Linda George (Australian singer)
| Linda George | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1951 (age 60–61) |
| Origin | United Kingdom |
| Genres | pop, jazz fusion, soul |
| Occupations | Singer, teacher |
| Years active | 1969–present |
| Labels | EMI, Columbia, Image, Full Moon |
| Associated acts | Nova Express, Paul McKay |
Linda George (born 1951) is an English-born Australian pop, jazz fusion and soul singer from the 1970s. In 1973, George performed the role of Acid Queen for the Australian stage performance of The Who's rock opera, Tommy. She won the TV Week King of Pop award for "Best New Female Artist". Her cover version of "Neither One of Us", peaked at No. 12 on the Australian Singles Chart and her 1974 single "Mama's Little Girl" reached the Top Ten. By the mid-1980s, George was a session singer and later became a teacher.
Contents |
[edit] Early career
Linda George was born in 1951 in the United Kingdom and emigrated with her family to Australia in 1964 where they settled in Adelaide, South Australia.[1] By 1969, George had joined her first band Nova Express, a jazz fusion group similar to United States acts Chicago or Blood Sweat and Tears.[2] With George, as lead singer, the band included Dave Clark on saxophone, Craig Forbes on drums, Ian Hellings on trumpet, Wayne Lanham on bass guitar, Ken Schroder on saxophone, Peter Walsh on organ and Ken White on guitar.[1]
Finding it hard to sustain the ensemble in Adelaide, Nova Express moved to Melbourne. Early in 1970, the band’s first and only single, a cover version of "Take Another Little Piece of My Heart" (originally recorded by Erma Franklin, then Janis Joplin), was released on the EMI label imprint Columbia, which reached No. 28 in Melbourne.[3] They won the Victorian state final of the 1970 Hoadley's Battle of the Sounds ahead of Zoot, though they finished behind The Flying Circus, Zoot and Autumn at the national finals in August.[4] George left Nova Express later that year for a solo career, including performing with The Marlboro Big Band, The Barry Veith Big Band, Opus Big Band, and Brian May and the ABC Show Band on a tour of Vietnam.[1]
[edit] Solo career
In 1972, Linda George signed with independent label, Image Records, and released her first solo single "Let's Fly Away" in May.[1] In March 1973, she took the role of Acid Queen in the Australian stage production of The Who's rock opera Tommy.[1] Her fellow cast included Daryl Braithwaite, Colleen Hewett, Billy Thorpe, Ross Wilson, Jim Keays, Doug Parkinson, Broderick Smith, Wendy Saddington, Bobby Bright and The Who’s own Keith Moon (as Uncle Ernie for the Melbourne show only).[1] It was later televised by the Seven Network and received a TV award for the year's most outstanding creative effort.[2] For the Sydney show, Australian music commentator Ian "Molly" Meldrum replaced Moon.[2] George won the TV Week King of Pop award for "Best New Female Artist" (1973).[2]
The raised exposure helped promote her second single in July, her cover version of the Gladys Knight & the Pips US hit "Neither One of Us", which peaked at No. 12 on Go-Set's National Top 40 singles chart.[5] George's follow up single, a remake of Ruby and the Romantics 1963 hit "Our Day Will Come", reached the Top 40 in February 1974.[5]
Her debut LP album, Linda, appeared in August on Image Records. Session musicians were used and US record producer Jack Richardson (Alice Cooper, The Guess Who, Poco and Bob Seger) was brought to Australia by label boss, John McDonald, and her manager, Garry Spry.[2] The first single from Linda was her biggest hit and became her signature song, "Mama's Little Girl" (previously by Dusty Springfield), which went to No. 8 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart.[6] The second single, "Give It Love", did not reach the top 40.[6] Linda peaked at No. 32 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart and stayed in the top 100 for five months.[6] George won awards for "Best Female Vocalist" and "Best Female Single".[2]
She appeared at the 1975 Sunbury Pop Festival in January.[2] Richardson also produced her second album, Step by Step, which was released in December. It featured a tougher rock sound compared to the previous album's soul and pop sound. After the release of Step by Step, her management company parted ways. To promote it she formed the Linda George Band which performed throughout 1976 to positive reviews.[2] The album's first single "Shoo Be Doo Be Doo Dah Day" charted reasonably well in former hometown Adelaide, but public reaction in the rest of Australia was lukewarm.[2] The album peaked in the Top 40.[6] A third single, the title track, was released in May 1976 but failed to make the charts.[6]
