However the band was to suffer a significant change in sound.  With the immediate  prospect of turning full time looming, organist Stephen Sadler had a sudden change of heart.  As a result the band were forced to cope with his sudden departure just two weeks before they gave up their day jobs and went full time in March 1969. The lineup was now to remain a four piece one permanently. The sudden loss of the bands organist left a large hole in the bands sound as it left them trying to play organ based Vanilla Fudge and Traffic material with only lead guitar, bass & drums.  This was a combination that worked only sometimes.  They also had to drop their Australian cover repertoire now they were in the city as, with their new found popularity, they were often playing alongside those very bands whose songs they had previously covered.  This forced the band to concentrate on commercial Top 40 songs as well as doing a lot of Beatles material. Then again the guitar-bass- drums only instrumentation allowed them to get into Jimi Hendrix's "Stone Free" and " Hey Joe", the former a particular showpiece for Lyle. Fortunately too, they had strong harmonies with all three front line members harmonizing and Lyle doing many lead vocals in the rockier songs. 

As Neil Porter put it, the band "did a lot very quickly".  They were soon appearing on all the TV music shows of the time and all the big concerts put on by the top pop music radio stations 2UW & 2SM, as well as playing at all the big (and small) dances on Sydney’s large teenage dance circuit. The band competed successfully in the "New Sounds of '69", a contest organized by Martin Erdman of Du Monde records, and held in conjunction with Sydney radio station 2UW.  Martin Erdman, who ran the World of Sound recording studio, conceived the idea of a band contest to find new, unsigned bands for his new label.  Over 100 bands who entered were recorded at his studio over a 10 week period and the 26 best recordings were then played on radio. Imagination, with Martin Erdman "producing", put down seven tracks, leaving a snapshot of their musical style in this period. These songs were "Savoy Truffle" (Beatles), "Words" (Bee Gees), "Dear Prudence" (Beatles), a raging, "Shake" (Sam Cooke/Otis Redding), a funkey version of "Linda Sue Dixon" (Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels) and a much more simpler, garage-rock version of their own song, "The Way I Like It" (later re-arranged and recorded as the B-Side their first single). "The Way I Like It" in this form is surely one of the great undiscovered pieces of 60's garage band rock.

Imagination were one of the winning 26 bands in this contest who then played live before an 8000 strong crowd in an all-day major concert in July 1969 at the Sydney Showground.  However in the meantime the band had done the 2UW Holiday Happening concerts in May at the 2UW/Alberts Hall in Sydney. These really established them and they were immediately thereafter contracted by Alberts to record. Overall, according to Neil Porter, this would had to have been THE gig of the Imagination’s career with 10 concert appearances, morning and night for a week. The product of the recording deal was two 45 rpm singles, the first single, the Bob Dylan song "Tonight I'll be staying here with you" b/w a different version of their own song, "The way I like it"  (Parlophone Cat# A8860) was released in Aug 69.

Both singles, plus an unreleased tracks of another Bob Dylan song, "To be Alone with You" (5 songs in all) were recorded at Visound (later to be known as United Sound) Studios, which was on the top floor of an office building in Sydney’s Haymarket area. At that time Visound was one of only two 8-track studios in Australia, the other being in Melbourne. Production was by Ted Albert and AR manager Tony Geary for Parlophone. The band felt pretty good about coming out on the same label as the Beatles and the Easybeats, even though they were quite unhappy with the products. One notable feature of the A side was the beautiful lead guitar sound which Lyle Maclean really worked hard on using a pedal steel guitar (an instrument he had never played before) which was borrowed from Palings music store for the occasion.  His normal electric guitar that was used on the tracks was a Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman. 

This year also saw the band compete once again, but now as Imagination, in the Hoadleys Battle of the Sounds and as a city band, where the competition was hotter. They made 4^th in the NSW State Grand Final. (Winners being Aesops Fables (1^st) and the legendary Chain (2^nd).

"Tonight I'll be staying here with you" received a lot of airplay in Sydney and it, and its follow-up, were both Hit-Picks of 2UW DJ's, Donnie Sutherland and Baby John Burgess. The daily Top 30 phone-ins run by Ward Austin did pretty well for us. The single was also promoted by full page ads in Go Set. The band had a lot of school-age fans who saw them to number 2 in the hit picks at one stage. Notwithstanding this the record did not do as well in Sydney as expected. The single did however nationally reach No 88 on the Go-Set Top 100 and charted at about No 23 in Brisbane and other main Queensland towns.

