Linda George - 1974 - Linda FLAC

Hard To Be Friends/Indian Summer/The Singer/Mama's Little Girl/You And Me Against The World/How Many Days/Give It Love/Memphis Nights/Love Me/Between Her Goodbye And My Hello


Linda George was born in 1951 in the United Kingdom and emigrated with her family to Australia in 1964 where they settled in Adelaide, South Australia in the Satellite migrant town of Elizabeth. By 1968, George had already worked professionally as a duo and moved to Melbourne to find more musical experiences. George had joined her first band Nova Express, a jazz fusion group similar in repertoire to United States acts Chicago and Blood Sweat and Tears in 1973.

Linda George signed with independent label, Image Records, and released her first solo single "Let's Fly Away" in May In March 1973, she took the role of Acid Queen in the Australian stage production of The Who's rock opera Tommy. Her fellow cast included Daryl Braithwaite, Colleen Hewett, Billy Thorpe, Ross Wilson, Jim Keays, Doug Parkinson, Broderick Smith, Wendy Saddington, Bobby Bright and The Who's own Keith Moon (as Uncle Ernie for the Melbourne show only). It was later televised by the Seven Network and received a TV award for the year's most outstanding creative effort. For the Sydney show, Australian music commentator Ian "Molly" Meldrum replaced Moon. George won the TV Week King of Pop award for "Best New Female Artist" (1973).

The raised exposure helped promote her second single in July, her cover version of the Gladys Knight & the Pips US hit "Neither One of Us", arranged by the Australian music writer and pianist Peter Jones, which peaked at No. 12 on Go-Set's National Top 40 singles chart. George's follow up single, a remake of Ruby and the Romantics 1963 hit "Our Day Will Come" with a co-production between Peter Jones music arranger and Image records., reached the Top 40 in February 1974.

Her debut LP album, Linda, appeared in August on Image Records. Session musicians were used and US record producer Jack Richardson (Alice Cooper, The Guess Who, Poco and Bob Seger) was brought to Australia by label boss, John McDonald, The first single from Linda was her biggest hit and became her signature song, "Mama's Little Girl" (previously by Dusty Springfield), which went to No. 8 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart. The second single, "Give It Love", did not reach the top 40. Linda peaked at No. 32 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart and stayed in the top 100 for five months. George won awards for "Best Female Vocalist" and "Best Female Single".

 She appeared both in the 1973 and at the 1975 Sunbury Pop Festival in January. Richardson also produced her second album, Step by Step, which was released in December. It featured a tougher rock sound compared to the previous album's soul and pop sound. After the first album Linda she parted ways with her management company. To promote it she formed the Linda George Band which performed throughout 1976 to positive reviews. The album's first single "Shoo Be Doo Be Doo Dah Day" charted reasonably well in former hometown Adelaide, but public reaction in the rest of Australia was lukewarm. The album peaked in the Top 40. A third single, the title track, was released in May 1976 but failed to make the charts. George then released a non-album single "Sitting in Limbo" in November 1978, a cover of the Jimmy Cliff song, it also did not chart. George left Image to continue working as a session singer and raise her children. Throughout this time George continued to be in demand for live television performances throughout Australia, and occasional solo performance shows. Peter Faiman produced an iconic segment with George in the "Paul Hogan" show and she featured regularly on the 'Naked Vicar show', and Don Lane and Bert Newton shows.