Peter Head

Pianist and singer/songwriter, Peter Head (born 1948, Adelaide, Australia) is an Australian rock musician. He first came to prominence with Adelaide progressive rock band Headband.

Early Years

Peter Head began playing piano professionally at age of 13 with 'Adelaide's first rock'n'roll band' Johnny Mac and the Macmen as well as tinkling the ivories to accompany the showgirls in infamous Hindley St institution, La Belle, after school. Throughout his teens, he continued piano lessons from a variety of well known pianists such as Bobby Gebert and Roger Frampton and played modern jazz. He also played many shows accompanying a young Johnny Farnham and Doug Ashdown. At 17, he attended art school and opened his own art gallery for a short while with his wife.

Head relocated to London age 19, working and touring with reggae band run by Boz Burrell (Bad Company) and moonlighted in various bands and loose formations in a music scene alongside artists such as Georgie Fame, Alan Price, The Foundations and King Crimson.

Headband

File:A Song For Tooley album cover Headband.jpg

Headband,
A Song For Tooley album cover

File:A Song For Tooley inside cover Headband.jpg

Headband,
A Song For Tooley inside album cover

In 1971, Head returned to Adelaide and was playing avant garde jazz before forming Headband, an adventurous progressive blues/rock band, with vocalsist Chris Bailey (later of The Angels) on bass, Mauri Berg (ex Silhouettes) on guitar and backing vocals and Joff Bateman on drums and backing vocals.

Headband released 3 national singles - 'Land of Supercars/How I Miss The Country' (1972) 'Country Lady/Stay With Me' (1972) and 'A Song For Tooley/Brand New Morning' (1973). Album A Song For Tooley (Polydor 2907.008) , featuring Sydney Symphony players and an 110 piece children's choir was released in September 1973.

The album encompasses many styles; psych pop, heavy rock, jazzy feels and country.

Headband supported Elton John and John Mayall and toured Australia with The Rolling Stones. They broke up in 1974.

The original double gatefold vinyl release of A Song For Tooley (featuring a stunning cover by Adelaide artist Vytas Serelis) is now a highly sought after collector's item, despite various bootleg digital versions available. As of 2009 it trades for approx $400 AUS while singles fetch approx $30 AUS.

Mount Lofty Rangers

After Headband split in 1974, Head started up Mount Lofty Rangers, an ever-changing group of notable Adelaide musicians that included Bon Scott, Glenn Shorrock, and Robyn Archer. "Headband and Fraternity were in the same management stable and we both split about the same time so the logical thing was to take members from both bands and create a new one...the purpose of the band was for songwriters to relate to each other and experiment with songs so it was a hotbed of creativity" The band had its own theme song - 'The Mount Lofty Rangers Theme' - and featured mainly Head's original compositions.

The Mount Lofty Rangers is the name of the band - so the song goes. But it should be understood that 'band' refers not to a fixed group of musicians, but a band of people who work under that name in any capacity they wish. So we have people like Vytas Serelis who does paintings, posters, films etc. Barry Smith who is a welder and mechanic, Dave Colvill who organises things and many others who see the value of putting their individual talents into an unofficial union of productivity. As far as the music goes, there are over 200 people in the last few years who have worked under that name either recording or performing live, and it is to their credit that the Rangers have built a reputation for producing good, original music.

In 1978, he was honoured with a rock award from radio station 5KA for his contribution to the music industry based on his work with the Rangers.

Stage & Screen

Head was the resident Piano Bar artiste for five seasons at the Adelaide Festival Theatre and was Musical Director for a wide array of plays including Young Mo and Hamlet On Ice.

While touring with Young Mo, Head and script writer Rob George collaborated on [bushranger]] musical Lofty - An Epic From The Annals of Country Rock which was staged in 1977 at Her Majesty's Theatre in Adelaide. Head was Musical Director, composed the score and performed (with a five piece Mount Lofty Rangers). An original Bon Scott composition 'I've Been Up In The Hills Too Long' was also featured.

In 1978, Head wrote the music for children's musical Fun and Games which was staged at the Arts Centre.

Head toured nationally as Musical Director for the hit Robyn Archer musical A Star is Torn which saw Archer in a tour-de-force performance as fallen songbirds Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington and Bessie Smith, amongst others.

He also composed soundtrack music for Bob Ellis' 1992 film, The Nostradamus Kid and Les Patterson Saves The World.