The band had by then became staples on the then big Sydney teenage dance circuit such as Absolute Sounds Mona Vale Hall dance, Hornsby Police Boys Club and numerous Youth club and High School dances as well as Adams Apple Disco in Sydneys Oxford Street. Elsewhere the band worked the NSW country towns e.g. Coonabarabran, Gunnedah, Bourke, and all over! Being full-time, the band managed to get Gigs on 3-4 nights most weeks with a residency Sunday nights at "Moby Dick", on the top floor at Whale Beach Surf Club on Sydney’s north side.This residency was to last two ot three years and, although not paying well, allowed them to try out new material and let their hair down doing songs such as "Here Comes The Sun", "Revolution" (on which Lyle finger-picked the intro and first verse), "Hey Jude", and "Back in the USSR"  before a large loyal band of followers.

In August 1969 the band toured the Northern Territory, being given the full pop star treatment, with screaming girls at a concert alongside Ronnie Burns and Jeannie Lewis in Darwin. However it seems, according to Go-Set, that the Darwin promoters idea of band amplification was 15 watt amps. This necessitated the hasty delivery of 6 more sets of amps and speakers for the concert and resulted in equipment falling on Lyle Macleans head in mid-performance ! Go-Set magazine, however, seemed more impressed with the social doings of the entourage around the local motel pool !   Returning to Sydney they accepted an invitation to support, and back, singer Jeannie Lewis for a stint at the Whiskey Disco in Kings Cross (with fill-in bass player).  

Their second single, a cover of the Beatles song "A Day in the Life" b/w an original, "We got fun" - (Parlophone Cat #A8951) was released in Nov 69.  As part of the promotion for this single they announced that all proceeds from it would be given to the Surf Lifesaving Association. Notwithstanding this their second single failed to chart as the first one did.  The band were not happy with releasing covers as the A sides of their singles. They wanted to release originals such as the beautiful Lyle Maclean song, the Crosby,Still and Nash influenced, "Elanora" (it has a nice tasteful, jazz-tinged guitar solo). Notwithstanding the precedent already set by The Easybeats, in 1969 in Australia, originals were still not accepted. The band managed to displease their record producers by saying so publicly in a major promotional article for the second single published in Go-Set magazine.

In Dec 1969 the band toured Queensland (Brisbane, Toowoomba, The Gold Coast) for 10 days on the strength of the success of their single there and were again treated to the full pop star reception by being mobbed on stage by screaming teenagers at their concerts. In early 1970 they performed live on ATN-7 TV's Rex Mossop's Club Show doing a version of "Hair" and "Elanora", the latter with Lyle Maclean on lead vocal. They also appeared in the last shows held at Sydney's famous Tivoli  and at the legendary Sydney Stadium, the latter supporting The Executives at their last gig. 

However while the screams and adulation were still exciting to the band, off-stage things were not going so well.  In late Nov 1969 Donnie Sutherland  had run an article in Go Set magazine headed "Will Imagination break-up?". The band denied this rumor however by March 1970 the rumors had came true and the band broke up after 8 years of existence.  A short lived re-formed lineup only lasted briefly. 

The band are still in contact however after all these years and got together for Geoff Fosters birthday party in 1987. Since then Neil Porter played in club bands into the 70s and has since performed on, and assisted in, production and engineering with several Christian music albums and produced an album of worship music for the Lighthouse Christian Centre in 1993.  Danny Coutts has lived for a long time on the island of of St Helena in the Atlantic Ocean. Bobby Kerr still performs in a duo around the south coast of NSW. Alex Stefanovic is the father of well known Australian TV Network 9 News presenters Karl Stefanovic & Peter Stefanovic.

Discography

45 Singles

"Tonight I'll be Staying Here With You" /"The Way I Like It"  (Parlophone Cat# A8860)- Aug 69. 

"A Day in the Life" / "We Got fun" - (Parlophone Cat #A8951) - Nov 69.

CD

“A Forest of Gold Tops” Compilation CD  - “We Got Fun” - Australia  (no label or release details on the CD).

Read About the Song "Tonight I'll be Staying Here With You" at Lyn Nuttall's Web Site "Where Did They Get That Song ?"

Home

Written by Terry Stacey 2001, 2005. Photos by courtesy of Geoff Foster.

Contact: letsrock@pnc.com.au

If you enjoy reading about band's of the 1970's go to the Author's band Wildwood by clicking on the following hyperlink:  WILDWOOD

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