How everything went wrong for Stevie Wright

It was a moment of triumph, a comeback of such magnitude that it John Farnham'S You are the voice. 50 years ago this week Stevie Wright topped the Australian charts with Eviethe beginning of a six-week reign on the Kent Music Report.

But nobody knew that the singer was keeping a dark secret.

It's no secret: Evie is the greatest epic in Australian music. It is a three-part rock opera that strangely mirrors Stevie Wright's own story, capturing the heady days of youth, followed by the highs and lows of love and a tragic twist.

In his last major interview with Judith Durhambiographer Graham Simpson In 2002, Wright revealed how Vanda & Young had written the song especially for him. “Evie/Stevie,” he smiled. “Stevie, let your hair down!”

Wright then gave a summary of the song: “It's mostly about a man and a woman getting it on, being young, dancing, going out, foreplay… Then he realizes their love is going to a deeper level and he's not just going out and rocking out. And then every man's fear – don't let me lose her now.”

Part One was a memory of Wright's younger years, when anything seemed possible.”I have some money in my pocket/ I have my car keys in my hand,“, the song begins.”I got some tickets to see a rock'n'roll band.”

Wright was only 17 when he founded The Easybeats with George Young, Harry Vanda, Dick Diamond And Gordon “Snowy” FleetThey were all children of migrants – Wright had come to Australia with his family from Leeds in England when he was ten. The Wrights initially settled in Melbourne before moving to Sydney, where they lived in an army house near the Villawood Migrant Hostel, where the band was formed.

While still a teenager, Wright was involved in the publication of a number of classics: For my wife, She is so fine, Wedding ring, Sad and lonely and depressed, Women (make you feel good), Come and see them, I will make you happy And Excuse me. He always remembered his time with The Easybeats fondly. “For me, it was magical. I was a teenager and I don't think I could have had a better time. Loads of women.” He paused before adding, “And loads of women. Admiration, hysteria… it couldn't have been a better time.”

The singer in Evie Part One is impatient and impetuous. It's all about good times; you can worry about the consequences later.”Come on, baby,“, he sings, “You know there is no time to mess around.”

But in the second part, the singer has to grow up quickly when he finds out that Evie is pregnant. He finds it difficult to say exactly what he feels, but he manages to say: “Evie, I am nothing without you… Oh Evie, I am so in love with you.”

In the UK, George Young formed a new songwriting partnership with guitarist Harry Vanda. Stevie Wright would never write another hit for The Easybeats.

In the third part, the singer's life changes forever when Evie dies at birth.”When I woke up this morning, I was king of the world”, sings Wright. “It seems so unreal, but I just can't understand that with every minute that passes, the person I love slips away from me.”

Wright was just 21 when the Easybeats broke up. He then worked as a suit salesman at the House of Merivale in Sydney before being lured back into the music world. He played the lead role in the stage production of Jesus Christ Superstarwhere he tried heroin for the first time at a party celebrating the last show in Melbourne.

Evie and Wright's first solo album, Hard road, was released more than four years after the split of The Easybeats. With a running time of 11.11 minutes Evie is the longest song at the top of the charts and surpasses Russell Morris' The only true (6.20 minutes), The Beatles' Hello Jude (7.12), Don McLean'S American cake (8.42) and Taylor Swift'S Everything too good (10.13).

Wright joked that radio DJs loved the song because it gave them a chance to go to the bathroom. He also noted how ingenious Vanda & Young were in presenting the song in three parts – the rock stations could play parts one and three, while the quieter stations found part two more suitable for their format.

Chris Gilbey – the man who shot lightning in Alternating current/direct currentThe name was Albert's A&R man, if Evie was released. He will answer the call from Trevor Smith He told him he had put the song on a loop on 2SM, then Sydney's top music station. “It still makes me cringe,” says Gilbey. “Back then, they played a song on a loop once an hour. So we had an 11-minute song on the radio once an hour on 2SM.”

“Evie established Alberts' reputation as a developer of a unique Australian rock'n'roll sound.”

