Little River Band

For years Australian music had seen England as its door to the rest of the world, with only occasional success. England very rarely considered what came across from the colonies as serious, and if it did, the Australians mostly just melted into the English masses as far as the rest of the world was concerned. Little River Band changed all that. They chose to conquer America – and did so spectacularly – paving the way for all the Australian music which followed.

Little River Band was formed from the wreckage of some of the innumerable attempts to win England first. The group Mississippi had travelled to London in 1974 where their album had been released to some interest, but almost as soon as they arrived they realized it was to be an ill-fated venture. Within six months they were at the point of breaking up. But another possibility had presented itself in the meantime.

One night Mississippi’s creative and vocal core Graham Goble and Beeb Birtles caught up with Glenn Shorrock, who was still in London after Axiom’s failure to conquer England. Singing together they were struck with the blend of Glenn’s voice with Graham and Beeb’s established harmony style. Also present that night was former Masters Apprentices bass player Glenn Wheatley.

The Masters had broken up in London after their own failed English assault and Glenn had moved into management. Everybody was planning to go back to Australia and it was agreed that in several months, once they were all back, they would get back together and look at the possibility of forming a new group managed by Wheatley. The plan was always to use Australia as a launching place to the rest of the world. With that in mind they almost immediately went into the studio, even before the rest of the band had consolidated its membership. They were retaining Mississippi drummer Derek Pellici and on the lookout for a guitarist and a bass player. A very early version of the group recorded a version of the Everly Brothers’ ‘When Will I Be Loved’ as a single, a recording that was shelved when Linda Ronstadt also happened to chose that song as a single. For a moment the ‘new’ Mississippi considered calling itself after another mighty river, the Murrumbidgee, but on their way to their first live performance in Geelong on March 1, 1975 they noticed a roadsign to Little River. They gave that first performance as Mississippi but from there on became Little River Band.

The self-titled first album was released in November 1975. The following May they released a second album, ‘After Hours’, and in September of that year set off on their first trip overseas, ironically bound for London first, to support Queen at Hyde Park. Just before they left for England LRB had been forced to find a new guitarist, David Briggs, and while they were at it replaced their bass player with George McArdle. On the same London-bound plane was Sherbet, on their way to help promote the ‘Howzat’ single, which was charting for them. Of the two bands, Sherbet was the one that was looking like it was on the threshold of international stardom.

After Queen, LRB went on to America to support the Average White Band and promote the release of the first album there. Its eight and a half minute epic ‘It’s A Long Way There’ had been edited down for release as a single and was starting to make quite an impact. Graham Goble had written the song about the long trip taking his laundry back to his mother in Adelaide from Melbourne. To an America in shock after the Nixon presidency the song took on a whole other dimension. LRB had made a big breakthrough.

America decided that ‘After Hours’ was too dark, and put the band straight into the studio to record the next album, resolving to use some of the ‘After Hours’ tracks and the best of what was being recorded for the band’s third Australian album. In both forms the result was called ‘Diamantina Cocktail’. This time the band had been put into the studio with American producer John Boylan. Until now Glenn Wheatley had been producing, but he was too busy doing his managing thing, and the band also needed an outsider to control the frictions and competition between the band members. Since the first album, as much as possible, Shorrock, Goble and Birtles recorded separately in the studio.

To date LRB’s success in Australia had been modestly in keeping with the band’s place in Australian music history, respected but not totally embraced. The single from the new album , Glenn Shorrock’s ‘Help Is On Its Way’ changed that. Another important hit in America, in Australia it went all the way to No.1. The album sold gold in America, the first time an Australian act had achieved such a feat. It was followed by ‘Sleeper Catcher’, again produced by Boylan, the first album recorded in Australia to sell over a million copies in the US. This time LRB’s greater success was in America, with the single ‘Reminiscing’ a No.3 hit. This was the song John Lennon made love to during his ‘long weekend’ separation from Yoko Ono.

For the next four years LRB kept straddling the two continents, renowned for their impeccable live performances. The frictions inside the band continued to brew, relieved a little by a sideline album from Graham Goble and Beeb Birtles (‘Last Romance’) , and Glenn Shorrock’s solo hit ‘Dream Lover’. American bass player Wayne Nelson was brought in to replace George McArdle, adding to the problems within when Graham Goble’s ‘Night Owls’ (from ‘Time Exposure’) was given to Nelson to sing lead vocals on. Steve Housden replaced David Briggs on guitar.

As well as his album with Beeb, Graham Goble had been writing songs for and producing John Farnham’s ‘comeback’ album ‘Uncovered’. He now agitated within the band to replace Glenn Shorrock with Farnham. Australia pricked up its ears, but America was in shock. This still successful band was replacing the singer of all their big hits with an unknown! Farnham walked straight into the recording studio to record ‘The Net’. Then it was Beeb Birtles’ turn to leave, replaced by David Hirshfelder. Before ‘Playing To Win’, Derek Pellici left, replaced by Cold Chisel’s Steve Prestwich.

In all, John Farnham recorded three albums with LRB over four years. The experiment had never worked. Whatever John’s talents, America longed for Glenn Shorrock. At the end of 1985, while LRB was seriously contemplating its future, Farnham took the initiative of leaving to start work on another solo album (‘Whispering Jack’).

With John Farnham completely rehabilitated as the biggest selling artist in Australia, LRB regrouped in 1988 with new management and a new record label. Glenn Shorrock and Derek Pellicci rejoined Goble, Nelson and Housden to record the ‘Monsoon’ album and its single ‘Love Is A Bridge’. In 1990 Goble left Little River Band as a touring member, and the band as we’d known it finally called it a day in 1991.

And yet the story continues. For a while drummer Derek Pellicci mounted Little River Band tours with a line-up including Glenn Shorrock. When Glenn didn't want to meet one particular schedule due to other commitments, he was sacked, resulting in unpleasant legal action. Then Derek also gave it away, and today there's an LRB line-up still touring America featuring latecomers Wayne Nelson and Steve Housden, who now owns the band name.

In March 2002 Glenn Shorrock, Beeb Birtles and Graham Goble performed together as the Original Little River Band at the Melbourne Formula 1 Grand Prix Ball, backed by the John Farnham Band. At a dinner recognizing four million radio plays for 'Reminiscin'' in America Goble and Shorrock planted the seeds for a reunion. Initial plans to put the original band back together were replaced by the the band's most recognized front line rehearsing with a band of hired musicians for a comeback tour of Australia. On June 11 they lost a courtroom bid to promote themselves as original members of the Little River Band. The trio announced a new recording contract as BSG (Birtles, Shorrock, Goble) in June 2003.