Really like this song.Did a quick check on ebay,Discogs,Music Stack,nada.Popsike only lists one copy sold of this 45.Can't be at all common.
No, I don'tthink it is. Pretty obscure - I only discovered its existence a month or so ago. That was the discovery that made me question the "Mike Vaughan opened a bar in New York" story, and led me on to the Gravy Train, Hot Love and Cleveland People records.
1st or 18th October 1971 Gravy Train - Alone in Georgia (Gravy Train) / Can Anybody Hear Me (Gravy Train) Vertigo 6059 049. Produced by Jonathan Peel for Mike Vaughan Productions. One week on from the Godson single, a single from Gravy Train was scheduled for release, but although the record was announced for this date, the stamp on the scan above suggests it may have been held up until the 18th. Either way, it represented a change of strategy, with Mike Vaughan opting to test the market with a single ahead of the in-the-works new album. Although progressive bands still tended, by and large, to shun the singles market, at least in the UK, hit singles by Deep Purple ("Black Night"), Black Sabbath ("Paranoid") and Jethro Tull (any number of releases; Tull had no qualms serving the singles market as well as the album audience) suggested it might still be a viable way to break a band, so Vaughan's decision had a certain commercial logic. The single was also issued, with the same catalogue number, in Portugal, Germany and Italy, and possibly elsewhere in Europe, at varying intervals over the next few months - the Italian single was not issued until 18th March 1972, five months aftere the UK issue. Although not particularly commercial, the single marked a step forward from the band's debut LP. It was however arguable that the band - or Vaughan, or Vertigo - chose to promote the wrong side, as the B-side featured the stronger of the two songs ("Can Anybody Hear Me"). Be that as it may, it is hard to imagine either side finding a home on Radio One (except, perhaps, on John Peel's show), and it seems reasonable to assume that neither did, as the single skimmed into Mike Vaughan and Jonathan Peel's growing pile of flops. It was however enough to whet appetites for the band's next album, which was scheduled for release the following month. With five singles and an album on release in various places across the globe, the first year or so of operations for Mike Vaughan Productions were productive if nothing else, but artistically somewhat less satisfying than that of Mike's former charges Vanda and Young over the same period. A minor progressive rock band and a trio of (probably) studio bands may not amount to much but it was enough to keep the company in operation and Vaughan in the business. How much input he had into the recordings, as with those of The Easybeats, is unclear, but they were his company's productions and so he must at least have sanctioned their release. And if nothing else, it was more than Stevie, Dick or even Tony had to show for their post-Easybeats careers, even if the quality pales somewhat when compared with the work of Vanda, Young and Alexander.... of whom, more to follow shortly.
5 November 1971 Haffy's Whiskey Sour - Shot in the Head (Young -Vanda) / Bye Bye Bluebird (Young- Vanda) UK Deram DM 345 A Friday Production. Both sides published by Friday Music. A month or so after Mike Vaughan's most recent effort had bitten the dust, the Vanda-Young-Alexander team brought their next effort to market, once again issued through Deram as part of the trio's deal with the company. After the release of the Grapefruit single in September (see post # 215 here: The Easybeats: The Solo Years (Featuring Vanda and Young)), it was reasonable to assume that the new record would see the unveiling of the trio's new "group" alias, Band of Hope, as trailed in that Billboard entry in the summer (see post # 143 here: The Easybeats: The Solo Years (Featuring Vanda and Young)), but instead the trio adopted a new alias and sent the record to market as Haffy's Whiskey Sour. The exact reasons for the alias are obscure. Looking back in the Rolling Stone interview, George Young remembered: ".... And then a whiskey company called Haffey's approached us. They were bringing out a new blend called Haffey's Whiskey Sour! Now to me the name Haffey's Whiskey Sour conjures up a southern American moonshine image. Well, we went into the studio and laid down this track called "Shot in the Head".... Campbell sang it. It was one of my favourite tracks that we ever did - very down home dirty...". This seems plausible enough, but there is one problem: trawling the internet searching for Haffy's Whiskey Sour (and any variant spellings) throws up nothing but this record. One would expect that, if the drink existed, or even if it had existed, there would be some reference to it online, but lengthy research has resulted