Bobby & Laurie were a popular Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n singing duo of the 1960s, featuring Laurie Allen (vocals, guitar, keyboards) and Bobby Bright (vocals, guitar). Their regular backing band were The Rondells. The pair formed one of the leading acts in the first wave of the Australian 'beat pop' era between 1964 and 1967, alongside contemporaries such as Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs

Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs

Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs were an Australian pop and rock group dating from the mid-sixties. The group enjoyed huge success in the mid-1960s, but split in 1967. They re-emerged in the early seventies to become one of the most popular Australian hard-rock bands of the period...

, Ray Brown & The Whispers

Ray Brown & The Whispers

. For other uses of Whispers, see Whispers page.Ray Brown & The Whispers were a highly successful Australian rock band from 1964 to 1967...

, The Easybeats

The Easybeats

The Easybeats were an Australian rock and roll band. They formed in Sydney in late 1964 and broke up at the end of 1969. They are regarded as the greatest Australian pop band of the 1960s, and were the first Australian rock and roll act to score an international pop hit with their 1966 single...

 and Normie Rowe

Normie Rowe

Norman John "Normie" Rowe AM was a major male solo performer of Australian pop music in the 1960s. Known for his bright and edgy tenor voice and dynamic stage presence, many of Rowe's most successful recordings were produced by Pat Aulton, house producer for the Sunshine Records, Spin Records and...

. They became one of the most popular and successful acts of their day.

Allen's first amateur group was in Melbourne the late 1950s and called The Three Jays. This was followed by The Lories (c.1958) and The Roulettes (1958-59), a long-running Melbourne revue band. From 1959 to 1961 he was lead guitarist for Malcolm Arthur & The Knights and in 1962 was lead singer/organist of a previously instrumental group The Blue Jays. At about the end of 1963, The Blue Jays became The Fabulous Blue Jays, the backing band for singer Tony Worsley. Laurie then rejoined The Roulettes.

Bright had previously worked mainly as a solo artist, starting his singing in Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

. He later moved to Melbourne and released two solo singles on the W&G Records

W&G Records

W&G Records was an Australian recording company that operated from the early 1950s to the 1970s. It was a subsidiary of the Melbourne precision engineering company White & Gillespie....

 label in 1963.

Formation

One of The Roulettes was Ron Blackmore who decided to leave the performance side of the industry and move into band management. In about 1963, Allen also left the band and he and Bright performed separately as soloists under Blackmore's management in the dance club circuit around Melbourne. On 11 March 1964, Allen made his first solo television appearance, on Graham Kennedy

Graham Kennedy

Graham Cyril Kennedy, AO was an Australian radio, television and film performer, often called Gra Gra and The King of Australian television.-Childhood:...

's In Melbourne Tonight

In Melbourne Tonight

In Melbourne Tonight, also known as "IMT", was a highly popular nightly variety television show produced at GTV-9 Melbourne from 6 May 1957 to 1970....

. Later in 1964, the two appeared on The Go!! Show

The Go!! Show

The Go!! Show was a top rating Australian popular music television series which aired on ATV-0 Melbourne from 1964 to 1967, and was produced by DYT Productions at the Channel 0 studios in Nunawading, Victoria....

and soon teamed up to create a highly successful duo through their good looks, a clean cut image and sharp performances. Originally billed as Laurie Allen and Bobby Bright, the duo became regulars on the show alongside The Strangers

The Strangers (band)

The Strangers was a Melbourne based Australian band that existed from 1961 to 1975. The band started out playing instrumental songs in a style similar to The Shadows with influences from Cliff Richard. The original lineup included Peter Robinson , Graeme Thompson , Laurie Arthur and Fred Weiland...

 and were paid 50 pounds per appearance.

They had the first record on the new Go Records

Go Records

Go Records was a small independent Melbourne based recording label which ran from 1964 to 1968. Its releases were manufactured and distributed by the Melbourne-based recording and electronics company Astor....

 label with I Belong With You which was released with its 45

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 B-side

A-side and B-side

A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...

 song Trouble in Mind in August 1964. The record was produced by English producer Roger Savage, who had just arrived in Australia from London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 where he had worked with the Rolling Stones. I Belong With You was a hit staying at number-one on the Melbourne charts for two weeks and won Laurie an Australian Record Award for 'Best Composition' in 1965.

