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MILESAGO – Groups & Solo Artists |
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Peter Doyle |
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Peter was born in Melbourne on 28 July, 1949. He
started out in the music business when he was just a youngster. By the age of
9 he was already appearing on a
television talent show called Swallow's Juniors. At 14 he was
performing in Sunday afternoon pop shows at Melbourne's Festival Hall and by 16 he'd scored a solo record deal with Ivan Dayman's Sunshine label (whose roster included Normie Rowe) and Peter became a regular on Melbourne’s THE GO!! SHOW. Between 1965 and 1967 Peter (backed by veteran Melbourne band The
Phantoms) recorded eight
solo singles in Australia, six for the Sunshine label
and two more for Astor. His
first two singles were Top 20 hits: his debut single, a cover of Conway
Twitty's Speechless (The Pick Up) peaked at #14 (May ’65) and the
follow-up, Stupidity, peaked at #11 (July). His cover of the Small
Faces' What'cha Gonna Do About It only got to #35 (Nov. ’65), but
a version of The Platters' classic The Great Pretender fared better #
22 in Jan. ’66, although this proved to be his last charting solo single in
Australia. His last two Sunshine singles were Something You Got Baby in May, and Mr Good Time in November
1966. In 1967, Doyle moved to the Astor
label and issued two singles You Can't Put That in a Bottle (April)
and Neil Sedaka's Plastic Dreams and Toy Balloons (June). His backing
band during this time was Grandma's Tonic, a group formed by ex-members of Tony Worsley's backing band The Fabulous Blue Jays). In May 1968, with his solo career fading, Peter peroxided his hair and joined the Walker Brothers-styled vocal trio The Virgil Brothers. The other members were both formerly part of the original incarnation of The Wild Cherries – singer/guitarists Rob Lovett (The Loved Ones) and Malcolm McGee (Python Lee Jackson). The Virgil Brothers released two singles in Australia in 1968, Temptation's 'Bout to Get Me (a Top 5 hit), Here I Am and When You Walk Away. In 1969 McGee left and was replaced by Danny Robinson, vocalist extraordinaire and ex-frontman of the highly regarded “Mark II” version of The Wild Cherries with Lobby Loyde. The trio headed to the UK where they cut their third single with David McKay before Peter also quit and the trio dissolved. Shortly after the Virgil Bros split in 1970 Peter joined Lyn Paul and Paul Layton in the second lineup of The New Seekers, replacing founding members Sally Graham, Chris Barrington and Laurie Heath. The clean-cut pop harmony group had been put together by former Seekers member Keith Potger who had retreated into the
less public role of manager after initially performing with them. Although
initially ignored in the UK, they broke through with a string of American
hits, beginning with Top 10 cover of Melanie Safka’s What Have They Done
To My Song, Ma. More hits followed, including I'd Like to Teach the
World to Sing (originally written as a soft-drink jingle), Beg, Steal
or Borrow (the UK's Eurovision entry in 1972 on which Peter shared the
lead vocal with Lyn Paul) and the New Seekers' valiant cover of Pete
Townshend's Pinball Wizard / See Me, Feel Me which featured Peter and
Marty Kristian on lead vocals. A talented singer and
songwriter, Peter joined The New Seekers in 1970. Peter's songs, which
included ballads such as I Can Say You're Beautiful and Lay Me
Down, contemplative songs such as Move Me Lord and heavier rock
numbers like Boom Town and Cincinnati. His powerful vocals gave
the New Seekers' sound a tougher edge. Peter's songwriting talents were first showcased
on the New Seekers' album Beautiful People, which included Cincinnati.
Subsequent albums up to and including the last one he recorded with them - The
New Seekers Now - all featured at least one of his songs. New
Colours featured three - Boom Town, Move Me Lord and Lay Me
Down; Circles featured two - Holy Rolling and I'll Be
Your Song, and We'd Like to Teach the World to Sing and Now
included one song apiece. Although the group enjoyed huge international
chart success, The New Seekers themselves apparently saw little of the
proceeds. Asked during a radio interview whether she'd made a fortune with The
New Seekers, Lyn Paul replied: "Absolutely
not, no! ... We started off on a £50 a week salary. And when we had I'd
Like to Teach the World to Sing in the charts we got £100 a week. And
then every so often when we kicked up a bit of a fuss ... we'd get given, say
£1,000, to go and buy clothes.” Disillusioned, Peter quit the group in 1973 to
pursue a solo career as a singer-songwriter. His cynicism showed through in lyrics like those of his song Sailor Man, which begins with the line "They took me for a ride" and ends with a stern warning to other would-be pop stars: Stay at your
school, © Copyright Peter Doyle Music / Heath Levy Music Ltd. After leaving the New Seekers Peter recorded advertising jingles for Ribena and Sugar Puffs and
provided the vocal for a childrens' single, Jungle Ted and the
Laceybuttonpoppers. He also provided backing vocals for Lyn Paul's 1975
single It Oughta Sell A Million. Peter continued to work
in the UK until 1981, issuing five solo singles, including a cover of Friday On My Mind, and one album, Skin Deep. By the time Peter quit The New Seekers, they were being represented in the US by former Masters Apprentices bassist turned manager Glenn Wheatley. He became Peter's personal manager and in the formative days of LRB, around 1975, Peter was in fact offered the job as LRB's lead vocalist, but he turned it down. One can only imagine how different things might have been if he had taken up the offer! In 1981 he returned to Australia where he worked with a band called Standing Room Only. A year later, in 1982, he received an offer from Steve Holly (formerly the drummer with Paul McCartney's Wings), asking Peter if he'd like to join the group Regis. He accepted and went to the United States, where he worked for the next five years. Peter returned to Australia in 1987 and was a regular performer on the club circuit for some years. Sadly, he was sidelined by throat and lung cancer in the 1990s and he died in Castlemaine, Victoria on October 13, 2001. He is survived by his wife, Jane. |
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Discography |
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Out thanks to the Lyn Paul website for information Singles Solo singles 1965-68 Speechless
(The Pick Up) / Like I Love You Stupidity
/ Heigh Ho! What'cha
Gonna Do About It? / Do It Zulu Style Great
Pretender / Everybody Loves A Lover Something
You Got Baby / Go Away Mr.
Good Time / Tweedle Dee You
Can't Put That in A Bottle / I'm Not The Boy You're After Plastic
Dreams and Toy Balloons / You're My Reason with The Virgil Brothers Temptation's
'Bout to Get Me / I See Her Face Here
I Am / Shake Me, Wake Me When
You Walk Away / Good Love
Rusty
Hands of Time / And So In Life Friday
On My Mind / We Believe In Lovin' Skin
Deep / We Believe In Lovin' This
and That / It's All Over as “Jungle Ted” Jungle Ted
and the Laceybuttonpoppers Albums Peter's First Album
(Sunshine) 1966 Skin Deep |
References / Links |
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Christie Eliezer - Peter Doyle obituary, immedia Nov.30 - Dec 2 2001 Ian McFarlane – Encyclopedia of Australian
Rock & Pop (1999) Noel McGrath – Australian Encyclopedia of Rock (1978) The Lyn Paul website Chris Spencer & Zbig Nowara – Who’s Who of Australian Rock |
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