Ronnie Burns - This Is Ronnie Burns (LP) - Blue Vinyl

If you’ve ever fallen down the rabbit hole of Aussie sixties pop, This Is Ronnie Burns is one of those records that snaps everything into focus. Released in 1968 on Spin Records, it plays like a scrapbook of a moment when Melbourne garages and TV studios were turning out sharp, harmony-rich singles at a cracking pace. Burns had already fronted The Flies, cut his teeth on The Go!! Show, and become a familiar name in the teen mags. This LP pulls together the run of singles that made him a star, and it still feels fresh when you stick it on in a quiet corner of a Melbourne record store.

The headline draw is the Bee Gees connection. Before the Gibb brothers left for the UK in early 1967, they wrote for a handful of Australian acts, and Burns got two beauties. Coalman is the keeper, all bright guitar chug, tambourine and wry lyrics, the sort of song that makes you wonder how many 45s were worn thin at suburban parties. Exit, Stage Right is punchier, with those crisp changes and a sly theatrical wink. Both were Go-Set charting singles and both remind you why Bee Gees completists still hunt for Ronnie Burns vinyl. They capture that pre-psychedelic Australian pop sound in close-up, tidy but alive, with Burns’ voice sitting just above the rhythm in a way that makes the choruses pop.

What gives the album depth is how it offsets the Gibbs’ material with classy, well cut covers and homegrown pop. True True Lovin’ tilts toward folk-pop with a clean jangle and a vocal that feels unforced. When I Was Six Years Old is gentler, a wistful melody that suits his easy, slightly boyish tone. Burns never over-sings. He finds the pocket, lets the arrangement do the lifting, and lands squarely in that sweet spot between teen idol gloss and earnest pop craftsman.

Spin’s house sound helps. Producer Pat Aulton was behind a lot of the label’s defining sides, and you can hear that Festival-linked studio polish at work here. Guitars are tidy without losing bite, the rhythm section is tight, and strings or brass pop in and out to give a chorus a little lift. It’s radio-friendly in the best way, you can almost hear the station ID jingle arrive on the fade. Those touches make This Is Ronnie Burns feel more like a cohesive album than a random pile of singles, even though it’s essentially a showcase of his mid-60s run.

One of the joys of dropping the needle on an original Spin pressing is how immediate the band sounds. The guitars have that dry Australian bite, closer to the dance halls than the cavernous reverb you hear on some UK records. The harmonies are tucked in tight. There’s no flab. If you’ve been sniffing around for This Is Ronnie Burns vinyl, don’t hesitate when a clean copy shows up. Even later reissues do right by the material, but the period pressings carry the air of the time, right down to the sleeve’s tidy mod styling.

Context matters with a record like this. Burns would go on to cut Smiley in 1970, one of the defining Australian singles of the era, written by Johnny Young and tied to the story of conscription and a generation coming of age. You can hear the path to that song in the best moments here. He’s learning how to make a chorus land, how to sell a lyric without tipping into schmaltz. That skill set puts him in the same conversation as other local heavy-hitters of the day who could straddle TV, charts and live rooms without losing their footing.

If you’re building out a shelf of Australian sixties pop, this sits comfortably alongside contemporaries on Spin and Festival. It’s also one of the easier ways into the web around the Bee Gees’ pre-fame songwriting, which is why collectors of Bee Gees ephemera often file Ronnie Burns albums on vinyl next to their early Leedon and Spin 45s. For anyone looking to buy Ronnie Burns records online, be mindful of condition. These were party records and plenty of copies have the scars to prove it, but a VG+ still plays loud and true.

You don’t need to be a historian to enjoy it though. Put it on, let Coalman and Exit, Stage Right do their work, and you’ll get why his name pops up whenever old hands talk about the tight, melodic pop that filled dance floors before the scene got fuzzier and freakier. For crate diggers in search of local staples, and for anyone who loves flipping through vinyl records Australia wide, This Is Ronnie Burns is a tidy catch that still earns its space on the turntable.