I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT A LIFETIME PLAN
REMINISCING WITH GRAEHAM GOBLE OF LITTLE RIVER BAND
“Toronto? We played there once. The El Mocambo Club. The most memorable show, maybe, in my whole career. Incredible! Because, the audience was completely over the top. In fact, when we finished, possibly our second encore, some of the audience, some got on the stage, came up the stairs to the dressing room and were pounding on the door for a third encore. It was just insane,” remembers Graeham Goble, a founding member of Little River Band, during our recent conversation. “I just remember that, it was the most insane thing ever”.
“I know that when we played the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver, it was actually a live broadcast over Canada, we had two albums in the top ten. That was another great gig. Canada is fantastic for us, has been, and we didn’t spend enough time there, unfortunately. We only toured a few times in Canada but it was a fantastic place.”
During the 1970s and 1980s, it simply was not possible to turn on the radio, here in Toronto, and not hear one of Little River Band’s many hits. It is safe to say the same can be said for anywhere in the world. Be it “Lonesome Loser”, “Happy Anniversary”, “The Night Owls”, “Cool Change” or ”Lady”, they were radio staples. They were also huge. Selling out concerts, hitting the album charts, television…Little River Band were a force. And they did it from a home base in Australia. They also appeared to come out of nowhere, but of course, that is never the way.
“When I was 13, I started writing songs in my bedroom at home, and I was writing a lot of songs. Eventually I formed my first band with some school friends, that was called The Silence, just playing around my hometown in Adelaide. Then I formed a couple of other bands in Adelaide, the next one was Travis Wellington Hedge, followed by Allison Gros and then that became Mississippi, which eventually became Little River Band. It was always me writing the songs, driving the band, always harmony-driven. I was always looking for good singers so when we got to Mississippi, Beeb Birtles joined and Derek Pillicci. Then in ‘75 we added Glenn Shorrock out front and called it Little River Band. When Beebs and Glenn came in, they were also writing, which was fantastic because they were great writers. So we ended up with this magic vocal blend when Glenn Shorrock joined. We ended up with a band with wonderful players playing for the song as opposed to playing all over the place. The musicians of the band were committed to the arrangements. Everything on the record is a considered part, you don’t just jam along. You are providing that part.”
ULTIMATE HITS/MASTERPIECES ALBUM REVIEW
Goble is excited and ready to celebrate the release of two new collections: Ultimate Hits (the title speaks for itself) and Masterpieces (a triple album collection of deeper album cuts). Over the years, record companies have not always treated the material with the respect it deserves, so these two compilations are not only essential but the perfect overview of this extraordinary band. “Historically, Capital had been releasing greatest hits packages but the big problem with it is that our faces are not on the cover. If you look at our catalogue, rarely were our faces on the cover, because in the 70s and 80s, when we were releasing records it wasn’t considered a thing.”
While this may seem like an odd concern, Goble and the rest of the original Little River band have been dealing with a situation where their identity is an important factor. “We have this unacceptable situation in that there is a US-based band playing under the name Little River, no original members, and they have been touring for 25 or 30 years to an unsuspecting public and they have attempted to take our identity by not flagging the fact there are no original members, but they own the trademark, and they walk out on the stage and actually say ‘greetings from Australia!’, and there are no Australians in it. On top of that they have spent a lot of money, legally, from preventing us from ever playing, this is over the last 25 years, they have been getting court injunctions and everything to keep the secret that we are all still alive and we wanted to tour over the last 25 years but legally prevented by this band. They even took control of Spotify, so when you go on Spotify, you see their photos, and ours have been deleted. It is an incredible situation and I think it is unique in rock history where you have this band, a complete band for the last 25 years have not been able to perform and you have this band that has taken on the identity of Little River Band and trading in concerts to an unsuspecting audience.”
One solution for this problem are the two new compilations. Goble came up with the solution to reclaim Little River Band. “I decided five years ago to start working toward the Ultimate Hits and Masterpieces packages. The big thing there was to delete all the existing compilations and remaster the whole catalogue with the best sounding LRB ever with today’s technology, right from the analog tapes. But then I thought, most of my favourite album tracks were not picked as singles. I love a lot of the singles too, but there are a whole bunch of songs that if we were to release them, people would discover them for the very first time and realize that this was an amazing band.”
Yet there are few, if any bands, that compete with the LRB sound, vocally and musically. They set the bar very high from their first album, 1975’s Little River Band. “We, vocally and instrumentally, compared to anyone out there. When you listen to these new packages, it is hard to imagine a better vocal/instrumental band, with the exception of The Beatles, because they were clearly out in front of everybody. That was the reason behind masterpieces, to put out an album of extraordinary songs that a lot of the public have never heard before and they can hear it now in the best possible way.”
1980 LITTLE RIVER BAND: L-R GRAEHAM GOBLE, BEEB BIRTLES [PHOTO COURTESY OF DAYS ON THE ROAD]
This project has also allowed Goble to go back and release the Little River Band catalogue as it should have been. Much like the early Beatle albums, early Little River Band albums were rejigged for North American markets. “Our second album, After Hours, was never released as a full album in Canada. It was a compilation with the next album, which was Diamantina Cocktail, which they put together with After Hours. So now, I’ve gone back, deleted all that and now we have the original After Hours album and the original Diamantina Cocktail on release.”
This also means that the entire Little River Band catalogue from 1975 to 1990 has been remastered and available with bonus tracks. “There are 14 bonus tracks I have added to the catalogue that were good but did not make the albums for a variety of reasons.” A lot of tracks were left off due to time limitations of vinyl. The albums are available on all streaming services. “I’ve got a very good relationship with them and they are respecting us and helping us. The idea is to delete everything that is out there and start again with the remastered versions. They will be out on CD next year and I think the idea might be that in 2025 they will probably go with the first album and do a big deal, like they have done with Abbey Road and those sorts of things.”
Until those sets are released, we have Ultimate Hits and Masterpieces, two sides of a very talented band. One triple set features all of their hits, while the other are their album classics. Both of these collections allow fans and new fans to explore Little River Band and discover and rediscover some of the finest music of the last 50 years.
Artist Links
Main Photo: L-R: Glenn Shorrock, Graeham Goble, Derek Pellicci, George McArdle (Front), Beeb Birtles (Back), David Briggs (Circa 1977)
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: KING CRIMSON – LARKS’ TONGUES IN ASPIC – THE COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: LITTLE RIVER BAND – ULTIMATE HITS/MASTERPIECES
