Grant McLennan

Grant William McLennan[1] was born on 12 February 1958 in Rockhampton, Queensland.[2][3] His father was a general practitioner, and McLennan grew up with a younger brother and sister.[2] After the death of their father, when McLennan was four years old, his family moved to Cairns. He spent five years at the Anglican Church Grammar School in Brisbane as a boarder.[2] His mother remarried, and the family then relocated to a cattle station in central Far North Queensland.

McLennan's songs, which often evoke the impressions and imagery of the regional background of his childhood, include "Cattle and Cane",[4] "Unkind and Unwise", "Dusty in Here" (about his father), "Boundary Rider" and "Bye Bye Pride".

In 1976, McLennan began a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Queensland. Joh Bjelke-Petersen was Premier of Queensland at the time, and McLennan was arrested in a student protest against aspects of that government's conservative policies.[5]

In 1977, Grant McLennan met Robert Forster at university. Forster encouraged him to learn bass guitar – McLennan had no musical training – and to form an alternative rock band, the Go-Betweens, in Brisbane.[6] For several months they used a succession of interim drummers, with McLennan on bass guitar and Forster on lead guitar and lead vocals.[7][8] The group released their first single in September 1978, "Lee Remick", which was written by Forster.[7]

During the group's initial period, Forster provided most of the songwriting and lead vocals.[7][8] In November 1979, the Go-Betweens' McLennan and Forster travelled to England and then to Scotland, where they recorded new material, including their third single, "I Need Two Heads" (June 1980).[7][8][9] By the time it appeared, they had returned to Australia.[9] As McLennan's own distinctive compositional style developed, the two shared lead vocal duties almost equally. For Go-Betweens releases from about 1980 forward, some songs were credited to "Forster/McLennan", although the two generally wrote separately, each singing their own compositions.[2]

In November 1981, the Go-Betweens issued their debut album, Send Me a Lullaby, with Lindy Morrison as their permanent drummer.[7][8] Aside from lead vocals and bass guitar McLennan also provides lead guitar for three of its eight tracks – he wrote four tracks and co-wrote one with Forster.[10] McLennan told Gavin Sawford of Rave magazine, in April 1996, that "[it] is to me an inauspicious debut... if I'd heard that and I wasn't in the band, I think my comment would have been 'What the fuck is going on here.' There's great melodies but then there's changes which to this day I can't work out. There's lyrics to this day which I don't understand and when I actually summon up enough courage to get to the microphone, I sound like a choirboy with a mouthful of fruitcake."[10]

In 1982, they relocated to London and recorded new material, also during that year McLennan was part of a side project, Tuff Monks, with Forster and Morrison joined by label mates, Nick Cave, Mick Harvey and Rowland S. Howard of the Birthday Party.[7][8] The group released only a single, "After the Fireworks", on Missing Link Records.[9]^{: 93, 114–115}[11] In late 1983 the Go-Betweens added Robert Vickers on bass guitar – which allowed McLennan to shift to lead guitar.[7][8]

Late in 1986, Amanda Brown joined on oboe, violin, guitar, keyboards and backing vocals.[7][8] McLennan and Brown were soon in a romantic relationship.[12][13] Many of McLennan's new lyrics were about this relationship.[12][13] John Willsteed replaced Vickers on bass guitar in November 1987.[7][8]

After recording six albums the Go-Betweens disbanded in December 1989.[7][8] McLennan and Forster had made tentative plans to form an acoustic duo together. When McLennan told Brown, she ended their relationship.[14]

McLennan and Forster each pursued solo careers while Brown and Morrison formed Cleopatra Wong in 1991.[7][8]

McLennan and Forster reformed The Go-Betweens in 2000, and recorded three more studio albums. Their last one, Oceans Apart (October 2005), won the band their first ARIA Award: for Best Adult Contemporary Album at the 2005 ceremony.[15] Their live album, That Striped Sunlight Sound (2006), was nominated for Best Music DVD at the 2006 awards.[15]

In 1990, Grant McLennan on lead vocals, bass guitar, lead guitar and keyboards formed a rock band, Jack Frost, in Sydney with the Church's front man, Steve Kilbey on lead vocals, bass guitar, lead guitar, keyboards and drums.[8][9]^: 180[16] The group released a self-titled album in 1991 and the pair resumed the collaboration in 1995 for a second album, Snow Job.[8][9]^: 180

