‘I Can Dream’, the final album by Max Merritt will be released on Robert Rigby’s Fanfare Records.
‘Dream’ is a collection of 10 songs dating back as far as 2002. Max recorded three tracks at Metropolis in Melbourne in 2002 for what was to be a new album but then he fell ill and the recordings were discontinued.
Producer James ‘Jimbo’ Barton worked with Max in the last years of his life on new music between 2014 and 2020. Two songs were recorded at Colin Hay’s California Studio in 2018. Hay wrote ‘Sunbury’ for the album.
Max Merritt was born in Christchurch, New Zealand on 30 April 1941. It was there in 1956 he formed his first incarnation of The Meteors. In 1964 he relocated to Sydney and made his first Australian television appearance in Johnny O’Keefe’s ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’.
Max heard Otis Redding’s ‘Try A Little Tenderness’ on a cruise ship and recorded his own version which became the hit over Otis’ in Australia.
‘Western Union Man’ was also a hit for Merritt in Australia, not the original by Jerry Butler.
Merritt’s biggest hit in Australia was ‘Slipping Away’, released through the new record label at the time Arista Records.
Max Merritt’s ‘I Can Dream’ will be released on 27 November, 2020.
