Max Merritt And The Meteors "A little easier" 1975

...The new line-up based themselves in Melbourne but just weeks after the shift south, on June 24, 1967, the band was involved in a head-on collision. All but Yuk received serious injuries – Max lost his right eye, Bertles and Speer both received badly broken legs, among other injuries. It would be 1968 before Max Merritt and The Meteors returned to the stage. But when they did, their fortunes changed…

...After their medical ordeals, it was perhaps little wonder that the group earned a reputation as a bunch of outlaws. They took to wearing leather, denim and T-shirts, swizzled alcohol on-stage and didn’t mind their language.
And they looked ... odd. Merritt kept his hair close-cropped at a time when long hair was a mission statement; Speer, a giant of a man, prematurely grey, looking even older than his 40 years; Bertles looked and sounded like what he was – a jazz hipster; and Yuk Harrison looked just like what he was – trouble.
In 1968 the “musicians’ band” started attracting sell-out crowds and by the end of the year they were reputedly Australia’s highest-paid band. They certainly had the largest repertoire; again reputedly, they could call on 200 songs at any given time, mostly covers but with an increasing number of originals.
Max Merritt was now Australia’s undisputed King of Soul and in December 1969 RCA released ‘Hey, Western Union Man’, providing Merritt with his biggest hit to date (No.13 on the Australian national charts). In April 1970 came Max Merritt & the Meteors, widely hailed as one of Australia’s watershed albums. It reached No.5 on the Australian album charts.
Unfortunately, by that stage the line-up stability had ended when Yuk was sacked following a drunken set at the Pilgrimage For Pop, Australia’s first Woodstock-type festival. Just days later ex-Invader Dave Russell phoned Max from Auckland, enquiring whether he knew of anyone needing a guitarist – “No, but we need a bass player ... ” - to be continued - audioculture...

trax:
1. King Size Rosewood Bed 2. Mr. Horizontal 3. Wrong Turn 4. Coming Back 5. A Little Easier 6. Find A Home 7. Long Time Gone 8. Slipping Away
…served by Gaius…