Back in May and June, I had to learn (or brush up on) about 81 songs—everything from country standards to George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" to two entire Beatles albums—all of which I...
Back in May and June, I had to learn (or brush up on) about 81 songs—everything from country standards to George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" to two entire Beatles albums—all of which I eventually performed at clubs, theaters or outdoor festivals during the spring.
Featured on this massive list of tunes was "Friday on My Mind," a classic late-1966 tune by the Easybeats, a high-energy Australian band. The song was huge by the spring of 1967; it reached Number 16 in the U.S., Number 1 in Australia and Number 6 in the U.K. It even was voted "Best Australian Song" of all time by the Australasian Performing Right Association.
Regardless of all this ancient history, I was so fascinated by the song's intertwining, Eastern-influenced and damn catchy guitar parts that I actually paused in the middle of all my crazy-ass song-learnin' to do a bit of research about the band and its guitarists (In other words, I read their page on Wikipedia[1] while lying on a couch). That's when I stumbled upon their interesting connection to AC/DC.
First of all, the band—as heard on this particular tune—featured Stevie Wright (lead vocals), Harry Vanda (lead guitar), George Young (rhythm guitar), Dick Diamonde (bass) and Gordon "Snowy" Fleet (drums), and the song was composed by Vanda and Young. As any self-respecting AC/DC fan knows, Young is the older brother of AC/DC co-founders Malcolm and Angus Young.
When the Easybeats called it quits in 1970, Young and Vanda concentrated on writing and producing songs for other artists—and a few for themselves, using different stage names. One of their studio-based groups was the Marcus Hook Roll Band, which featured Malcolm and Angus. George (with Vanda) went on to co-produce AC/DC's early albums, including Let There Be Rock, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, T.N.T., Powerage and High Voltage. He played bass for the