelation and Travelling
Apparition". BLERTA's career -- documented by NZ rock historian John Dix
-- included many notable gigs on both sides of the Tasman, including New
Zealand's Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival in January 1973, the Nimbin
Festival of Alternative Lifetyles in May, and their infamous Blerta Supper
Shows at the Glebe Town Hall, Sydney later in the year. The troupe eventually
dissolved in 1976 after making their own Pythonesque NZBC TV series. In
the following years Bruno became an accomplished actor and through the
late 70s and 80s he featured in movies like Smash Palace and The
Quiet Earth, culminating in his acclaimed role as Brian, the devious
TV producer, in the classic current affairs satire Frontline. Sadly,
this was to be Bruno's last gig, and he died of cancer just after the
completion of the second series in 1995.
John Dix nominates
Bruno as a major influence on the group at this time. Prior to his arrival
the Meteors' repertoire was typically quite varied, covering rock'n'roll,
ballads, pop and even novelty songs and show tunes. Bruno's jazz background
and his passionate love of soul and R&B helped steered the Meteors onto
a more "purist" course, clearly signalled by their July '66 single. Led
by their pounding cover of Sam Cooke's Shake, and backed with the
Four Tops' I Can't Help Myself, it became their biggest hit to
date in NZ and also made it into the lower reaches of the Sydney charts.
It also became a local classic and has since been anthologised many times.
They toured NZ to a warm reception in August, and while there they cut
a new single, a cover of Buster Brown's Fannie Mae, at the HMV
studios in Wellington, with the Meteors augmented by John Charles on keyboards
and a brass section led by Mike Gibbs, becoming another of their best
and most enduring recordings.
They were by now well
established in Sydney and were making occasional visits to Melbourne and
elsewhere, including the opening week of the new Melbourne disco Winston
Charles in January, and a gig at Box Hill Town Hall in March. They maintained
their solid reputation, especially among fellow musicians, their singles
sold moderately well, but the Meteors had failed to set the charts on
fire, and the consensus is that they were still much more a "muso's band"
than a popular favourite with teen audiences. Although they were one of
the most respected bands on the scene, some in the group were becoming
frustrated by the lack of a major commercial breakthrough, and they were
under continued pressure from manager Graham Dent, who wanted them to
push them into the cabaret and club circuit -- a direction that many fellow
performers like Dave Miller were also considering at the time. Although
(from the rock perspective) that would ultimately prove an artistic dead-end,
it was an extremely lucrative choice for those who did follow it (like
fellow Kiwis Ricky May and John Rowles) and it was understandably hard
to resist the lure.
Early in 1967 the
Meteors reluctantly agreed to a job arranged by Dent, providing on-board
cabaret entertainment on a Pacific cruise liner. But just before they
sailed, both Peter Williams and Billy Kristian announced their intention
to leave the band.
The cruise was a turning
point in the Meteors' career, for many reasons. Bruno obviously wanted
reshape the band as a pure soul combo and he suggested -- crucially, as
it turned out -- that rather than finding a new guitarist, they should
get a sax player instead. He suggested his Latin Quarter bandmate Bob
Birtles, a commanding tenor player who was already well-respected
on the Sydney jazz scene. Max agreed, and the makeshift quintet set out
on the cruise. This brief interval was to be the only time that Birtles
played with the Williams-Lawrence-Krstian lineup, and no known recordings
exist of this version of the group.
Once on the high seas,
Bruno's legendarily wild behaviour went into overdrive, and he eventually
"jumped ship" in Auckland, leaving Max to fill in on drums on the final
leg of the cruise back to Sydney. Graham Dent also realised that he was
fighting a losing battle to polish the Meteors into a slick cabaret combo,
so he met the group in Auckland to tell them he could no longer manage
them, advising Max to give his ideas of being a teen idol.
But there was one
other event that had a singular effect on the direction of the Meteors.
While in Auckland, Max called in on his friend, sax player Jimmy Sloggett,
and Jimmy introduced Max to the new Otis Redding album Dictionary
of Soul. In particular it was Otis' epochal version of Try
A Little Tenderness that really struck Max, and it transformed his
vision for the band. It was a song that Max would make his own, and other
than Redding himself, Max is arguably one of its finest interpreters.
On returning to Sydney,
Peter and Billy left the group; Peter Williams was invited to join leading
Melbourne soulsters The Groove a few months later, along with another Kiwi, former
Librettos and Playboys guitarist Rod Stone. Back at the Meteors,
Max set about rebuilding the band (again!), although by now he had already
firmly decided that Birtles was a keeper. The next recruit was flamboyant
NZ-born bassist John "Yuk" Harrison. Yuk's CV included long-running
NZ dance band The Keil Isles (of which Jimmy Sloggett had also
been a member), a brief stint in The Invaders, NZ pop band The Brew,
and Levi Smith's Clefs,
the seminal band led by Barrie "The Bear" McAskill, which provided a fertile
training and recruiting ground for several leading Aussie groups of the
'60s and early '70s.
Max's new drummer
was a veteran of the Melbourne and Sydney jazz scenes. Stewart Speer
(1928-1986) -- generally known as Stewie Speers -- started his
career in jazz in Melbourne in the 1940's. His portly build, bushy grey
hair and beard and the ever-present cap made Stewie an instantly recognisable
figure. He was part of the generation of distinguished Melbourne jazz
drummers who came onto the scene in the late '40s and early 50s. Throughout
the '50s Stewie played trad jazz with Roger Bell, Bob Barnard, Frank Traynor
and others, but he was passionately drawn to bop, which had begun to filter
across from the US in the late '40s. Although 'trad' still ruled the roost
in Australian jazz well into the 1950s, both Stewie became an avid fan
of the genre and he amassed a considerable collection of imported bop
records. After gigs (according to jazz historian Andrew Bissett) Stewie
and his friends used to "sneak in through the back window so as not to
wake his mother and stay up until breakfast trying to work the records
out." In 1956 Stewie joined the Brian Brown Quintet, with sax player Brown,
trumpeter Keith Hounslow, pianist Dave Martin and bassist Barry Buckley.
Jazz historian Andrew Bissett describes Stewie as a drummer "...who swung.
Speer had beautiful time, especially on cymbal, hard and straight ahead,
with the message on his kit 'Art Blakey For Pope'" The Quintet championed
the more progressive (but less popular) east coast style of modern jazz,
and were regulars at Horst Liepolt's influential Jazz Centre 44
in St Kilda, which operated from 1955 to 1960. Stewie continued to work
in trad bands to make ends meet, but he was a regular member of the Quintet
until it split in 1960.
Stewie moved to Sydney
after the split, and became a regular at local jazz haunts like Quo
Vadis in Martin Place, Chequers, and Sammy Lee's famous Latin
Quarter, where Jimmy Sloggett's band (which included Bruno, Bernie
McGann, Bob Bertles and Graham Morgan) was also introducing Sydney club
goers to soul music. Stewie succeeded Bruno Lawrence as the drummer in
the Latin Quarter resident band after Lawrence fell ill. In the mid-Sixties,
Stewie was also an integral part of the fertile scene at the legendary
El Rocco coffee lounge in Kings Cross. The converted plumber's
shop at the top of William Street became the hub of modern jazz in Sydney
in the 1960s and Stewie played with groups led by John Sangster, Judy
Bailey, pianist Col Nolan, reed player Don Burrows, and others, and he
might have remained a respected member of the local jazz scene had it
not been for the events that brought him together with Max Merritt in
1967.
