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The Masters Apprentices

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The Masters Apprentices were an Australian rock band. They formed in Adelaide in 1964 and continued until 1972, reforming briefly in 1988. They pioneered use of distorted chords on rhythm guitar, paving the way for heavy rock. Their raw sound and wild stage act led top Australian radio DJ Stan Rofe to dub them "Australia's Rolling Stones".

Like their contemporaries The Easybeats and The Twilights they tried unsuccessfully to break into the British music scene, but one of the later members of the band, Glenn Wheatley, learned valuable lessons from their travails, and since moving into artist management in the 1970s he has played a major role in the Australian music industry and the media over the last thirty years.

The Masters were hugely popular throughout Australia, scored a string of hits and were consistently hailed as one of Australia's best live and recording acts. They started out as an instrumental band, rose to prominence during the mid-Sixties "Beat Boom", moved through psychedelia and 'bubblegum' pop, finally becoming one the first and best Australian progressive/hard rock groups of the early Seventies. They went through many lineup changes, with vocalist Jim Keays being the only constant, and their membership also illustrates the intricate interconnections between so many Australian bands of that era.

They played mainly originals. One of their biggest Australian hits, "Undecided" (1967), was revived by Silverchair in 1997, and their best-known song "Because I Love You" has been revived many times, including its use in an Australian jeans commercial in the late 1980s. Swedish progressive metal band Opeth named the track "Master's Apprentices" (from their 2002 album Deliverance) in honour of the band, of which Opeth frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt is a fan.

The career of The Masters Apprentices can be divided into three main phases:

Contents

Mustangs to Masters, 1965-67

The Masters Apprentices formed in Adelaide, South Australia in early 1965. The group began its career as The Mustangs, a dance band formed by four Adelaide teenagers, Mick Bower, Brian Vaughton, Gavin Webb and Rick Morrison. The Mustangs were a typical example of the early-'60s guitar-instrumental bands who modelled themselves on groups like The Shadows and The Ventures.

Like almost every other pop group in the country, the band's outlook was profoundly altered by the cataclysmic Australian tour by The Beatles in June 1964, and their visit had a particular impact in Adelaide, because many recent migrants from Britain had settled there. When the Fab Four arrived in Adelaide they were greeted by the largest crowd ever seen in their touring career - indeed it was probably the single largest crowd in Australian history. Estimates have put the figure as 300,000. This is doubly remarkable, given that the population of Adelaide in 1964 was less than 1 million, and it means that one out of every three people in Adelaide turned out to see the group (see Beatles influence on popular culture).

The rapid musical changes that followed the Beatles' chart breakthrough and world tours made it obvious that the surf/instrumental style was rapidly becoming passe, so like scores of other groups the Mustangs decided to change their style, and take on a singer, selecting a young Scots migrant, Jim Keays.

The Mustangs rehearsed regularly in a shed behind the hotel owned by drummer Brian Vaughton's family. Their original manager Graham Longley made a tape recording of one of these rehearsals, and fortunately it survived; it was re-discovered and released on CD in 2004 and despite the primitive recording quality and rough-and-ready performances, it provides a unique glimpse of the group's formative days.

The Masters soon established themselves on the thriving dance circuit around Adelaide, playing in suburban halls and migrant hostels and building up a strong following with the local teenagers, many of whom were, like Keays, migrants from the UK. Adelaide was a major destination for British "assisted passage" migrants in the '50s and '60s. The migrant audiences were an important influence for the band, since many of their young fans were recent arrivals who had seen the top UK bands in action only weeks before. These youngsters also had a strong effect on the band's "look" since they were directly in touch with current 'mod' fashions, a trend which was then not very well-known in Australia.

In late 1965 they renamed themselves The Masters Apprentices (deliberately omitting the apostrophe) as an homage to musical heroes like Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. By early 1966 they were one of the most popular beat bands in Adelaide, regularly selling out shows in the city, as well as making visits to outlying towns and cities like Murray Bridge, Mt Gambier and Whyalla. Their first TV appearance, on Good Friday that year, was on a Channel 7 telethon hosted by Adelaide TV celebrity Ernie Sigley.

Later in the year the Masters shared an out-of-town gig with pop star Bobby Bright from the Melbourne duo Bobby & Laurie. He was greatly impressed and recommended them to his label, Astor Records. A few weeks later they were contacted by Astor, who requested a four-track demo. The band went to a local two-track studio to record the requested demo, but realised that they had only three songs that they felt confident enough to record. Needing a fourth track, Bower and Morrison dashed off a new song, "Undecided", in about 15 minutes and the backing track was cut in about the same time. The title reportedly came from the fact that they were simply 'undecided' about a name for the track when quizzed by the producer. The biting fuzz-tone of Bower's guitar on the track was a fortunate accident -- it was caused by a malfunctioning valve in his amplifier, but the group liked the sound and kept the faulty valve in until after the session.

In August 1966 the group made their first trip to Melbourne, where they made a strong impression with showcase performances at the city's leading discotheques, The Thumpin' Tum and The Biting Eye. Their impressive debut single "Undecided / Wars or Hands Of Time" was released in October and gradually climbed the Adelaide charts, thanks to strong support from local DJs. The B-side is notable as the first Australian pop song to directly address the issue of the Vietnam War, which was now directly affecting the lives of many young Australians because of the controversial introduction of conscription in 1965.

The band themselves were not exempt from this and 20-year old Keays was one of hundreds of potential conscripts whose birthday (9 September) was picked in one of the 1966 conscription ballots. Fortunately, he was able to legally avoid the draft by signing on for a term with the Citizens' Military Force (now the Army Reserve) but he cunningly managed to avoid the compulsory short-back-and-sides hair cut with the help of his girlfriend, who carefully pinned his long hair up under his slouch hat each time he had to attend CMF sessions.

By the time of their second trip to Melbourne later in the year, leading Melbourne DJ Stan Rofe had picked up the single and was playing it regularly. They were one of many famous Australian acts that Rofe championed during the Sixties and he was a strong supporter of the band throughout their career.

Another crucial connection was their meeting with Ian 'Molly' Meldrum,who was then a staff writer for the pop magazine Go-Set. He and Keays became lifelong friends and Meldrum (who went on to becaome a noted record producer and host of the influential pop show Countdown) promoted the band vigorously in Go-Set.

