The Executives - Complete Seventies

First released March 2016

01 - On The Road Back

02 - Uptown 'N Down

03 - Down By The Lazy River

04 - He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

05 - Rock 'N Roll Medley: Jailhouse Rock / Then He Kissed Me / All I Have To Do Is Dream / Let's Have A Party

06 - Laughter In The Rain

07 - As Time Goes By

08 - Classical Gas

09 - My Love

10 - Livin' For The City (with Jon English)

11 - Let The World Go Round

12 - Country Lady

13 - Tinker Tailor

14 - Songs Of Love

15 - Theme From The Young Doctors

16 - Shake Your Booty

17 - Livin' For The City

18 - Dancin'

Tracks 3-10 recorded for "The Executives Special", broadcast on WIN TV Wollongong, 28 December 1975

==About The Executives==

In June 1974, Brian and Carole King reformed The Executives, a band that originally had success in the sixties and which had split up in 1971. The new line-up included vocalist Jonne Sands, a former Sunshine label artist who at one stage was touted as a successor to Normie Rowe and who scored a sizeable hit with ‘Mothers And Fathers’ in October 1968. He took over Gino Cunico’s role as co-lead singer with Carole. The other new members of the band were Ron Smith (guitar), Alan Oloman (bass – formerly a member of legendary Lithgow band The Black Diamonds and more recently recorded with Brian on Nuclear) and Brian Kirby (drums).

The new band signed to the Polydor label and between July 1974 and October 1976 released three singles, although not all with the same line-up.

The first single release was ‘On The Road Back’ b/w ‘Uptown ‘N Down’. ‘On The Road Back’ was a catchy, upbeat number written by Larry King and featured Carole on vocals. It was a fitting title for the return of the band. The flipside featured ‘Uptown ‘N Down’, recorded in the USA in 1970 by the band’s previous lineup.

In December 1975, Ron Smith left the band. Dennis Allgood (ex-The New Breed) joined on bass, with Alan moving to guitar.

Also in December, the band won a Gold Penguin Award from the Television Society of Australia for best regionally produced television program. The program, a one-hour music special called The Executives, featured the band performing 12 songs, plus performances by Jon English and Barbara Rogers. It was WIN4 Wollongong’s first colour television program.

In February 1976, the band released the country-flavoured ‘Let The World Go Round’ b/w ‘Country Lady’. ‘Let The World Go Round’ saw Brian and Carole again working with Pat Aulton, who produced the track, which was originally released in 1975 by Belgian duo Nic Nac. The flipside was composed by Alan Oloman. The single became the reformed band’s only chart success, reaching #49 in Sydney on 2 April.

By this stage, the band had recorded enough tracks for a planned album release, titled Let The World Go Round, however, it never eventuated.

Coinciding with the single release, the band began a stint as the resident band on Channel 9’s resurrected Bandstand TV music variety show, hosted by Daryl Somers.

The third and final single, released in October 1976, was the middle of the road ‘Tinker Tailor’ b/w ‘Songs Of Love’. By now, Brian and Carole had separated and Carole had started a new relationship with Jonne. ‘Tinker Tailor’ was written by Alan as a direct observation of these recent events. The song featured a string arrangement by William Motzing, known for arranging and conducting strings and horns on popular Australian seventies and eighties songs including Sherbet’s ‘Howzat’, Peter Allen’s ‘I Still Call Australia Home’ and Billy Field’s ‘Bad Habits’. The standout though is Jonne’s powerful vocals, along with vocals by Carole.

‘Songs Of Love’ was written by Alan with Glenn Bland and Darcy Rosser. The three had played together in the late sixties and early seventies in the band Tymepiece.

In between releasing singles, the band made regular appearances on TV variety shows. They recorded the theme music for Grundy’s hospital soapie The Young Doctors, written by Brian and Alan, and occasionally appeared in the soapie as the house band at ‘Bunny’s’, the bar across from the hospital. They also appeared in the TV soap Number 96.

Unfortunately, the same problem that dogged the original Executives arose again – the name. The band failed to make headway in the charts because, when people heard the name, they considered the band a group of has-beens, old hat and burned-out. For their last single, the band sent copies to radio stations without telling them whose work it was. “We did that with our latest single and the result was amazing,” stated Brian in 1976. Still, the single did not achieve any chart success.

