Goodbye Tiger

Australian singer-songwriter-guitarist, Richard Clapton, started writing tracks for his fourth studio album, Goodbye Tiger (August 1977), after he and a group of friends were at Sydney Town Hall to see American journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, in October 1976.[1][2] Clapton was referred to as "Tiger" by "[his] 'beat poet' buddies."[1] They got drunk and the binge continued until he got on a flight to Germany before crashing out at a friend's place in Frankfurt.[1]

He wrote the title track at that friend's apartment and later recalled, "It was the only time I've ever written a song and then not gone back and changed a word. It seemed like it had been the end of our innocence or something."[1][3] He was later snowed in at a resort in Denmark, where there was a blizzard and they were trapped, "but we had enough beer so it didn't really matter."[3] It was there that he wrote most of Goodbye Tiger,[3] which was released via Infinity Records/Festival Records with Richard Batchens producing.[4][5] However it was the final album he recorded for Infinity Records and the last produced by Batchens.[4][5]

Clapton's backing band for the album was: Gunther Gorman on guitar, Michael Hegerty on bass guitar (ex-Stars), Kirk Lorange on lead guitar, Diane McLennan on backing vocals, Cleis Pearce on viola (ex-MacKenzie Theory) and Greg Sheehan on drums (ex-Blackfeather, MacKenzie Theory).[4][5] Additional musicians on some tracks included Tony Ansell on keyboards, Tony Buchanan on saxophone and Jim Penson on drums.[4][5] Clapton has said that working on the album was the worst year of his life, "but I guess that's the record I will always be remembered for."[3] During 1978 he toured nationally in support of its release with Ansell, Hegerty, Lorange, McLennan and Sheehan.[4]

Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, described Goodbye Tiger as, "his most celebrated work, an album full of rich, melodic and accessible rock with a distinctly Australian flavour. It established Clapton's reputation as one of the most important Australian songwriters of the 1970s."[4] Australian rock music historian, Chris Spencer, explained why it is one of his favourites, "[It] represents one of the pinnacles of Australian rock music. Clapton, essentially a singer-songwriter, working within the security of numerous band line-ups, wrote his best lyrics on this album. He never reached the same heights again, particularly with his melodies, visions and observations of urban Australia."[6]

In October 2010 it was listed at No. 15 in the book, 100 Best Australian Albums.[1] The writers and music journalists, Toby Creswell, Craig Mathieson and John O'Donnell, described how, "Strangely, all the songs were about Australia..." despite being written while he was in Europe.[1] They noticed that Clapton's work with Batchens, "was fraught with suspicion and hostility."[1] While "The overriding mood of the album is edgy; like a hangover... All of the songs amplify the themes of the key songs 'Deep Water', 'Down in the Lucky Country' and the title song."[1]

It reached No. 11 on the Kent Music Report Albums Chart in November 1977.[7] It provided two singles, "Deep Water", which reached No. 43 on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart in November, and "Down in the Lucky Country", released in January 1978.[4][7]

Musicians

• Richard Clapton – vocals, guitar
• Tony Ansell – keyboards
• Tony Buchanan – saxophone (tracks 2, 7, 8)
• Dalvanius, Diane McLennan – backing vocals
• Gunther Gorman – bass guitar (tracks 2, 3, 4, 6, 7), lead guitar (track 2)
• Michael Hegerty – bass guitar
• Kirk Lorange – lead guitar
• Cleis Pearce – viola
• Jim Penson – drums (track 5)
• Greg Sheehan – drums, percussion

Technical and recording

• Producer – Richard Batchens at Festival Studios, Sydney
• Audio engineer – John Frolich, Batchens
• Artwork – Geoff Kleem
• Photography – Violette Hamilton