Returning to Adelaide, they recorded more original songs, including the classic track "Buried & Dead", which became their second single, plus other tracks which eventually wound up on their debut LP. The success of the second trip made it obvious that they should turn professional and relocate to Melbourne. This led to the departure of original manager Graham Longley and drummer Brian Vaughton, both of whom decided to remain in Adelaide. Vaughton opted to work in the family business, so the aforementioned tracks were his last recordings with the group.

Successes and setbacks, 1967-68

Brian Vaughton was replaced by Steve Hopgood, and in February 1967 the Masters relocated to Melbourne permanently, as "Undecided" raced up the local charts (NB: Australia had no national chart at this time). The group quickly established themselves as one of Melbourne's top attractions, performing regularly at discos like Catcher, Sebastians, Thumpin' Tum and The Biting Eye, and the multitude of suburban dances. They led a hand-to-mouth existence for the first year or so in Melbourne, often relying on the hospitality of fans and friends.

In May 1967 "Buried and Dead" was released as single, and they made a promotional film clip for TV use, which is believed to be one of the first pop film-clips ever made in Australia. They also undertook their first trip to Sydney, where they made a chaotic live appearance on the ABC pop show Saturday Date, where they were chased by fans on their way into the studio and had their clothes almost ripped to shreds before they went on air.

In June 1967 Astor released the group's self-titled debut LP, featuring the aforementioned singles, several more fine originals by Mick Bower, a cover of Bo Diddley's "Dancing Girl" and a version of The Beatles' "I Feel Fine". (NB: subsequent re-releases of this album, including the first CD release in 1996, dropped the Beatles track and added two later singles, "Elevator Driver" and "Brigette").

By now they were assimilating musical influences from the burgeoning psychedelic scene, although it seems unlikely that the band had actually tried the drug LSD at this point -- Keays maintains that it wasn't until some time afterwards that they began to experiment with it. Nevertheless, their next single arguably Mick Bower's masterpiece, "Living in A Child's Dream", proved to be a psychedelic classic and it is now widely regarded as one of the greatest Australian pop songs of the era.

It was recorded at the newly-opened Armstrong's Studios in South Melbourne and like all their Astor cuts it was nominally produced by Astor staff producer Dick Heming. However Keays later said that Heming's input was limited to watching the clock to ensure sessions started and finished on time and that most of the real production was done by renowned engineer Roger Savage.

Savage, who had recently migrated from the UK, had recorded Dusty Springfield, and the Rolling Stones' debut single "Come On" before leaving for Australia, and soon after arriving he had produced the backing track for The Easybeats' breakthrough hit "She's So Fine". Keays also credits Ian Meldrum as having a large influence on the sessions, and this single could be considered his first production.

Released in August 1967 at the peak of the "Summer Of Love", it became one of their biggest successes, topping the charts in most Australian capitals. Both "Living In A Child's Dream" and "Undecided" ranked in the Top 5 Australian singles of 1967, and "Living In A Child's Dream" was voted Australian Song of the Year.

The success of the new single rapidly elevated the Masters to the status of national teen idols, but with such rapid and huge success, pressures began to mount. The first victim was lead guitarist Rick Morrison, who was forced to quit due to illness. He had only one lung, and his fragile health finally gave out when he passed out on stage during a gig in June 1967, suffering a collapsed lung. He was ordered to give up performing and was replaced by Tony Summers (ex-Johnny Young's Kompany).

Meanwhile the endless round of gigs and tours -- up to fifteen shows per week -- continued. There was another tour of NSW in July 1967, including some of the last pop shows staged at the famed Sydney Stadium on 30 July, and more shows at the famous Trocadero ballroom (both since demolished). Also in July, they made it into the finals of the new national band competition, the Hoadleys National Battle of The Sounds, coming in as runners-up to The Groop.

In September 1967, while touring Tasmania, the shy and sensitive Bower suffered a nervous collapse just before a show in Hobart. As show time approached and Bower didn't appear, Keays and Hopgood investigated, and found him cowering in his room in a state of extreme distress. Oblivious to Bower's predicament, the heartless promoter insisted that the group had to perform and, faced with the prospect of going unpaid and being stranded in Hobart, they had no choice but to comply. Bower was dressed, taken to the concert and pushed on stage with his guitar slung around his neck. The stricken Bower stood motionless all through the gig, arms hanging limp, in a near-catatonic state. He was hospitalised immediately after the gig, suffering a severe nervous breakdown, and was ordered to give up performing. He was sent home to Adelaide to recuperate, and only returned to live performance years later, in the late '70s.

The loss of Mick Bower was a blow comparable to Pink Floyd's loss of its leader Syd Barrett, and it threatened to end the Masters' career just as it was taking off. Like Barrett, Bower was central to the Masters' success, having composed all their singles and all the original tracks on their debut album. His forced departure left the band floundering for some time, as they tried to work out how to proceed without him. When they met back in Melbourne, it was decided to continue, and de-facto leadership passed to Keays. At the end of the September Keays and Gavin Webb chose Bower's on-stage substitute, guitarist Rick Harrsion, but it was to be another year before a true replacement was found.

The Masters were invited to play a free concert in Sydney's Hyde Park on 14 October 1967, as part of the Sydney Waratah Spring Festival. After parading down George St in a limousine, they were greeted by an estimated 50,000 frantic fans who had packed into the park, but after only a few songs the concert degenerated into a riot. Dozens were injured as thousands of young people crushed forward, with the force of the surging mob lifting people off their feet. When the crowd surge threatened to topple the makeshift stage, police were forced to pull the plug. In the ensuing chaos, the band was hustled through one car and into another, just as the first of the two limos hired to carry them was overturned and wrecked, with fans pummelling their car and faces blocking every inch of window. The band barely escaped, their panic-stricken driver crashing through garden beds until they lurched out onto William St and drove off with hundreds of fans pursuing them up the hill towards Kings Cross.

