Music Carrl and Janie Myriad with Mike Deany

Carrl and Janie Myriad were a husband and wife psych-folk duo popular on the Melbourne circuit in the 1970s.

Amazingly you can find them on YouTube here, and here, at time of writing.

Their album still does the rounds on the second hand circuit, and can be found on CD: One web site provided this information, but we're unable to verify its accuracy:

A popular husband & wife duo on the Melbourne circuit in the early 70's, Carrl & Janie went on to form one of our first country/folk/rock bands, the self named Myriad. Some of the players in that band reads like a who's who of Oz rock & included several future members of The Sports including guitarists Andrew Pendlebury & Ed Bates & bassist Rob Glover. Other members of note include Mark Ferrie of The Models & now part of the RokWiz Orchestra, plus Chris Wilson who was in Buster Brown & has played with Broderick Smith for many years

For a long time the band held a residency at the famed Station Hotel in Prahran & even had 3 tracks appear on the Live At The Station multi-artist album which came out in 1976 (available elsewhere here if you do a search). By that time Carrl & Janie had separated & Janie reverted to her maiden name Janie Conway, helping to form, with Jane Clifton, another popular band of the late 70's, Stiletto.

Something I only just found out is that Janie is also the sister of Mic & Jim Conway of Captain Matchbox/Backsliders fame. Quite a talented family indeed

Anyway back to this album. This has long been one of my fave recordings of the era, with Janie's fragile soprano harmonies & occasional leads a nice counterpoint to Carrl's vocals. In fact she reminds me a little of Maddy Prior of Fairport Convention. Songs include the catchy, uptempo folk/rock of lead single "Back In The Wildwoods Again" which garnered a bit of airplay at the time. Carrl & Janie also made several appearances on Happening '72 when this album was released. However most of the other tracks are more acoustic/folk in flavour with a few unexpected surprises. e.g. The Ballad of Rachelene features a hauntingly beautiful lead vocal by Jane on an ethereal folk lullaby but the tranquility of the song is suddenly jolted towards the end of the track by some stinging electric lead guitar work by Kerryn Tolhurst of Country Radio/The Dingoes etc. "Lovers in The Mirror" is an extended folk ballad which allows Janie to show her prowess on the recorder, which proves to have an absolutely gorgeous tone in her hands (or should that be lips???), quite unlike the squawking which came from mine when I was learning this traditional primary school instrument. "Silver Rings & Golden Pleasures" is another fine song from which the album takes its title

In fact, although I find the album's opening track not up to the standard of the rest, there's really not a single bad track on here. It's also further proof if needed, of what a fine writer Carrl has been since the very beginning of his career, which began with this album on Spin Records. I guess thematically & lyrically, much of the album falls squarely into the love & peace hippy ethos of the time, but if only this world had more of that now, how much better would we all feel?

I've mentioned more of Carrl's story on my post for his later album "Like a Gypsy or a Cowboy..." which I posted here 2 or 3 weeks ago. Suffice to say that Carrl's restless spirit has led to a long career which has seen him explore several roots based genres from folk to country & bush ballads through to Celtic influenced music. A truly individualistic talent who has gained a loyal fanbase through his many incarnations but deserves to be far better known.

Apart from Kerryn, players on the album include the likes of the In Focus rhythm section of bassist extraordinaire Duncan McGuire (also King Harvest/Ayers Rock/Doug parkinson's Southern Star Band) & drumming wonder Mark Kennedy (also Spectrum, King Harvest. Ayers Rock, Marcia Hines, Southern Star Band, Renee Geyer etc). Others of note are Carson's John Capek on Keyboards, Janie's brother Jim Conway on mouth harp & it was produced by Gus McNeil (White Wine & producer for Renee Geyer, Company Caine & Redhouse among others)