In late 1976, Carole and Jonne left the band. Carole had decided that she wanted to spend more time being a mother to her young family, which frequent touring with the band had not allowed her to do. They were replaced by vocalists Julia Cohen and Doug Smith. Julia did not stay for long; she was replaced by Karen Lesley after only a month or so.

“In my opinion,” states Brian, “the second line-up with Alan, Dennis, Brian Kirby, Carole, Jonne and me was certainly equal to anything before. We didn’t have the recording success of the sixties group but we had a great show, some ‘Mo’ Award nominations and more TV exposure than the early group. I had seen Sha Na Na in San Francisco and the last 30 minutes of our club spot was dedicated to a send up of fifties rock ‘n’ roll; actually, I think we were doing this before Ol’ 55 and The Silver Studs came on the scene.”

In early 1977, the new line-up contributed three tracks to the Number 96 Party Music album, produced by Brian and released in April (Karen Lesley appears in the group photo on the front cover). The three disco tracks were ‘Shake Your Booty’, ‘Livin’ For The City’ and ‘Dancin’’. The band also provided the rhythm section and vocal backing for the two Chelsea Brown and two Michael Howard tracks. The main purpose of the album’s production was to provide music for the soap opera’s new setting – a wine disco bar.

When Karen left later in 1977, the band reverted to a five-piece all-male line-up. Brian commented at the time that the need for a female singer had become less and less since Carole had left the band.

The all-male line-up continued until 1979, when Doug, Dennis and Brian Kirby left and Carole and Jonne, now married and with older children, returned. By now, the band had semi-retired from the recording scene, restricting themselves to club work and special guest performances.

When the band folded later in 1979, Brian and Carole continued to team for studio sessions. Jonne resumed a moderately successful solo career, mainly as a club performer. Bassist-guitarist Alan Oloman continued with session work and co-wrote with Brian the music for the 1979 horror film Alison’s Birthday, released two years later in May 1981.

Extract from “The Executives: Their Aim Was To Please You” by Jaesen Jones, (C) 2016

==About this compilation==

A labour of love, this compilation was put together over a number of months from the best sources I could find (upwards of four copies of each single!). Having said that, some of the single sources are still not the best - some light surface noise is evident but only really noticeable with headphones. In addition, the mastering of some of the tracks leaves a little to be desired; the latter tracks in particular are a bit dull and lacking sparkle. To remain true to the sources, however, I have resisted the urge to EQ these tracks and they are presented as captured by my trusty Project 6perspeX.

Now, with the negatives out of the way, there is some amazing music on this compilation! 'Uptown 'N Down' was actually recorded in LA in 1970 by the late sixties incarnation of the band, Brian, Carole, Gino Cunico, Ray Burton, Gary King and Rhys Clark. A great rocking cover of the Melanie Safka original and one that really shows off Carole's amazing vocal abilities.

The next eight tracks were recorded for a TV special broadcast by WIN TV Wollongong in December 1975. Again, admirable covers the lot of them. Their cover of Stevie Wonder's 'Livin' For The City' features Jon English and is especially catchy. Just a shame about the canned applause! This is the first time these tracks have been heard since their original broadcast.

Perhaps the highlights of the compilation though are two Alan Oloman originals: 'Tinker Tailor' and 'Songs Of Love'. Details of these two tracks can be found above.

==Vinyl transfer and 24bit mastering by Q==

Source
01-02: Polydor single 2079 047 (7YS 745/6)
03-10: "The Executive Special"
11-12: Polydor single 2079 078 (7YS 1313/1314)
13-14: Polydor single 2079 092 (2079 092 A/B)
15: Umbrella DVD "The Young Doctors - The Best Romances" - DAVID0927
16-18: King Music stereo LP "Number 96 Party Music" - ALP-001 (N096 DISCO A/B)

Hardware
- Project 6PerspeX Turntable
- Goldring 1022GX Cartridge
- Project SpeedBox II Quartz-Generated Electronic Speed Regulator
- Denon PMA-700AE Integrated Amplifier

Software
- Audition 3.0.1 (audio capture and editing)
- ClickRepair (audio editing)
- DVD Audio Extractor 7.2.0
- iZotope RX 5 Advanced (resampling and dithering to Red Book audio specifications)

Artwork included

CD quality (313mb)
Hi-Res (available upon enquiry only)