Ian Meldrum

Ian "Molly" Meldrum (born January 29, 1946) is an Australian popular music critic, journalist, and record producer, and musical entrepreneur best known as talent co-ordinator, on-air interviewer and music news presenter on seminal popular music program Countdown. He acted as talent co-ordinator for the show's entire 1974 to 1987 run; his on-air role was between the years of 1975 and 1986.

Early years

During The Beatles' first tour of Australia in 1964, Meldrum was captured in infamy by TV cameras as the person climbing atop the hood of their car shortly after their arrival at Melbourne airport. Later, he was ejected from their Melbourne concert for being "too enthusiastic".

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Meldrum began his music career in the late 1960s as a "roadie" for a band named The Groop. Sharing a house with singer Ronnie Burns, he was asked by a friend to write an article for Go-Set magazine, a new Australian pop music magazine, and he was soon writing for them on a regular basis. It was during this period that he was given his nickname, "Molly", by his friend and fellow Go-Set writer Stan Rofe, the famous Mebourne radio DJ.

Related Topics:
1960s - The Groop - Ronnie Burns - Go-Set - Stan Rofe

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Around this time, "Molly" also began hanging out at a newly-opened Melbourne recording studio owned by Bill Armstrong, which soon became the leading pop studio in Australia. While he learned production and engineering techniques, he became involved with producing a number of artists including The Masters Apprentices, as well as working on Kommotion, a teen-oriented pop music "mime show" (where performers would mime to the latest overseas hits), which ended soon after when Actors Equity banned the practice.

Related Topics:
Bill Armstrong - The Masters Apprentices - Kommotion - Actors Equity

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In 1968 Meldrum became the manager and producer of solo singer Russell Morris, who had recently quit his previous band, Somebody's Image. Meldrum produced Morris' first solo single, a Johnny Young-composed song "The Real Thing". Young had written the song for Meldrum's friend Ronnie Burns, but when Meldrum heard Young playing it backstage during a taping of the TV pop show Uptight, he determined to secure the song for Morris, reportedly going to Young's home that evening with a tape recorder and refusing to leave until Young had taped a 'demo' version of the song for him.

Related Topics:
Russell Morris - Somebody's Image - Johnny Young - Uptight

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In collaboration with Armstrong's house engineer John Sayers, Meldrum radically transformed "The Real Thing" from Young's original vision of a simple acoustic ballad backed by strings, into a highly produced studio masterpiece, extending it to an unheard-of six minutes in length (with much encouragement from Stan Rofe) and overdubbing the basic track with many additional instruments, vocals and sound effects. To achieve this, they used the services of The Groop as backing band, with contributions from vocalist Maureen Elkner and Groop lead singer Ronnie Charles, guitarist Roger Hicks from Zoot -- who played the song's distinctive acoustic guitar intro -- and arranger John Farrar. The single is reported to have cost AU$10,000 -- the most expensive ever made in Australia up to that time -- and features one of the earliest uses of the studio technique known as "phasing" on an Australian recording. "The Real Thing" became a national #1 hit for Morris in mid-1969 and is widely considered to be one of the finest Australian pop-rock recordings of the era.

Related Topics:
John Sayers - The Groop - Maureen Elkner - Ronnie Charles - Roger Hicks - Zoot - John Farrar - Phasing

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Meldrum also produced several other hits -- including Burns' #1 single "Smiley" -- while continuing to write for a variety of magazines. After splitting with Morris in ca. 1970, Meldrum travelled to the United Kingdom, where he began working for the The Beatles' company, Apple Corp., during which time he met Paul McCartney and John Lennon. One (possibly apocryphal) story is that Meldrum fainted when he met Lennon for the first time. During this period, his association with The Beatles enabled him to score a scoop interview with Lennon and Yoko Ono, in which Lennon revealed publicly for the first time that the Beatles were breaking up.

Related Topics:
The Beatles - Apple Corp. - Paul McCartney - John Lennon - Yoko Ono

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