Head performed a cameo as 'The Beggar' in Aden Young's 2007 short film The Rose Of Ba Ziz.

Bon Scott and 'Round and Round and Round' EP

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Bon Scott,
Round and Round and Round cover

On October 20, 1996, Head, released the Bon Scott 'Round and Round and Round' ep on Head Office Records (with label partner, radio announcer and musicolgist David Woodhall). The original tracks were recordings from 1973.

"The tracks were recorded for $40 which was all the studio time we could afford then" laughs Head. "Bon and I used to help each other out. I'd write music and he'd sing lyrics of my songs. Those were pioneering days. They were recorded at the first 8 track studio in Adelaide. I'd been carting the tapes around for twenty years and then I met Ted Yanni at Round Midnight and we started talking about new technology and what you could do with older material like this."

'They were just rough demos and a few weeks later Bon went off to join AC/DC and that seemed to be it ... The fun off finishing off something first started 22 years ago really appealed to me'. explains Head. In the case of 'Carey Gulley', Woodhall had only a cassette dub.

It was eagerly anticipated by AC/DC fans wordwide and well received. "The results are convincing, even eerily sounding like something the witty, streetwise singer may have recorded if he were alive today" It was also mercilessly bootlegged, especially throughout Germany and Russia. The Head Office Records website states: 'This is the ONLY Genuine Record Company Site that operates by agreement with Bon Scott's family... If you consider yourself a REAL FAN, please do the right thing and buy from HERE !!!'

"Round And Round And Round" and "Carey Gully" are the last two songs Bon Scott committed to tape a month before joining AC/DC and the only released from a three year period in his career between Fraternity's "Flaming Galah" in April 1972 and AC/DC's "Baby Please Don't Go" in March 1975. In their original form, the tracks are genuine Australian long lost 'Basement Tapes", recorded a few months after Bon's motorbike accident. Recently re-discovered, both "Round And Round And Round" and "Carey Gully" have been extensively reworked to create musical pieces which the project's collaborators believe Bon would have been proud of. As an occasional member of The Mount Lofty Rangers, a South Australian collective of creative artists and musicians, Bon Scott recorded these two compositions by the group's musical director Peter Head in July 1974. Peter Head recently teamed up with producer Ted Yanni, another old friend of Bon's. Using the best technology available, Ted isolated the original vocal track from "Round And Round". and then over many months rebuilt an entirely new backing to the song, so it sounds as though it was recorded today rather than yesterday The original version is also included on the CD single. It features former members of Headband and Fraternity. "Carey Gully", a lilting country-flavoured ballad has been tastefully augmented with strings - the Classically Blue String Quartet. The song celebrates the Mount Lofty Rangers' stomping ground at the time, then home to one of South Australia's leading artists. Vytas Serelis, whose stunning photo portraits grace the CD cover. The whole project has been achieved by many people - musicians and technicians donating time, talent and studios in order to pay tribute to an old friend. The result is one of the best recordings available by Bon Scott displaying a side to his vocal ability that wasn't as evident in subsequent releases.

Bon Scott and Peter Head had a close and enduring friendship and Head has contributed interviews to Bon Scott and AC/DC biographies by Murray Engleheart and Clinton Walker.

"Musician Peter Head, former leader of Adelaide's Headband and a virtuoso piano player, befriended Bon. Bon would go to Peter's home after a day shovelling shit, and show him musical ideas he had had during his day's work. Bon's knowledge of the guitar was limited, so Peter began teaching him how to bridge chords and construct a song. One of the songs from these sessions was a beautiful ballad called Clarissa, about a local Adelaide girl. Another was the country-tinged Bin Up in the Hills Too Long, which for me was a sign of things to come with Bon's lyrics; simple, clever, sardonic, tongue-in-cheek. .."

Bon Scott's infamous motorcycle accident occurred after a Mount Lofty Rangers rehearsal and he never returned.