That same evening, still dazed by the afternoon's events, they headlined a university dance named in their honour, the "Living In A Child's Dream" Ball, organised by students of the University of NSW. Keays vividly described the event in his memoirs:

"The ball itself was a psychedelic experience of the highest order. Because of its theme, everyone was dressed as a schoolgirl or boy, some licking lollipops and others playing with yo-yos. There were people frolicking in huge cages filled with Minties and Jaffas (popular Australian sweets) and everyone seemed suitably spaced. The band was taken backstage, whereupon we climbed into a giant dice which had been specially constructed. The dice was then wheeled out on a cue from the stage manager and pushed through the audience up to the stage. At this point the lid of the dice flew open and up we popped. Someone from the university then presented me with the key, to thunderous applause by the vast crowd, and we jumped out, slung on our guitars and blasted into the most acid-inspired sounds we could muster. The audience went out of their minds -- probably because most of them already were -- and pandemonium broke out when we ended the set with "Living In A Child's Dream". The psychedelic light show was as magnificent as had been seen anywhere in the country, with 'trippy' oil lights, the first mirror balls I'd ever seen, smoke machines and the full range of state-of-the-art psychedelia."

New guitarist Rick Harrison quit the band immediately afterwards and when they returned to Melbourne they recruited a new lead player, Peter Tilbrook, another Adelaide friend. His previous band, The Bentbeaks, had released a single "Caught Red Handed", which had been banned by Melbourne radio in March that year for alleged obscenity. Not long after this, Jim Keays tried LSD for the first time, an event that is hilariously recounted in his book.

With Astor pressing for a new single, the band turned to their friend Brian Cadd of The Groop, who had already written a number of successful songs for his own band and for other artists, including Johnny Farnham. Cadd presented them with the song, "Silver People", which was retitled "Elevator Driver" and released in February 1968 as their fourth single.

As 1967 ended the Masters' career reached a critical juncture. They still had no songwriter, and both drummer Steve Hopgood and lead guitarist Tony Sommers were becoming disenchanted with the band's erratic fortunes. Keays then decided to replace them and also their second manager, Tony Dickstein. 

Around this time they also hired their first permanent roadie, Neil McCabe, and he soon became an indispensable part of the band. Returning to Melbourne via Sydney, Keays met two musician brothers, bassist-singer Denny Burgess and his drummer brother Colin, who played in a support band, The Haze, at a gig in suburban Ashfield, NSW. Both musically and personally, Jim was impressed and immediately earmarked Colin as a possible new drummer.


Returning to Melbourne, Keays approached Ross East, lead guitarist with Jeff St John's band Copperwine and asked him to join. but East declined.  


1968 was a year of major changes for the group, but it also took them to some of the lowest points of their career. The exact chronology of events in this period is rather unclear, and while Glenn Wheatley and Jim Keays' books are generally in accord, there are some specific points where their accounts of this year differ markedly.


In January 1968 Jim Keays began to reorganise the band in earnest, and Summers and Hopgood were sacked. Impressed by his energy and his ability to hustle up gigs, Keays approached Glenn Wheatley, who was then playing guitar for blues band Bay City Union, as well as that band's drummer, Tony Buettel, both of whom lived in the same street as Keays. Wheatley and Buettel opted to stay with their band, although Wheatley subsequently became the Masters' new bassist. Meanwhile, Keays arranged for Colin Burgess to be flown to Melbourne and he was hired as the Masters' new drummer.


Keays then approached guitarist Doug Ford, who also lived  down the road from Keays' St Kilda flat. Ford was already recognised as one of the strongest and most innovative electric guitarists on the Australian pop scene and had made his name in the second lineup of pioneering Sydney garage-punk-R&B legends The Missing Links, and its offshoot Running Jumping Standing Still. 


The new recruits would revitalise the Masters career. Ford was a proficient songwriter, a good singer and his mastery of the electric guitar brought a new depth to the band's sound. He agreed to join as soon as he had fulfilled his obligations to his current band, and as soon as  he joined the Masters, he and Keays began working as a writing team. Ford's arrival finally filled the gap left by Mick Bowers' departure and made possible their transition from pop band to rock group. As the partnership developed, Keays and Ford created a repertoire of memorable songs which balanced heavy guitar rock with lyrical acoustic touches.



Starting over, 1968-70

"Elevator Driver" was released in February 1968, accompanied by another film clip and a full-colour promotional poster. The band had to pay for both items themselves because Astor refused to pay for such 'extravagant' promotional items. "Elevator Driver"  was perfect for the moment, providing them with another Top 10 hit, and keeping the momentum going as they rebuilt the band.


In April 1968 bassist Gavin Webb -- the last remaining member of the original Mustangs -- was forced to quit, suffering from stomach ulcers. Keays set about finding a new bassist. His first choice was Beeb Birtles of Zoot (and later of Little River Band) and Keays flew to Adelaide to invite him to join, but Birtles opted to stay with Zoot. On the flight home, Keays found himself seated next to artist manager Darryl Sambell, who was then enjoying huge success with his young protege Johnny Farnham. Keays and the flamboyant Sambell hit it off, and Sambell soon took over the Masters' management.


Sambell's management turned out to be a mixed blessing. He was a master networker and great at getting publicity; he also freed them from their Astor contract and signed them to EMI. He was also a partner in the newly-formed AMBO booking agency, a new 'superagency' put together by a group of leading agent-managers including Gary Spry, Bill Joseph, Jeff Joseph and Don La Roche. This proved very helpful for concert bookings but in the long run Sambell proved more interested in promoting Farnham's career; he kept the Masters at arm's length, so the day-to-day management duties gradually fell to Glenn Wheatley. Sambell's pop tastes were also were at odds with the developing progressive direction of the Masters' music.


Glenn Wheatley joined the band sometime during the first months of 1968, probably March or April, just after Gavin Webb had to leave. Exactly when is unclear, but he was definitely in the band by May, when they entered the Adelaide heats of the Hoadley's Battle Of The Sounds. According to Keays, Peter Tilbrook had switched to bass after Webb's departure, so Jim initially brought Wheatley in as second guitarist. According to Wheatley however, he was approached by Doug Ford, and joined as their bass player. The evidence of the contemporary photographs, however, shows that both Wheatley and Tilbrook were in the group right through to the Hoadleys finals and presumably for some time after.


Their next single, "Brigette", released in June 1968, was their last single for Astor and it also marked the debut of the Ford/Keays writing partnership. Keays has noted that it was inspired by his love of Donovan's "Mellow Yellow", although it also bears a resemblance to some of The Move's earlier singles. The psych-baroque arrangement included a string section scored by The Strangers' John Farrar, and while it did not fare as well as previous efforts, it took them back into the Top 40.


