Clinton Walker
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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…

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