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DONNIE SUTHERLAND
Fairyland (Ben Findon) Australia 1969 #42 Sydney Single on Du Monde featuring This Hallelujah Chorus, arranged and produced by John Eggington. He started out as an apprentice jockey, but the career of Donnie Sutherland (b. 1946) has included singing, songwriting, radio announcing, TV hosting and journalism. He began in radio as a disc jockey at Sydney station 2UW and has also been on 4BC, 2UE and 2KY. Publications he wrote for included the pop weekly Go-Set and Sydney's Sunday paper The Sun-Herald.
Further reading: 1. Career highlights from Donnie Sutherland's website [archived page]. 2. The Donnie Sutherland article at Wikipedia has updates to 2014. Suggestion from Terry Stacey.
THE POP WORKSHOP
Fairyland (Ben Findon) UK 1968 Original version Single on Page One, arranged by Wombles composer-producer-arranger Mike Batt: see, for example, The Wombling Song (1973, #4 UK). Ben Findon's compositions include Billy Ocean's hit Love Really Hurts Without You (1976, #2 UK #22 USA #3 Australia), co-written with Les Charles and produced by Findon. See his composer and producer credits at 45cat.com. The Pop Workshop were from Harrow, in north-west London. The band was formed in 1966 by Alan Box and Dale Evans who had been together in Nite Sect. After three members of that band left, Box and Evans recruited two new members and formed The Locomotion. They performed under that name around London's west for two years before being signed to Larry Page's recently formed label Page One and changing their name to The Pop Workshop. In the line-up were Alan Box (vocals and guitar), Dave Evans (lead guitar), Andy Love (bass) and Terry Gibbs (drums). Singles discography: What would you do if someone said to you “meet me Saturday night in fairyland?” Please don’t answer that question. Anyway, that’s the premise of this song that is neatly set on top of a Motown beat. But the lyrics and arrangement transform its otherwise derivative musical backing into something special. The song was written by harmony pop master Ben Findon and the arrangement is by Mike Batt. References, further reading:
BRENDA LEE
Fairyland (Pete De Angelis - Bob Marcucci) USA 1957 Red herring
Single on Decca, B-side of One Step At A Time. The Second Movement's Australian B-side on Parlophone (1968), sometimes listed as Fairyland, is a different song with the full title Fairyland (Why Oh Why). Corrections or comments? Contact the writer. |
He is perhaps best known as host of the Saturday morning TV pop show Sounds, (originally Sound Unlimited) from the mid-70s till the late 80s, first on Channel 7 in Sydney and later around Australia
Donnie Sutherland OAM was awarded the Medal of the 
SAME TITLE BUT NOT THE SAME SONG AS 'FAIRYLAND' BY DONNIE SUTHERLAND.