The new Meteors debuted
at the Martin Place Disco in May, and played only one more Sydney gig
before relocating to Melbourne. The group found Melbourne a hard nut to
crack, and they were planning a trip to the UK, so they had to accept
any gig on offer, some of which were well out of town. This led to the
accident that very nearly ended the Meteors' story only a month after
the new lineup came together. On their way to a show in Morwell on June
24, their Commer van slammed head-on into a truck just outside the town
of Bunyip, 90 miles south east of Melbourne. Only Yuk, who had been sitting
in the back with the equipment, escaped unhurt. Bob, Max and Stewie were
trapped in the crumpled cab of the wrecked van, and it took firemen more
than an hour to free them. Max sustained severe head injuries, Bob's leg
was badly broken, and Stewie suffered multiple serious injuries. His legs
were crushed, both arms were broken and he lost the tips of several fingers,
resulting a four-month hospital stay and a long and painful rehabilitation.
It took the better part of a year for the group to recover from the accident.
They were lucky to have escaped with their lives, but as a result of their
injuries, Max lost his right eye and his face was badly scarred, Bob was
left with a permanent limp, and Stewie never regained full mobility.
The accident dashed
their plans to travel to England, and it was many months before they were
able to work again. Benefits in Sydney and Melbourne (at the Dallas Brooks
Hall) raised money to support them through their convalescence, but their
only gig that year was a one-off comeback show at Berties disco in Melbourne
on December 2.
Gradually, the band
returned to live work through the early months of 1968. By mid-year The
Meteors were back on the road full time and, aided by frequent appearances
(and numerous plugs) on ATV-0's Uptight, they were again winning
acclaim as one of the hottest live bands on the scene. In July, they came
in third behind runners-up The Master's
Apprentices in the national final of the Hoadley's Battle of the Sounds.
Ironically, the winner was The Groove, the new 'supergroup' that included
Max's former guitarist, Pete Williams.
The new Meteors was
certainly an unlikely-looking group of rock stars -- against the current
trend, Max had close-cropped hair, Stewie was overweight, over 40 and
greying, his bald pate covered by the ubiquitous cap, and the bearded,
bespectacled Bertles looked more like a 50s beatnik than part of the "love
generation". But they were, as always, a firm favourite with other groups,
a 'musician's band' who were also renowned as one of the hardest-working
groups in the country, an outfit that never compromised, onstage or off.
They were also known -- maybe even notorious -- as one of the hardest-partying
bands on the scene, and this is said to be the main reason that the abstemious
Kristian quit the band in '67.
By 1969 Max was Australia's
undisputed "King Of Soul". Based in Melbourne, Max now had his own club
called Max's Place, reminiscent of his early days at The Teenage Club
in Christchurch. The band also toured extensively and won further acclaim.
Regular trips to Sydney made them firm favourites with visiting American
GI's in town on "R&R" leave, echoing Max's popularity with the Americans
stationed in Christchurch. They signed to RCA and recorded their long
overdue third album, simply titled Max Merritt & The Meteors.
It was and is a landmark in Aussie music, and the album has been lauded
variously as "easily the most impressive created in Australia to that
point" (Glenn A. Baker), "an impressive collection of brassy, bluesy
soul" (Ian McFarlane) and "one of the best examples of blue-eyed
soul and ... arguably Max Merritt's finest recording" (John Dix).
Regrettably, it is yet another down-under classic which is languishing
in record company vaults, and it cries out for a reissue. Marking Max's
long-delayed return to writing, the album included six originals by the
group, a reworking of Fannie Mae, as well as their first Australian
hit single, a cover of Jerry Butler's Hey Western Union Man. With
its punchy Stax-style brass arrangement by Bob Bertles, it reached #13
on the national chart in December 1969, and the album, released early
in 1970, fared even better, reaching #8 in June.
The Meteors scored
another first when the ABC presented them in a four-part series, Max
Merritt and the Meteors in Concert. The first two programs were the
band only, the third was the group augmented by a three-piece brass section,
and the fourth presented them backed by a full show band. It's not known
whether the all tapes of the four specials survive, but because so many
ABC programs of that era were thoughtlessly erased in the late '70s and
early '80s, there is reason to fear that the Meteors specials suffered
the same fate.
