Greg Anderson — “I Feel Good”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — January 20, 2022

325)— Greg Anderson — “I Feel Good“

This ’66 A-side was Anderson’s first. It is “a stunner” (liner notes to The Hot Generation: 1960s Punk from Down Under comp) and “a superb beat number with a great guitar riff” (Vernon Joynson, Dreams, Fantasies & Nightmares: Australia). The “unique and rip-roaring guitar solo” was apparently by Vince Maloney, who went on to be a member of the Bee Gees from ’67-’69 (http://www.milesago.com/Artists/anderson-greg.htm). The song is a great R&B number written by Allen Toussaint, first recorded by Benny Spellman, also recorded by the Artwoods, and transmogrified by Maloney’s whip-cracking riff.

Anderson had an interesting upbringing:

His parents had a whip-cracking act, and at fifteen months old [he] was appearing with them on tour in England . . . . At seven he took part in the Moomba Rodeo Festival as a trick rider and by the time he was ten [he] was appearing on major television shows and performing his own stage show for Coca Cola . . . . At 15 [he reached] the Grand Final of the prestigious television talent quest Showcase . . . . By the mid-Sixties [he] was a regular on the Melbourne pop circuit . . . .

http://www.milesago.com/Artists/anderson-greg.htm

In ’70, Anderson secured his only Australian chart hit (#21), “No Roses for Michael,” the theme song for an Australian TV movie about heroin addiction among the youth. When the Robert Redford fluck The Electric Horseman came out in 1980, Anderson “was asked to appear at the . . . Australian premiere, for which he created an elaborate costume with hundreds of lights on himself and his horse, and he then adopted the title of ‘Australia’s Electric Horseman’. (http://www.milesago.com/Artists/anderson-greg.htm). The rest is history.

Check out the cool video of Anderson “singing” the song on TV accompanied by fresh-faced Aussie dancers. The video poster on You Tube notes that “the visuals here are somewhat at odds with [a punk song]. Strict presentation requirements . . . at the time are the likely reason.”

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Here is Benny Spellman’s great original:

Here is the Artwoods’s version, also a stunner: