LONG WAY TO THE TOP (2001)
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After the BBC produced the ten-part pop history series Dancing in the Street in 1996 and it was so successful, the rockumentary was legitimized as a TV genre. Even before that though, I was pitching around a treatment for a show on Australia’s music history called Real Wild Child. When it couldn’t seem to get anywhere, including being rejected by the ABC, I had to let it go, as I’ve learnt you have to sometimes do in this business. The Powerhouse Museum took over the title, with all my good graces, and put it to its exhibition on the history of Australian rock, which was opened in 1995 and subsequently successfully toured the country and spawned a terrific CD-ROM, which were the thing at the time and to which I contributed extensively. Then the ABC decided it did want to do something like this after all, and with a Machiavellian fraud by the name of Paul Clarke as producer, I was hired to serve as the show’s principal interviewer/co-writer. I conducted over 140 interviews and these formed the backbone of the series, which was well directed by Greg Appel under trying circumstances. When it was first broadcast in 2001, Long Way… was a huge hit and spawned the year’s best-selling local DVD. Even the soundtrack CD that I produced went Top 10, if only just, and only for a week. What I was trying to do with the 2CD set was a bit like what my friend James Cockington did with his fine book of the series – not just echo the show but try and add another dimension to it, with some contrasting angles. The show’s archived website, featuring Family Trees among other things prepared by me, can be found here Such an inordinate if not totally unexpected amount of success prompted a long line of subsequent spin-offs. Indignant that his history had been ‘stolen’, Billy Thorpe got together with his manager Michael Chugg and mounted the first Long Way… concert tour. And then another one, and another, and a succession of merchandise: The road, it seems, goes on forever… |
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CD TRACKLISTING:
CD1: Johnny O’Keefe – Wild One Schneider Sisters – Washboard Rock’n’Roll Slim Dusty – Losin’ My Blues Tonight Jimmy Little – Sweet Mama Col Joye – Oh Yeah, Uh-Huh Betty McQuade – Midnight Bus Del Juliana – I Was a Fool for Leaving Atlantics – Bombora Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs – Mashed Potato Dinah Lee – Don’t You Know Yockomo Seekers – Sinner Man Easybeats – Good Times Masters Apprentices – Undecided Steve and the Board – Giggle-Eyed Goo Loved Ones – Ever Lovin’ Man Purple Hearts – Early in the Morning Normie Rowe – It’s Not Easy Ronnie Burns – Smiley Russell Morris – Real Thing New Dream – Groupie Helen Reddy – I am Woman Bee Gees – Marley Purt Drive Fraternity – Seasons of Change Max Merritt & Meteors – Been Away Too Long G. Wayne Thomas – Open Up Your Heart Tully – Paradise of Perfect Silence |
CD2: Healing Force – Golden Miles Chain – 32/20 Blues Wendy Saddington – Looking Through a Window Wild Cherries – GOD Trevor Lucas – Girls on the Avenue Sherbet – You’ve Got the Gun John Paul Young – Standing in the Rain Renee Geyer – Heading in the Right Direction Saints – Know Your Product Divinyls – Boys in Town Rose Tattoo – Rock’n’Roll Outlaw Reels – Quasimodo’s Dream Triffids – Beautiful Waste INXS – What You Need Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls – Bicentennial Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Do You Love Me? Sunrize Band – Lembana Mani Mani Cruel Sea – This is Not the Way Home Silverchair – Freak Itch-E & Scratch-E – Sweetness & Light |