[NOTE:
There is some confusion about when the specials were made. Ian McFarlane's
Encyclopedia entry places the series in 1969, but John Dix's chapter
on the Meteors indicates that it was made in 1970. What's certain is that
at least one or two Meteors live performances were broadcast on GTK
sometime in the early '70s. By luck, a couple of these clips,
including the song, Friary Mews (spelled "Friary Meux" on the surtitles)
have survived and they recently re-surfaced in a broadcast of GTK
clips on the ABC's Rage in early 2001. It's uncertain whether the
'Friary Mews' clip is an excerpt from the In Concert series, or
a separate performance taped especially for GTK, but the presence
of an audience -- which was certainly not the norm for GTK
-- suggests that it is part of the former. And if so, the presence of
Dave Russell on bass (see below) confirms Dix's version that the series
was in fact made in 1970.]
There was another
lineup change in the new year. After an uncharacteristically sloppy performance
at the Ourimbah Festival in January 1970, Yuk Harrison was given his marching
orders. His replacement came via a chance phone call to Max from New Zealand
-- it was Dave Russell, the former Invaders guitarist, who had
rung Max wondering if he knew of any openings for a guitarist. He slotted
in on bass, and late in the year the Meteors recorded a new album,
Stray Cats, and in October -- again augmented by three additional
brass players -- they made their theatre-only farewell tour of Australia
before heading off for their long-delayed visit to the UK.
Like so many Australian
bands of the period, it was mostly hard going for little reward. Their
first UK single was Good Feeling written by Max, followed up by
a fantastic cover of Delaney & Bonnie's Hello L.A., Bye Bye Birmingham.
Neither single made any impression. (A curious side note is that the b-side
of the latter single, was a jingle that the band had recorded for a Levi's
jeans advertising campaign.) The follow-up, Max's superb rocker Let
It Slide, should have been the hit they were looking for, but it too
failed to ignite any interest and RCA terminated the contract.
For Aussie fans, the
highlights of that period were undoubtedly their brief returns to Australia
for a triumphant appearance at the Sunbury Festival in January 1972 (part
of which is featured in the Sunbury documentary), followed by a national
pub tour, and their return to Sunbury in 1973. The Meteors slogged away
with regular live work on the London pub circuit, gradually building up
a solid following, and as John Dix notes, they became one of the foundation
stones of the British pub rock scene in the 70s, alongside bands like
Brinsley Schwartz and Dr Feelgood -- a fact often overlooked in the typically
Anglocentric accounts of that era by UK music historians. They also began
to pick up support slots on national tours by leading groups like Slade,
The Moody Blues, the (post-Morrison) Doors, Mountain and others. They
appeared at some of the major festivals and played regular gigs at major
London venues like the Speakeasy and the Marquee.
By 1974, Max's determination
and the consistent quality of their performances had taken them to a point
where it again looked as if the group were finally building up the momentum
for a major breakthrough, but disaster struck again when manager Peter
Raphael suddenly decamped, leaving them stranded with no money and
pile of debts. The Meteors were forced to sell their transport and move
to cheaper lodgings. Bertles took up an offer to play with UK jazz-rock
band Nucleus, Stewie toured Europe with Alexis Korner, Dave Russel
went back to New Zealand, and Max was forced to fall back on his old trade
and get work as a bricklayer.
Doggedly picking up
the pieces yet again, Max and Stewie put together a new, five-piece Meteors
in late 1974, with British musicians John Gourd (guitar and piano),
Howard "Fuzz" Deniz (alternating on bass and guitar) and Barry
Duggan (sax). The repertoire had also changed, moving away from the
familiar soul covers towards a straight-ahead rock sound. Duggan was later
replaced by keyboards and sax player Lance Dixon, and his keyboards and
Gourd's slide guitar became the defining sound of the band at this time.
