'The Greatest Night In Pop'… And The Aussie Who Was There

You could call Ian “Molly” Meldrum music’s Forrest Gump. Somehow, he’s been there for some of the biggest moments in music history, with The Beatles, Elton John, Rod Stewart, AC/DC, Queen, Madonna, Bob Geldof, Michael Jackson and many other superstars.

The new movie The Greatest Night In Pop, a #1 hit on Netflix, documents the recording of We Are The World, the charity single that raised millions of dollars to fight famine in Africa.

And Meldrum was there.

In January 1985, the music guru was staying in Los Angeles with Roger Davies, the Australian who had started his music career as a roadie before becoming a booking agent and manager. He also wrote Renée Geyer’s first review, comparing her to a Greek goddess.

Meldrum and Davies became good friends when Davies was managing Sherbet in the ’70s. He then relocated to the US, where he became one of the biggest managers in the world, working with Olivia Newton-John, Joe Cocker, Cher, Sade, Janet Jackson and later P!nk. And he resurrected Tina Turner’s career in the ’80s.

While Meldrum was staying with Davies, a demo tape arrived from Lionel Richie’s manager, Ken Kragen. It was a song that Lionel had written with Michael Jackson to raise money to fight famine in Africa. 

The tape was accompanied by a note from producer Quincy Jones: “The cassettes are numbered, and I can’t express how important it is not to let this material out of your hands. Please do not make copies and return this cassette on the night of the 28th. In the years to come, when your children ask, ‘What did mommy and daddy do for the war against world famine?’, you can say proudly this was your contribution.”

“It was some demo,” Meldrum recalls. “They’d gone into Kenny Rogers’ studio and done an incredible orchestrated version. I have to admit, I felt very privileged sitting next to Roger’s pool listening to the demo.”

The success of the English charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas? inspired We Are The World. American artist and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte – who was also managed by Kragen – said he was “ashamed and embarrassed at seeing a bunch of white English kids doing what black Americans ought to have been doing”.

Meldrum remembers that Tina Turner was keen to do We Are The World, but she wasn’t so keen to perform live at the American Music Awards. In fact, she planned to pre-record her performance two days before the show. 

As Davies and Meldrum drove to the venue for the pre-record, the manager hatched a plan. “Look,” he said to Meldrum, “Tina respects you. Can you talk her out of this pre-record and get her to do it live? It will look stupid on Monday night with the audience just sitting there.” 

Meldrum managed to convince Turner to perform Private Dancer live on the show.

At a rehearsal for the awards, one of the producers handed Meldrum a photo of Midnight Oil and asked if he could point out the lead singer. 

“Why do you want to know?” Meldrum asked.

“Oh, he’s presenting an award.”

The music guru was seething. In Australia, Midnight Oil had consistently refused to appear at the Countdown Awards. “They said they’d never ‘sell out’ by doing award shows, but here was Peter Garrett presenting an award at the American Music Awards. What a cheek!”

Meldrum waved to Garrett as he presented the Favourite Pop/Rock Video trophy to Lionel Richie for Hello. 

“The look on Peter Garrett’s face when he saw me in the audience was something to behold. Priceless.”

As the Oils singer presented the award alongside Dale Bozzio from the American band Missing Persons, he took the opportunity to make a political statement. “Well, actually, Dale, I ran for political office in my country, which is a friend of yours. And standing here today makes me realise that music has the power to affect the world very greatly. However, in 1985, a billion dollars a day worldwide is spent on weapons of war. So, I guess, here I’m coming to say to people: we’re musicians, we live in a worldwide community together, and I hope very much that people will recognise me as being a musician of peace.”

Meldrum didn’t feel very peaceful as he watched Garrett on stage. But his anger soon dissipated. “After the show, if you had a special pass – and I was lucky enough to have one – you were told to be at A&M Studios within an hour.” 

As the stars hurried from the Shrine Auditorium, Meldrum was shocked to discover that his good friend Madonna had not been invited.

“Come on, lovey,” he said to the singer, “I’ll get you a pass.” But she gracefully declined. Looking back, Meldrum says: “I think the industry thought she was a one-hit wonder – how mistaken they were.”

Meldrum will never forget being in the green room at A&M Studios. “It was nothing short of amazing.”

Everyone was greeted by a sign that said simply: “Check your ego at the door”.

Meldrum has a maze of memories from “the greatest night in pop”:

“Bruce Springsteen, who had not attended the awards, arrived by himself; Bob Dylan was hanging out with Bette Midler; Huey Lewis, Billy Joel, and Kim Carnes were swapping stories; Tina was lying on the couch having a rest; Cyndi Lauper was entertaining everyone; and Stevie Wonder was rapping with Diana Ross. Stevie told the artists that if the song wasn’t done in one take, he and Ray Charles would drive everyone home!”

