Gregory Raymond Quill (18 April 19475 May 2013) was an Australian-born musician, singer-songwriter and journalist. He lived in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and was an entertainment columnist at the Toronto Star newspaper from the mid-1980s until his death in May 2013. In Australia he came to popular fame as a singer-songwriter for the country rock band Country Radio (1970–73). Their biggest hit, "Gypsy Queen", co-written by Quill with bandmate Kerryn Tolhurst, was released in August 1972 and peaked at No. 12 on the Go-Set National Top 40. After getting an arts grant, Quill travelled to Toronto in 1974 and by the mid-1980s had become a journalist with the Toronto Star. By 1983 he was married to Ellen Davidson, a public relations executive. Greg Quill died on 5 May 2013, at the age of 66, from "complications due to pneumonia".
Biography
Early life
Gregory Raymond Quill was born on 18 April 1947 to Raymond and Doris Quill (née Markham). He grew up in Sydney with a younger brother, Christopher. From the age of about 15 years he learned how to play acoustic guitar and his first public performance was in his final year of high school. Quill began his musical career in the 1960s as a solo performer on the Sydney folk scene clustered around the University of Sydney, where he graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature. He worked briefly as a history teacher at a Catholic boys high school in Bankstown. He was hired by David Elfick, then the local editor of the national weekly pop music magazine, Go-Set (later Elfick was a movie producer). Quill worked as a writer from 1969, then feature writer (February 1970 to August 1971) and Sydney regional editor (July 1970 to August 1971) for the Melbourne-based publication. In 2002 Quill recalled that editing Go-Set had prepared him for his later work in journalism.
Early musical career
From 1967 Greg Quill ran The Shack, a folk music venue at Narrabeen on Sydney's northern beaches, where he also performed. In 1999 he described the venue "[it] was a sort of folk co-operative, and everybody who performed on a particular evening got to share in the door takings – it was never more than a couple of bucks". In 1969 Quill handed over the running of the venue to his younger brother, Christopher. Gus McNeil, a music publisher, record producer and former singer and saxophonist for 1960s rock band, Gus & The Nomads, signed Quill to a publishing deal with his company, Cellar Music. McNeil produced Quill's first commercial recording, the single, "Fleetwood Plain", and the subsequent album of the same name. Quill wrote all the tracks on the album.
For the album Quill was backed by Orlando Agostino on guitars, Chris Blanchflower on harmonica, John Walsh on bass guitar, and members of local rock band Pirana: Jim Duke-Yonge on drums, Tony Hamilton on guitar, Graeme Thompson on bass guitar and Stan White on keyboards. Early in 1970 the album was released on EMI's new subsidiary label, Harvest Records, although the title single had been issued on EMI's Australian pop label Columbia Records. "Fleetwood Plain" was subsequently covered by Australian country musician, Reg Lindsay, and by Canadian folk-rockers Creamcheeze Good Time Band on their 1973 album, Home Cookin'''.
Country Radio band
To promote Fleetwood Plain Greg Quill formed the original line-up of Country Radio (also seen as Greg Quill's Country Radio or Greg Quill and Country Radio) in June 1970. Other members were Agostino, Blanchflower, Walsh and Dave Hannagan on percussion and backing vocals. The group started as an acoustic act but from 1970 to 1971 its musical style evolved into electric country rock, a style then gaining popularity through the influence of albums like The Band's Music from Big Pink (1968), The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968), and Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline (1969).