Music Reissues Weekly: The Twilights - Twilights Time The Complete 60s Recordings

On 26 September 1966, The Twilights set-off from Australia to Britain. The journey, on the liner the Castel Felice, took six weeks. A day after boarding they learned their sixth single, “Needle in a Haystack,” was an Australian number one. There was nothing they could do to promote the hit, so after disembarking at Southampton they looked for work.

The trip was the prize at Melbourne’s Battle of the Sounds competition. They won and, as well as the travel, the accolade included a recording session with EMI in London. As The Twilights records came out in Australia on EMI’s Columbia label, this part of the award seemed tailored for the band.

Once in the UK, there were shows at in-crowd London clubs Blaises, The Cromwellian and Tiles, as well as Liverpool’s Cavern. But they were not making a mark. EMI duly hosted The Twilights at their Abbey Road studio on 6 January 1967. They were booked into Studio 3 with former Beatles engineer and soon-to-be Pink Floyd producer Norman Smith.

That same evening, in Studio 2, The Beatles were working on “Penny Lane.” Twilights guitarist Terry Britten went to the toilet and found George Harrison there. As his band’s bassist John Bywaters recalls in the booklet coming with the smart 3-CD foldout digi-pack set Twilights Time - The Complete 60s Recordings, “Terry stood next to George Harrison but he wasn’t game enough to say anything and they couldn’t shake hands, either.”

Nonetheless, The Twilights had a more satisfying encounter with British pop royalty during the sole visit to Abbey Road. Their first album, the eponymous The Twilights (released in November 1966, pictured below left), included a recording of “Yes I Will” modelled on The Hollies’ version. The latter band’s Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks and Graham Nash duly came along to meet The Twilights at the session. Along with the band's own compositions “9.50” and “Young Girl,” a precise facsimile of the former outfit’s “What’s Wrong With the Way I Live” was recorded with Smith at the controls. “9.50,” a harmony drenched groover, and the Kinks-ish “Young Girl” were more convincing.

EMI issued The Twilights’ “What’s Wrong With the Way I Live” as a UK single on 3 February 1967. It made no waves. The British adventure was over. On 24 February, the band again boarded the Castel Felice and returned to Australia. All three Abbey Road-recorded tracks were spread across a pair of Australian singles (released in February and May 1967).

While they remained popular in Australia, the brush with the nuts and bolts of British pop left more of a mark than the moustaches The Twilights sported on their return and Britten’s espousal of Indian music and the sitar. They realised the cover versions filling-out their repertoire were not going to help them progress musically, and also that they needed to use the recording studio to help them achieve a greater level of artistic success. The rethink resulted in their all-original second album, June 1968’s Hollies-esque Once Upon A Twilight. Although it failed to chart, it was a fine – one of the finest, anywhere – psychedelic pop album. Creatively, they had reached a peak.

As with the Bee Gees and The Easybeats, the two Australian music exports which hit big in the UK of the Sixties, members of The Twilights were not born in the country in which the band formed. Lead guitarist Terry Britten was born in Manchester, vocalist and joint frontman Clem “Paddy” McCartney in Belfast and Glenn Shorrock, the other vocalist and frontman, in Rochester, Kent. The band coalesced in Adelaide over 1961 to 1963. Initially, they were a vocal trio. The other members were Australia-born: John Bywaters (bass), Peter Brideoake (harmonica, rhythm guitar, vocals) and Frank Barnard (drums), who was replaced by Laurie Pryor in spring 1966. Having gone as far as they could in Adelaide, they moved to Melbourne in February 1966. By this point, all their singles had charted regionally. June 1966’s “Bad Boy” – modelled on the Beatles’ version of the Larry Williams song – was their first national hit.

In terms of a post-split legacy – The Twilights played their final show in February 1969 – Glenn Shorrock went on to The Little River Band. Britten became a tremendously successful songwriter: he wrote “Carrie” and "Devil Woman,” which Cliff Richard recorded. Tina Turner’s “We Don’t Need Another Hero” and “What’s Love Got to do With it?” were his.

What The Twilights spawned shouldn’t overshadow the band’s impressiveness. Nor should the cover versions dominating what was heard on the records issued before the UK trip. Strip these away – though some, like the robust “Diddy Wa Diddy” and “Sorry She's Mine,” are terrific – and it’s clear The Twilights were a distinctive pop group, one jumping-off from a basis in a Beatles-slanted folk rock despite the mod/R&B/soul covers. It’s the original songs which really hit home. On their first LP, Brideoake and Shorrock’s “It’s Dark” – the album’s only non-cover – is a moody gem. On single, their own “I Don’t Know Where the Wind Will Blow me,” “Time and Motion Study Man,” “Cathy, Come Home” and more are winners. As are “9.50” and “Young Girl.” Then there is Once Upon A Twilight, heard on Twilights Time - The Complete 60s Recordings in its mono and stereo versions.

Everything they issued is here – along with live radio and scream-punctuated TV performances, tracks recorded as side projects and a contemporaneous Tony Britten single. This definitive collection more-than makes the case that The Twilights were one of Australia’s finest Sixties bands. And one which – had their history been slightly different – could have broken through into the British charts.

• Next week: Showdown At The Mercer – historically important earliest-known live recording of punk precursors New York Dolls
• More reissue reviews on theartsdesk
• Kieron Tyler’s website

@kierontyler.bsky.social