in exactly nothing. So, what to make of this? Well, firstly it is worth remembering that a whiskey sour is a cocktail, and not, as reported by George, a blend, so it is possible that what George is referring to is a new brand of whiskey, with the word "sour" being added by the trio for another reason - George liked whiskey, so maybe that's how he drank it. As against that, the early seventies did see a range of "pre-mixed" cocktails on the market, and the pages of Ebony magazine, at least, frequently carried adverts for a different brand, Holland House Whiskey Sour. So it may be that there was a short-lived brand called "Haffy's Whiskey Sour", and that the trio either linked up for cross-promotional purposes or they simply purloined the name in the hope of picking up airplay off the back of the advertising campaign for the drink. Another possibility - which assumes that George's memory may be slightly at fault - is that the name was in fact made up; in which case, where might it have come from? Well , there was a Frank Haffey, who kept goal for Celtic, making over 200 appearances for the club during the fifties and sixties - the very years in which teenage football fan George Young would have been watching. Sadly, Haffey was, and is, best remembered for being in goal for Scotland the day in 1961 when the Auld Enemy handed them a 9-3 thrashing at Wembley. When his football career ended in the mid-sixties, Haffey emigrated to .... Australia, where hefound a new career as a cabaret singer. Coincidence? Could George have just lifted the name and grafted it onto the idea of a whiskey sour? Possibly, but as a passionate football fan, and a Scot, would he really want to immortalise such a classic goalkeeping failure? I think not. (For more on Frank Haffey, see here: http://www.thecelticwiki.com/m/page/Haffey, Frank). Whatever the case, there must have been some reason for abandoning plans to use the Band of Hope name and sending the record out as Haffy's Whiskey Sour instead. John Tait reports that each member (of the "band") was presented with a bottle of Haffy's Whiskey Sour with their name on the label, and this is detailed enough to believe that it is probably true. Despite the lack of corroborative evidence on the web, I am inclined to believe that there was a drink - either Haffy's Whiskey or Haffy's Whiskey Sour - and that some kind of cross-promotional deal was signed with Vanda, Young and Alexander that resulted in the record appearing under this name. (As the name Band of Hope actually refers to a temperance society, there is a delicious irony in abandoning it in favour of the name of a brand of alcohol!) And so to the music. "Shot in the Head" is an excellent, cynical, world-weary musician's lament, with a bluesy, down-home, dirty sound and a great vocal from bassist Ian Campbell, whom George Young rated (in Rolling Stone) as "an amazing singer. Campbell must be one of the most unsung heroes of western rock 'n' roll. The guy is brilliant, fantastic, a great voice". The lyrics might perhaps have been too far removed from the everyday life of the record buying public, but songs about being in bands or on the road have a long history and have proven mystifyingly popular over the years, so this need not have been an impediment to the song 's appeal. Over on the flipside, "Bye Bye Bluebird" was, if anything, even more commercial, with a catchy chorus sailing above the song's infectious rhythm track. Although not punchy and powerful enough to qualify as glam rock (for which the non-existent band lacked the right image anyway), both songs looked forward to the gritty reality of the pub rock boom that kicked off a couple of years later, and all in all, the single stood as perhaps the trio's finest outing to date. All of which makes its commercial failure all the more disappointing. It missed the UK charts completely, and scanning the internet for radio listings, breakers lists and so forth across the radio spectrum brings up precisely nothing, so it seems that, commercial potential or not, the song was completely overlooked. If the release was linked to a whiskey company, then it is understandable why the BBC, with its aversion to anything that smacked of advertising (it was barely a year since Ray Davies had had to excise the words "Coca Cola" from "Lola" to secure radio play), would have refused to play it, but its non-appearance on Radio North Sea International or Radio Luxembourg is harder to explain. Perhaps the disc jockeys and programme directors didn't like the whiskey! All in all, a disappointing fate for one of the very best of the Vanda-Young-Alexander team's output. Thanks to Mike and Bill for help with this post.
And here's the B-side: Thanks to Cato for posting this, and its topside (and some of the recent Mike Vaughan Productions clips) to Youtube for me to share here.
