Search - Billy Thorpe :: Solo: the Last Recordings

Welcome to billy thorpe's last recorded performance. To call it bittersweet is an understatement. Honest, intimate, exhilarating, poignant, funny as hell; looking back, forward and sideways, it's 110 minutes of pure revelation. For billy, this one-of solo show at the basement in sydney on saturday, december 16, 2006, distilled his belated realisation that "playing old songs on an acoustic guitar" could capture the essence of his life's work - as well as providing a hushed reception for stunning, previously unheard material. For his incredibly fortunate audience - and that now includes us - it's a timely insight, through story and song, into one of the most gifted, committed and remarkable performers to stride through this half century of rock 'n' roll. When billy was finally convinced to record for the liberation blue acoustic series, he wrote to them , saying "this will mark my first australian solo release in 30 years and my first ever acoustic recording. It's important for many reasons that it's not good but great" and that was billy to a t. What emerges first is his enduring love of '50s rock 'n' roll. Gene vincent, eddie cochran, elvis presley, ray charles and jerry lee lewis are mashed into one electrifying boogie-woogie medley. There's the aztecs' #1 of '64, 'poison ivy', and classic flashbacks in 'be-bop-a-lula' and 'oop poo pa doo'. From 'stand by me' circa '65 to his signature version of 'somewhere over the rainbow', his uniquely skewed standards are seamlessly matched by some of thorpie's own, iconic compositions: the '69 stomp of 'rock me baby', the raucous rip of 'most people i know think that i'm crazy', the breezy lilt of almost summer. Then there are the surprises: loans from joni mitchell and the masters apprentices; a glimpse of his moroccan recording project under construction, 'tangier', and a lost demo that positively chills, titled 'girls of summer'. This is arguably the most anticipated australian album release of 2007.