Also in 1990, McLennan produced the debut single, "On and On", for Sydney-based duo Club Hoy.[17]

In June 1991, McLennan released his debut solo album, Watershed, under the name G. W. McLennan, which was produced by Dave Dobbyn (DD Smash) on Mushroom Records' White Records label.[8][17] Australian musicologist Ian McFarlane felt it was an "ambitious and highly personalised collection of songs charted McLennan's emotions in the wake of The Go-Betweens' break-up... [it] revealed McLennan to be, in turns, the introspective singer/songwriter or the carefree and gregarious performer." AllMusic's Norm Elrod noticed that McLennan "isn't the most talented singer; his voice is a bit plain, and his range somewhat limited. He isn't the most gifted guitarist; his playing sometimes amounts to basic acoustic strums. He is, however, a truly exceptional artist who, in the spirit of Lloyd Cole, crafts moments of brilliance to fit his limitations."[18]

In November 1992, McLennan released his second album, Fireboy, which was produced by Dobbyn again.[8][17] McFarlane compared it with his previous one and found it was "an even more melancholy set of songs that boasted fuller (though never obtrusive) arrangements."[17] Ned Raggett of AllMusic felt it "finds the musician in excellent form, with a baker's dozen worth of songs that won't challenge preconceptions, but do make for a great listen all around" with "sweetly sparkling, sometimes barbed, numbers."[19] Robert Christgau, an American journalist, preferred the tracks "The Dark Side of Town", "Riddle in the Rain" and "Whose Side Are You On?", which were "living tunes in studio-rock amber."[20] During 1993 he toured Australia with a backing band comprising Michael Barclay on drums, Pedro Bull on keyboards (both ex-ex-Paul Kelly and the Messengers), Maurice Frawley on guitar (ex-Paul Kelly and the Dots) and Phil Kakulas on bass guitar (ex-Blackeyed Susans).[8][17]

In December 1994, McLennan's released his third album, Horsebreaker Star.[8][17] It was recorded in Athens, Georgia with American session musicians and was produced by John Keane (R.E.M., Indigo Girls, Vic Chesnutt).[8][21] Christgau found it was McLennan's "most consistently catchy solo album" providing "30 snapshots of a resigned romantic" while "unrolling tune after sweet, simple-seeming tune."[20] McFarlane praised "its wide-screen outlook, the album shifted from country rock to bright acoustic pop with a great deal of optimism and passion."[17] Raggett opined that it was "more of a country/Southern rock bent...his ear for focused, sharp lyrical portraits of life and love, paired with his ever-striking crisp singing style, continues to lead the way."[21]

In September 1997, McLennan released his fourth solo album, In Your Bright Ray, with Wayne Connolly producing.[8][17] AllMusic's Jack Rabid found it "returns him to his more well-trodden ground... [and] is as warm and soft as a cake out of the oven, a just-washed blanket, and an Eskimo coat."[22]

In November 1997, he formed Far Out Corporation with Ian Haug, Ross McLennan and Adele Pickvance.[8][17] McFarlane described them as a "conceptual art group with a pop orientation."[17] They issued their sole album, FOC in October 1998, which was co-produced by Tim Whitten with the group.[8][17]

Grant William McLennan died at his Brisbane home on 6 May 2006, aged 48, from a heart attack.[5][23] He was preparing for a party to celebrate with his fiancée, Emma Pursey; he complained of feeling unwell, and he went upstairs to rest. He was found dead soon after by Pursey, his flatmate and friends.[23] Over 1,000 people attended his funeral, including musicians Dave Dobbyn, Bernard Fanning, Ian Haug, Lindy Morrison, Dave McCormack, Steve Kilbey, Paul Kelly and Ed Kuepper.[24]

Following McLennan's death, the Queensland Government established the Grant McLennan Lifetime Achievement Award, presented at the Queensland Music Awards.

The Queensland Music Awards (previously known as Q Song Awards) are annual awards celebrating Queensland, Australia's brightest emerging artists and established legends. They commenced in 2006.[26]