5 November 1971 Haffy’s Whisky Sour: Shot In the Head (alternative version) – Promo copies only of Deram single DM 345. Every Beatles fan is aware of the early promo pressings of ‘Penny Lane’ distributed to radio stations by Capitol Records in the USA which featured a brief piccolo trumpet figure at the end, a flourish which was removed from actual commercial release of the record. What is not so well known is the fact that the Vanda and Young catalog contains its own promo-only rarity as well. The UK promotional and UK stock single versions of ‘Shot in the Head,’ the duo’s bitter ode to the life of a working musician, are very definitely different. Same recording take, same vocals, same instruments and the same unusually long (42 seconds) intro, but the mix on the stock copy appears slightly brighter with more top end, more defined on the guitars and the lead voice. The promo seems muted or even muffled (though this could also be the result of different mastering). Vocals are at about the same volume but the overall sound is ”quieter” and more subdued on the promo copy. At the very least a different EQ was used between the two. Much more noticeable are the two different edits used on each version. The performance is identical up to 2:56. But on the promo copy there is a second vocal repeat of the chorus at 2:56 and it continues to 3:14 at which point the vocal ends and is then followed by an instrumental repeat of the chorus, 14 seconds long and ending in a fade at 3:28. On the stock copy this second vocal chorus is edited out and at 2:56 the track cuts to the final 14-second instrumental fade out and the song is over at 3:10. So, timing wise, the promo copy clocks in at 3:28. The shortened version on the stock copy runs 3:10. Matrix number on the promo is DR-50329-T1. Matrix on the stock copy is DR-50329-T2. Compare the two versions from 2:56 to the end and you will immediately hear the difference. Thanks to Gareth and, of course, to the indomitable Monsieur Cato Muppet Jones.
The stock version of "Shot In The Head" that Monsieur Cato Muppet Jones uploaded to YouTube has the extra vocal chorus and then fades out before the instrumental bit. Interesting thing (and I don't know if it's just my hearing), but the recording seems to have more high end and less bottom end than I remember. Mind you, I always thought both sides were pretty thin sounding when compared to other Vanda and Young of the era. I also notice there is a fair amount of surface noise, which leads me to wonder if this recording is from an acetate, although in my experience acetates usually are less compressed and have more bottom end, but that can change quickly after too many plays. Similar thoughts on the recording uploaded of "Bye Bye Bluebird" - very thin sounding.
Yeah, Mike, my description of the stock copy wasn't quite accurate. Nevertheless anybody interested can compare the two versions as they are both posted here and they are correctly labelled by Monsieur Cato. And yes, they've always sounded a bit thin to me too. Wonder how a stereo mix would sound? (If it ever existed.)
The demo copy is from a 45 converted to mp3 in Audacity and then uploaded to Youtube (or so Cato tells me). The stock copy version comes courtesy of a former resident on the main thread, Dandelion1967, who sent it to Cato so he could upload it to Youtube.
In doing some research for this column I came into contact with Mike Vaughan’s daughter Lainie who lives in New York. As readers are aware, Lainie’s father was well-known to The Easybeats: he was their manager before she was born. This is a difficult time for the Vaughan family. Lainie’s mother died from cancer several months ago and her father has suffered a stroke which has greatly damaged his memory. In trying to help him, Lainie told me, “I showed him pictures of the band and asked him everyone's name and he said George to all of them:(“ Lainie will keep working with her father trying to reclaim his thought processes, and she would like anyone who might be concerned to be aware of his condition. I thought maybe we could send some prayers and positive thoughts their way. Mike Vaughan is 78. Thanks. The photo below, which she sent, shows her father with the group at a Sydney Press Conference on 15th May 1967. The gentleman with the beard is Sydney DJ Tony McLaren from station 2UW.
