| Goodbye Tiger | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Richard Clapton |
| Cover: | File:GoodbyeTiger.jpg |
| Alt: | Background is bright red. At top is the artist's name in stylised, blue script. Below is a depiction of a flying tiger, in orange with black stripes. Its jaws open and claws are reaching forward. Just below in smaller script is the album's name on a yellow ribbon. At the bottom two-thirds is an overhead shot of the artist. He wears a dark top and dark pants; he has a multi-coloured shirt visible. He stands on a dark green-black wooden floor with his hands folded in front of him. |
| Recorded: | 1977 |
| Studio: | Festival Studios, Sydney |
| Genre: | Rock |
| Label: | Infinity/Festival |
| Producer: | Richard Batchens |
| Prev Title: | Main Street Jive |
| Prev Year: | 1976 |
| Next Title: | Past Hits and Previews |
| Next Year: | 1978 |
Goodbye Tiger is the fourth studio album by Australian rock music singer-songwriter, Richard Clapton. It was released in October 1977 via Infinity Records/Festival Records and was produced by Richard Batchens. It peaked at No. 11 on the Kent Music Report Albums Chart.
It was the final studio album he recorded for Infinity Records and the last produced by Batchens.
In October 2010 it was listed at No. 15 in the book, 100 Best Australian Albums.
Australian singer-songwriter-guitarist, Richard Clapton, started writing tracks for his fourth studio album after he and a group of friends were at Sydney Town Hall to see American journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, in October 1976.[1] [2] Clapton was referred to as "Tiger" by "[his] 'beat poet' buddies."[1] They got drunk and the binge continued until he got on a flight to Germany before crashing out at a friend's place in Frankfurt.[1]
He wrote the title track at that friend's apartment and later recalled, "It was the only time I've ever written a song and then not gone back and changed a word. It seemed like it had been the end of our innocence or something."[1] [3] He was later snowed in at a resort in Denmark, where there was a blizzard and they were trapped, "but we had enough beer so it didn't really matter." It was there that he wrote most of Goodbye Tiger,[4]
Clapton's backing band for the album was: Gunther Gorman on guitar, Michael Hegerty on bass guitar (ex-Stars), Kirk Lorange on lead guitar, Diane McLennan on backing vocals, Cleis Pearce on viola (ex-MacKenzie Theory) and Greg Sheehan on drums (ex-Blackfeather, MacKenzie Theory).[4] Additional musicians on some tracks included Tony Ansell on keyboards, Tony Buchanan on saxophone and Jim Penson on drums.[4] Clapton has said that working on the album was the worst year of his life, "but I guess that's the record I will always be remembered for." During 1978 he toured nationally in support of its release with Ansell, Hegerty, Lorange, McLennan and Sheehan.
Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, described Goodbye Tiger as, "his most celebrated work, an album full of rich, melodic and accessible rock with a distinctly Australian flavour. It established Clapton's reputation as one of the most important Australian songwriters of the 1970s."[5] Australian rock music historian, Chris Spencer, explained why it is one of his favourites, "[It] represents one of the pinnacles of Australian rock music. Clapton, essentially a singer-songwriter, working within the security of numerous band line-ups, wrote his best lyrics on this album. He never reached the same heights again, particularly with his melodies, visions and observations of urban Australia."[6]
In October 2010 it was listed at No. 15 in the book, 100 Best Australian Albums.[1] The writers and music journalists, Toby Creswell, Craig Mathieson and John O'Donnell, described how, "Strangely, all the songs were about Australia..." despite being written while he was in Europe.[1] They noticed that Clapton's work with Batchens, "was fraught with suspicion and hostility."[1] While "The overriding mood of the album is edgy; like a hangover... All of the songs amplify the themes of the key songs 'Deep Water', 'Down in the Lucky Country' and the title song."[1]
| Country | Date | Label | Format | Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | October 1977 | Infinity Records | LP | L 36352 |
| Australia | 1992 | Infinity Records | CD / Cassette | C19584, D19584 |
| Australia | 16 August 2024 | Warner Music Australia | CD / LP / digital | 2173225815 |