Allusions

The Allusions were an Australian band that never made any impression outside of their homeland but left behind some great Merseybeat-style records. The quintet was formed out of the memberships of two previously existing groups, the Leemen and the Delawares. Guitarist Terry Hearne, already a five-year veteran of the music business at age 20, and an ex-member of the surf instrumental groups the Dave Bridge Quartet and Dave Bridge Trio, joined the Leemen in 1964 and began to move away from leader Lonnie Lee's Bakersfield sound country repertory. With rhythm guitarist Michael Morris, who had previously played in an outfit called Dennis Williams & the Delawares, he split off from the Leemen. Hearne's ex-Dave Bridge bandmate Terry Chapman came in on bass, and Kevin Hughes of the Delawares took the drummer spot, with John Shaw, who also doubled in a very limited way on organ, taking the lead vocals on the ballads. The new group's influences and models came from the Beatles but also the early Zombies and the Fortunes, Gerry & the Pacemakers, and other lighter, pop-oriented rock & roll outfits being heard at the time in England. When they made their debut at the end of 1965, they were a pure cover band, performing nothing but established British acts' songs. They moved into creating original material when they realized that it was the only way that they would ever get to record. Morris became their in-house mainstay in that regard, not because he was particularly good at it but because, in Hearne's view, he was better than the other four. "We couldn't write a shopping list," he remarked to David McLean in a 1994 article. They developed a modified Merseybeat sound, almost reminiscent of Gerry & the Pacemakers but with the harmonic subtleties of the Beatles and the Searchers,...