Mid-year, they topped the annual Go-Set Pop Poll, wher they were voted 'Most Original Group', and they came second to The Twilights as 'Most Popular Australian Group'. They entered the South Australian heats of the 1968 Hoadleys Battle Of The Sounds, beating local rivals Zoot in a tense contest, but ultimately they were again runners-up in the national final. It was held in Melbourne in July, and they were beaten this time by The Groove, with Doug Parkinson In Focus coming third.


After the Hoadleys final, the band was approached by the manager of the Sitmar cruise line, the other major sponsor of the contest. He told the band that he had voted for them in the final, thought they should have won, and offered them a working trip to England, with free passage in exchange for their performing for the passengers during the voyage. 


At a meeting the week after the Hoadleys finals, the Masters took Sambell's advice, and decided not to renew their contract with Astor. Sambell indicated that he would be able to negotiate a new contract with EMI, which he did. Sambell also announced that he was "poaching" faithful roadie Neil McCabe to work in his office and take care of his No. 1 act, Johnny Farnahm. Although disappointed to lose McCabe, the band soon found an able replacement in the equally loyal and capable Adrian "Ada" Barker. 


Gigs continued throughout the year and in the second half of 1968 they went back into Armstrong's Studios to cut their first single for EMI, although it was not released until early 1969. Astor attempted to milk the cash-cow by releasing the song "But One Day" (an old track from their debut LP) as a single in August, but the band urged fans not to buy it and it failed to chart. 


The band played a welter of gigs throughout the year, touring around country Australia in their battered van, trundling up the Hume Highway to Sydney, on to Brisbane, and dashing from dance to dance around greater Melbourne. Their schedule was punishing -- typically they would play three shows a night on Fridays and Saturdays (performances in those days usually averaged about 45 minutes), and then drag themselves into the Channel 0 TV studios on Saturday morning for the obligatory appearance on the leading pop show of the day, Uptight! . Although money was undoubtedly pouring in the band saw almost none of it and by year's end they were broke. 


In the first two weeks of December 1968 there were more setbacks. Peter Tilbrook received an offer from a new label, and he left the band to form the duo Paradise with his friend Richard Hay. Glenn Wheatley moved to bass, the classic lineup of The Masters Apprentices fell into place and the stage was set for some of their greatest successes, but there were still tough times ahead. 


The next big disappointment came after they got back to Melbourne from gigs in Brisbane in the second week of December. Wheatley returned to find a message from Sitmar, and when he called back he found himself on the receiving end of a blast from Sitmar's furious entertainment manager. It turned out that the cruise line had arranged for the group to leave on a London-bound cruise liner the previous week, but the band had been in Brisbane. Unable to locate them, the liner had been delayed for an entire day while Sitmar found a group to replace them. After delivering his tirade, the Sitmar executive declared that they would have nothing further to do with the Masters and hung up. Dumbfounded, the band confronted Darryl Sambell, who denied the whole affair, but a further check with Sitmar confirmed that the whole deal had been arranged with Sambell who, caught up with Johnny Farnham's affairs, had simply forgotten to tell them about it. 


By the end of the year, finances and morale were at rock bottom. Despite the constant gigging, the group were now in debt. Tension within the band had increased, particularly because of Wheatley's domestic situation. The Masters had originally rented two flats in the same St Kilda block, downstairs from Darryl Sambell, who had the penthouse apartment, but When Tilbrook and McCabe left, the second flat was let go. Short of cash, Wheatley was obliged to move into the spare room in Sambell's flat, and soon found himself in the uncomfortable position of becoming the "middle man" between Sambell and the rest of the band. 


By the end of the year, friction between Sambell and the group was at an all-time high, exacerbated by the Sitmar affair and his recent management takeover of 'rival' band Zoot. They also blamed Sambell for the long delays in the release of the Masters new single, which was made more irritating by the concurrent success of Zoot's new single. 


Both Keays and Wheatley recount a bleak Christmas Day of 1968. Broke, and without even enough money for food, Ford, Keays and Burgess went upstairs to Sambell's flat, where he was entertaining Wheatley, actor Frank Thring and Ian Meldrum at a Christmas lunch. When they knocked at the door, Sambell dismissively handed them a two dollar note, and the band slunk off to the local shop to buy their own dinner -- cold meat pies. Wheatley was mortified and spent the rest of the day in his room. 


Their final gig of the year was on New Year's Eve, but between sets the band members talked through their problems, patched up their differences, and agreed that Sambell had to go. Wheatley offered to take on the day-to-day booking and promotion work, leaving Keays and Ford free to concentrate on writing.


With their differences settled, the new lineup settling in, and the Ford/Keays writing team hitting its stride, the band now moved into its best-remembered and most successful phase. The long-awaited first EMI single was moderately successful, even if it was something of a false start artistically. The schizophrenic "Linda Linda / Merry-Go-Round" (March 1969) marked the beginning of their collaboration with New Zealand-born producer Howard Gable. 
The rather corny A-side fell into the same faux-musical-hall category as UK songs like "Winchester Cathedral" but the rocky B-side showed strong hints of how the group was really developing. The single missed out on the Top 40 by one place but it got them back on the radio and their popularity began to pick up again. 


The Masters continued to tour across the country, and it helped to weld them into a close-knit unit. Meanwhile articles, profiles, pinups and TV appearances prolifrerated; indeed they were so overexposed, Keays claims, that they began to turn down TV appearances on  for fear of becoming too familiar to audiences. When they played at the annual Moomba concert in March at the Myer Music Bowl, they drew a crowd of just under 200,000 people, second only to The Seekers' record-breaking appearance there in 1967. 


Their next single, the rollicking "5:10 Man", was released in July 1969. It was a major step forward and kicked off a string of Top 20 hits. It was a deliberate move towards a heavier sound, and the Masters were keen to distance themselves from the current bubblegum craze -- a direction in which they felt that both Sambell and/or Gable were pushing them -- and it put the Masters back on the map as a chart act. 


Also in July, with "5.10 Man" climbing the charts, they had their third and final attempt at the Hoadley's Battle of the Sounds, but once again they came in as runners-up -- although this time they ran such a close second to Doug Parkinson's In Focus that they were reportedly also offered the coveted winner's prize, a trip to England with the Sitmar line. According to Keays, the Masters won on points but he claims that the judges may have felt that their 'bad boy' image did not make them suitable candidates to take first place. 


