Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Glenn Shorrock, Social Family Records 2019.
This is a great album.
Glenn Shorrock has brilliantly reimagined 10 of Little River Band’s greatest hits and is heading out on an Australia wide tour to promote the album.
For a long time Glenn and the original members of the Little River Band had lost control of their musical legacy.
The right to perform as LRB was owned by one of their former American touring band members and thus they couldn’t perform as LRB.
They stopped singing their best known songs.
This album reminds us of just how good these songs are and what a magnificent voice Glenn has.
The album was produced and recorded live in the studio by Steve Balbi and the choice to record live was an inspired decision.
There is a wonderful spark and energy to the recordings.
Of course to pull it off you need a great band and the group of assembled musicians that Balbi put together is exceptional.
Joining Shorrock in the studio is Pete Drummond (drums), Jak Housden and James Van Cooper (guitars), Dario Bortolin (electric bass) and Phil Stack (upright bass), Mitchel Rogers (lap steel), Ross Middleton (sax), Robbie Woolf (keys) and Glenn Cunningham and Hugh Wilson (backing vocals).
Glenn Shorrock is a living legend of Australian music.
His career has spanned more than 50 years and he’s been inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame on two occasions, once as a member of LRB and the other time as a solo artist.
These recordings are so good that they are equally as good as the original versions of the songs.
In some cases I think they are better.
I prefer the new versions of It’s a Long Way There and Lonesome Loser to the originals.
Glenn’s career is phenomenal.
He was the founding front man of The Twilights, Axiom and LRB.
For most people being in one of these bands would be seen as an outstanding achievement.
The Little River Band was particularly successful in America where they sold something like 25 million albums, making them one of Australia’s biggest musical exports.
