At the height of the soft-rock era, when artists of all stripes were battling it out on the charts with a restrained musical approach and emotional lyrics, The Little River Band were as consistently successful with their hits as anybody. The Australian band overcame many lineup changes, thanks to a slew of harmony-drenched hits.
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You might be surprised when you check out this list to find how many radio songs you know by the LRB didn’t quite make the cut. Here are the five that did the best on the US charts!
“Lady” – No. 10 in 1978
Sleeper Catcher might be one of the oddest album titles you’ll ever hear. But it’s also the album where The Little River Band busted out in a big way in the US after a few years of success in Australia. Graeham Goble, who was responsible for many of The Little River Band’s top radio hits, wrote “Lady”. This was one of the big hits from that record, allegedly based on seeing a girl once that he never actually ended up meeting.
The arrangement is consistently surprising. Each verse features a neat little musical twist before the punchy refrain: “Lady, let me take a look at you now.”
“Take It Easy On Me” – No. 10 in 1981
The Little River Band enjoyed the special opportunity to work with legendary Beatles’ producer George Martin on the album Time Exposure. You can hear his production touch here. The piano opening is dramatic and grabs your attention. That only makes it more impactful when the guitars come charging into the sonic picture.
Goble wrote the nifty little number, one in which the breakup has already taken place, and the narrator just wants some mercy. Glenn Shorrock and Wayne Nelson alternately sang the lead vocals on different parts of the song to show off the vocal potency of the group.
“The Night Owls” – No. 6 in 1981
Although they were classified as soft-rock, The Little River Band proved now and again that they could turn up the volume. There’s a gritty, almost country-rock feel to “The Night Owls”. It might surprise you if you haven’t heard it in a while.
When the harmonies kick into gear, you tend to overlook all that and get lost in the lushness of it all. Wayne Nelson started to take over as lead vocalist on the Time Exposure album. This was largely because Glenn Shorrock was starting to fall out with the band. Nelson does a nice job here by conjuring the nervous-energy feel of the lyrics.
“The Lonesome Loser” – No. 6 in 1979
Going all the way back to The Beatles’ “Nowhere Man”, songs that act as character sketches about anonymous archetypes have been effective. “Lonesome Loser” ranks pretty high in that subcategory.
“Have you heard about the lonesome loser?” is what the group asks in a cappella unison at the beginning of the song. We’re pretty much hooked from there. This particular song came from guitarist David Briggs. He does a nice job teasing out the metaphor connecting losers in love to degenerate gamblers.
“Reminiscing” – No. 3 in 1978
The band’s soft-rock reputation is largely based on this song, which gave them their US breakthrough. That was the intent from writer Graeham Goble. He was actually thinking back to a much more genteel era of music (as in Cole Porter) when composing the song.
His lyrics flow effortlessly, with lead singer Glenn Shorrock handling the quick transitions with aplomb. Interestingly enough, the song was nearly passed up by the band. At least, until Goble found the keyboard part (played by Peter Jones) that set the song apart.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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