Biographie
Australian folk singer Kerrilee Male grew up in Melbourne and began singing with various jazz bands at the age of 15. She attended Canterbury Girls High School there, and by age 19, she had sung with The Driftwood Band, The Yarra-Yarra New Orleans Jazz Band, and Graeme Bell's Jazz Band in Melbourne. She then came to Sydney and sang with The Dave Guard Trio, headed by former The Kingston Trio member Dave Guard, who had left the United States in the mid-1960's to reside in Australia. She first came to prominence when she appeared as one of three female vocalists in The Dave's Place Group, a band featured on Guard's 1965 folk music TV show called Dave's Place. Later that year, she recorded two EP's, 'Gospel And Blues Volume 1' and 'Gospel And Blues Volume 2' with the Ray Price Jazz Quartet.
She then moved to the UK where she hooked up with fellow expatriate Trevor Lucas and in 1967, they formed the band Eclection with Norwegian-born Georg Kajanus (then known as Georg Hultgreen), Canadian Michael Rosen and Briton Gerry Conway, who soon would go on to play as part of the studio and live band for Cat Stevens. Eclection's debut album was released in August 1968. As in Australia, many critics were impressed with the strength of Male's voice, with Lillian Roxon stating that "Her voice cuts into the brain like a carving knife." The band's style drew comparisons with contemporaries The Seekers, Jefferson Airplane, The Mamas and The Papas and We Five. More recently, music reviewer Richie Unterberger stated: "The combination of male-female harmonies, optimistic lyrics with shades of romantic psychedelia, folk-rock melodies, acoustic-electric six and twelve-string guitar combinations, and stratospheric orchestration couldn't help but bring to mind similar Californian folk-pop-rock of the mid-to-late 1960s."
After the album was released, the band began to perform at festivals and in clubs around Britain. However, in October 1968, Male decided to leave the band and returned to Australia. Gerry Conway said: "Once we started playing live, it was very soon apparent that Kerrilee didn't want to stay with it. I think she decided she didn't want to be in the music world."
A caption under a photograph of Male and friend Rowley Whiting is shown in the Saturday, December 26, 1992 issue of The Canberra Times. Male and Whiting are seated at a table with several food items on it. The caption reads: "The 280 residents or the Ainslie Village hostel enjoyed a traditional Christmas lunch yesterday, compliments of the Hyatt Hotel Canberra. To spread the Christmas spirit, the hotel management decided that the residents of the village, many of whom lack the family ties which give true meaning to Christmas, would be given some joy by sampling the delights of the hotel's kitchen and the culinary expertise of its cooks. It was a gesture appreciated by both Rowley Whiting and Kerrilee Male, neither of whom had any family to share the festivities." The Ainslie Village hostel is a home in Canberra for disadvantaged or homeless adults.
A product review at The Krishna Store website from December 2015 was posted by someone named Kerrilee Male. Although likely it is the same person, this cannot be confirmed one way or the other. If it is, the posting seems to indicate that she has become involved in Eastern religion as it contains Hindu scripture.
