Easybeats = Beatles imitators

[Rythmn Boy]

I just read a small 1980s book about AC/DC by some character named Paul Ezra. He makes a number of references to Harry Vanda and George Young and The Easybeats.

He calls The Easybeats 'Sydney Merseybeat merchants'. He says they made 'singles that sounded uncannily like out-takes from the Beatles Rubber Soul album'. He says The Easybeats 'gained a fast reputation around Sydney as Vanda and Young were able to write and sing very much like the Beatles'.

What a well-researched book. He totally ignores Stevie Wright's contribution as song-writer for the earlier material and just repeats again and again his Beatles imitators mantra. Did he actually listen to any of The Easybeats' records? Sure, The Easybeats existed in the context of the beat explosion partly inspired by The Beatles, but they were originators, not imitators, as we all know, or does someone here agree with Paul Ezra?

I can't find anything about the author on ye olde internet as the web is chock-a-block with stories about the execution of a serial killer with a similar name

 

[bosshoss]

Some of their stuff was a tiny bit Beatle-ish, but on the whole, they had a much harder beat sound, that the Beatles never touched on*. And Stevie Wright co-wrote most of their best songs for sure. Such as the first 3 LPs and the Easyfever ep, for starters. The real Australian Beatles imitators of the early and mid 60s were none other than the Bee Gees. They had it down to a science.

*except on their incredible 1962 Star Club recordings with Ringo, but that wasn't released at the time so the Easybeats could not have heard it.