Ted Mulry Gang - '50 Years of Rock N Roll'
Sydney
TED MULRY first came to the attention of the music industry when he sent a demo of some of his own compositions to Albert Productions in Sydney. The company persuaded him to become a recording artist and he soon rose to fame as a solo singer/songwriter with his own composition, the pop ballad "Julia", which made the Australian charts in 1970. He followed that with "Falling in Love Again", a song by The Easybeats songwriting team Harry Vanda & George Young, which was a major hit in 1971. Mulry was a prolific songwriter, and a number of bands and artists, including John Farnham and Alison MacCallum, recorded his songs. Most notably, rock band Sherbet had a hit with his song, "You're All Woman".
After getting tired of being backed by different backing bands, in 1972 he switched from acoustic guitar to bass and formed his own band, TED MULRY GANG (TMG), with guitarist Les Hall and drummer Herman Kovac. The band signed a recording deal with Albert Productions in 1974 and released their first album Here We Are. When that album didn't do as well as expected, the record company wanted Mulry to go back to singing solo. Ronnie Clayton told them to stick to it and brought in second guitarist Gary Dixon to complete the foursome. With his own band behind him he adopted a more hard rocking style.
Their first major hit, and the biggest of their career was the 1975 single "Jump in My Car" which spent 11 weeks at number one on the Australian singles charts in 1976 and was the first Australian act to knock Abba off the number one spot. It was the second single released from the Here We Are album produced by Ted Albert at Alberts Studios. Over the next few years they achieved a string of hit singles including a rocked up version of the old jazz song, "Darktown Strutters' Ball", "Crazy", "Jamaica Rum" and "My Little Girl". Many of TMG's songs, including "Jump in My Car", were co-written with guitarist Les Hall. By late 1980 their chart success had ended but they remained popular performers on the Australian pub circuit. In 1989, after some time apart, the Ted Mulry gang reformed, releasing the album "Re-Union" for Albert, on Sony. This release also marked the first release of the Ted Mulry Gang on compact disc. Other CD reissues would follow in the early 90's.Ted passed away the day before his birthday on Sept 1st 2001
