1973: Formation of Ayers Rock (1973–76), during a recording session at the Record Plant, L.A., in September 1975.|alt=Head and shoulders portrait of a 24-year-old man with short brown hair. Ayers Rock formed in Melbourne in August 1973.
Ray Burton,
Mark Kennedy, and
Duncan McGuire, members of
Leo de Castro and Friends, left in June to form the
eponymous trio of Burton McGuire & Kennedy. Burton had played guitar with the Dave Bridge Quartet,
the Delltones and
the Executives, and co-wrote "
I Am Woman" (May 1972) in the United States with Australian singer
Helen Reddy. McGuire, on bass, was a recording engineer, producer, and a member of Australian groups since the late 1950s (including the Phantoms, the Epics, the Questions – which later became Doug Parkinson in Focus; see
Doug Parkinson – and King Harvest). Kennedy, on drums, had played in
Spectrum, Doug Parkinson in Focus, King Harvest, and Leo de Castro and Friends. Burton McGuire & Kennedy were joined in August 1973 by
Jimmy Doyle on guitar. Doyle had worked for the Delltones and
Dig Richards, was musical director for pianist
Winifred Atwell on her Australian tours, and was a session player in Sydney on
Neil Sedaka's 1969 album ''
Workin' on a Groovy Thing''. In September 1973 Burton McGuire & Kennedy changed their name to Ayers Rock, using the European name for the sandstone rock formation sacred to local
indigenous Australians. The group were nicknamed "the Rock" by the Australian press. Since 1993 the sandstone monolith has been called by its
Pitjantjatjaran name,
Uluru. (left) and Chris Brown at the Record Plant, L.A. in September 1975.|alt=Two musicians sit side by side in a recording studio. Both men have long red hair. The man on the left wears a blue jumper and sits in a relaxed manner. The one on the right is tuning his guitar. Doyle had worked sporadically for several years with multi-instrumentalist and arranger
Col Loughnan, who joined London-based blues-pop group Kala in late 1972. Doyle invited his former bandmate to join in October 1973. With Ayers Rock, Loughnan played saxophones, flute, and electric piano. He had begun his career as lead vocalist for
the Crescents in 1958, joining the Delltones in 1962. Loughnan diversified into arranging and playing jazz
tenor saxophone with the
Daly-Wilson Big Band. By December 1973 Ayers Rock had signed with
Mushroom Records, which released their first single – "Rock 'n Roll Fight (Going On)", one of the label's early records. Mushroom Records co-owner
Michael Gudinski became their manager. In January 1974 Ayers Rock performed at the
Sunbury Pop Festival and "Morning Magic" (written by Burton) appeared on the live album, ''Highlights of Sunbury '74 Part 2'', released by Mushroom Records later that year. In March Burton returned to the US and was replaced on guitar and lead vocals by Chris Brown, formerly of
Python Lee Jackson. Loughnan and Brown had played together in London as members of Kala. The band traced their origins to rock or pop bands from Sydney, except for Kennedy (who was from Melbourne).
1974–75: Big Red Rock In 1974 Ayers Rock began recording their debut album,
Big Red Rock, at
Festival Records' 24-track studio in Sydney. They were dissatisfied with the sound, which failed to capture their music's "live" essence, and recorded it live-in-the-studio at
Armstrong's in Melbourne that September. Kennedy told Margaret MacIntyre of
Rolling Stone Australia, "Doing the album live was an experiment really and it seemed to work."
Big Red Rock, released in November, peaked at number 32 on the Kent Music Report album chart. The album had "a more jazz-rock edge" and its single, "Lady Montego" (written by McGuire), was a new version of a song originally performed by Leo de Castro and Friends. According to
Juke Magazine, "the single lifted to push the album, 'Lady Montego' ... received three weeks airplay and was then dumped." "Lady Montego" was Ayers Rock's most-aired single in Australia, and Kennedy said: "Without AM radio support you can't sell too well in this country."
Juke called their songs "lyrically banal" but said the group compensated with "sheer talent", instrumentally and electronically. of Ayers Rock (1973–76), partly obscured by his saxophones (
tenor at left,
soprano), in late 1974. He plays a tambourine whilst seated.|alt=A 32-year-old man is shown in left profile, there is a brick wall behind him. He stares ahead, with a microphone to his right. A song from Ayers Rock's live set was a cover of "Boogie Woogie Waltz", written by
Joe Zawinul of
Weather Report for the US group's album
Sweetnighter (April 1973). In November 1974 Loughnan temporarily stopped performing live due to back pain, and the band continued with four members. He returned after surgery, and contemporary photos and video show him playing sitting down during his convalescence. Manager and label owner Gudinski visited the US in December 1974 to promote his recording artists, including
Skyhooks,
Daddy Cool, and Madder Lake, to major labels there. At that time only Ayers Rock were successful, with Gudinski signing them to
A&M Records within days. He told Tony Wilson of
The Sun, "Jerry Moss, the president of A&M Records USA, flipped when he heard it, so A&M will release it (
Big Red Rock) world-wide." This was a surprise to the Australian media, since many other artists were more commercially successful locally than Ayers Rock. Skyhooks were Australia's most popular band; their first album (''
Living in the 70's, released in October 1974) sold 226,000 units, the best-selling album by a local artist in Australia to date. However, Living in the 70's'' was rejected by A&M and not released outside Australia. Ayers Rock were the first Mushroom Records artists to sign a recording contract with an international label. From the mid-1970s, and into the 1990s, Mushroom were successful with many other artists including
Split Enz,
Kylie Minogue, and
Yothu Yindi, turning the label into Australia's largest independent record company. In January 1975, the group performed at the fourth Sunbury Pop Festival, and
Big Red Rock and "Lady Montego" were released in the US on 28 February. On 20 April, they performed at a benefit concert for Bangladesh at the
Sidney Myer Music Bowl with
the La De Da's, Jim Keays,
AC/DC,
Phil Manning, Daddy Cool, Toulouse & Too Tight,
the Dingoes, and
the Moir Sisters. From July to September, they promoted
Big Red Rock in the US and
Vancouver. The band played to an audience of 35,000 at a stadium concert in
Seattle, supporting
Bachman–Turner Overdrive, on 27 July and opened for
Status Quo,
the J. Geils Band,
Lynyrd Skynyrd, and
Nils Lofgren. According to Australian rock music historian
Ian McFarlane, "Ayers Rock was the first Australian band to play to massive crowds on the USA touring circuit", years before fellow Australians the
Little River Band, AC/DC, and
Air Supply made their first US tours.
