Jim Keays
""You can't live in your past but you can honour it…
"You can't live in your past but you can honour it."
Jim Keays has not the slightest qualm about rerecording songs he first sang 35 or 40 years ago. How could he? The Masters Apprentices' legacy runs so deep and wide in this country's musical consciousness that he can no sooner deny these tunes than rewrite rock history.
"A lot of artists try and alienate themselves from their past but in most cases those are the songs that put them where they are," he says. "I'm not caught up in the past; it's always been important to me to press on. But I've been doing these songs for so many bloody years they're just a part of me now."
Chances are you know the feeling. Often in fresh acoustic garb, a good half of these rock classics - Elevator Driver, Living In A Child's Dream, Turn Up Your Radio, Think About Tomorrow Today, 5:10 Man, Because I Love You – have been pulling crowds in Australian clubs all over again these past five years.
As on stage, Jim's fellow rock pioneers Darryl Cotton and Russell Morris join him here, for pristine new renditions of all of the above and more. Recorded and mixed in eight days in January 2006, Resonator is testament to a wealth of skill and talent with few peers in Australian rock'n'roll.
"It was a rush job," Jim says with characteristic bluntness (time and budget restraints are part of the no-frills Liberation Blue brief). "A friend of mine, Steve Romig, made an album in his lounge room and it sounded fantastic so I thought I'd give him a go. I didn't think for a minute it would gel as well as it has."
Put it down to experience – and that voice. From Masters relics of '66 to a handful of solo songs spanning '74 to 2005, Jim's counter-cultural themes and his unmistakable delivery comprise a seamless panorama of words and music, a unique and profound vision that's both epic and personal.
Among the gems are Wars or Hands of Time, Jim's first crack at the Mick Bower classic since it appeared on the B-side of the Masters Apprentices' debut single. Waiting For the Big One and This Song both hail from Jim's overlooked solo album of '94, Pressure Makes Diamonds.
Then there are the tantalising revelations of Our Kingdom Gone and Can't Find My Way Home (borrowed from Blind Faith circa '69), each recorded in '05 for a brand new solo album which remains under construction.
"I recorded it because I believe in the work," he says. "The body of work is more important than having a hit record. You've got to keep forging ahead. I'm not a nostalgic person by nature. I can make a living playing old songs but I'll always be thinking about what's coming rather than what's been."
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