Graham Reid | | 1 min read
My Girl (1964)
Archivist and Frenzy Record's Grant Gillanders draws attention to the older man standing behind the band, photographed in the early Sixties.
“That's Max Merritt's father,” he says.
And that's because this Christchurch band around guitarist Johnny Campbell played at Max's famous Teenagers Club which was managed by his parents.
This stacked collection – 30 songs recorded between 1963 and 2019 – runs like a non-chronological survey of the many styles of (mostly) guitar-driven instrumentals and pop.
So here are early Sixties surf guitar (Murphy the Surfie with appropriate water and seagull sounds), Chuck Berry classics (Carol, Memphis), Beatle-era songs (a somewhat tame You Really Got Me, I Saw Her Standing There, Glad All Over and You Really Got Me with singers Campbell or Larry McKay), guitar instrumental classics (the themes from Peter Gunn with Jim Phillips on sax, Shane and The Deerhunter), the always delightful Sleep Walk, Walk Don't Run and the Shadows' Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt and Apache.
Campbell contributes some originals – the fine Beat-era My Girl, the co-write on Walk With Me with McKay in '65 and Tandem Slide from 2017 – and Clapton's Wonderful Tonight, the Everly's Wake Up Little Suzie, Jimmy Reed's Baby What's Wrong and South of the Border.
It's a diverse collection from a band which was enormously popular around Christchurch, toured with the Rolling Stones and Roy Orbison in '65 and broke up the following year.
But in '97 they held a reunion (four songs here recorded on the night) and after that there were home recordings by Campbell and some live recordings at various events.
There's a footnote in the informative liner notes (with relevant photos) which reads simply “we hope that you have enjoyed this nostalgic journey – with Detours”.
It's an 80 minute ride of detours through time.
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You can find out more about Johnny Campbell at his website here.
For more on Frenzy's extensive catalogue see their Facebook page
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