transformed "The Real Thing" from Young's original vision of a simple acoustic chamber ballad backed by strings, into a heavily produced studio masterpiece, extending it to an unheard-of six minutes in length (with encouragement from Rofe) and overdubbing the basic track with many additional instruments, vocals and sound effects. To achieve this, they used the services of his friends from The Groop as the backing band, with contributions from vocalist Maureen Elkner, The Groop's lead singer Ronnie Charles, guitarist Roger Hicks from Zoot, who played the song's distinctive acoustic guitar intro, and arranger John Farrar. The single reputedly cost A$10,000—the most expensive ever made in Australia up to that time—and features one of the earliest uses of the studio technique, phasing, on an Australian recording. "The Real Thing", which was released in March 1969, became a national number-one hit for Morris in mid-year. It is widely acknowledged as one of the finest Australian pop-rock recordings. In May 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th Anniversary celebrations, named "The Real Thing" as one of their Top 30 Australian songs of all time. Morris followed with a second number-one hit, "Part Three into Paper Walls", with Meldrum producing again. He now encouraged Morris to promote "The Real Thing" with a tour in the United States but Morris disagreed and they separated in late 1969. Meldrum also produced several other hits, including Burns' top ten single, "Smiley", in December 1969, while continuing to write for Go-Set and a variety of magazines. Meldrum made his first of many visits to Egypt and by December had travelled on to UK. Through Terry Doran he began working for Apple Corps as a publicist, which enabled him to score a scoop interview with Lennon and Yoko Ono, in which Lennon first revealed publicly that The Beatles were breaking up. Meldrum left the UK in 1970 to travel to the USA, reporting on the Los Angeles and New York music scenes and further establishing his contacts. After returning to Australia in late 1970, Meldrum continued writing for the music press, including Go-Set as well as venturing back onto TV as a music reporter on Happening '70 (previously titled, Uptight), hosted by Wyllie, on ATV-0; then a short-lived TV children's show, Do It; followed by Anything Can Happen on Channel Seven where he met producer, Michael Shrimpton and reunited with Weekes from his Kommotion