Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Mike McClellan, mikemcclellan.com.au 2021.
The evergreen Mike McClellan of Rock And Roll I Gave You All The Best Years Of My Life fame is still producing wonderful music after five decades in the music industry.
If Sorrow Should Find You is his latest single lifted from his up-coming album Behind Every Mask which is due for release later this year.
Mike began his musical career way back in the late sixties playing the popular folk music circuits.
It was the height of the folk revival and I played my first gigs on the Sydney circuit at the same time.
By the early 1970s I had moved to Canberra to start teaching and Mike was really making headway with his musical career.
His first album, Ask Any Dancer (1974), was a revelation for the sophistication of the song writing and the single Song And Dance Man charted well in the mainstream pop charts.
Most people know Mike’s song Rock And Roll I Gave You All The Best Years of My Life.
I still occasionally hear it being played on the radio today and it stands as a testament to good song writing. Mike has written an evergreen.
I suspect that most of you won’t know that Mike’s song writing talents extended to advertisements.
He was employed by the Mojo advertising agency and produced themes that became part of our lives including the Tooheys theme, XXXX theme, and even the Channel 9 theme.
If Sorrow Should Find You has a particular resonance with me; on top of all the COVID suffering, four of our close friends and relatives have recently passed away.
Mike’s song has helped with the healing process. He says of the song:
“If Sorrow Should Find You is a more intimate expression of the upheaval and distress we have all lived with in recent times for which, in the end, there is really only one antidote.”
I think there’s two antidotes: time and love. The old saying that time heals all ills is true but a little love always helps the process.
This single is delightful and I’m very much looking forward to the album.