While substantially true, this image was deliberately played up by the band and fuelled by press reports like the infamous Go-Set 'expose' headlined "Sex is thrust upon us". Written by Go-Set staffer Lily Brett (with Jim Keays' full cooperation) the article and its follow-up revealed some of the milder aspects of the bacchanalian groupie scene that had surrounded the band for the last three years. According to Keays' the outside wall of their first group flat in Melbourne had famously been daubed with the slogan "Band Moll's Paradise" in three-foot high letters, and a continuous string of groupies passed through the flat day and night. The 'bad-boy' publicity was also another means of frustrating Sambell's plans to market them as a wholesome teen combo. 


About this time the band also switched to wearing leather stage outfits. This fitted well with the 'bad-boy' image but it also had a much more practical outcome. It was common in the Sixties for pop stars like the Masters to regularly have their clothes and hair literally torn off them by frantic fans, and the cost of buying expensive stage clothes which were being shredded on a nightly basis was sending the band broke. But the leather gear -- which resisted even the most ardent fans' talons -- provided then with their longest-wearing outfits in years, and Keays believes it saved them thousands of dollars. 


In August the Masters headed off around Australia on the remarkable "Operation Starlift", an historic all-Australian package tour, the largest of its kind ever attempted up to that time. It featured some of the top groups and solo artists of the day -- The Masters, Johnny Farnham, Ronnie Burns, Russell Morris, Johnny Young, Zoot, and The Valentines. Although the tour was apparently a financial disaster, it was a promotional success for the Masters. The Brisbane Festival Hall concert was a highpoint of the tour and they drew a record crowd there, breaking The Beatles' 1964 attendance record. Glenn Wheatley was dragged offstage by the audience and had his pants and coat literally torn to shreds, with the result that one of the police on hand threatened to stop the show and arrest Glenn for indecent exposure if they did not finish playing immediately.


But back in his hotel room after the gig, Wheatley had time to reflect on the event, and it became the turning point in his life and career, because it finally drove home to him just how badly the band was being ripped off. He figured that the crowd had paid $5 per ticket, so the gross must have been at least $30-35,000. Yet the Masters, like all the other acts, were on a fixed fee, and received just $200 for the gig. According to Wheatley, the top-billed act, Johnny Farnham, probably only got about $1000. Something was seriously wrong, and Wheatley was determined to fix it. 


They determined to take over their own management from Sambell, who by then was totally preoccupied with Farnham and Zoot, so the plans were put in place. Over the closing months of 1969 Wheatley became more and more involved in choosing venues, booking gigs and promoting the group, placing them with far more care to avoid over-exposing them, cutting down on appearances and increasing their fee. They closed the year in promising style with the bluesy single "Think About Tomorrow Today", which provided another Top 20 hit nationally and went to #1 in Melbourne. 


Early in 1970 the Masters officially parted with Darryl Sambell. Wheatley was by now doing most of their bookings and management, and from this point on they managed themselves for the rest of their career. Next, they set up their own booking agency, Drum, established in January by Glenn Wheatley and Ada Barker and in spite initial resistance from Sambell, they successfully took over their own bookings from the AMBO agency. 


Based in a terrace house office in Drummond St. Carlton, Drum began by handling the Masters' own management but within a few months  they were also booking and promoting gigs for The Sect, Ash, Lovers Dream, Big Daddies, Thursday's Children, Looking Glass, Daisy Clover, Nova Express, Co. Caine, Plastic Tears, Little Stevie, Taman Shud, Jeff St John, Flying Circus and 14 others, as well as promoting tours by overseas acts The Four Tops and Paul Jones (ex-Manfred Mann). Wheatley was rapidly finding his niche, as his later career would conclusively prove. 


The Masters had been stockpiling tracks since they signed with EMI, and in February 1970 their long delayed second LP Masterpiece was finally issued. It's an interesting album, albeit something of a hodgepodge (as Keays freely admits) but it clearly shows the band developing a much broader range. It includes the single tracks "Linda Linda", "5:10 Man" and "A Dog, A Siren & Memories", and "How I Love You", although it omitted the excellent "Merry-Go-Round". 
Side One of the LP showed them beginning to come to grips with the album format and emulating the current fad for concept albums by linking the songs with a short guitar-and-string arrangement, crossfaded between tracks. The title track, a live recording,  provides a vivid aural snapshot of a Masters live show ca. 1968, complete with the deafening screams of fans.  The album also includes the Masters' own version of "St John's Woo", a track Keays and Ford gave to Brisbane band The Sect, who released it as a single on Columbia during the year. 


April saw the release of their new single, their raucous, anthemic celebration of rock'n'roll, "Turn Up Your Radio", recorded at a boozy late-night session at Armstrong's, produced by Howard Gable, and engineered by Ern Rose. Keays barely remembers the session, and recounts that he was so drunk by the time he had to do the vocal that he had to be held up to the microphone. 


The song was deliberately designed to be as loud and offensive as they could make it, thus providing the final nail in the coffin to their ill-conceived teenybopper image. It was released in the middle of a major dispute between commercial radio stations and record companies, which resulted in the banning of many major-label releases, and despite the fact that it apparently received little airplay on commercial radio, the song burned up the charts and peaked at #7 nationally.



The London Years, 1970-72

The Masters now had their sights set firmly on the UK, and over the previous months they had been saving money to pay for the trip. In April-May they set off on a national Farewell tour. It was a timely move for the band, since it also farewelled an era of Australian pop. The pub-rock boom in Melbourne (which would launch the careers of new bands like the "new" Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs) was about to get into full swing, and the golden days of the "scream era", the Battle of the Sounds, suburban dances and the inner city disco circuit that established the Masters career, was drawing to a close. 


Exactly how the Masters got their trip to England is unclear. The accepted version is that they were awarded the trip to England because they came so close to beating Doug Parkinson In Focus in the Hoadleys Battle of the Sounds. However Glenn Wheatley says that he contacted Sitmar himself in April. Their new entertainment manager apparently knew nothing about the debacle of the previous arrangement and offered to give them free passage to England on the Fairsky, leaving in late May, in return for providing entertainment. 


According to Jim Keays, The Masters played their final show at Camberwell Civic Centre, supported by Zoot, Russell Morris and Music Express and the show was compered by Stan Rofe (although according to Glenn it was at Berties disco). On 25 May 1970, following in the footsteps of The Easybeats and The Twilights, they boarded ship for England with high hopes of breaking into the British music scene. They left Drum in the hands of "Ada" Barker, and were given a rousing send-off by a crowd of fans and friends including Stan Rofe, Daryl Sambell, Ian Meldrum, Ross D. Wylie, Johnny Young and Ronnie Burns. 