John TaitAuthor of Vanda & Young, insights into Australia's hit factoryexplained Evie as “a tragic story in three parts: boy wants girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl. It was a ballad between two rock songs. Each of them could have been a hit on its own.”

AC/DC's Malcolm Young played the solo in the first part, while Harry Vanda provided the lead break in the third part.

Vanda & Young had asked Michael Chugga young booking agent at the time to manage Stevie Wright. He remembers that the record was “going crazy,” but not all was well. Chugg found out that his artist was addicted to heroin. The manager was heartbroken. “Stevie, you're a fucking superstar,” he cried, “why are you doing this to yourself?”

“It couldn’t go on like this,” Chugg adds. “It just became ridiculous because Ted [Albert] did not know FIFA [Riccobono] didn't know, Harry and George didn't know.”

The truth finally came out during a recording session at Alberts. “George and Harry are in the booth and Stevie is in the announcer's booth and I walked past the announcer's booth and the little wanker – on the bloody ledge inside, he's got the tinfoil and he's doing heroin,” Chugg recalls. “And I went up to George and Harry and said, 'Listen, come with me. I just want you to know what I've been going through for two and a half years.' And they walked around and he couldn't see us and I said, 'He's doing heroin, he's been doing it for three years.' It was very painful and emotional.

“The world was at Stevie’s feet,” Chugg wrote in his memoirs Hey, you in the black T-shirt“This was the chance to manage an artist who could have a number one hit all over the world.”

Atlantic Records in the USA a two-page ad in Billboard to announce Wright's arrival in America. But two days into his promotional tour, the singer boarded a plane and flew home to Sydney, where he drove straight to his drug dealer in Randwick. “In one fell swoop,” Chugg notes, “Stevie's overseas career was over.”

As Wright sang in the third part: “Before I know it, I'll lose you.”

The Alberts family tried to help. Fifa Riccobono, the company's longest-serving employee, remembers a frank conversation with the artist: “I said to him: 'How can you do something that makes you feel so bad?' And he said: 'This one high makes up for ten lows.'”

John Paul Young supported Stevie Wright on his first solo tour. “This was at the beginning of Stevie's well-documented problems,” JPY recalls, “and there were moments when the situation looked funny. In his sheer madness, he banged his head on a Louvre door in the motel; his head went right through, and then we spent quite a bit of time trying to get his head out of the Louvre.”

Suzi Quatro heard Evie when she played with Wright in Australia in 1975. She covered Part One on her 1978 album, If you knew Suzi…

When Bon Scott died, Molly Meldrum suggested that Stevie Wright would become the new singer of AC/DC. However, he was unaware of the extent of the singer's problems.

Wright did a reunion tour with the Easybeats in 1986, a show at Selina's in Sydney in 1992, before making a stunning appearance at the The long road to the top Tour in 2002. The singer was injured – he could no longer walk – but his rock'n'roll spirit was unbroken.

In 2005, an Australian supergroup The Wrights – with Nic Cester, Bernhard Fanning And Phil Jamieson as lead singer – honored Stevie Wright with a cover Evie (after doing Part 1 at the 2004 ARIA Awards). It reached number 2, but was kept off the top spot by Nelly And Tim McGraw'S Over and over again.

Michael Chugg still wonders what might have been had Wright not suffered from addiction. “Seeing everything disappear for Stevie like that was unbearable. I admit that at least part of my anger at him was due to my own investment, both personally and professionally. I wanted to manage the number one act in Australia. I wanted to have a hit worldwide.”

“We were so close, so close. Everything was prepared for him. He could have been a superstar. Maybe that's what drove him to do what he did. He had a self-destructive nature. It was like he couldn't stand the thought of success.”

Part Three of Evie contains a moving appeal: “Can nobody help me, can nobody help me, please.”

“I wish I could have done something to help him,” Chugg admits, “but I couldn't.”

Stevie Wright died two days after Christmas 2015, a week after his 68th birthday.

Warren “Pig” Morgan – based on the original version of Evie – performed together with John Paul Young Evie Part two at Wright's funeral.