Beeb Birtles Corrects Litigious River Band's Fudging Of History

Little River Band founder Beeb Birtles has once again taken aim at the current US band doing the rounds with the name but no original members.

The founding members of LRB have been involved in a mucky and expensive battle with the current name holder Steve Housden (who ironically also no longer performs with the band).

“I’m so sick of this shit! Check out this post at proctors.org,” Beeb posted at his Facebook page.

This is the current Little River Band bio:

Within eight months of their birth, LRB had already scored three Australian Top 20 singles and two Top Ten albums.

(Yes, and not one member of this current lineup of Little River Band had anything to do with those recordings)

In 1976, after their self-titled debut album was released in the USA, the long grind of 13 US tours in eight years had begun. By 1982 they became the only act – from anywhere – to have a top ten US single for six consecutive years. Little River Band was the first Australian band to successfully conquer foreign markets from an Australian base.

(Yes, and in those 8 years I was one of the founding members of Little River Band. Wayne Nelson didn’t join the group until 1980)

Headlining their own major shows in America, and touring internationally with the likes of the Doobie Brothers, Supertramp, America, Heart, Boz Scaggs, Fleetwood Mac, and The Eagles was a huge learning curve that honed LRB into one of the finest live bands in the world. Record success ran alongside – total record sales around the world have eclipsed the 30 million mark…16 hit singles by 1985, as well as gold, platinum, and multi-platinum album sales awards. All-told LRB have notched up eight top 10 singles in the US, where two of their songs, Reminiscing and Lady, have more than 9 million radio plays between them.

(Yes, and not one of the members of this current lineup played any part in the recording of those hit singles and albums except for Wayne Nelson who sang the lead vocal on ‘The Night Owls’ but he didn’t write any of LRB’s hits.)

The Little River Band of 2016 is stronger than ever and performs between 125-150 shows a year in the U.S., Canada and abroad. The band is anchored by American bass player Wayne Nelson, who began his LRB career in 1980. The following year Wayne debuted as lead vocalist on the top ten hits “The Night Owls” and “Take It Easy On Me,” and continues in that role today. Wayne has more years of service than anyone throughout the band’s illustrious history.

(Yes, Wayne did sing the lead vocal on ‘The Night Owls’ and ‘Take It Easy On Me’ but his version of ‘Take It Easy On Me’ was NOT released as the official single by Capitol Records. They chose to go with the version Glenn Shorrock sang and that was the hit single.
R.I.P. Little River Band)

Beeb also notes the line ‘The band is anchored by American bass player Wayne Nelson, who began his LRB career in 1980.’

(Anchored? Well put, as at the bottom of the ocean. I would have used the term tanked, myself), he added.

In January 2015 the non-original Little River Band even presented themselves to the high profile Jimmy Fallon show in an attempt to perform on the show to mark their 40th anniversary. When Fallon realised the discrepancy they were dropped from the show.

In 2006 LRB founder Graeme Goble released ‘Someone’s Taken Our History’ about the faux-LRB.