The six-week ocean voyage aboard the "Fairsky" was a more-than-welcome break for them after years of constant gigging. Free from hassles and distractions of the road, they used the time to good advantage, writing and rehearsing new material and trying out the new songs each night. Here again, the recollections of Keays and Wheatley differ. According to Keays, it was arranged for them to play three spots per night in one of the liner's entertainment lounges, but these performances rapidly dwindled to zero as the mostly middle-aged passengers were driven off by the band's free-form jams, on-stage rehearsals and 20-minute guitar solos. However, Wheatley recalls that the band played on average "every second night". 


They arrived in London in early July, unscathed, in spite of some hair-raising misadventures during a stopover in Panama, where they were ripped off while trying to score some of the legendary local marijuana. Arriving at the height of a glorious English summer, the band entered their happiest and most productive period. They were met at Southampton by old friend Brian Peacock (ex-Procession), now living in London. 


They initially moved into a hotel in Bayswater, but it quickly ate into their savings, so together with two friends from the cruise ship who were now part of the 'family', they moved into a house in North Harrow in London, where they continued to write and rehearse, and also made contact with other Aussie expats like the Cook sisters from Marcie Jones & The Cookies, Dennis Wilson and Dannie Davidson of Kahvas Jute, and Ronnie Charles (ex-The Groop). 


Freed from the grind of constant gigging, they gleefully immersed themselves in the cultural life of the capital, going on shopping sprees for clothes on the famous Kings Rd, Cheslea, ploughing through scores of new records and doing the rounds of clubs and concerts, seeing the best music on offer. Wheatley continued work on a manuscript which he had begun during the ocean voyage, entitled "Who the Hell is Judy In Sydney?", which recounted his experiences with the group. His memoir was apparently too hot for any publisher at the time and was never printed, but it became the basis for his autobiography Paper Paradise. The one thing they did not do was play live, lacking adequate equipment and a solid set of road-worthy material. 


Having only been advanced $500 by EMI Australia, Wheatley started knocking on doors in hopes of getting the band established in London and possibly securing a record deal. His first contact was with expatriate Australian impresario Robert Stigwood, who was by then managing Eric Clapton and The Bee Gees. Stigwood had been an associate of Darryl Sambell but Wheatley's plea for assistance fell on deaf ears, and he hints that Stigwood was more interested in Wheatley himself than in the band. 


Wheatley next made contact with EMI in London, and was fortunate to find an ally in 18 year-old Trudy Green, secretary to EMI staff producer Jeff Jarratt. Green went on to become a leading artist manager with clients including Heart, Janet Jackson and Mick Jagger. She took a liking to the band and was instrumental in getting Jarratt interested in the Masters; in the end he agreed to produce them. 


From there, the pieces rapidly fell into place - the band was thrilled to get the news that EMI Australia had agreed to pay for the recording of an album, that EMI England would provide artwork. Best of all, the recording would be at the legendary Abbey Road Studios. It was a dream come true for the group -- Jeff Jarratt had worked on some of the later Beatles recordings, and engineer Peter Bown was renowned for his work on Pink Floyd's classic LPs Ummagumma, A Saucerful Of Secrets and Atom Heart Mother.


Just before the scheduled start of recording, Jim Keays made a quick trip to mainland Europe, and he was in Copenhagen when he heard the news of the death of Jimi Hendrix, one of the Masters' biggest idols. On his return to London, Jim and Doug penned "Song For A Lost Gypsy", which they immediately added to the list of songs to record. 


They entered the studio in September to record the tracks that would form their next LP, the legendary Choice Cuts. They revelled in the Abbey Rd ambiance, and marvelled at the relaxed and quietly disciplined approach of the EMI staff. The facilities were superior to anything available at the time in Australia and it allowed them a far greater range of expression on record.  


The songs they brought to the sessions -- many written during the voyage over -- were their most original and distinctive, distilling all their recent musical influences. There were the heavier sounds of people such as Jimi Hendrix, King Crimson and Free, as well as the acoustic touches of Donovan, the Small Faces and Van Morrison (whose Astral Weeks LP was on constant rotation at their North Harrow house). They brought in outside musicians to augment some tracks, and famously made use of Paul McCartney's white grand piano on a few cuts, including Because I Love You. During the sessions they bumped into a "who's who" of British music including The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Barclay James Harvest, Ringo Starr and Roy Harper. 
Towards the end of the sessions, they found themselves one song short of the optimum LP length, so at Jarratt's suggestion they quickly knocked together a new song, built up from a Latin-flavoured instrumental shuffle that Ford had been playing around with. Keays wrote lyrics for the piece overnight, they cut it the next day and it became the album's opening track "Rio De Camero". 


The entire LP was recorded, mixed and mastered within a month, and the band were justifiably thrilled with the results. The choice of the first single was obvious. "Because I Love You" a beautiful song of love, separation and independence, has long since become their most popular and enduring recording. To promote it back home they called on Aussie ex-pat Timothy Fisher to make a promotional clip for them. Filmed on a chilly autumn morning on Hampstead Heath, it was simple but effective and is now the most oft-seen clip of the band. Most Australians will know it from the black-and-white prints shown many times on Australian TV (colour was not introduced there until 1975) but the clip was in fact shot in colour, as were several other clips for tracks from the LP, most of which were never screened 


The album's distinctive cover photo depicts an elegant, overstuffed chair in a panelled room, with a mysterious disembodied hand holding a cigarette floating above it. It was created for them by the famous English design house Hipgnosis, who were responsible for world-famous covers for Pink Floyd, 10cc, Led Zeppelin and many others. 


As 1970 drew to a close, with a fine new LP in the can, and everything looking rosy, the band were caught by surprise when Glenn Wheatley revealed that they were almost broke. They were determined to stay in London and keep trying for the big break, but they desperately needed more cash. A phone call to EMI Australia to plead for assistance proved futile, so they put together an emergency plan -- a return home and an Australian tour which would raise the needed funds. 


Wheatley was keen to do at least one performance in London before they headed home, so he arranged a gig at the ultra-trendy Blaises in West Kensington. Unfortunately, on the night they were the victims of a double-booking; although the other band didn't show, the marquee out front billed the no-show, instead of the Masters. So, for that night only they played two sets to about 50 people, with the marquee outside reading "The Dog That Bit People". 


