A brief history of The Executives
1969: A peek at the peak

The beginning of 1969 would see the band performing heavily across NSW, including the 2SM Summer Beach promotion in Sydney and the Ray-O-Vac Batteries Spectacular concert at the Trocadero, with a star-studded line-up that included The Twilights, The Groove, Johnny Farnham, The Dave Miller Set, The La De Das, Heart ‘n’ Soul, Respect and Clapham Junction.

In March, the band branched out of music and on to the stage, performing in a one act musical play adapted from an American melodrama with the somewhat unimaginative, if apt, title Melodrama Play. Melodrama Play was written by playwright (and later, actor) Sam Shepard, with music by Galt MacDermot, the man who composed the music for the hit Broadway stage production Hair. For The Executives’ version, Ray rewrote much of the score to adapt it to local conditions, retaining only the original lyrics.

An overseas tour had been in the winds as far back as August 1967, when Harry first announced that the band would be visiting New Zealand the following month. Speculation continued, until March 1969 when it was announced that Coca-Cola, impressed by the band’s 1968 jingle, had signed on to help sponsor a tour to the USA. Harry had decided on the USA as he believed the band would have greater success there. Recent history suggested that outside of a few exceptions, Aussie bands traveling the well-worn path to the Mother country did not generally do too well. Besides, the band’s sound, image and song catalogue “subliminally” pointed them to Los Angeles rather than London.

The plans were sufficiently mature for the band to follow in the footsteps of practically every Australian artist that left Aussie shores and undertake a national farewell tour. While not taking in all states, the national tour would take in four major capital cities: Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane. The band would visit Melbourne in April, followed by Perth and Adelaide in May, with Brisbane rounding out the tour in June. In between these visits, the band would return to NSW and fulfil local commitments.

The tour was a resounding success, even in Melbourne where it would be a case of third time lucky for the band. What was impressive about their reception everywhere was how broad and contrasting their set list was – not many bands were combining Beatles, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Fuzzy Bunnies, 5th Dimension and Broadway musical songs, let alone pulling it off as well as The Executives did!

One of the highlights of their tour was arguably the 17 August night performance in front of a capacity crowd at the huge Sydney Town Hall, where they played second to the headline act, Tully. By all accounts, reviews for The Executives’ performance were more glowing than they were for Tully!

Another highlight was the afternoon concert at the Sydney Stadium on 13 September. Radio station 2SM lined up the cream of Sydney talent for The Executives’ farewell concert. The bill featured The Affair, Chain, Frank Lewis, Imagination, Clik and special guests from Melbourne, The Zoot. The concert commenced at 2pm, with free entry.

On the night of 7 September, however, the band achieved what may well be their pinnacle, when they performed at the year’s biggest glitter event on Australian TV, the inaugural Night Of Stars gala, raising funds in aid of UNICEF and the Freedom from Hunger campaign. Hollywood actor Eddie Albert (Green Acres) compered the 90-minute special, which was held at Sydney’s Chevron Hotel and broadcast live nationally at 8pm through ATN7. American entertainers Tiny Tim and Dinah Shore led the all-star cast.

On Saturday, 20 September, the band departed Sydney onboard P&O Liner Oriana, bound for Los Angeles. While overseas, Festival Records released both a single and an album.

‘Parenthesis’ b/w ‘Got My Woman’, the band’s seventh single, was released on 22 September, some nine months after their previous single. The single marked the return of Pat as producer, having been asked by Harry in early July to produce the band’s next disc, suggesting that all had been forgiven over their earlier disagreement.

‘Parenthesis’ was written by Jimmy Webb. Pat selected ‘Parenthesis’ after listening to some four hours of original Jimmy Webb tapes. With Webb’s cutting lyric, aching tune and Brian’s haunting organ, Pat and the band thought the recording had all the elements to ensure that it wouldn’t live up to its name and languish in brackets.

‘Got My Woman’ was written by Ray and produced by Pat. Sung by Gino, ‘Got My Woman’ is a bluesy/country song about a guy who’s down and out, but with his woman, is at peace. Brian’s well placed keyboard flourishes add texture to an otherwise stripped down arrangement by Executives’ standards. With its laidback beat, it was a catchy number, perhaps even more commercial than ‘Parenthesis’.

It is perhaps no surprise that the single failed to chart. Given the song’s subject, its appeal would have been limited to those within the industry, rather than the general public.

About six weeks after the release of the single, in early November, Festival Records released the band’s second album, titled On “Bandstand”. On “Bandstand” mopped up the single tracks ‘Christopher Robin’, ‘Windy Day’ and, perplexingly, given its inclusion on the band’s debut album, ‘It’s A Happening World’.

The remaining six tracks were a selection from those performed during the previous year on Brian Henderson’s Bandstand, including ‘Hey Jude’, ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’, ‘Cinderella Rockefella’, ‘Requiem: 820 Latham’ and two medleys.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles since early October, things were going well for The Executives. They hit the local recording studios and it wasn’t long before they were signed to a five year recording contract with American record company mogul Artie Ripp. The contract required the band to change their name and record enough tracks for an album release. Artie came up with the new band name Inner Sense. They spent the rest of their time in Los Angeles arranging and recording tracks for the new album, under their new management team of (Ron) DeBlasio, (Jeff) Wald and (Frank) Day.

The band returned to Australia in December to fulfil a number of local commitments and make final arrangements to return to the USA in early 1970.

Summarised extracts from the book "The Executives: Their Aim Was To Please You" (P)(C) 2015 Jaesen Jones. Buy the book for the full story!

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