Post by eamo on May 8, 2006 16:01:53 GMT
Don't know if anyone heard of him but he was a legend. Two cracking solo albums in the nineties which is when I began to get into music seriously. Also a big fan of the Go-Betweens. A great loss.
LEGENDARY Australian songwriter Grant McLennan, co-founder of The Go-Betweens, died in his sleep at home in Brisbane on Saturday.
McLennan, 48, is thought to have died of a heart attack.
Robert Forster and McLennan formed The Go-Betweens when they met as arts students at the University of Queensland in the '70s and their songwriting partnership became one of the most long-lasting, and most highly regarded, in rock music.
The band was one of the first from Brisbane to gain international acclaim with a devoted audience in Europe and the UK, where they were based in the '80s.
McLennan's song Cattle and Cane, inspired by his childhood in central and north Queensland, was voted among the 10 best Australian songs in a poll by the Australian Performing Rights Association.
The band took a 10-year sabbatical in the '90s but reformed for three well-received albums in recent years and last year won an ARIA Award for Best Adult Contemporary Album for Oceans Apart.
Forster had moved back from Germany to live in Brisbane and Oceans Apart was the first album the pair had been able to write together while living in the same city for many years.
McLennan and Forster were immensely proud of Oceans Apart and the continuing interest in their work and planned to record another album this year.
Long-time Go-Betweens fan John O'Donnell, managing director of their Australian record company EMI, said yesterday: "Grant deserved to be considered one of the greatest songwriters Australia has produced, and certainly the Forster-McLennan songwriting team is up there with very few others.
"The strength of their partnership helped them produce such a consistent body of work over such a long period of time. The fact that they only had five songs each on an album meant a song really had to justify its inclusion."
They were admired by artists from U2 and REM – who took them on a world tour as support act in 1989 – through to new bands such as Franz Ferdinand.
McLennan is survived by his mother, sister, brother and girlfriend Emma.
LEGENDARY Australian songwriter Grant McLennan, co-founder of The Go-Betweens, died in his sleep at home in Brisbane on Saturday.
McLennan, 48, is thought to have died of a heart attack.
Robert Forster and McLennan formed The Go-Betweens when they met as arts students at the University of Queensland in the '70s and their songwriting partnership became one of the most long-lasting, and most highly regarded, in rock music.
The band was one of the first from Brisbane to gain international acclaim with a devoted audience in Europe and the UK, where they were based in the '80s.
McLennan's song Cattle and Cane, inspired by his childhood in central and north Queensland, was voted among the 10 best Australian songs in a poll by the Australian Performing Rights Association.
The band took a 10-year sabbatical in the '90s but reformed for three well-received albums in recent years and last year won an ARIA Award for Best Adult Contemporary Album for Oceans Apart.
Forster had moved back from Germany to live in Brisbane and Oceans Apart was the first album the pair had been able to write together while living in the same city for many years.
McLennan and Forster were immensely proud of Oceans Apart and the continuing interest in their work and planned to record another album this year.
Long-time Go-Betweens fan John O'Donnell, managing director of their Australian record company EMI, said yesterday: "Grant deserved to be considered one of the greatest songwriters Australia has produced, and certainly the Forster-McLennan songwriting team is up there with very few others.
"The strength of their partnership helped them produce such a consistent body of work over such a long period of time. The fact that they only had five songs each on an album meant a song really had to justify its inclusion."
They were admired by artists from U2 and REM – who took them on a world tour as support act in 1989 – through to new bands such as Franz Ferdinand.
McLennan is survived by his mother, sister, brother and girlfriend Emma.