11 November 1971 Vanda and Young - Lazy River (Vanda-Young) / Free and Easy (Vanda-Young) Alberts Productions AP 9710 Six days after the Haffy's Whiskey Sour single crept onto the UK market, the "Lazy River" single finally appeared in Australia, over a year after its UK and European run. The reasons for its non-appearance back on 1970 remain unclear (see post # 22 here: The Easybeats: The Solo Years (Featuring Vanda and Young)), but it seems clear that, once the "B. Russell" affair had subsided and Vanda and Young had re-signed with Alberts, the pair had sent the master tape down to Sydney for Ted Albert to use as a publishing demo. This is exactly what Ted did, and during 1971 he attempted to shop the song to at least one Australian singer or band, as part of a swag of Vanda and Young songs that he was trying to sell. The late George Crotty was told by someone at Alberts - presumably George Young - that Ted shopped it during 1971 but was unable to place it. Just who turned it down is uncertain - one possibility is Flake, who were apparently offered four songs from which they selected "Life Is Getting Better" (see post # 142 here: The Easybeats: The Solo Years (Featuring Vanda and Young); I did ask Sharon Sims, but she couldn't remember), another (more likely, to my mind) is Howard Gable when he was searching for material for the Johnny Farnham / Allison Durbin album - but it could have been anyone looking for material. Ted was fond of the song, and liked the recording, so after failing to find a buyer, he elected to issue it as it was - more or less. Although often reported as being a straight reissue of the Moondance single, there are in fact half a dozen differences between the two releases. The most obvious is the replacement of the Moondance credit with a straight "Vanda and Young" credit. In commercial terms, this made perfect sense - the name "Moondance" meant three-quarters of sod-all to anyone, but pop fans (or at least radio programmers) with even moderate memories would surely remember Vanda and Young as being two-fifths of The Easybeats - bit it did foster the wrong impression, continued sown theough the years, that the duo worked alone, abruptly erasing George Alexander from the picture. Surely, in the great tradition of Crosby, Stills and Nash (or Marvin, Welch and Farrar), a credit to Alexander, Vanda and Young would have been more appropriate. Alex, of course, was not signed to Alberts, but then again, neither were Vanda and Young - not as performers, anyway - so what right Ted Albert had to issue the record in the first place is questionable. The second notable difference was the replacement of "Anna St Clair" on the flipside with the previously unheard "Free and Easy". The reasons for this are not hard to guess. Alberts had no publishing agreement with Alex and the song was tied to Apple, so Ted took the easy option and placed another Alberts copyright on the flip. Poor Alex was therefore done over a second time - not only was his involvement in "Lazy River" airbrushed out of history but his classy pop song was elbowed out in favour of another Vanda and Young demo that, truly, cannot be said to be one of their brightest moments. Fan and writer Nick Warburton has described it as a "lo-fi funk workout", which is pretty accurate, although the low fidelity is more likely due to its being a demo than a reflection of how Vanda-Young-Alexander might have intended a finished product to sound. The next two differences are mere details, both linked to copyright and publishing. The first is that the "Mecolico" credit on the Moondance single, being only relevant to the UK, has disappeared, with both songs carrying the familiar "J. Albert and Son" publishing credit; an entirely logical and sensible change. The second, more questionable detail is the disappearance of the "Shock Production" credit. Unless Vanda, Young and Alexander had sold the master to Alberts outright, the rights presumably still rested with Shock, and the label ought to have at least carried as "licensed from... " credit, although a proper production credit would also have been appropriate. As the song had actually been sent to Alberts as a demo, and as neither Vanda nor Young were contracted to Alberts as performers, the single may well be, technically speaking, a bootleg, but as Ted presumably did send royalties through to London, it's unlikely that Harry or George were overly bothered. The final two differences are more subtle. Firstly, the Moondance single was issued in the UK in stereo (at least, my copy is in stereo, so I assume that they all are) but the Alberts single is in glorious mono, in keeping with most Austalian singles at the time (stereo singles had first appeared in Australia in the dying years of the sixties, but they were still far from commonplace). More noticeable though was the fact that Ted Albert had given the song a remix, with an artificial fade out and then a fade back in before the record drew to a close. The reason for this decision is lost to memory - perhaps Ted had fond memories of Elvis Presley's similiarly fading-out-and-in "Suspicious Minds" - but if nothing else it proves that Vanda and Young had given Ted a master tape and not just an acetate of the song, as he would have been unable to remix from an acetate (unless of course he copied it to tape first and then manipulated it, but I'm not sure I believe he did that). Whatever the case, it was a strange thing to do, unless it was an attempt to recreate the "end approaching" warning Shel Talmy had grafted onto "Friday On My Mind" (in the shape of Snowy's drum kicks before the final chorus) and it does not, to my ears anyway, enhance the song, which sounds rather better on the Moondance single as a result. Happily, subsequent reissues over the years (on the 1976 album The Vanda and Young Story Volume One (Drum BALP 10291) and the more recent Good Times box set (Albert Productions 88843099322) anyway) have removed the fade and reverted to the original