FARNSEY BELTING OUT AN AC/DC COVER WAS ENOUGH TO BLOW SADIE THE CLEANING LADY OFF HER FEET

Australia`s very own John Farnham, affectionally known as Johnny
Farnham or Farnsey, like Jimmy Barnes is known as Barnsey, still
has trouble shaking the `Sadie the Cleaning Lady` image from his
young days in the early 70`s. The throwaway pop song of that name
became an unlikely hit on the Australian charts for a very young
Farnham, and it gave him a base from which he carved out a work-
manlike and rather unsuccessful career as a balladeer and pop
crooner for the rest of that decade. His luck all changed in
the early 80`s for the first time since the Sadie days when
he was recruited to join The Little River Band to replace
Glenn Shorrock. The song `Playing To Win` from 1985 was
the only major hit for the Farnham led LRB but a few minor
hits were scored during this era of the band. Of course
Farnsey would go on to record the legendary contemporary
rock/pop album WHISPERING JACK in 1986 after leaving the
Little River Band, which contained a swag of classic pop
rockers and a spine tingling cover of Ross Wilson`s lyri-
cal masterpiece, `Touch of Paradise`. For all of Farnsey`s
pop sensibilities and the production qualities of his re-
cordings both solo and with the LRB, he never really had
ever `rocked out` as it were. He was a pop rocker not a
hard rocker i guess. But in 1988 John Farnham surprised
everyone with a totally off the wall but thoroughly convin-
cing recording of the AC/DC song IT`S A LONG WAY TO
THE TOP IF YOU WANT TO ROCK`N`ROLL from the early
days. Farnsey always had the vocal range to make a good
fist of belting out this rocker and putting his own sig-
nature on it, so much so that i have always much pre-
ferred Farnsey`s cover rather than the original. It was
never my favourite Acca Dacca song, up against TNT
and Dirty Deeds it was just too boring and repetitious.
But Farnsey got hold of this song vocally, Brett Garsed,
who is listed as the guitarist for the AGE OF REASON al-
bum which this song comes off (on the CD version only),
i take it is the man who done an excellent job of beef-
ing up Malcolm Young`s rhythm guitar chops and making
Farnsey sound like he was the lead singer of a heavy
metal band for the very first time. Angus Burchall was
obviously hyperactive on drums judging by the pounding
he gave them for this most unlikely of covers. I love
this song actually, i often played it in the 90`s when
i still had a decent car stereo, fair dinkum, it rocks
hard. I still cant believe Farnham had the song omitted
from his most recent greatest hits compilation. The only
excuse is that Farnsey doesn`t know how good the song is
or AC/DC made sure that this underrated cover didn`t make
it onto a Farnsey best of in case comparisons were made.