Then and Now...Australia Salutes The Beatles...various artists

This compilation sees some of Australia's finest artists covering classic Beatles songs.

"No single instance of Beatlemania throughout the globe ever came close to the intensity and sheer magnitude of the social upheaval which occurred beneath the southern cross. No street crowds, in New York or London or Liverpool ever eclipsed the antipodean hordes which, at times, comprised a third of the entire population of a city.  Not since the VE and VJ days which marked the end of WWII had the streets been filled with such celebration and abandon. No royal tour could match the displayed devotion - 350,000 in the streets of Adelaide alone, compared to 10,000 at Kennedy Airport in New York 4 months before. As tour press officer Derek Taylor once declared: "It was clear that many of eleven million people in Australia viewed the Beatles in a messianic light" - Glenn A Baker.

                                                                  
Disc 1

    From Me To You - The Bee Gees
    Yesterday - The Seekers
    For No One - Little Pattie
    It Won't Long - The Rajahs
    You've Got To Hide Your Love Away - Ronnie Burns
    All My Loving - Johnny Young
    Obla-Di, Obla-Da - The Executives
    I Feel Fine - Masters' Apprentices
    With A Little Help From My Friends - Doug Ashdown
    Tomorrow Never Knows - Wendy Saddington
    Hey Jude - Max Merritt & The Meteors
    Come Together - The La De Das
    Dear Prudence - Doug Parkinson In Focus
    Eleanor Rigby - The Zoot
    Carry That Weight - Colleen Hewitt
    Nowhere Man - Sherbet
    Paperback Writer - Glenn Shorrock


Disc 2

    Help - John Farnham
    Oh! Darlin' - The Models
    Birthday - Sunnyboys
    I've Just Seen A Face - Jenny Morris
    Baby You're A Rich Man - Company Of Strangers (W/James Reyne)
    A Hard Days Night - The Hoodoo Gurus
    I'm So Tired - You Am I
    I'm Only Sleeping - The Vines
    Two Of Us - Josh Pyke & Bob Evans
    Girl - Glenn Cardier
    Blackbird - Katie Noonan
    Across The Universe - Rachael Leahcar
    Day Tripper/lady Madonna - Tommy Emmanuel
    Things We Said Today - Marty Rhone
    Like Dreamers Do - The Beatnix
    'Til There Was You - Harrison Craig
    Strawberry Fields Forever - John Waters 

Chain..Toward the Blues...Classic Album from 1971

Any student of Australian rock music would be hard-pressed to argue against the pure fact that, since its inception in the late sixties, Chain has remained our foremost blues-rock band. In keeping with its hallowed name, there are many links to the Chain story…throughout its six year heyday over the early seventies the band, in its many permutations, commanded an undisputed dominance in the blues idiom. Chain has seen many varied line-ups, no less than 40+ different musicians passing through its ranks. There isn't enough space on this humble little blog to tell the full Chain story, even in a brief form, so I'll just give the starting point and you can go to Milseago for the complete story.

Over the years, Perth has provided the setting for a thriving blues-rock scene, spawning many future stalwarts of the idiom who have gone onto greater national success. The original Chain grew out of this hotbed, forming from the ashes of The Beaten Tracks, who won the Perth heat of the 1967 Hoadley's Battle Of The Sounds. The band at that time comprised Warren Morgan (keys), Dave Hole (guitar), Ace Follington (dr), Murray Wilkins (bs) and Ross Partington (vcls); they moved to Melbourne in early 1968 to avail themselves of their prize, ostensibly recording and touring opportunities in the eastern states.

While in Melbourne, Dave Hole (long recognised as one of Australia's top blues perfprmers) quit The Beaten Tracks, to be replaced by Tasmanian guitarist Phil Manning (formerly of Tony Worsley & the Blue Jays, The Laurie Allen Revue and Bay City Union, among others) and the band returned to Perth, where they lost the services of Partington.

A return to Melbourne in December 1968 saw the group recruit ex-James Taylor Move singer Wendy Saddington, and the first incarnation of (The) Chain was established. Saddington was a blues/soul 'belter' in the vein of Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin, and it was she who came up with the band's name, derived from Aretha's classic hit, "Chain Of Fools". Sadly, this line-up of Chain never recorded, Saddington having departed by May 1969 to join Copperwine, and later to forge an erratic but compelling solo career.

