Lobby Loyde’s Plays With George Guitar Reissued By Aztec Records

Aztec Records has reissued Lobby Loyde’s landmark 1971 debut solo album Plays With George Guitar, digitally remastered by Gil Matthews, extending a long musical relationship between two key figures in Australian rock history.

by Paul Cashmere

Lobby Loyde’s 1971 debut solo album Plays With George Guitar has been reissued by Aztec Records, bringing one of the guitarist’s most uncompromising recordings back into circulation. The release, catalogued as AVSCD106, was digitally remastered by Gil Matthews, the drummer who worked alongside Loyde during several important periods of Australian rock and who has continued to preserve Loyde’s recorded legacy through Aztec Records.

Recorded after Loyde left Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs in 1970, Plays With George Guitar captured the guitarist at a point when Australian rock was moving towards heavier, louder and more experimental forms. The album was originally issued on the Infinity label in September 1971 and featured Loyde with bassist Teddy Toi and drummer Johnny Dick, both musicians with connections to Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and Fanny Adams.

The seven track album is built around Loyde’s heavily distorted guitar, extended instrumental passages and a rhythm section designed to accommodate his exploratory playing. The sessions produced a record that sits between psychedelic rock, blues and the emerging heavy rock sound of the early 1970s.

The title refers to Loyde’s guitar, which he called George. He explained that the name was a send up of B.B. King’s practice of naming his guitar Lucille. That sense of humour sat alongside music that was considerably more serious in its ambition, with tracks such as Everybody Come Together, Dream and Evolution pushing the recording into increasingly experimental territory.

The new Aztec edition also includes two Wild Cherries recordings from 1971, I’m The Sea (Stop Killing Me) and Daily Planet. Those tracks document another stage of Loyde’s work with the revived Wild Cherries, linking the solo album to a band name that had already been central to his career during the psychedelic era of the late 1960s.

Matthews’ involvement gives the reissue particular historical significance. His relationship with Loyde dates back to the same Melbourne rock community that produced some of Australia’s most influential heavy music of the period. Matthews joined Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs after Loyde had departed, but the pair subsequently worked together on recordings, including the 1971 Wild Cherries single I’m The Sea and the 1972 Coloured Balls recording Liberate Rock.

That session helped establish another chapter in Loyde’s career. According to the historical account supplied for the reissue, Matthews suggested the name The Coloured Balls as a joke title for the recording. Loyde subsequently developed the name into a permanent band, with Coloured Balls becoming one of the defining Australian heavy rock acts of the early 1970s.

The partnership continued into the following decade. After Loyde returned from Britain, he and Matthews became members of Southern Electric, with Gavin Carroll on bass. Their work resulted in Live With Dubs, released in 1980, while Matthews also engineered and produced sessions connected with Loyde’s projects.

Matthews’ role became particularly important after Loyde died in 2007. Through Aztec Records, which he founded to document and preserve Australian rock recordings, Matthews has overseen reissues of Loyde’s solo catalogue, Coloured Balls material and archival recordings. Previous Aztec releases include Live With Dubs, Obsecration, Beyond Morgia: The Labyrinths Of Klimster, Coloured Balls’ Ball Power and Heavy Metal Kid, and Lobby’s Last… Summer Jam.

Loyde’s wider contribution to Australian rock extends well beyond Plays With George Guitar. He had already established himself with The Purple Hearts and Wild Cherries during the 1960s before joining Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs. Coloured Balls subsequently produced the album Ball Power, which reached No. 13 on the Go-Set National Top 20 albums chart in 1974, while Heavy Metal Kid generated the Top 40 single Love You Babe.

His later career included production work with artists including X, The Sunnyboys, Machinations and Painters and Dockers, as well as brief periods with Rose Tattoo and other projects. Loyde was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2006, shortly before his death from lung cancer in April 2007.

Plays With George Guitar therefore represents more than an archival reissue. It documents a pivotal period in Loyde’s development as a guitarist and songwriter while preserving the work through the efforts of a musician who shared several important chapters of his career. With Matthews responsible for the new digital remaster, the Aztec edition places Loyde’s 1971 recording back within the catalogue of Australian rock history.