Forgotten One-Hit Wonders – Twofer Edition (not applicable in Australia)

Well, that’s a confusing title. Our first “Forgotten One-Hit Wonders” post was greeted with such indifference that I decided that maybe a twofer edition would garner twice as many readers. Except, how can there be a twofer edition when the very definition of a one-hit wonder means there was only one hit? And why is this post not applicable in Australia? Have I whipped you into a questioning frenzy yet? Are you foaming at the mouth and falling over backwards with excitement?

Exactly! Well, allow me to first resolve the “not applicable in Australia” issue. In the USA, this band was a one-hit wonder. In Australia, these guys were HUGE with numerous hits. But who are they?

Of course it is Dick, Harry, Snowy, George, and Stevie, also known as The Easybeats. You would think Snowy would be the blond, but not so. That’s Harry. Anyway, they had a huge hit in the USA in 1966 with this song.

Love the dancing and the surf guitar sound that accentuates, but doesn’t dominate.

The Easybeats went on to have many charting songs in Australia, but that one hit is all we remember them for in the US. This would be the end of a normal post, but not a special twofer edition post. Not when you have Harry Vanda and George Young, brother of the AC/DC Young brothers, as members of The Easybeats.

Harry and George performed together post-Easybeats under various names including Flash and the Pan. A decade after “Friday on my Mind,” Flash and the Pan charted in the USA with this one-hit wonder.

I love George Young dressing like brother Angus in schoolboy shorts starting at the 2:30 mark. But Angus did it first back in 1974.

So, that’s how we get a twofer edition from a US one-hit wonder. And if this post doesn’t get more interest than the inaugural edition, I’m warning you, I swear I will come up with a threefer edition.

The Easybeats may have been a US one-hit wonder, but Harry Vanda and George Young proved they were not just a flash in the pan by having another one-hit wonder as Flash and the Pan.