Russell Morris has never performed his 1969 hit ‘Its Only A Matter of Time’ but will for the first time when he performed his orchestra shows in Sydney and Melbourne in July.
Russell will perform on July 2 at the Sydney Opera House and July 4 at Melbourne’s Hamer Hall.
‘Its Only A Matter of Time’ was a double A side number one hit single with ‘The Real Thing’ in Australia in 1969. The song, written by Hans Poulsen, was included on the four of Russell’s compilation albums ‘’Wings of an Eagle and Other great Hits’, (1973), ‘Retrospective’ (1978), ‘The Real Thing’ (2002) and ‘The Very Best of Russell Morris’ (2013).
Watch the Russell Morris interview.
Russell tells Noise11.com, “I’ve never really done it because I’ve never really been a big fan of it. Clive Palmer said, ‘I want to hear that song’. ‘I said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t like the song and I won’t do it’ and he said, ‘That’s disappointing, I’d love to see it’. I spoke to a mutual friend of ours, Froggy, (Brian Harris of Songland Records) in Canberra and he said ‘that is incredibly rude. That is really not very polite. Here is a guy paying for you to do this and you won’t do just one song just for him?’ And I went, ‘Gee Frog, you are right’. That is the song that is being included”.
Clive Palmer? Yes, he is that one. Business and Politics aside, he is a Russell Morris fan and wanted Russell to perform a show he had never done before. “Like in the schoolyard when you are standing around waiting to be picked by the two captains, and you are the last one standing with your hand up and you are taken by default at the end. I had tried to get orchestras interested and no-one was interested so I had given up on it. I was doing a show and in the audience was Clive Palmer. I went out to sign CDs after the show and he was in the line with three CDs. He said to me, ‘I’ve always been a fan since I was at school. I love your stuff and don’t think you’ve had the right breaks. I think you could take another step”. That was it until a few months later, I had two shows in Townsville and Clive Palmer booked three tables each night. I got up on stage and started sending him up. He thought it was funny and said ‘Will you have lunch with me. I want to finance a show’. He said ‘I want you on with a 60-piece orchestra’. That is how this began.
Russell Morris will perform
2 July at the Sydney Opera House and
4 July at Hamer Hall Melbourne.
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