Moondance version, albeit in mono (thus creating a third mix of the song). The result was well received by the Australian media. Go-Set gave it a positive review, highlighting the A-side's "fast, jolly beat" and "memorable chorus refrain" while describing the flip as a "rollicking soul chant", albeit one with a "drowned vocal". By this time, too, the magazine had accepted that The Easybeats were no more, noting that Vanda and Young "were of course members of our pop past with the easybeats (sic.)". It's a shame though that neither the writer nor the copy editor could spell Harry's name, even (presumably) with a copy of the record in front of them. With three Vanda and Young songs having been hits in the past twelve months ("Can't Wait For September", "Falling In Love Again" and "Life Is Getting Better"), radio was supportive of the new single, with only Adelaide giving the record a miss. Within a fortnight of release, "Lazy River" jumped into the Sydney charts, entering on 27th November but oddly, for such a commercial song, it climbed no higher than # 44. Stations in the rest of the country took longer to pick up on the song but when they did, listeners proved even more enamoured with what they heard. Melbourne put it into the charts on 8th January 1972, taking it to a peak of # 19, while on the 28th it got moving in Perth as well, topping out at # 13. Brisbane sat back and waited until 7th April before putting it into the charts there, but once it hit, it kept on climbing, eventually peaking at # 11. The sporadic nature of this chart performance meant that the song failed to make the Go-Set national top forty. Go-Set did however calculate a top 100, tracking (and publishing) the performance of Australian records languishing below the forty, and "Lazy River" did make this chart, entering at # 76 on 26th February 1972 but disappearing the following week. All up, a reasonable result for a record issued with no artist to promote it, and proof that the Moondance single probably could have been a UK hit had the circumstances of its release been different. Ted Albert was presumably pleased with the result, although the regional variations in the single's performance were presumably a source of some frustration, preventing (as with Ted Mulry's "Falling In Love Again") a high national chart placing. Vanda and Young were however not yet finished with the song, which would get another lease of life in 1972, as we will see when we get there. Thanks once again to Bill and Cato for help with this post.
Speculating about the Vanda/Young/Albert business reunification, surely Ted Albert must have had some realization the previous deal was a bad one for the songwriters, given the amount of debt involved. A podcast I heard last year called Screaming girls and hard rocking boys - which started this tumble down the Easybeats rabbit-hole - has Jim Keays talking about a very bad royalty deal from the 60s made good by EMI in the 80s for the song It’s Because I Love You. Paraphrasing, I think he said they were making four-fifths of jack-**** before he asked his high up contact to change the deal. I was about to say maybe Albert saw the obvious unfairness as well, but really he had to have known he’d make more money working with Vanda and Young. His production company might have been suffering, too. I don't have a sense who was making money for him at the time.
Another impressive and detailed post from our solo thread manager Gareth. I have to admit I didn't notice the false fade on the Australian 45. Although I've had a copy in my collection for many years, my only excuse is, when it came to the mono mix, I tended to play The Vanda And Young Story version, which I owned first.
3UZ (which was the top Rock station in Melbourne at the time) used to totally thrash Lazy River, so did 3DB. 3AK played it a bit less and I don't remember hearing it at all on 3XY. I assumed it was a big hit the amount of times I used to hear it.
I don't think the song publishing deal was necessarily a bad one; it was the recording deal that crippled band, as they were effectively sub-contracted to United Artists from Alberts. The actual source of the debt is unclear, but I've speculated elsewhere that they owed nothing to Polydor, as that deal was honoured with the Friends LP and I doubt that Alberts ever gave them much in the way of recording advances. My personal view is that they must have bought their way out of the Alberts recording deal, which ended early, and were then unable to pay Alberts what they owed them under the terms of the buyout. Having said that, I'm sure the publishing deal Ted offered them in 1970 was better than the one they got in 1965.
The Masters were in trouble because they were signed to EMI Australia who refused to finance anything EMI UK wanted to do with them. (The only signed with EMI because their then manager, Darryl Sambell had push at the label because of his work with Johnny Farnham). They probably only got a better royalty deal when Because I Love You was used to advertise every product under the sun and nobody knew where (co-writer) Doug Ford was.
Here’s my guess (and it is a bit of a guess) – it’s all about advances. When an artist is hot and has proven their commercial appeal, they (or their management) can pretty well ask for the moon and a label will do its best to deliver. The label's payback then comes out of royalties from future hits. But, if those hits don’t happen, the label will want their advance back from somewhere…. That’s how bands end up broke at the end of their careers.
This makes sense to me. And you know, in going back to Bill’s post (pt.2 #158) about the emergence of Brian Russell, I missed the mark with why there was original friction between the sides. Less dramatic, more accurate!
Yes Sharleen, and back in the day all this confusion with publishing led to record labels that looked like this (from Germany, can you read the fine print?): Which which made sorting out this stuff all the more complicated.
