6th May 2006
Grant McLennan
On Saturday 6th May, legendary Australian singer songwriter Grant W McLennan
died in his sleep at his home in Brisbane.
McLennan was one of Australia's greatest songwriters who created an
outstanding musical legacy as a founder member of The Go-Betweens and as a
solo artist. He was enjoying enormous acclaim for the band's most recent
album Oceans Apart, which has received five star reviews around the world
and won had a prestigious ARIA award.
McLennan was born in Rockhampton, Queensland on 12th February 1958. While
attending university in Brisbane he met fellow student Robert Forster and
together they formed The Go-Betweens. After releasing a string of singles
the band recorded their debut album, Send Me A Lullaby, in 1981. The
Go-Betweens recorded a series of exceptional albums that achieved widespread
critical acclaim and were fundamental in bringing Australian music to a
global audience. He was an unparalleled lyricist and a prolific and
meticulous composer. His auto-biographical masterpiece 'Cattle and Cane' was
recently voted by the Australian Performing Rights Association as one of the
ten greatest Australian songs of all time.
In 1989 The Go-Betweens took a ten year sabbatical and McLennan recorded
four powerful solo albums including the vivacious debut Watershed and the
epic Horsebreaker Star as well as forming satellite groups like Jack Frost
with Steve Kilbey of The Church and The Far Out Corporation with Iain Haug
of Powderfinger.
When Robert Forster and Grant McLennan reformed The Go-Betweens in 2000, the
band was greeted with adulation by a new generation of musicians like Belle
and Sebastian for whom, their songs had been an inspirational teenage
soundtrack. The three albums the band subsequently released were universally
acknowledged as containing some of McLennan's greatest compositions.
McLennan was a passionate supporter of the arts, extremely well-read and
maintained a keen interest in all contemporary music, cinema and visual art.
He was an exceptionally charming and polite man who endeared himself to
everyone who met him and was one of the rare individuals worthy of the
epithet 'larger than life'.
His singular contribution to music and his commitment to his craft simply
cannot be understated. He will be deeply missed by all who knew him. He is
survived by his mother, sister, girlfriend Emma and lifetime musical
colleague Robert Forster.
Bernard MacMahon, Lo-Max Records, 6th May 2006