Chain relocated to Sydney in August and recruited bass player Tim Piper (ex-Chants R&B, Electric Heap, Wild Cherries) and legendary blind keyboardist Claude Papesch (who was also from Electric Heap, and who had been a member of Johnny Devlin & The Devils in New Zealand in the early '60s). This line-up stayed together long enough to record Chain's first single for Festival with house producer Pat Aulton -- "Show Me Home" b/w Morgan's "Mr Time", which was released in September. The single, while not a strong charter, convincingly displayed the group's abilities, and showed the strong and unmistakable influence of The Band -- who profoundly affected so many Aussie acts at the time -- as well as particularly showcasing Manning's fluid guitar style. The single is regarded by many as the earliest example of the "progressive" stance developing rapidly on the OzRock scene around this period.

Follington, Piper and Papesch left Chain late in '69, to form Savage Rose, and each went on to reputable careers in a number of other prominent bands. Chain moved back yet again to Melbourne, where its core hooked up with the ex-Wild Cherries rhythm section of Barry Sullivan (bass) and Barry Harvey (drums). Nick-named, respectively, "Big Goose" and "Little Goose", the two Barrys injected a 'fish-arse-tight' cohesion into the band's sound, and helped unveil what was to become the classic, and best-remembered Chain configuration, gaining considerable notice in the southern capital's burgeoning blues-rock performing circuit in the process. (text courtesy of Milesago)

click here to continue the full Chain story...

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Wendy Saddington and Copperwine Live 1971..rare release from sensual blues and soul vocalist

Wendy June Saddington also known as Gandharvika Dasi (26 September 1949 – 21 June 2013) was an Australian blues, soul and jazz singer, and was in the bands Chain, Copperwine and the Wendy Saddington Band. She wrote for teen pop newspaper Go-Set from September 1969 to September 1970 as an agony aunt in her weekly "Takes Care of Business" column, and as a feature writer. Saddington had Top 30 chart success with her 1972 solo single "Looking Through a Window", which was written and produced by Billy Thorpe and Warren Morgan of the Aztecs. After adopting Krishna Consciousness in the 1970s she took the name, Gandharvika Dasi. In March 2013 she was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer and died on 21 June 2013, aged 63. An underrated talent and very sad loss.

Wendy Saddington's musical influences included the likes of Bessie Smith, Etta James, Mahalia Jackson, Odetta, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Janis Joplin, and the raw blues from the Mississippi delta, along with the swanky soul coming from the American Stax, Atlantic and Motown labels. There was also something of the vulnerability of Edith Piaf in Wendy's pleading, bleeding vocal entreaties.

Saddington first came to notice in Melbourne psych-soul outfit The Revolution, before swiftly joining Adelaide's psychedelic/classically flavoured James Taylor Move around late 1967. When Wendy joined the emerging blues-rock ensemble Beaten Tracks, which she named (The) Chain, after the song by one of her heroines, Aretha Franklin's soul classic, "Chain Of Fools". Wendy spent around 18 months touring with Chain, and it was during this time that her passionate, earth-mother Joplin/Franklin vocal style came to prominent notice among promoters and punters alike. Also, her 'outlandish' appearance attracted magazines like Go-Set: a sad waif-like face, heavily mascara-ed around the eyes, framed by the hugest of afro 'do' this side of Jimi's Experience! Wendy favoured simple Levi's, with a basic shirt or cheesecloth kaftan top, copiously accessorised with love-beads and bangles.

Saddington's next musical outing was with Jeff St John's highly acclaimed and well-established group, Copperwine, and it's here that we finally have an officially-released recording of her sublime vocal performances! Wendy joined the band in March 1970, just after the release of Copperwine's superb Joint Effort album, and she sang live as co-lead with St John for a concentrated touring regime through to February 1971. In January of that year, with St John temporarily away from the band, Saddington fronted Copperwine for their acclaimed performance at the Wallacia Festival on the central-coast of New South Wales.

A live recording of the event was released on Festival's new progressive subsidiary Infinity during '71, which showcased Copperwine's sympathetic backing sensibilities for Wendy's distinctive vocals. On such cuts as the funky opener, Nina Simone's "Backlash Blues", and her heartfelt reading of Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues", Saddington continually astonishes with her sensual soul power. Another notable inclusion is Wendy's introspective and idiosyncratic reading of John Lennon's "Tomorrow Never Knows" (which Wendy introduces as a George Harrison composition!) Other highlights include "Five People Said I Was Crazy " (which, with its wild Ross East guitar solo, Barry Kelly's electric piano flourishes and Wendy's monumental banshee wail, certainly lives up to its title). The closing tour-de-force "Blues In A" completely satisfies the listener as a consummate combination of the music of one of Australia's premier all-purpose prog-blues bands of the time, with definitely one of our most unique and mesmerising blues-soul vocalists.

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