Healing Force – Golden Miles, 7" Single, Australia 1971, Sparmac Productions – SPR009
Golden Miles was the A-side of the only single recorded by Melbourne-based progressive-rock band Healing Force. Formed in Adelaide in late 1970, the band’s four founding members were Australians Lindsay Wells (guitar) and Laurie Pryor (drums), and New Zealanders Mal Logan (keyboards) and Charlie Tumahai (bass and vocals). Guitarist John Pugh joined just prior to the single’s release in July 1971.
Written by Lindsay Wells, Golden Miles is widely regarded as the best Australian progressive-rock song of the era. The song glides along on a wonderful melody featuring Logan’s uplifting Hammond organ, Pryor and Tumahai’s crisp rhythm section, and Wells’ tasteful and understated guitar playing, topped brilliantly by Tumahai’s distinctive lead vocals. The song charted on 2 August 1971, spent 19 weeks in the charts and reached a top of 31.
Widely considered one of Australia’s first “super-groups”, Healing Force was riven by line-up changes, breakups and reformations over its two-and-a-half-year history. In an extraordinary display of bad timing, shortly after the release of Golden Miles and while on the verge of chart success, Tumahai, Pryor and Wells left the band to join Melbourne blues-rock band Chain.
Keen to capitalize on the success of the new single, Logan and Pugh pushed on, recruiting Ray Findlay on bass and Eric Cairns on drums, but by year’s end the band had split. Healing Force later reformed in November 1972 with a line-up of Logan, Pugh and Pryor, plus Mal Capewell on reeds, and Gus Fenwick on bass. They were joined in early 1973 by Charlie Tumahai in time to play at Sunbury 1973 before finally splitting up in April.
BY JOHN PHILLIPS
ORIGIN : Australia.
LABEL : Sparmac Productions – SPR009.
CONDITION OF COVER : N/A.
CONDITION OF RECORD : EX-
RECORD GRADING DEFINITIONS
MINT: Never opened, still in original shrink wrap.
NM: Opened, appears unplayed.
EX: A few very light surface hair-line marks with no major deterioration to the sound quality.
VG: A few light scratches and/or scuffs creating audible background noise. There is no skipping or jumping on this record unless indicated in the condition description.
A plus or minus (+ or -) denotes slightly better or slightly less than a grade, eg. VG+.
Each record has been cleaned and played to ensure the accuracy of the following grading
