For three months I had been answering the phones at AMBO, the Australian Management and Booking Organisation, when the phone rang one day and a voice asked, "yes, I wonder if you could help me, I'm trying to get in touch with Beeb Birtles?". I replied, "you're speaking to him". The caller was Graeham Goble. Graeham, Russ Johnson and John Mower had been in an Adelaide group called Alison Gros. They came to the attention of Ron Tudor, owner of the Fable label in Melbourne, and recorded a chipmunks version of the song "Daddy Cool", a national hit for them, under the fictitious name of Drummond. Due to the success of "Daddy Cool", the three guys recorded an album of original songs for Fable. Ron Tudor and Brian Cadd had started an offshoot label called Bootleg Records, which they were trying to build as a boutique label.

Graeham Goble

Once the album was completed, Ron suggested to Goble, Johnson and Mower that they change their name to Mississippi, which became their self titled album released on the Bootleg label in 1971. They scored a top ten hit with "Kings of the World" written by Goble and decided they needed to tour to promote the album, which was Graeham's reason for getting in touch with me. He invited me over to the label's offices to hear their album. I remember sitting there listening and being completely blown away by what I heard. All I could think was, "I've got to be a part of this". Graeham assumed I was still playing bass-- which I had been, up to the end of my days with Zoot--but I had switched to playing six string guitar for Frieze, the duo I was in with Darryl Cotton, the lead singer of Zoot. That didn't deter me, however, and I went out and bought myself a Fender bass. They wanted to rehearse a few songs with me to see how I would fit in. Well, I wasn't really cutting it on bass anymore and so I told them that I had been playing acoustic and electric guitar and that I had started writing songs.

Sunbury Music Festival, 1974.

Graeham suggested we should sing some harmonies together just to see how my voice would blend in with theirs. I got the feeling that Russ and John didn't see the need for another voice in the group and that they weren't too keen on me joining them. However, when Graeham heard my voice blending with theirs, I think he almost immediately made up his mind that I was to be a permanent member of Mississippi. That didn't sit too well with the other guys and when they objected, Graeham gave them an ultimatum. Either Beeb was in the group or he would leave them to go with me! Wow, I was very impressed to say the least and to this day I don't know whether I have ever asked Graeham what convinced him that I was the right guy for the band. But there I was, an official member of Mississippi! From there we recruited Derek Pellicci on drums as the next mainstay of the band for many years to come. Mississippi went through many line-up changes but always retaining the core of Graeham, Derek and myself. Colin Deluca played bass for quite some time. Harvey James joined on lead guitar. Andre Santos was on bass for a while as was Charlie Tumahai.

Beeb Birtles

Mississippi was an extremely hard working band playing in pubs and rock venues all across Australia. Looking back I firmly believe that the Mississippi years were my true "apprenticeship years", making me a better guitar player, a better singer and songwriter as if almost preparing us for what was yet to come as Little River Band. Between the years 1972 and 1975 we worked consistently to try and make the big time, but never quite got there. The band never received the opportunity to record another complete album for the Bootleg label, but did record two more singles. The first one was "Early Morning" which was written by Graeham Goble, Russ Johnson and me. The second single was "Will I" which was a live favorite with our fans. I had written the song with Darryl Cotton shortly after the demise of Zoot. The B side of "Will I" was the first co-written song between Graham and myself, "Where In The World", on which I shared the vocals with Charlie Tumahai. It's still one of my favourites to this day.

"Will I" was released on the eve of the band's departure for England. Disappointed with support from radio and our label, Bootleg, we had decided to try our luck in England, and Barry Earl, our manager at that time, had secured passage over to England by booking the band to be the on board entertainment for the six week voyage. We boarded the ship in April 1974 sailing via Tahiti through the Panama Canal and on to Europe. I think we had something like $10,000 total saved up to live on for our new life in England.

Me playing my Levin acoustic, on which I wrote many of my early songs. Graeham Goble is in the background, playing his Gibson Dove.

Our management booked us to play the absolute worst disco gigs in and around London and it wasn't too long before we all knew the writing was on the wall. Mississippi fell apart in a matter of months. Luckily, Graeham and I had prepaid our rent for six months on a house in Worcester Park in South East London. Graeham and Narelle, his wife at the time, took off for Europe as they had never had a honeymoon after getting married. I got a job at Decca Records packing long play records in boxes. Somehow I had to save up my airfare to get back home. Derek got a job working in a shoe store selling high platform boots like the kind Elton John used to wear back in those days.

Even though the band had split up, Graham, Derek and I had decided to stick together and reform the group. It was at one of our meetings when we were discussing as to why Mississippi wasn't the success we thought it should have been that we decided it was because we lacked a strong front man--someone who could be the spokesperson between the band and the audience. So who could we get? Who was the best person we could think of? I told them the best guy in my opinion was Glenn Shorrock, who happened to be somewhere in London at the time.

The Story of the Two Glenns

Before joining Mississippi, which became Little River Band, Glenn Shorrock was the lead singer of the popular Australian group, Axiom. (Thanks to Rich Dudas for providing the digital image.)

Glenn Shorrock had stayed in London after the breakup of Axiom, another very popular Australian recording group and he had also been a member of the highly experimental European band Esperanto. At the time we contacted him, he was singing background vocals for people like Cliff Richard and Olivia Newton-John. We asked him what his plans were and he told us he had been in London for 5 years banging his head against a brick wall, not really getting anywhere and had made the decision to head back to Australia. He agreed to meet with us and before he left our house, we sat down with him and sang some harmonies just with a couple of acoustic guitars. Needless to say, we could all hear that the vocal blend was absolutely magic and that Glenn liked our original songs.

I tracked down Glenn Wheatley, and we talked about whether or not we should stay in England or go back to Australia. After the break up of The Masters Apprentices, Glenn had gone to work for David Joseph, who was managing The New Seekers. He told us that he had been living in Los Angeles running the American office for David Joseph's management company but that he and his wife, Alison, were on their way back to Australia because of his father's ill health. They were taking the long trek home through the Middle East down through India and on to New Zealand and Australia. We spoke to him about our plans to reform the band and whether or not he would be interested in managing us. His plans were to go back to Australia and find a band to manage and to try and take them to the top. This all happened in the latter part of 1974 in London, England. Our loose arrangement was to meet back in Melbourne sometime in early 1975 whenever everybody could make it back there in their own time. This is how the nucleus of Mississippi came back together.

Once I had saved up enough money for my airfare back home and the six months' rent on the house in Worcester Park had expired, I took a hovercraft across the North Sea to Holland to visit my relatives in Amsterdam, whom I had not seen since the day my parents migrated to Australia. Back in London, in January 1975, I flew back to Melbourne and made contact with the other guys. We started auditioning guitar players and bass players within weeks of us arriving back home. The band's first line-up was completed with the addition of Rick Formosa on lead guitar and Roger McLachlan on bass. Rick's family had migrated from Canada to Australia and Roger, a New Zealander, had been playing bass with the Australian cast of Godspell. For some months we played our early gigs under the name Mississippi because it had been a known entity. Soon, the name was changed to Little River Band--but that's another story.