Peak success

At this time, Bobby & Laurie started working with a Blackmore-managed backing band The Rondells (previously called The Lincolns and The Silhouettes). The duo reached their peak in late 1964, busily touring the country and appearing in numerous concert and television performances. They had dozens of engagements and personal appearances every week, with as many as six shows on a Saturday night. One unusual performance was playing 'Tweedledum' and 'Tweedledee' in a Christmas pantomime production of Alice In Wonderland at the Tivoli Theatre in Melbourne in December 1964.

In early 1965 the pair appeared on the Teen Scene music television show on the ABC

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

, where they were famously dragged off the stage by screaming female fans. They appeared in the premiere episode of Channel 0

ATV-10

ATV is a television station in Melbourne, Australia, part of Network Ten - one of the three major Australian commercial television networks.-History:...

's new children's program the Magic Circle Club

Magic Circle Club

The Magic Circle Club was an award winning Australian children's television show, produced at ATV Channel 0 from 23 January 1965 to 1967....

 on 23 January, playing characters 'Twoddle' and 'Boddle'.

They released three more successful singles on the Go label during 1965: Someone (which reached #3 in Melbourne), Judy Green and Crazy Country Hop which reached #25.

In May 1965 they supported a national tour by The Dave Clark Five

The Dave Clark Five

The Dave Clark Five were an English pop rock group. Their single "Glad All Over" knocked The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" off the top of the UK singles charts in January 1964: it eventually peaked at No.6 in the United States in April 1964.They were the second group of the British Invasion,...

, The Seekers

The Seekers

The Seekers are an Australian folk-influenced pop music group which were originally formed in 1962. They were the first Australian popular music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States...

 and Tommy Quickly

Tommy Quickly

Tommy Quickly was a Liverpool rock and roll singer in the early 1960s. He was a later signing of artist manager Brian Epstein, whose biggest act was The Beatles....

. Later in the year they supported American P. J. Proby

P. J. Proby

P.J. Proby is an American singer, songwriter, and actor, who has portrayed Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison in musical theater productions as well as enjoying a successful recording career in his own right....

 on his national tour.

In 1966 they switched to the Albert Productions

Albert Productions

Albert Productions, a division of music publishing and recording company Albert Music, is one of Australia's longest established independent Australian record label to specialise in rock and roll music. The label was founded in 1964 by Ted Albert, whose family owned and operated the Australian...

 label, releasing Sweet And Tender Romance and Hitch Hiker, which gave them a national number-one hit for five weeks in May and June. At about this time they also changed management from Blackmore to Mal Fisher. On the strength of Hitch Hiker, the ABC gave them their own television show, It's A Gas, which was later rebadged as Dig We Must. The name change was designed to attract a more sophisticated 'adult' market, but lost the duo much of their 'teen' appeal which led to friction between the two singers.

After recording their last album Exposaic, the pair officially split in early 1967 after just three years as Australia's chart-topping stars.

Solo careers

After the breakup, Allen continued performing as a soul revue act initially called 'Dice', which he later renamed The 'Laurie Allen Revue'.

Bright worked in cabaret as well as some acting parts, including an appearance on television cop-show Homicide. In 1968 he became a disc-jockey at Melbourne radio station 3XY. The pair reunited on the radio program in February 1968 and shortly after made a return to the charts with a country music styled song Carrol Country Accident. This was followed by Looking Through The Eyes Of Love, but they had split again by late 1971. In 1973, Bright performed as the Doctor in the Melbourne stage production of Tommy

Tommy (rock opera)

Tommy is the fourth album by English rock band The Who, released by Track Records and Polydor Records in the United Kingdom and Decca Records/MCA in the United States. A double album telling a loose story about a "deaf, dumb and blind boy" who becomes the leader of a messianic movement, Tommy was...

.

In the intervening years, the pair performed occasionally as Bobby & Laurie until their final "Don't Let The Music Die" concert on 1 June 2002 at the Kingston City Hall

City of Kingston

The City of Kingston is a Local Government Area in Victoria, Australia. It is located in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, its northern boundary lying approximately 15 km from the Melbourne city centre along the north-eastern shorelines of Port Phillip...

.

On 13 June 2002 Allen died suddenly from a heart attack.

Partial discography

Key singles

• I Belong With You - March 1965
• Someone - June 1965
• Judy Green - September 1965
• Crazy Country Hop - December 1965
• Sweet And Tender Romance - January 1966
• Hitch Hiker - April 1966
• High Noon - September 1966
• Carroll County Accident - December 1969
• Through The Eyes Of Love - December 1970

Key albums

• Bobby And Laurie - 1965
• Hitch Hiker - 1966
• Exposaic - 1966