1975–76: Beyond At the end of their US tour in September 1975, Ayers Rock recorded their second album,
Beyond, at the
Record Plant in Los Angeles. The album, produced by the group and John Stronach, received a $60,000 advance from A&M Records. On 18 October,
The Sun reported that McGuire had left the band. At a reception when Ayers Rock returned to Australia, he said: "The pressure of the tour was just too much. We were on the road all the time and I guess I wasn't as strong as the rest of the band. When we got into the studio I had the shakes. I mean I was playing the right notes, but not in the right places." To finish the album McGuire's friend Les Young played some of the bass guitar parts, and American Jeff Castleman played bass on "Catchanemu". Young also briefly played live with Ayers Rock in Australia, including an October 1975 show at the
State Theatre in Sydney. McGuire returned to the group at the Dallas Brooks Hall on 21 October 1975, to warm applause. In late November, Ayers Rock appeared at the final Reefer Cabaret event, at Ormond Hall in
Prahran. The performance was recorded for a double album,
A-Reefer-Derci (1976). In January 1976,
Rock Australia Magazine named Ayers Rock Musicians of the Year for 1975 in their "New Year's Honours List". Kennedy left to join
Marcia Hines backing band in February 1976, and they reportedly married late in the decade. In Ayers Rock, Kennedy was temporarily replaced by Doug Gallacher. In April 1976,
Beyond was released in Australia and the US, making the Kent Music Report top 50. Two singles from the album were released: "Little Kings" (October 1975) and "
Song for Darwin" (May 1976), but neither charted. The US cover for
Beyond features a rock in the distance, which becomes the face of an
Aboriginal man with eyes closed when the cover is rotated 90° to the right. Artist and Mushroom Records art director
Ian McCausland also designed
The Rolling Stones' 1973 Australian tour poster. The album cover illustrates a central principle of Aboriginal spirituality: the deep connection between the land and the Aboriginal peoples. In an
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission publication, "Our Land Our Life", S. Knight described the Aboriginal position: "We don't own the land, the land owns us. The land is my mother, my mother is the land. Land is the starting point to where it all began." According to the Australian government webpage,
The Dreaming: "Once the ancestor spirits had created the world, they changed into trees, the stars, rocks, watering holes or other objects. These are sacred places of
Aboriginal culture." In May 1976, Gallacher was replaced by
Russell Dunlop, formerly of Aesop's Fables,
Levi Smith's Clefs,
SCRA, Mother Earth, and the Johnny Rocco Band. In an interview with Greg Kelton of
The Advertiser, Loughnan outlined the band's future: "If
Beyond doesn't make it for us in the States we might as well forget all about Ayers Rock." From May to July they toured the US again, "only achiev[ing] limited success overseas." After the tour Dunlop and Loughnan left, and on 25 August Mushroom Records announced that Ayers Rock had broken up after Loughnan decided to remain in the US to study. Brown, Doyle, and McGuire indicated that they would revive the group with new members.
1977–81: Hotspell In 1977 Brown and Doyle re-formed Ayers Rock with
Bermuda-born Keith Caisey on percussion, Joe Tattersall (formerly of Healing Force and the Barry Leef Band) on drums, and John Young (formerly of Leo de Castro's eponymous group) on bass guitar. By 1978 Brown, Caisey and Doyle were joined by Andy Cowan (formerly of Madder Lake) on keyboards and vocals, Steve Hogg (formerly of
Bakery) on bass guitar, and Hamish Stuart on drums. In March 1980 the band released another single, "On the Avenue", followed in May by their third LP –
Hotspell – on their own Red Rock Records (distributed by
RCA Records). Recorded at the
Music Farm Studios in
Byron Bay, it was engineered by former member Duncan McGuire. In
The Canberra Times, Luis Feliu noted the "new-sounding" Ayers Rock and their "laid-back" style. There had been a major change in songwriting, with Brown contributing less (wrote one and co-wrote one with Doyle); Cowan was the most active (writing five tracks), and Stuart and Doyle co-wrote two. Doyle, with no writing credits on previous albums, wrote "On the Road" (which was included in the band's live sets from 1978). Jillian Burt of
Juke Magazine described it as "reminiscent of the cool, calm, collectedness that typifies
Steely Dan".
Hotspell featured soft-rock songs with sophisticated, keyboard-centred arrangements. According to Feliu's review of the album and a July 1980 performance in Sydney, Ayers Rock were "once Australia's hottest progressive rock" group. Feliu wrote that most of the audience seemed to appreciate the band's new direction: "the capacity audience showed hearty approval ... probably old allegiance, and only a few comments of dissatisfaction, like 'boring', were heard, then that was at the bar up the back".
Hotspell did not reach the Kent Music Report album top 100, and has not been released on CD. In July 1981 the group released a final single, "Lies", before disbanding later that year. ==Other projects==