Little River Band

According to Albert Goldman's biography, John Lennon named Reminiscing as one of his favorite songs of all time. The following is a partial discography; a comprehensive discography is available [3] (http://www.iainmatthews.com/disco.htm) on Matthews' personal site. Lady has also accumulated more than two million plays, and Goble is the first and only Australian songwriter ever to win four "Million Air" awards from BMI. Since that time, Matthews has had a moderately successful career, releasing records on a number of small labels in Germany, the UK, and the U.S., before moving to Amsterdam in 2000, where he continues to be involved in various indy projects and collaborations, including the Sandy Denny tribute band No Grey Faith and yet another revival of Plainsong. Reminiscing, written by Goble, was recognised by BMI as one of the most frequently played songs in the history of American radio, with more than four million plays to its credit. He also appeared with Andy Roberts at the 1992 Cambridge Folk Festival, which led to the first of what were to be several reformed version of Plainsong. Birtles, Shorrock and Goble have also performed a number of reunion concerts, but due to the fact that they sold their rights to the LRB name when they left the band, they were forced to appear under the name Birtles Shorrock Goble: The Original Voices of the Little River Band after the current lineup of the group took legal action to prevent them from performing simply as Little River Band. It also led to his first truly solo performances: his previous "solo" outings had always been as a front man for a one-shot band.

They also performed "Help Is On Its Way" that night. It led, however, to hooking up with producer Mark Hallman — a longtime fan — moving to Austin, Texas, and recording several albums for a series of German independent labels. The original members were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame at the 18th Annual ARIA Music Awards of 2004. This led to Walking a Changing Line (1988) on Windham Hill, an unlikely album-length tribute to Jules Shear of Jules and the Polar Bears. LRB are considered to be among Australia's most significant bands. Matthews was invited to join them to perform, both with them and in other configurations, at the 1986 Cropredy Festival. Farnham was replaced by the returning Shorrock, but he, Birtles and Goble all eventually left the group in the late Eighties. The band (which now has no original members) is based in America and they continue to perform and record. Since 1974, Fairport Convention had been staging the annual Cropredy Festival; since 1979, this annual reunion had been pretty much their only activity as a band, but in the mid-1980s several of them were interested in reviving the band and had done some recording.

Farnham's popularity in Australia was increasing at this time, and he left the band to return to his solo career, achieving huge success in Australia (he was also managed by Wheatley). He worked for a while in an A&R capacity at Island Music and then new-agey Windham Hill Records. In Australia the band continued to be favourites and songs such as "Down On The Border" and "Playing To Win" were major hits. Neither this nor a return to solo recording in England turned his luck. Subsequent singles were only minor hits. Soul" and Prince's "When U Were Mine". John Farnham replaced Shorrock in 1982 and the first single with Farnham, "The Other Guy" reached #11 in the US. As Matthews' official web site writes, at this point he "had been struggling for nearly 15 years now and was still living hand to mouth, with nothing to show for his efforts but a string of out-of-print albums, and the loyalty of those musicians and fans who shared his vision." [2] (http://www.iainmatthews.com/bio.htm) He moved from Los Angeles to then-inexpensive Seattle, where he teamed up with David Surkamp, formerly of the Seattle band Pavlov's Dog, to form the New Wave band Hi-Fi, whose repertoire included Matthews originals, but also covers of Neil Young's "Mr.

The pressures of success and constant touring gradually took their toll on LRB and all the original members gradually left during the Eighties. Label-owner Shelly Siegel, died suddenly in 1979, leaving the label rudderless. In the US he failed to make an impression but in Australia he had one substantial hit, a cover version of Bobby Darin's "Dream Lover". However, the North American rights for his album were held by the small Canadian label Mushroom. In 1982 Shorrock left to pursue a solo career. He bounced from Elektra to CBS Records, to the small Rockburgh label, where he finally scored a hit single in 1978 with a cover of Terence Boylan's "Shake It", and a moderately successful follow-up covering Robert Palmer's "Gimme an Inch". During their career the band have sold more than 20 million records and scored 13 Amercan Top 40 hits. After Plainsong collapsed due to a bandmate's alcohol problem, and with his career now based in Los Angeles, he released several more albums with ad hoc bands, including one produced by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith, but none met with commercial success.

From 1978 until 1981, they achieved six consecutive US Top 10 singles with "Reminiscing", "Lady", "Lonesome Loser", "Cool Change", "The Night Owls" and "Take It Easy On Me". It also included "Even the Guiding Light", a spiritually positive answer to Thompson’s powerful but bleak "Meet on the Ledge". During this period McLachlan left the group and was replaced by George McArdle. The album included a cover of Dave McEnery's "Amelia Earhart's Last Flight", plus a song of Matthews' own, "True Story of Amelia Earhart's Last Night" based on the research that suggest that Earhart on her round-the-world flight may have been spying on Japanese bases in the Pacific islands. More concert performances in the US followed, and in 1977 "Help Is On Its Way" (an Australian number one single) and "Happy Anniversary" both narrowly missed the US Top 10. After solo two albums on Vertigo Records, under the sponsorship of former Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith and surrounded by a who's who of likeminded British semi-folkies (notably another ex-Fairporter, Richard Thompson), he formed Plainsong, who signed to Elektra Records and in 1972 produced In Search of Amelia Earhart, which solidified Matthews' songwriting reputation with the critics, if not with the general public. This resulted in a hit single, "It's A Long Way There", which broke into the Top 30 and galvanised the commitment of the band members. The band went through several different lineups and toured extensively for the next two years, to general critical acclaim but no great commercial success.

