Normie Rowe & Renee Geyer - Good Morning Australia from July 2005.
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00No, and I think it's, especially in Australia, the rock scene, it's a great leveller, because
00:07one minute you could be doing a theatre concert and the next minute you're in the pub down
00:13the road in Dubbo, not that there's anything wrong with Dubbo, but you know what I mean,
00:17you go from one extreme to the other within three days, whereas in other professions you
00:23get to the point where you're doing theatres and that's what you do, we still get to, you
00:28know, we do everything. It's sort of like going from GMA to Channel 31. Well, Rove came
00:37from Channel 31 and I always keep my options open. And I've just burnt mine. Can you imagine
00:45that on Channel 31, good morning and welcome to Good Morning Baldwin. I thought it might
00:51be fun, I know what I would like to say about you guys, because I'm a huge fan of both of
00:56you, but I thought it might be worthwhile asking one to speak on the other, as to what
01:00they've meant to the music industry. So, do you want to talk about Miss Geyer? I would
01:05actually. The first time I was aware of Rene, I've been a great fan of gospel, blues, soul,
01:11all that sort of stuff, music, since I was a little kid. And I truly believed that nobody
01:16could sing the way that Afro-Americans sing and Africans can sing. And one day I went
01:23into a place in the Rocks in Sydney and there was a band there, a band called Sun, something
01:31like that? Yeah, or Mother Earth. No, it must have been Sun. And Rene was singing and I
01:38sat there with my jaw on the ground, just, this girl sings, you know, like all of these
01:44people. First time you'd seen her? Yeah. And she's marvellous, you'd had a couple of drinks,
01:48but you hadn't, had you? No, well, I went home and had a few, wishing that I could sing
01:54like that. But she was, and has been, sort of like the artist's singer ever since. Not
02:04just mine, but we all think that way of Rene. I think the intriguing thing about Rene, and
02:09we're talking about her as if she's died, but I think the intriguing thing about Rene
02:13Geyer is that she is one artist that you can't departmentalise, because she does, she
02:21covers a huge spectrum of music, soul, sure, jazz, certainly, she's done pop stuff, done
02:26all of that stuff, but it's, she covers the whole deal. I think the key with somebody
02:32like Rene, and performers in general, if they don't strike this thing, they miss the whole
02:39thing, is Rene is absolutely perfect at being able to tie her emotional engine to a performance,
02:47a performance is just a conduit to the audience, but the emotional engine there drives the
02:51whole thing, and that's, you know, I mean, it's... What do you mean by that? Can I see
02:59your engine? She does it somehow. Yeah, yeah. I don't think I'll buy into that one. I don't
03:06know. We've gone quiet all of a sudden, it does sound as if Rene may have died, we're
03:10just saying our respects to her. What about Mother O? What do you feel, Rene? I, as a
03:15matter of fact, when I was about, now that we're the great age that we all are now, there's
03:23less difference between us than when you're younger, like someone who's ten, looking at
03:30someone who's eighteen thinks, you know... Couldn't agree more. And my mum bought me
03:35Normie Rowe a go-go when I was about ten, eleven years old, and I had the hugest crush
03:41on Normie, and it was a naughty thing, because I read in the paper that Normie, and it actually
03:49ended up not being true apparently, he was saying that he had a run-in with the officials
03:55because of some young girl that he was supposed to have been with, that was underage, and
04:01I kept thinking, could be me, could be me! And I just had such a crush on him. I remember
04:09my mum bought me Normie Rowe a go-go, and I just had a huge... I get the feeling, Normie,
04:13it mightn't be too late! You've waited a fair while, Rene, but ladies and gentlemen, here
04:18we go! The thing with Normie too, and I picked this up again on the weekend, that great...
04:25one of the magazines last weekend, the full-page thing on yourself, and you know, I'd never
04:30really heard you say it yourself, that Vietnam cruelled your career. I've heard other people
04:37say it, but I mean, I suppose the Normie Rowe we knew back in the 60s, the Normie Rowe we've
04:42known in more recent times, is a different style performer, but was it really that devastating
04:49to you? Yeah, when I got the papers, I went straight into the worst depression. I was
04:56there for about six weeks, still working, still up on the stage, and it was sort of
05:01like living two lives, and the only time I felt good about myself was when I was up on
05:07the stage, and I'd come back and think, oh God, this is going to be terrible, and I guess
05:13it wasn't until the day that I actually went into the army that I bit the bullet and said,
05:19okay, this is my next two years, and I'm going to have to deal with it. But you discovered
05:25there that your marble hadn't come out. Well, I know I didn't discover that until ten years
05:30later. Oh, didn't you really? Right. So when I got back... It was a PR thing by the government.
05:35Who knows? Who knows? I mean, a silly thing, because the government, in fact, we were doing
05:41pretty well in England. We were doing all the big tours and everything, and had every
05:46reason to believe that very shortly we'd have had international success, and that would
05:52have been much better for Australia than just sticking a pop star in the army. Did you see
05:56any of the artists who went over to Vietnam performing? Did you see any of those shows?
06:00I saw only two shows the whole time I was there. I saw Lenore Somerset, and I think
06:09I saw Betty Harrell. Didn't see Denise and Paddy? No, I didn't see Denise and Paddy,
06:15but I did see Maureen Elkner and the girls who were touring with her. Did that mean something
06:19to the troops? Oh, it meant everything. Everything. And so important were the concerts. You might
06:29not see all of them, as we didn't, but every time we came back into the DAT and there was
06:39a concert on, and we were able to get there, it was sort of like going home for a couple
06:44of hours. It was fantastic.