Christchurch police chief Gideon Tait said he wanted foreign competitors and visitors to get the impression they were visiting ‘an angelic city’ free of crime and violence. Allen later recalled 'being stuck in the middle of an awful lot of people, a long march and being pretty chuffed to be singing my own material'.Ī well-oiled publicity machine minted the term ‘The Friendly Games’.
Join together the who album tv#
This bright display was for the benefit of a TV audience watching pioneering colour broadcasts. In front of a crowd of 35,000 Allen and a massed choir sang ‘Join together’ and ‘What the world needs now is love’. Thousands of children wearing plastic capes of red, white and blue made a living games symbol in the middle of the Queen Elizabeth II stadium. It went as high as number two on the NZBC’s Pop-o-Meter Top 20, just failing to unseat Helen Reddy’s ‘Delta Dawn’. The song was played constantly in the months leading up to the games. Allen found himself with a hit in September 1973 after winning a $300 prize in a Studio One contest to find a promotional pop song for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Christchurch early in the following year. The song’s big production feel with the fat drum sounds came later when the vocals of the seven-strong New Zealand Maori Theatre Trust were overdubbed. Its backing track was created by one guitarist, bassist and drummer, with Allen on keyboards. 'Join together' was recorded at the EMI studios in central Wellington in the winter of 1973. The words were predetermined it was just a case of finding a simple tune to string them together.’ His ambition was to write and sing his own material.Īllen remembers bashing out the tune of 'Join together' on a piano in about half an hour: ‘As with all good songs, it fell into place. Still in his early 20s, Allen (real name Alan Stevenson) had won the RATA award for Best Male Vocalist, released two albums and earned a number one hit for a memorable cover of the Carpenters’ song ‘Top of the world’.
Join together the who album full#
Steve Allen’s career was in full flight in 1973 when he wrote 'Join together'. The song that caught the mood of this Woodstock in tracksuits was Steve Allen’s hummable, even uplifting, anthem ‘Join together’. The 10th Commonwealth Games, held in Christchurch in January 1974, was an odd coupling of 1970s cosmic harmony and cut-throat competition.
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