Flashback Feature: Remembering the Gold Coast’s famous promotional songs of decades past
THE Gold Coast has been music to the ears of people both locally and internationally for more than 60 years. Andrew Potts looks back at the songs in the key of the Gold Coast.
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THE Gold Coast has been music to the ears of people both locally and internationally for more than 60 years.
Between the 1950s and 1980s, three albums were released to promote the Glitter Strip in song, featuring everything from local performers to international icons.
Andrew Potts looks back at the songs in the key of the Gold Coast.
It’s hot in Brisbane but it’s Coolangatta (1953)
MORE than six decades after it was first head by listeners, the Coast’s first tune remains one of the best-known phrases linked with the city.
By 1953 the City of South Coast was a growing metropolis, still five years away from being renamed the Gold Coast when local business leaders decided to capitalise on the growing number of tourists.
The Coolangatta Chamber of Commerce commissioned a song, composed by local Claude Carnell with vocals by Gwen Ryan and backing from Doug Roughton’s Hokey Pokey Club.
The tune, original titled “Coolangatta’s souvenir song” was released the same year and came on a 7-inch vinyl containing both a “slow bounce” and “Dixieland” version.
The liner notes contained information on Coolangatta to promote the area.
A new version was recorded in 2011 featuring local performers Scott French, Bec Whitehead, Liam Butler and Brennan Smith.
We Love the Gold Coast/On The Gold Coast (1980)
IN 1979 the city was looking ahead to the 1980s and trying to bring in a new wave of tourists.
Newly elected Mayor Keith Hunt, a jack-of-all-trades decided to commission a new song.
He launched a nationwide competition, keen to get a selection of songs before naming a winner.
More than 250 entries were received and it was judged by Sir Alan Mansfield and Patrick O’Hagan, who singled out praise for entries from the Gold Coast Choral Society and Warren Stapleton of Burleigh Heads.
Everything from hymns to moody blues numbers and ballads were received.
Ultimately the judges selected two winners “We Love the Gold Coast” by Clyde Collins and “On The Gold Coast” by Victorian-based Tom Louch, who sent in an elaborate entry containing a musical score and a cassette recording.
Both were recorded as a single in 1980 by internationally renounced US performer Lovelace Watkins.
According the single’s blurb: “The Gold Coast, Australia’s number one playground continues to attract the young, and young at heart with is special mixture of sun, surf and sophistication, softened by the surrounding majestic Hinterland.”
Watkins had been linked to the Gold Coast for more than 15 years and had raised funds to help the city following the devastating 1974 floods.
After recording the single, Alderman Hunt named him the area’s “ambassador at large”.
“Both men share the sense of fun, adventure and excitement that is the Gold Coast.”
Gold Coast Paradise (1983)
JUST three years later, the Gold Coast gave recording a city anthem another shot.
Ald. Hunt died in office in November 1982 and his successor was long-time councillor Denis O’Connell.
His daughter, Suzanne worked in the council’s promotions department at the time and was a well-known singer.
She was tapped to front the Coast’s new tourism campaign, which was developed by the Coast’s Visitors and Conventions Bureau.
Gold Coast Paradise was recorded with local musicians and released by Double G Records in 1983.
It proved a highly popular tune and was put on the in-flight playlist of major airlines TAA and Qantas.
Ms O’Connell’s vinyl record is now a highly-prized collectable and can be found occasionally on online auction site eBay.
She told the Bulletin yesterday she looked back fondly on her success and was still able to belt out the tune.
“I was a stage singer at the time and we collaborated with the visitors bureau to come up with a new song,” she said.
“We put the record together with some local musicians and it was used to promote the tours in film clips and on the promo tours that were done at the time.
“It still pops up on Facebook and iTunes from time to time and I understand it is a collector’s item now, a bit like me.”
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