George then released a non-album single "Sitting in Limbo" in November, a cover of the Jimmy Cliff song, it also did not chart. George left Image to continue working as a session singer.[2]
[edit] Session singer and beyond
Linda George had already provided backing vocals on releases by her contemporaries, including Brian Cadd, Madder Lake, Daryl Braithwaite, Normie Rowe, Marcie Jones of Marcie and The Cookies and Kerrie Biddell.[2] During the 1970s through to the late nineties, she also sang radio and TV jingles. These advertisements endorsed the virtues of everything from margarine to real estate and provided a lucrative income.[2]
During 1979, George performed backing vocals on Mike Brady’s album Invisible Man. Brady had just had a No. 1 hit with "Up There Cazaly" and set up his own label, Full Moon Records. George signed to his label and returned to the studio with new material.[1] Her first single in four years was a duet with Melbourne singer Paul McKay, "Love Is Enough" released in April 1980, which reached No. 23 locally.[7] Her next single was the up tempo, "Telephone Lines", in 1981, but it was not a chart success.[6] While resuming her session work, George also spent much of the 1980s singing with her own ensemble, the Linda George Band, the line-up included David Allardice on piano, Ron Robinson on bass guitar. By 1992, George as a member of WJAZ, with Penny Dyer on vocals, Alex Pertout on drums and percussion, Ron Pierce on guitar and Steve Wade on vocals, performed at the "Montsalvat Jazz Festival" in Melbourne.[8] A later line-up of WJAZ was George, Dyer and Pertout, with Craig Newman and Colin Hopkins. She often guested with the Cox-Brady band,[2] which has a variable line-up centred on drummer Geoff Cox and Brady.
During the 1990s, George toured Russia with two of her seven brothers and Hopkins, working for the Freedom from Hunger campaign. Back in Melbourne, she created a venue, Music on Q, for local original artists. She recorded an album, Circle Dance, with Hopkins and Pertout which was released in 1996 as a limited edition CD.[9]
George became a teacher, she taught voice at the Victorian College of the Arts. In 2001, with Steve Vertigan, she published, The Greatest Ever Improve Your Singing Book for Contemporary Vocalists, which included 2 CDs with practice tracks.[10] Whilst raising three daughters she continues to teach at Pascoe Vale Girls College, Melbourne. In 2008, she formed the Vocalistix group to train young singers. In 2009 and 2010, the group entered the Royal South Street Competition, receiving an honourable mention in 2009 and placing second in 2010. In2011 the group entered again placed second but was asked and were one of 8 finalists.[11]
[edit] Bibliography
- George, Linda; Vertigan, Steve (2001). The Greatest Ever Improve Your Singing Book for Contemporary Vocalists. Fitzroy, Vic: Encore Music Distributors (Australia). Note: Includes a score and two sound discs, which contain practice tracks.[10]
[edit] Discography
[edit] Albums
| Year | Album details | AUS chart peak[6] |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | Linda
|
32 | |
| 1975 | Step by Step
|
93 | |
| 1996 | Circle Dance
|
— | |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart. | |||
[edit] Singles
| Year | Title | Peak chart positions | Album | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AUS Go-Set[5] |
AUS KMR[6] |
|||||||||||||
| 1972 | "Let's Fly Away" | — | — | Non-album single | ||||||||||
| 1973 | "Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)" | 12 | 13 | |||||||||||
| "Our Day Will Come" | 38 | 45 | ||||||||||||
| 1974 | "Mama's Little Girl" | 8 | 8 | Linda | ||||||||||
| "Give It Love" | — | 91 | ||||||||||||
| 1975 | "Shoo Be Doo Be Doo Da Day" | — | 85 | Step by Step | ||||||||||
| 1976 | "Step by Step" | — | — | |||||||||||
| "Sitting in Limbo" | — | — | Non-album single | |||||||||||
| 1980 | "Love Is Enough" (duet with Paul McKay) | — | 42 | |||||||||||
| 1981 | "Telephone Lines" | — | — | |||||||||||
| 1982 | "Face to Face" | — | — | |||||||||||
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that country. | ||||||||||||||
[edit] References
- General
- McFarlane, Ian (1999). "Whammo Homepage". Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1865080721. Archived from the original on 5 April 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20040405231007/www.whammo.com.au/index.asp. Retrieved 9 April 2011. Note: Archived [on-line] copy has limited functionality.
