Greg Quill

Gregory Raymond Quill (18 April 19475 May 2013) was an Australian-born musician, singer-songwriter and journalist. He lived in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and was an entertainment columnist at the Toronto Star newspaper from the mid-1980s until his death in May 2013. In Australia he came to popular fame as a singer-songwriter for the country rock band Country Radio (1970–73). Their biggest hit, "Gypsy Queen", co-written by Quill with bandmate Kerryn Tolhurst, was released in August 1972 and peaked at No. 12 on the Go-Set National Top 40. After getting an arts grant, Quill travelled to Toronto in 1974 and by the mid-1980s had become a journalist with the Toronto Star. By 1983 he was married to Ellen Davidson, a public relations executive. Greg Quill died on 5 May 2013, at the age of 66, from "complications due to pneumonia".

Biography

Early life Gregory Raymond Quill was born on 18 April 1947 to Raymond and Doris Quill (née Markham). He grew up in Sydney with a younger brother, Christopher. From the age of about 15 years he learned how to play acoustic guitar and his first public performance was in his final year of high school. Quill began his musical career in the 1960s as a solo performer on the Sydney folk scene In 2002 Quill recalled that editing Go-Set had prepared him for his later work in journalism. In 1999 he described the venue "[it] was a sort of folk co-operative, and everybody who performed on a particular evening got to share in the door takings – it was never more than a couple of bucks". Gus McNeil, a music publisher, record producer and former singer and saxophonist for 1960s rock band, Gus & The Nomads, signed Quill to a publishing deal with his company, Cellar Music. McNeil produced Quill's first commercial recording, the single, "Fleetwood Plain", and the subsequent album of the same name.

For the album Quill was backed by Orlando Agostino on guitars, Chris Blanchflower on harmonica, John Walsh on bass guitar, and members of local rock band Pirana: Jim Duke-Yonge on drums, Tony Hamilton on guitar, Graeme Thompson on bass guitar and Stan White on keyboards. "Fleetwood Plain" was subsequently covered by Australian country musician, Reg Lindsay, and by Canadian folk-rockers Creamcheeze Good Time Band on their 1973 album, Home Cookin'''.

Country Radio band To promote Fleetwood Plain Greg Quill formed the original line-up of Country Radio (also seen as Greg Quill's Country Radio or Greg Quill and Country Radio) in June 1970. The group started as an acoustic act but from 1970 to 1971 its musical style evolved into electric country rock, a style then gaining popularity through the influence of albums like The Band's Music from Big Pink (1968), The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968), and Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline (1969). and featured a string arrangement by session musician, Peter Jones (who later worked on Quill's solo album, The Outlaw's Reply). "Gypsy Queen" shared the APRA (Australasian Performing Right Association) Song of the Year award with Mississippi's "Kings of the World". It was featured on the soundtrack of director Rod Hardy's 2007 film, December Boys, starring Daniel Radcliffe, and in the 2009 ABC-TV series, East of Everything.

The chart success of the single and the interest of expatriate Canadian music promoter and label representative, Michael McMartin, led to a contract with Toronto-based MUCH Productions, which issued "Gypsy Queen" in Canada in 1972. At the end of that year they toured Canada to promote its release. On 4 October 1972 the group had recorded a live-in-the-studio performance before an invited audience, which Infinity released as their debut album, Country Radio Live, in December.

The band made several live TV recordings for the ABC-TV in-studio concert and interview series, GTK; including "Just Goodbye" (May 1971), "Last Time Around" (June), "Empty Pockets" (June), "Almost Freedom" (June), "Silver Spurs" (February 1972), "Commisar" (March), "Some Lonesome Picker" (April, May), "Listen to the Children" (October), "Fleetwood Plain" (November), "Gypsy Queen" (November), "Winter Song" (November), "I Need a Woman" and an interview on their break-up (April 1973). They appeared on concert and festival stages with different artists of the era, including Creedence Clearwater Revival, Elton John, Santana and Stephen Stills. They performed at the Rock Isle Mulwala Festival in 1972 and the Sunbury Pop Festivals in January 1972 and again the following year. Their live performance of "Silver Spurs" – written by Quill Soon after, both Bird and Blanchflower also left Country Radio. Soon after, Johnson left Country Radio for medical reasons and returned to Adelaide.

Guitarists Les Stacpool and Russ Hinton (ex-Moonstone) alternated on lead guitar after Johnson's departure. Graffiti (1982–83),

Musical career resumed In September 1999, an impromptu reunion in Melbourne with former bandmates Tolhurst and Stockley led to Quill's returning to performing music. Over the next two years, with Quill in Toronto and Tolhurst in New York, the pair maintained contact and resumed songwriting. They formed a duo, Quill-Tolhurst and in early 2003 issued an album, So Rudely Interrupted, in Canada on the True North Records label.