About 11pm on May 3, 1974, at the Old Lion Hotel in North Adelaide, during a rehearsal with the Mount Lofty Rangers, a very drunk, distressed and belligerent Bon Scott had a raging argument with a member of the band. Bon stormed out of the venue, threw a bottle of Jack Daniels on to the ground, then screamed off on his Suzuki 550 motorbike. Three hours later, I received a phone call from his wife, Irene, at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Bon was in a coma, near death, after a disastrous collision with a car. I drove to the hospital, and there was Bon as I had never seen him; limp, smashed to smithereens, his jaw wired, most of his teeth knocked out, a broken collar bone, several cracked and broken ribs, deep cuts across his throat. He was in a coma for three days. He remained in hospital for 18 days. This happened before Bon was to find fame with AC/DC. Irene tells me that, before Bon went into the coma that night, the nurse sarcastically said to her: "He says he's a singer."

It is often speculated that if Bon Scott hadn't joined AC/DC soon after his accident, a solo album of similar material would have been completed. "What most people don't realise is he was hard working, passionate about his music, and a perfectionist willing to work day and night" says Head.

King Of The Cross

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Peter Head,
King Of The Cross cover

Head moved to Sydney in 1980, performing regularly at Kinselas and legendary Kings Cross nightclubs such as Round Midnight, The Bourbon and Beefsteak, Paradise and Springfields, both solo and with regular musical cohorts Doug Williams, Wendy Saddington, Lucky Starr and Jeff St. John. Head's King Of The Cross recording was inspired by his years working in the Cross, and is rumoured to be based on Abe Saffron. "Well, the Cross is good, everytime you walk down the street there at least ten stories come into your head, all those weird and wonderful people" he explains.

"King of The Cross is a hot and spankin' collection of songs that are big on boogie, and of all things, violin. The title track is a piano banging rocker that begs the question, who exactly is the King of the Cross?'"

"Peter's blues soaked rock has a strong gospel and soul feel on it, all big vocal block choir and brass section stabs".

In The Key Of Night

In 2003 Head released In The Key Of Night a solo piano/voice album, recorded to recreate the feel of one of Head's legendary late night piano bar performances at the urging of Big Beat Music's founder.

Peter Head,
In The Key Of Night album cover

'If you've ever lived and loved the nightlife, chances are, some stage during your carousing, cruising, boozing and late night losing, you'd have come across Peter Head. His self penned sublime songs and lyrics tell tales tall and true ... Head's nightime netherworld of ivory tickling in smoke filled rooms, singing wayward songs about wayward people, is unique in Australia, our very own musical journeyman; always outside the crap and corruption of the music industry, always laying down a magical rolling chord, a riff, a poignant lyric, a primal honed voice - frayed at the edges as it is, rasping, growling, crackling and about as soulful as it gets....This excellent set, beautifully recorded with passion and empathy by the adventurous Big Beat Music label shows Peter Head in his best light yet, highlighting his splendid songs like I Don't Believe and Everything Is Everything. Head's fresh interpretations of songs from a few of his heroes like Tom Waits, Randy Newman and Ray Charles are not only commendable, but demonstrate the uniqueness of his voice and his very original phrasing. Not to mention his world class piano playing. A master.' from In The Key Of Night liner notes...Vince Lovegrove

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Recent Years

Peter Head is currently resident piano bar entertainer at the The Harbour View Hotel in the Rocks. .

Head features on daughter Loene Carmen's 2009 album It Walks Like Love and has played alongside her opening for artists such as Renee Geyer and in much loved Inner West soul band Slow Hand, which featured the 'duelling keyboards' of Head and organ player Johnny Gauci (2000 - 2005). Head also played in Carmen's bands Automatic Cherry and Honky Tonk Angels (for which he also acted as Musical Director and assembled the band).

Son Joshua Beagley is much in demand as a disco funk guitarist, composer, studio producer and DJ. His bands include Confection, Professor Groove and The Booty Affair and Swoop. Beagley contributed guitar to the King Of The Cross recording.

Head is responsible for suggesting the name for granddaughter Holiday Sidewinder's band, Bridezilla and she often credits him for exposing her to much blues and jazz. .

The three generations (Head, Carmen and Sidewinder) recently performed together for the first time with at 'Songs of Sydney', a Creative Festival event held at the Musuem For Contemporary Art in 2009.

Head also features on Finnish band Exception To The Rule's 2010 debut album High And Low.

Selected discography

• 2010: Exception To The Rule: High And Low
• 2009: Loene Carmen: It Walks Like Love
• 2003: Peter Head: In The Key Of Night
• 1998: Peter Head: King of the Cross ep
• 1996: Bon Scott: Round & Round & Round
• 1974 Headband: A Song For Tooley

External links

• Head Office Records
• Peter Head myspace