Bobby and Laurie

Bobby Bright and Laurie Allen have a unique place in Australian music history. When the Beatles and Rolling Stones generation of English popular music changed world music overnight, Bobby and Laurie were amongst the first Australians to ride the new wave and, through a quirk of fate, they themselves changed Australian music overnight with their first single, “I Belong With You”.

Laurie Allen was part of the first wave of Australian rock, starting out in 1959 as lead guitarist with Malcolm Arthur and Knights. Arthur was one of the pioneers of rock and roll in Melbourne. Laurie Allen subsequently left to become lead singer of the previously instrumental Blue Jayes. Around the same time Bobby Bright was making a name for himself as one of Adelaide’s first pop stars. Bobby and Laurie’s paths often crossed in their separate careers, until they decided to pool their resources as part of a revue act called The Roulettes; a group, a couple of singers, able to perform something for everyone. Part of Laurie Allen’s contribution was being carried to the stage inside a coffin. At the end of 1964, in the middle of Beatles Mania, Bobby and Laurie broke away on their own.

Fortune was smiling on Bobby And Laurie. Along with Normie Rowe they were the first Melbourne act to wear their hair long, just like their English counterparts. When the Beatles’ July 1964 tour left the country, Allan Field the English comedian who had come as compere of the tour, stayed on in Australia to host a new pop show on Channel 0, Melbourne’s first new station since the introduction of television. Bobby And Laurie became regulars on the Go! Show, and were offered a recording contract with the newly created Go! label. The most significant in this chain of lucky breaks was being put into the studio with producer Roger Savage, who had literally just arrived in Australia from London where he had worked at Olympia Studios with the Rolling Stones. That Roger Savage Bobby and Laurie recording, “I Belong With You”, immediately brought the sound of Australian records in line with the rest of the world’s. It set the benchmark the Easybeats and others would now follow.

Bobby And Laurie were lucky to have all of those fortunate accidents fall their way. But this was more than a case of just being in the right spot at the right time. The duo were also able to deliver and take advantage of every opportunity put in front of them. Shaking their long manes of hair and accentuating the rhythm of their performance with their cuban heeled boots, Laurie Allen and Bobby Bright (as they were originally billed) became the Go! Show’s instant sensations. Put in the studio they arrived with Laurie’s “I Belong With You”, a song worthy of their foot stomping reputation and Roger Savage’s expertise. “I Belong With You” set a new standard, and was the first real national rock hit to come out of Melbourne. Bobby and Laurie used their popularity to help Sydney’s Easybeats to national popularity. Whenever they didn’t have an original song to record or perform Laurie Allen dipped into his vast record collection.

As more hits followed, Bobby And Laurie’s non-teenage pop leanings came into play. They appeared regularly as a couple of Alice In Wonderland type characters in the children’s TV program ‘The Magic Circle Club’. In 1966 they switched to the home of The Easybeats, Albert Productions and followed the adult pop of ‘Sweet And Tender Romance” with a striking pop version of country star Roger Miller’s “Hitch Hiker”, a lone electric guitar emulating the cars passing by. “Hitch Hiker” gave Bobby and Laurie their biggest hit, a national Number One. On the strength of that hit, and their wider entertainment experience, the ABC offered the duo their own TV show, ‘It’s A Gas’, later renamed ‘Dig We Must’.

The program’s adult, sophisticated style took Bobby And Laurie further from their pop following than ever. It also drove a wedge between the duo itself. They had always been two very different people, with only their music in common. Without a viable recording and performing career there was no reason to stay together, and after a final appearance on New Year’s Eve, they officially split on January 1, 1967.

While Bobby Bright turned to acting and working behind a radio microphone, Laurie formed the Laurie Allen Revue, indulging Laurie’s wide musical tastes, but carrying on the country music focus revealed on Bobby And Laurie’s final album, ‘Exposaic’. During its three single career The Laurie Allen Review introduced Australia to singer Colleen Hewett.

In February Laurie joined Bobby on his radio program, sparking the duo's reunion and return to the charts with the country tragic 'Carrol Country Accident', and then with an old German folk song with new lyrics, "Looking Through The Eyes Of Love". By late 1971 they parted company again, Bobby returning to acting, voice overs and advertising jingles; Laurie to a solo country career, songwriter and record producer role. It's from those two corners they came every now and again for occasional Bobby And Laurie performances. Laurie Allen died on June 13, 2002 of a heart attack. Throughout is career he was famous for his diet of bourbon-and-Coke-and-chips.