Wheatley then headed home to organise the tour so that they could recharge their coffers and return to the UK as soon as possible. In spite of many difficulties, he arranged the tour, and even secured a sponsor, the Marchants soft drinks company. They returned to Australia at the end of December 1970, just as "Because I Love You" was released. It provided them with their fourth consecutive Top 20 hit, reaching #12 nationally, and it became one of the touchstone songs of the new era of Australian rock. 

The Masters began their wide-ranging Australian tour in Perth. The day they returned, Howard Gable joined them with portable four-track equipment and recorded their first show at the Nickelodeon Theatre, a former cinema which had been converted to a live music venue. They had only just stepped off the boat from England, and were tired and under-rehearsed, but the band dutifully went through their hastily-prepared set, and although they were never really satisfied with the outcome, these recordings became the live LP Nickelodeon, reputed to be only the second live rock album ever recorded in Australia. Two tracks -- the brooding "Future of Our Nation" and the non-album cut "New Day" -- were put out as a single in June. 


In their absence the Masters had been voted top group in the 1970 Go-Set Pop Poll, and both their 1970 singles had been major hits. Nevertheless, they had been away for some time, and both the band and the music scene had changed dramatically. It was slow going at first winning over audiences to the 'new' Masters, beards and all. Gradually things picked up and after a breakthrough gig at Chequers in Sydney the tour began to pick up steam. They were greatly helped by a lengthy profile in the magazine POL, written by freelance journalist Howard Lindley. He became one of the group's most ardent supporters, and later on he also started work on a film about the band. He shot several performances in the weeks before they returned to England, but sadly the project foundered when Lindley committed suicide, just before the Masters were due to return to England. Like so many of the Masters' screen appearances, only fragments of this material have survived. 


While they were still touring Australia, the group received word that EMI England liked the new album, and in February the label released "I'm Your Satisfier" as the first UK single. In April Choice Cuts was released in Australia to widespread acclaim, and it went to #11 on the album charts. They made numerous TV appearances, including a three-song live set for the ABC's GTK program which included a live-in-the-studio performance of "Future of Our Nation". In Melbourne they played a major gig at the Town Hall, supported by Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs. 


When Choice Cuts was released in the UK it was well-received  but the band were stuck back in Australia, still short of money, and they could have done little to exploit the opportunities even if they had known about them. As the tour dragged on into months, they made little headway; in fact it seemed like a return to the bad old days, and they endured several ripoffs at the hands of unscrupulous promoters. By early 1971 they had reached another low ebb. Frustrated, with hopes of returning to England all but gone and seeing no other way out, the Masters reluctantly decided to call it a day. 


Then, on the verge of splitting, a phone call came out of the blue from London. EMI's John Halsall informed them that Choice Cuts was getting great notices in the English music press, including a rave review in Melody Maker. He told them it was selling well in England and starting to make an impression in Europe -- "I'm Your Satisfier" had been released in France and had gone into the Top 10 there. Halsall urged them to return as soon as possible. This renewed their hopes, and from near disaster, everything suddenly picked up as they began to organise their return to the UK. They decided to take the boat rather than fly (to save money) so Wheatley again approached the Sitmar Line. To their delight, Sitmar offered them another complimentary trip and EMI agreed to finance another LP when they got back to London. 


They left for England on 15 May 1971, this time aboard the "Fairstar"  and accompanied by Glenn's girlfriend Alison, and Keays' wife Vicky and their baby son James. They again stopped off in Panama, and on this trip they were successful in scoring some of the potent local 'weed', which made for a far more enjoyable voyage than their first. 


Unfortunately, by the time they arrived back almost three months had passed since Halsall's phone call, and interest was waning. Resigning themselves to the inevitable, they contacted EMI and set up the recorded, slated for about three months ahead. They employed an outside PR agent, Jim Haswell, who managed to get some small reviews for them, but Wheatley was unable to find an agency that would book them, and although Doug Ford insisted on keeping up the regime of regular rehearsals, they had no live work at all. 


Then the new UK label Bronze, who had just signed Slade and Uriah Heep, made an approach to the Masters to become their third act. Although they were hesitant, being still signed to EMI, they decided to use the offer as leverage in hopes of getting a better deal out of their record company. Wheatley delivered an ultimatum to EMI Australia, demanding that they either release the Masters from their contract or match Bronze's offer of £90,000. Predictably, EMI did neither, responding with a laughable advance of $1000. Fearing legal repercussions, the band ruefully declined Bronze's offer, but Jim Keays' later opined that the best course of action would have been to "...sign with Bronze and let the lawyers work it all out later." 


Back in Australia, their Drum agency, which had been managed in their absence by roadie Adrian Barker, finally closed its doors. Following an approach by a young entrepreneur, Michael Gudinski, Drum merged with two other Melbourne agencies to create Consolidated Rock, which would become a foundation stone for Gudinksi's Mushroom Records and his Premier Artists agency. 


Returning to Abbey Rd in the autumn of 1971, the Masters were reunited with Jarratt and Bown, plus engineer (and Sgt Pepper's veteran) Richard Lush. It was recorded in Abbey Road Studio Two at the same time that John Lennon was making his epochal John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band LP in Studio One and Keays vividly recalls the thrill of peeking in while Lennon was cutting "Working Class Hero". 


The Masters' new album was titled A Toast to Panama Red, in homage to the aforementioned variety of Central American marijuana. The LP has since been lauded as one of the best Australian progressive releases of the period, but it was largely ignored at the time. According to Wheatley, one of the tracks ("Games We Play") was recorded at George Martin's Air Studios, with Martin himself conducting the children's choir which features on the second part of the track. 


Sales were possibly hindered by the lurid cover, which even Keays later admitted was not an ideal choice, being as garish as Choice Cuts was tasteful. Designed and painted by Keays, it was evidently a dig at the British, and featured a grotesque psychedelic caricature of a bulldog's head wearing a Union Jack eye patch, its ears are skewered by an arrow from which dangles a tag, emblazoned with the album's title. 