Meldrum was, of course, no stranger to the studio, having produced hits for Russell Morris, The Masters Apprentices, Colleen Hewett, Supernaut and The Ferrets.

“Quincy Jones was in charge of the recording, and I was honoured to be asked to help sort out the microphones.”

Meldrum remembers everyone formed a horseshoe around the microphones and then came forward when it was their time to sing. “All except Michael [Jackson], who stood at the side of the studio with his arms folded and with a make-up artist touching up his face.”

The stars were surprised when Quincy Jones referred to Michael Jackson by his nickname – Smelly.

Meldrum also remembers Lauper asking everyone to sign her music sheet. When Tina Turner said, “Oh Cyndi, do I really have to? I’m so tired, and you’ll probably just lose it tomorrow”, Lauper was mortified. “No, I’ve still got every autograph I’ve ever got. I’ve even still got the first one, which was Peter Noone from Herman’s Hermits. He signed it, ‘Mrs Lauper, you’ve got a lovely daughter’.”

Turner and Meldrum burst out laughing.

Lauper was also responsible for another funny moment, which is documented in The Greatest Night In Pop.

“At one point during the recording, they could not work out the source of an irritating noise,” Meldrum laughs. “Quincy thought it was a technical fault until someone realised it was Cyndi Lauper’s jingling jewellery. As Cyndi removed the offending items, she said to Michael, ‘Don’t worry, they won’t starve, they won’t starve!’”

Meldrum’s final We Are The World memory concerns one of his favourite artists, Bette Midler. “I remember she was looking a little sad and depressed when she was usually loud and bubbly. I think she felt that maybe her career as a recording artist and performer was coming to an end. But little did she know that just around the corner was another hit movie – Ruthless People.”

Also at the recording session was Bob Geldof. The driving force behind Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? reveals he wouldn’t have been there if not for Australia.  

At the same time as We Are The World was happening in America, Australia was staging the EAT (East African Tragedy) Concert, a forerunner of Live Aid, in July 1985.

The organisers – including furniture salesman turned promoter Bill Gordon and Australian Crawl’s Brad Robinson and James Reyne – wanted Geldof to attend, but he said, “It’s too far, and I’ve got too much to do.”

Robinson introduced the EAT Concert at Melbourne’s Myer Music Bowl: “This is the first time anything like this has ever happened in the world, and let’s hope the whole world takes an example from us today and helps feed the world.”

Ken Kragen called Geldof and asked him to fly to LA for We Are The World. “I had no money for the ticket,” Geldof wrote in his autobiography Is That It? “Years of the [Boomtown] Rats being in the doldrums had done nothing for my bank account. And I couldn’t touch Band Aid money, which was specifically for aid purposes. Then I realised that the recording was to be the same night as the Australian telethon. I telephoned Channel 9 and said that if they would pay for me to fly to the [We Are The World] recording then while I was there I would do their program from their ground station in LA.”

Molly Meldrum missed the EAT Concert, but being at the USA for Africa recording session was a night he’ll never forget. And he appears in two scenes in The Greatest Night In Pop. “I’ve had many amazing experiences in the studio, but We Are The World is hard to top,” he says.

By the time Meldrum got back to Davies’ place, it was January 29 – Meldrum’s 42nd birthday. He went to sleep thinking, “This is the best birthday I’ve ever had.”

Ten of the We Are The World singers have since died: Waylon Jennings, Ray Charles, June Pointer, Michael Jackson, Al Jarreau, James Ingram, Kenny Rogers, Anita Pointer, Harry Belafonte and Tina Turner.

We Are The World spent nine weeks at number one in Australia to become 1985’s biggest single. It also won Grammys for Song and Record of the Year.

Not everyone loved it. Legendary critic Greil Marcus believed it sounded like a Pepsi ad, while Wendy Melvoin said Prince refused to turn up to the recording because “he felt the song was horrible”.

Prince contributed his own song, 4 The Tears In Your Eyes, to the We Are The World album.

The We Are The World album – which sold more than three million copies – also featured the Canadian charity single Tears Are Not Enough, co-written by Bryan Adams and David Foster and featuring Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Corey Hart and many other Canadian stars.

Molly Meldrum spoke to Freddie Mercury about We Are The World on Countdown in 1985.

“Funnily enough, when this was being recorded, and I went to that session, some people thought it was a rather naff song that Lionel Richie and Michael had written,” Meldrum told the Queen singer.

“Oh no, not at all,” Mercury replied. “I think it’s a beautiful song. And I was gripped by the video. It’s nice to have all those stars, and there were no ego trips; they were just going from one to the other. It was just lovely to see all the stars all together, and I think it’s a beautiful song, really.”