"Rachel" is a song by Australian singer

Russell Morris Russell Norman Morris (born 31 July 1948) is an Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist who had five Australian Top 10 singles during the late 1960s and early 1970s. On 1 July 2008, the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) recog ...

. The song was written by

Raymond Froggatt Raymond William Froggatt (born 13 November 1941) is an English songwriter and singer.Larkin, Colin (1998) ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Country Music'', Virgin Books, , p. 159-160 Biography Froggatt (otherwise known as "Froggy") was born in Bordes ...

and produced by

Howard Gable Howard Gable is a New Zealand-born Australian record producer who is best known for his work as an A&R manager and house producer for EMI's Columbia pop label in Australia in the late 1960s and early 1970. He was also for some years married to N ...

. It was released as a single in April 1970 and peaked at number 23 on the Australian

Go-Set ''Go-Set'' was the first Australian pop music newspaper, published weekly from 2 February 1966 to 24 August 1974, and was founded in Melbourne by Phillip Frazer, Peter Raphael and Tony Schauble. NOTE: This PDF is 282 pages. Widely described as ...

chart in May 1970. The track peaked at number 1 in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Background and recording

In 1969, Morris travelled to London to promote this track "

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" with UK label

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American ...

. The song was a commercial failure and failed to chart. Whilst there, Russell recorded two numbers with expatriate Aussie guitarist and former Bee Gee Vince Melouney, one being Melouney’s "Little Lady", the other "Rachel". These cuts remain unreleased, the perfectionist singer being very unhappy with the producer's mix. Morris returned to Melbourne in December 1969 and immediately set about fresh recording sessions with

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...

and re-recorded of "Rachel".It was released as a single in April 1970, peaking at number 23. The single's fate was in part determined, as that of many other single releases at the time, by the controversial 1970 radio ban which resulted in major United Kingdom and Australian pop songs being refused airplay, including Morris'

Track listing

; 7" Single *Side A "Rachel" - 4:27 *Side B "Slow Joey" - 2:26

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References