The Masters played sporadic gigs to support the album, which was well-reviewed in England, but EMI Australia did nothing to assist them. Without the necessary backing, it was clear by the end of 1971 that they were not going to achieve the success they had dreamed of. Although Keays is more positive about it, Wheatley's own account of the album sessions is that they were an unhappy experience for him. He had a bad LSD trip the night before they went into the studio and began the recording in a negative frame of mind. Tensions mounted steadily during the recording and in fact Wheatley did not play on some of the tracks, with his parts played by Doug Ford. According to Keays, Glenn had been working part-time at a management agency over the previous few months and apparently had insufficient time to rehearse because of his day job. 

Early in 1972 EMI issued the new album, and in February they lifted a single from it, the anthemic "Love Is", which had been recorded using a twelve-string acoustic specially loaned to Doug Ford  for the occasion by one of his heroes, The Shadows' Hank B. Marvin. In spite of their excellence, both LP and single sank without trace in Australia. 


Their valedictory recording was the album's closing track, the beautiful "Thyme To Rhyme". Fittingly, it was the very last track they recorded together, and it provided a delicate and poignant farewell to this legendary group. 


Without adequate support, the album flopped, so Wheatley tried to convince the rest of the band that they should break up while they were still on top. They disagreed, so he announced he was leaving to work full-time for the management agency. Keays saw the writing on the wall and not long afterwards he announced his own departure and his intention to return to Australia immediately. Ford and Burgess decided to keep going and they sent for Colin's brother Denny, who took over on bass. This final trio lineup of the Masters soldiered on for a few months, and made one recording (unreleased at the time) before finally calling it a day in mid-1972.



Now That It's Over, 1972-present

Returning to Australia, Keays did some final promotional duties for the "Love Is" single, including a TV appearance in which he performed alone, playing 12-string guitar. He then set about establishing himself as a solo artist, began writing songs, and also wrote for Go-Set magazine. In March 1973 he played the role of "The Lover" in the Australian production of the rock opera Tommy. In 1974 he compiled tracks from the band's latter career and designed the cover for the collection, entitled Now That's It's Over, to which he added liner notes written by his friend, the late Howard Lindley. To promote it EMI released "Rio De Camero" / "Thyme To Rhyme" as a single in August 1974, and the A-side garnered reasonable airplay. 


In late 1974 Keays embarked on the recording of an ambitious concept LP Boy From The Stars. He premiered the album at the final Sunbury Festival in January 1975, where his all-star backing group was joined by Glenn Wheatley, recently returned from the UK. It was to be the last time they played together in public for over ten years. Ironically, after all the ripoffs he endured in the Masters, Keays and his band were also the only group to play at Sunbury who were paid -- he had wisely arranged an outside sponsor. Because of that year's low attendance and the whopping $60,000 fee paid to headliner Deep Purple, none of the other Australian acts who appeared at the festival were ever paid. The high cost of the imported band, combined with bad weather and poor attendance, sent festival organisers Odessa Promotions into liquidation. 


Glenn Wheatley moved into a long and successful career in management, applying the lessons learned and contacts made with the Masters to managing other bands and he spent several years in England and America learning his craft. On the eve of his return to Australia at the end of 1974, he was invited to manage the reformed version of Australian harmony-rock band Mississippi. After a name change to Little River Band they set about cracking the American market and Wheatley was instrumental guiding them to their historic American commercial breakthrough in 1976-77. In the mid-1980's Wheatley oversaw the career revival his old friend John Farnham, mortgaging his own house to finance Farnham's hugely successful album Whispering Jack. Under Wheatley's guidance, Farnham staged one of the most spectacular comebacks in Australian entertainment history.


In the early '80s there was a revival of interest in The Masters Apprentices thanks to rock historian Glenn A. Baker, who produced a feature on the band for his "Rock & Roll Trivia Show" on Sydney radio station Triple J. This in turn led to the release of a definitive compilation album, Wars of Hands Of Time. 


The classic Keays-Ford-Burgess-Wheatley lineup finally reformed in August 1987 for a "Back to the 60s" special on the popular TV variety show Hey Hey It's Saturday. It marked the first time all four had played together since Glenn left the group in late 1971. They undertook a reunion tour during 1988 and released an album featuring new material and new versions of their classic songs, from which they lifted the single "Birth of the Beat". The perennial "Because I Love You" also gained new prominence around that time via its use in a series of advertisements for a well-known brand of jeans. 


The group (minus Wheatley, who only participated in the TV reunion and a few early gigs) have since undertaken occasional concerts, and in September 1995 they released a new version of "Turn Up Your Radio", recorded with Hoodoo Gurus. Wheatley, Ford and Keays subsequently reunited in Melbourne to perform 'unplugged' at the launch of Keays' book, in which he signalled his intention not to participate in any further reunions. 


In October 1998, the Masters Apprentices finally received long-overdue formal recognition for their achievements from the Australian record industry, when they were inducted (along with The Angels) into the ARIA Hall Of Fame. The same year they were also honoured in Australia Post's "Rock & Roll" series, with a stamp commemorating "Turn Up Your Radio". 


Only a month after their ARIA induction, Colin and Denny Burgess narrowly escaped death, when a car in which they were passengers was struck by a semi-trailer in inner-city Sydney as they were being driven to a party after the launch of the debut CD by their new band. Both were severely injured -- Colin suffered multiple fractures and internal injuries, was trapped in the wreck for some time and was lucky to survive. Denny also received serious injuries and had to undergo plastic surgery. Fortunately both made a full recovery and they have since been the subject of a documentary.


1999/2000 saw the long-awaited release of remastered editions of all the Masters' original albums on CD, the publication of both Keays' and Wheatley's memoirs, and the establishment of official web sites for both Keays' and The Masters (see Links), and in June 2000 ABC-TV screened an edited version of the documentary Turn Up Your Video, which was accompanied by the release of the full-length home video. 


Despite Keays' earlier announcement, the band has since reformed on a few occasions, most notably for the hugely successful "Long Way To The Top" national concert tour, which featured a host of the best Australian acts of the rock era. They also performed at the now-legendary all-star benefit concert held in aid of 70s star Ted Mulry. They also appeared at the October 9 2005 benefit concert in Melbourne in aid of former Rose Tattoo guitarist Peter Wells.



Personnel

The lineup of the group changed many times throughout the 8 years the band were together.


The original lineup, formed in Adelaide in 1965 was:


After Rick Morrison joined the band as lead guitarist and Steve Hopgood replaced Brian Vaughton the lineup became:




















External links







 





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