Fuelled by a very successful Australian hit single "Curiosity Killed The Cat", the band began making promotional visits to the US in 1976. With Thompson, Nicol, and Hutchings from Fairport, plus drummer Gerry Conway (of Fotheringay, and later to join Fairport) and pedal steel player Gordon Huntley, he formed Matthews Southern Comfort, whose sound was rooted in American country music and rockabilly; this was his first significant experience as a songwriter, although the band also covered the likes of Neil Young and Ian and Sylvia. Wheatley's first-hand experiences of the rip-offs in the Sixties music scene, combined with his subsequent experience working in music management in Britain and the United States in the early '70s, enabled him to help LRB become the first Australian group to enjoy sustained commercial and chart success in the United States. In 1969, as Fairport's music veered more toward British folk influences, Matthews was booted out. A key factor in their eventual success was their manager Glenn Wheatley, who had been the bassist in te highly-regarded Australian rock band The Masters Apprentices. He recorded a couple of singles there in 1967 with a pop band called Pyramid, before being recruited by Ashley Hutchings as a male vocalist for Fairport Convention, where he duetted first with Judy Dyble, but more famously with Sandy Denny. Remembering the indifferent reaction they had received in the UK, they decided the new band would focus on establishing themselves in the US. He moved to London in 1966, taking a job in a Carnaby Street shoe store.

Like namy other Australasian groups of the period, both Axiom and Mississippi had tried to break into the UK record market without success. Matthews grew up in a working class family in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, where he sang with several minor bands during the British pop music explosion of the mid-1960s. They found immediate success in Australia, but individual members had greater ambitions. He later had a solo career and fronted the bands Plainsong and Matthews Southern Comfort. [1] (http://www.richieunterberger.com/matthews.html). Prior to that, Birtles had been the bassist in '60s pop band Zoot (which also included singer-guitarist Rick Springfield) and Shorrock had been the lead singer of leading Australian 60s pop band The Twilights and early 70s country rock band Axiom. Influenced by both rock'n'roll and folk music, he has performed mainly as a solo act, alghouth he was a member of Fairport Convention during the early period where they were heavily influenced by American West Coast folk rock. The group evolved from the harmony-rock group Mississippi in 1975. Iain Matthews (known in the 1960s first as Ian MacDonald, and from the late 1960s until 1989 as Ian Matthews) is a British musician and songwriter.

Formed in Melbourne, Australia, and named for the Victorian township of Little River, the band's original members were Glenn Shorrock (vocals), Rick Formosa, Beeb Birtles and Graeham Goble (guitars), Roger McLachlan (bass) and Derek Pellicci (drums). Plainsong, Pangolins (2003) Blue Rose. Little River Band is an Australian rock music band. Iain Matthews and Elliot Murphy, La Terre Commune (2001) Blue Rose / rfect Pitch / Eminent. Iain Matthews and Elliot Murphy, The Official Blue Rose Bootleg (2001) Blue Rose. No Grey Faith, Secrets All Told — The Songs of Sandy Denny (2000) Perfect Pitch / Unique Gravity.

Iain Matthews, Excerpts from Swine Lake (1998) Blue Rose. Iain Matthews, Skeleton Keys (1992) Line. Ian Matthews, Walking a Changing Line (1986) Windham Hill. Hi-Fi,Moods for Mallards (1982) First American Records; live mini-album.

Hi-Fi,Demonstration Record (1982) First American Records; live mini-album. Ian Matthews, Siamese Friends (1979) Rockburgh. Ian Matthews, Stealin' Home (1978) Rockburgh. Ian Matthews, Hit and Run (1977) CBS.

Ian Matthews, Go For Broke (1976) CBS. Ian Matthews, Some Days You Eat the Bear...Some Days the Bear Eats You (1974) Elektra. Plainsong, In Search of Amelia Earhart (1972) Elektra. Ian Matthews, Tigers Will Survive (1972) Vertigo.

Matthews Southern Comfort, The Essential Collection (1997) Half Moon (a retrospective of 1970s recordings). Matthews Southern Comfort, Later That Same Year (1970) MCA. Matthews Southern Comfort, Second Spring (1970) MCA. Fairport Convention, Heyday(1986) BBC - a release of recordings from 1968/1969.

Fairport Convention, What We Did On Our Holidays(1968) Polydor. Fairport Convention, Fairport Convention(1968) Island. Pyramid, "The Summer of Last Year"/"Summer evening" (1967) Deram Records; his first recording.