Formed in 1964 as The Mustangs, the band has existed on and off since then and was a charting force between 1966 and 1971 before reuniting on and off in the decades afterwards from 1988 with the original band reuniting from 2020.

There is some puzzlement over their name, early records say they are The Master’s Apprentices and later compilations have the title as The Masters Apprentices, fans call them The Masters.

The band was a major success in Australia and went to the UK to try their luck there but didn’t have success, in the 60s it was standard for Australian artists to go to the UK, this was changed in the 70s to America.

Of the ‘classic’ members of the band, Jim Keays went on to be a successful solo artist, Glenn Wheatley managed Little River Band and John Farnham, Colin Burgess was briefly the drummer for AC/DC and Doug Ford wrote songs for many artists.

Turn Up Your Radio

Turn Up Your Radio was released in 1970 and was a hit in Australia with the song peaking at No. 7, this was their best result followed by ‘Living in a Child’s Dream’ which peaked at No. 9.

What’s to love about this song, the horns, the guitar, the drums really coming in from halfway in the song to the way that Jim Keays sings and of course the lyrics, this is an Australian classic.

The zoom in and out of the band members may make some people a little queasy, they really did experiment with cameras in those days.

Death of a King

‘Death of a King’ is about the death of Martin Luther King, ‘panthers’ refer to the Black Panthers, ‘state militia’ would of course be the police forces that countered protests etc. in the 60s.

Love the Rock music that the Masters had from 1968, it is truly fine Australian rock music, music that would grow in the years after ‘Death of a King’ with bands like AC/DC.

Think About Tomorrow Today

One of the strengths of The Masters Apprentices is their guitar playing, in this case by Doug Ford in ‘Think About Tomorrow Today’, this song peaked at No. 12 on the Australian charts and was the first of two songs to peak at that position.

5:10 Man

5:10 Man was from the studio album ‘Masterpiece’ and is a guitar driven song that peaked at No. 16 on the Australian charts, the song really has a nice mixture of genres in it, some people like it and some people don’t, but I definitely like the mixed styles of music.

Future of Our Nation

‘Future of Our Nation’ came from the studio album ‘Nickleodeon’ and peaked at No. 51 on the charts in 1971, the last charting song by the band between 1966 and 1971.

Doug Ford sings the opening lines of the song before Jim Keays joins in, the music video was from the show GTK (Get To Know) a show on the ABC (Australia) that gave bands, groups and solo artists the opportunity to sing their songs live instead of the standard practice of miming and in an era of tape wiping, GTK was mostly spared the wipe.

Because I Love You

We close out this list with ‘Because I Love You’ this song is their signature song; this is from their album ‘Master’s Apprentices’ or ‘Choice Cuts’ as it was known in Australia.

The song peaked at No. 12 in Australia and was their second last song to chart from the 1966-1971 chart run by the band, the music video is one of the rare ones that is in colour and is not a colourisation attempt.

I love the Piano music usage in the song, you only hear it loudly for a few notes at a time, but it really stands out.