Every hero
has a hero.
Fossick a
little way
behind your
favourite
song and
you'll
invariably
find
another.
That's how
any serious
music fan
forges their
trail of
discovery,
by tracing
from one
spark of
inspiration
to its
predecessor,
down through
generations
of singers,
songs and
players.
This special
Liberation
Blue
collectors'
edition is a
roadmap
through rock
'n' roll
history –
and
associated
byways – as
a formidable
line-up of
Australian
household
names
present some
of the songs
that have
helped to
define them
and inspire
them.
Disc one
spans from
the Master's
Apprentices'
heavy
psychedelia
of '68
through the
twitchy '70s
soul of the
Sports; the
splintered
'80s radio
landscape of
the
Choirboys,
the Mentals,
the Models
and the
Saints to
the '90s pop
of Taxiride,
Christine
Anu and
Diesel.
Disc two is
another
level of
revelation.
On one hand
there's
expressed
simpatico
between
contemporaries:
James Reyne
covers Paul
Kelly, Mick
Thomas -
Australian
Crawl, the
Church
re-visit the
Triffids,
Dragon - U2,
Jenny Morris
- INXS, Nick
Barker - Van
Halen, Vika
& Linda Bull
interpret
Stephen
Cummings.
Then the
roots run
deeper, as
the Black
Sorrows pay
homage to
Van
Morrison,
Jon Stevens
to John
Lennon,
Michael
Spiby to the
brothers
Gibb, Ian
Moss to
Creedence
and Mark
Seymour to a
sentiment as
old as the
first fleet.
Through
every twist,
Liberation
Blue's fast,
loose and
acoustic
guidelines
give each
song the
immediacy of
a fresh
thought.
That said,
you could do
far worse
than flick
through any
of these
artists'
back pages.