They promoted its release with a concert in October that year at C'est What? in Toronto, performing with a full band including Garth Hudson (ex The Band) on keyboards, accordion and piano. Excerpts from the show were aired nationally on Bravo! Canada's Arts & Minds and on CP24. The duo made a short Australian tour, for their first public performances there since 1973, appearing at several festivals, including the Port Fairy Folk Festival and the Brunswick Music Festival in Melbourne. Their concerts in Sydney reunited Quill with friends from his folk days at The Shack. At the final gig of the tour, at the Bridge Hotel, Sydney, Quill and Tolhurst were joined on stage by Country Radio bandmate Blanchflower.

Death and legacy Greg Quill died on 5 May 2013 at his home in Hamilton. His family announced that he had "passed away suddenly but peacefully this afternoon from complications due to pneumonia and a recently diagnosed case of sleep apnea". Aged 66, he was still an entertainment journalist for the Toronto Star at the time of his death. He was survived by his wife, Ellen Davidson, their daughter Kaya, a grandson, and his two stepdaughters. length8 = 5:20 title9 = Observations from a Second Storey Window length9 = 5:03

Gypsy Queen: Greg Quill and Country Radio (compilation album, Festival/Infinity/Harlequin 1974 L 25113) Personnel: Tracks 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9: Greg Quill – vocals, acoustic guitar; John A. Bird – piano, Hammond B3, harmony vocals; Chris Blanchflower – harmonica, harmony vocals; Tony Bolton – drums, harmony vocals; John Du Bois – bass guitar, harmony vocals; Kerryn Tolhurst – lap steel, dobro, mandolin, electric guitar, harmony vocals. Track 2: Quill – vocals, electric and acoustic guitars; Bolton – drums, harmony vocals; Du Bois – bass guitar, harmony vocals; Russell Johnson – electric guitar, harmony vocals. Tracks 3 and 8: Quill – vocals, electric and acoustic guitars; Bolton – drums, harmony vocals; Du Bois – bass guitar, harmony vocals; Les Stacpool – electric guitar, harmony vocals. Additional personnel: Peter Jones – string arrangement (track 1, 7); cor anglais (track 7); piano, Hammond organ, vibraphone, celeste, conga drums (track 8). Renée Geyer – harmony vocals (track 8).

The Outlaw's Reply: Greg Quill (studio album, Festival/Infinity 1975, L-35,472) Personnel: Greg Quill – vocals, acoustic guitar; Chris Blanchflower – harmonica; Tony Bolton – drums; John Du Bois – bass guitar; Russell Hinton – acoustic and electric guitars; Peter Jones, keyboards, string arrangements; Barry Leef, harmony vocals, harmony arrangements; Kerryn Tolhurst – lap steel, mandolin, dobro, acoustic and electric guitars; Peter Walker – electric guitar, clavier; Terry Walker – pedal steel. Production work: John Sayers – producer; Charles Fisher – executive producer; recorded at Trafalgar Studios Sydney, November 1974February 1975

Singles

Greg Quill and Country Radio "Fleetwood Plain" (Quill/Cellar Music) b/w "Song To David" (Quill/Cellar Music) Columbia 1970 "Listen to the Children" (Quill/Cellar Music) b/w "Last Time Around" (Quill/Cellar Music) Festival/Infinity 1971

Country Radio "Gypsy Queen" (Quill-Tolhurst/Cellar Music) b/w "Radio Rag" (Tolhurst/Cellar Music) Festival/Infinity 1972, Sweet Plum Records (Canada) 1973 "Wintersong" (Quill-Tolhurst-Bois/Cellar Music) b/w "Observations From A Second Storey Window" (Quill/Cellar Music) Festival/Infinity 1972 "Bound For South Australia" (Traditional/Arrangement Quill-Bolton-Bois-Stacpool/Cellar Music) b/w "I Need Women" (Quill/Cellar Music) Festival/Infinity 1973

Greg Quill "She Do It to Me" (Quill/Cellar Music) b/w "Terry's Tune" (Quill/Cellar Music) Festival/Infinity 1975 "Blackmail" (Quill/Cellar Music) b/w "The Outlaw's Reply" (Quill/Cellar Music) Festival/Infinity 1975 "Been So Long" (Quill/Kelly Songs) b/w I "Wonder Why" (Quill/Kelly Songs) Elektra (Canada) 1979

Greg Quill and Southern Cross "Been So Long" (Quill/Cellar Music) b/w "I Wonder Why" (Quill/Cellar Music) WEA 1978 (Australia)

Other recordings

Country Radio: "Silver Spurs" (Quill/Cellar Music), The Great Australian Rock Festival Sunbury (Mushroom 1973)

Recordings by others

"Gypsy Queen" The Glaser Brothers, MGM Records, USA, 1974 (single) Joe Camilleri, Earth Music, Independent, Australia, 1997 Adam Harvey, Sugar Talk, Warner Music, Australia, 1999 "Almost Freedom" Company Caine, The Band's Alright But The Singer Is..., Reprise RS 4001, Australia, 1973 "Fleetwood Plain" Reg Lindsay, Festival Records, 1971 Creamcheeze Good Time Band, Home Cookin''', Dominion/MCA, 1973