In May 1975 Clive
Davis, head of Arista Records, arrived in London to establish a
UK division of the company. On the recommendation of Rolling Stone
journo Andrew Bailey, Davis went to hear the Meteors at the Nashville
Rooms and signed them on the spot, making them the first signing to the
new division. Their next single was the superb A Little Easier,
released in July. On the basis of this song alone one can see why Davis
signed them. A swampy, foot-stompin soul-blues 'kiss-off' chant, with
a masterfully vocal by Max and tasty Leslie-treated slide guitar by John
Gourd. The song -- surely one of Max's very best recordings -- had "hit"
written all over it, but parocialism seems to have held sway once again
and tragically it didn't create any interest at all in the UK.
Their first Arista
album, also called A Little Easier, was released in September
along with their second single, the poignant Slippin' Away. Happily,
this caught the ear of Aussie program directors and it and became their
biggest Australian hit ever. Max's classic ballad reached #2 in Australia,
and buoyed by the single's success, the album soared up the national chart
and became an Australian best seller, reaching #4 in November 1975. It
fared equally well in New Zealand, reaching #5 in November and staying
on the NZ charts for six months, although curiously the album did not
chart there. It also garnered considerable airplay in London and should
have been a big hit there, but problems with Arista's distribution department
hampered the availability of the single and interest ebbed away.
The Meteors returned
to Australia in for a triumphant tour in May-June 1976, promoting the
release of their second Arista LP Out Of The Blue. Just
prior to the tour they released a new version of the brilliant Let
It Slide, with Whisper In My Ear on the b-side. This time round
it was a hit, although a third single, Mr. Horizontal was also
lifted off the album but it did not chart. But the visit was a resounding
success, and the the three-week theatre tour played to over 30,000 people.
The first concerts of the tour at Melbourne's Dallas Brooks Hall were
taped and later issued as their final Arista LP Back Home Live.
They returned in February 1977, but by this time the emerging punk and
new wave scene in London had wrought irreversible changes on the UK scene
and the pub circuit was fading fast.
At the end of 1976
Max broke up The Meteors as a working band. He signed a new deal with
Polydor, went to America in 1977 and recorded an album in Nashville, then
relocated to Los Angeles, where he has been based ever since. In May 1979,
Max toured Australia with a 12-piece band, promoting his new album Black
Plastic Max and the single Tryin' Too Hard. He returned
in late 1980 for another visit, with a band comprising Stewie, Paul Grant
(guitar), John Williams (keyboards) and Phil Lawson (bass). This would
be Max and Stewie's last tour together.
Stewie settled back
in Sydney after the tour with Max. He remained moderately active on the
local scene, but the health problems stemming from the 1967 accident affected
him increasingly during his last years. He died of a heart attack in Melbourne
on September 16, 1986, aged only 58. Bob Bertles worked for a number of
years in the UK before returning to Sydney, where he remains an active
and highly respected player on the local jazz scene.
Max had made occasional
returns to Australia over the years, and released several more singles
-- Prove It (Nov. 1982) and Mean Green Fighting Machine (Nov. '82),
a promotional single for the Canberra Raiders rugny league team, comissioned
by advertising agency Mojo. He toured again in 1991 with The
Brian Cadd & Max Merritt Band, linking up with Caddie and a band including
John Dallimore (guitar), Craig Reeves (kbds) Des Scott (bass) and Dave
Stewart (drums). He made another club and pub tour in 1996, and during
this visit he performed on the ABC's Club Buggery.
Max's most recent
Australia tour was in April 2001 and it was a special event. Backed by
a crack five-piece band which reunited him with his old comrade Jimmy
Sloggett on sax, Max made a short club tour of the east coast, teaming
up for the first time with one of the other great voices of Australasian
rock, Doug Parkinson. Only days before his 60th birthday, Max played
a superb set of his own hits and a selection of soul and R&B favourites
including Fannie Mae, Try A Little Tenderness, Let It
Slide and Slippin' Away. Max proved once again why has held
the respect of so many for more than four decades, and demonstrated that
the tremendous power and authority of that unique voice, and his consummate
showmanship, are still intact. After more then 40 years in the business
Max Merritt is indisputably a legend, one of the all-time greats of Australasian
music.
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