- Spencer, Chris; Zbig Nowara, Paul McHenry with notes by Ed Nimmervoll (2002) [1987]. The Who's Who of Australian Rock. Noble Park, Vic: Five Mile Press. ISBN 1865038911.[12] Note: [on-line] version of The Who's Who of Australian Rock was established at White Room Electronic Publishing Pty Ltd in 2007 and was expanded from the 2002 edition. As from, September 2010 the [on-line] version shows an 'Internal Service Error' and was no longer available.
- Specific
- ^ a b c d e f g McFarlane, 'Linda George' entry. Archived from the original on 3 August 2004. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Robbins, Michael (2002). "Linda George". In Duncan Kimball. Milesago: Australasian Music and Popular Culture 1964–1975. Ice Productions. http://www.milesago.com/artists/george-linda.htm. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
- ^ "Nova Express – "Take Another Little Piece of My Heart"". Where Did They Get That Song?. PopArchives (Lyn Nuttall). http://www.poparchives.com.au/882/nova-express/take-another-little-piece-of-my-heart. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
- ^ Stacey, Terence J. (2002). "Hoadley's National Battle of the Sounds". In Duncan Kimball. Milesago: Australasian Music and Popular Culture 1964–1975. Ice Productions. http://www.milesago.com/Performance/hoadleys.htm. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
- ^ a b c "Search results for "Linda George"". Go-Set (Waverley Press). http://www.sitelevel.com/query?slice_title=Entire+Site&query=%22Linda+George%22&crid=727d9294. Retrieved 6 May 2011. Note: Go-Set published its national charts from October 1966 until August 1974.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. St Ives, NSW: Australian Chart Book Ltd. ISBN 0646119176. Note: Used for Australian Singles and Albums charting from 1974 until Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) created their own charts in mid-1988. In 1992, Kent back calculated chart positions for 1970–1974.
- ^ Guest, Thomas J (1991). Thirty Years of Hits 1960–1990 – Melbourne Top 40 Research. Collingwood, Vic: M J Maloney. ISBN 0646046330.
- ^ "With WJAZ". Pandora Archive. National Library of Australia. http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/24189/20040406-0000/pertout.customer.netspace.net.au/pgwjaz3.htm. Retrieved 8 May 2011.
- ^ "Alex Pertout's Biography". Alex Pertout. http://www.alexpertout.com/biography.htm. Retrieved 7 May 2011.
- ^ a b "The greatest ever improve your singing book for contemporary vocalists (music) / Linda George & Steve Vertigan". Music Australia. National Library of Australia. 18 November 2010. http://nla.gov.au/nla.cs-ma-an24113760. Retrieved 8 May 2011.
- ^ "571 Contemporary Vocal Ensembles – Contemporary Vocal & Country Music". Royal South Street Competition. Royal South Street Society. 7 August 2010. http://www.royalsouthstreet.com.au/results/contemporary_vocal_country_music/2010/august/7. Retrieved 7 May 2011. Note: Only for second place in 2010.
- ^ "Who's Who of Australian Rock / Compiled by Chris Spencer, Zbig Nowara & Paul McHenry". catalogue. National Library of Australia. http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2090055. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
