Australian Rock by Memorable Music

Marcia Hines was discovered in Boston at the age of sixteen by entrepreneur Harry M. Miller who signed her for his Australian production of the rock musical Hair. Marcia was so well received in the show that she decided to stay on and make Australia her home.
Marcia has appeared in the following stage productions: Hair (1970), Jesus Christ Superstar (1972, 1975 and 1978) and A Chorus Line (1977).
In 1982 Marcia teamed up with Jon English to record the album Jokers And Queens (June, 1982).
In May, 1979, Marcia announced her engagement to Tony Murphy. At the time Murphy was a newsreader at Channel Nine in Adelaide, and previously he had worked in the sixties as a disc jockey in Sydney, calling himself 'Murph The Surf. The engagement lasted only a short time.

Hunters and Collectors
The film clip to accompany Hunters And Collectors' single 'Talking To a Stranger' (July, 1982) was one of film maker Richard Lowenstein's first videos.
Hunters And Collectors' album The Fireman's Curse (August, 1983) was recorded by famed German producer Conny Plank at his Cologne, West Germany studio.
The title of Hunters And Collectors' album Jaws Of Life (August, 1984), and the song '42 Wheels', were inspired by an incident that occured on 18 August, 1983 at Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. A truck driver deliberately drove his semi-trailer into a hotel bar, killing several people.
The subject matter of Hunters And Collectors' single 'Say Goodbye' (March, 1986) was inspired by an emotional argument between two lovers that lead singer Mark Seymour overheard. The song features Seymour, the macho 'thinking woman's pin-up', singing the immortal line: 'You don't make me feel like I'm a woman anymore.'
The title of Hunters And Collectors' fifth album, What's A Few Men? (November, 1987) was based on the book A Fortunate Life, written by Albert Facey.

Jade Hurley
John Hurley made his television debut in 1960 on the ABC's Six O'Clock Rock. The show's compere, Johnny O'Keefe, dubbed him Jade because he wore green gloves when he played the piano. The name stuck.
Jade Hurley was once an alderman on the Deniliquin (NSW) council and in 1972 he campaigned for Al Grassby in the Federal elections.
Despite the fact that Jade Hurley has scored platinum awards for more than five of his best selling albums, he has only had one single make the national charts, his July, 1965 composition 'How I Lied'.

Hush
Hush's album Touche (June, 1977) featured two diverse sides: a rock side and a slower side. They were billed on the label as 'A Touch Of Decadence' and 'A Touch Of Class' respectively.
Following Hush's break-up in early 1978, guitarist Les Gock became a leading composer/producer of advertising jingles. In fact Les co-wrote the very popular Bicentennial theme, 'Celebration Of A Nation'.

Icehouse
Originally known as Flowers, Icehouse came into being following the break-up of Flowers in early 1982. Founder/leader Iva Davies recorded the Primitive Man album (September, 1982) on his own, releasing it under the name of Icehouse.
After this Iva assembled a new band which he called Icehouse.
Before pursuing a life of rock and roll, Iva Davies studied oboe at the NSW Conservatorium of Music, and was a member of the ABC National Training Orchestra.
In 1982, Australian film-maker Russell Mulcahy directed two video clips for Icehouse: 'Hey Little Girl' (November, 1982) and 'Street Cafe' (February, 1983) Afterwards, Mulcahy approached Davies to record the soundtrack for his first full length feature movie, Razorback. The work was entirely instrumental, and featured Iva's first experiments with the Australian designed Fairlight Music Computer.
The soundtrack won an Australian Performing Rights Association Award.
Icehouse's single 'Hey Little Girl' reached No. 7 on the national charts. It was also a Top 20 hit in the U.K., Top 5 in Germany, and No. 1 in Switzerland.
One of Iva Davies' biggest musical influences is David Bowie. During mid-1983, Icehouse supported Bowie on a European tour.
In 1984, ex-Yellow Magic Orchestra member Yukihiro Takahashi invited Iva to tour and record in Japan, as lead guitarist on his Wild And Moody tour.
Iva Davies and Icehouse guitarist Bob Kretshmer wrote and recorded the music for the ballet Boxes which was debuted at the Sydney Opera House on 7 November, 1985 and was performed by the Sydney Dance Company.
Icehouse was one of the first Australian bands to tour behind the Iron Curtain.
In 1984 the band played in Budapest, Hungary, alongside British bands Spandau Ballet and Ultravox.
Iva Davies co-wrote Icehouse's No. 1 hit single 'Electric Blue' (August, 1987) with John Oates, of Hall & Oates fame.
In October, 1987 Icehouse's fifth album Man Of Colours, debuted on the national charts at No. 1, knocking Midnight Oil's Diesel And Dust (September, 1987) off the top spot in the process.
Between June, 1980 ('Can't Help Myself, released as Flowers) and September, 1987 ('Electric Blue'), the band managed 13 national Top 40 hit singles.

Frank Ifield
Frank Ifield is the first artist in history to have a record ('I Remember You') sell over a million copies in Britain alone.
Frank Ifield is the first artist in history to achieve three consecutive Number One records in the British charts — 'I Remember You' (July, 1962), 'Lovesick Blues' (October, 1962) and 'Wayward Wind' (January, 1963).
Frank Ifield was the first Australian performer to make the U.S. charts with 'I Remember You' which reached No. 5 in September, 1962.

INXS
In January, 1988 INXS became only the second Australian based band (after Men At Work) to reach No. 1 on the U.S. singles chart when 'Need You Tonight' hit the coveted top spot.
INXS first gained major attention in 1980 when Midnight Oil asked the band to tour as support act.
INXS's fourth album The Swing (April, 1984) debuted on the national charts at No. 1. The Swing went on to become the biggest selling Australian album for 1984.
INXS's single 'The Original Sin' (December, 1983) was produced by Chic leader Nile Rodgers. The song suffered unofficial American radio bans due to the sensitive nature of its lyrics. The song addressed the issue of inter-racial relationships, and the Americans took offence at the lines 'Dream on white boy/Dream on black girl'. Nevertheless the song did make No. 1 in Australia, France and Argentina (where it was entitled 'El Pecado Original').
INXS's cassette only release Dekadance (April, 1984) was a compilation of six extended and/or remixed versions of songs from The Swing. The cassette also included a bonus track, 'Jackson'. Lead singer Michael Hutchence sang a duet with Jenny Morris on the song.
In October, 1985 INXS debuted at No. 1 on the national album charts with Listen Like Thieves. During 1986 the album attained worldwide sales of 3.5 million copies.
In April, 1986 INXS reached No. 5 on the U.S. singles charts with 'What You Need'.
INXS's film clip for 'Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down The Mountain)' (March, 1986) was produced by Alex Proyas. It was filmed during January, 1986 (in temperatures of 40° in the shade) at Lake Hart, South Australia, 50 km west of Woomera Missile Base, and at Moon Plains, South Australia, 45 km north of Coober Pedy.
Despite significant international success during 1986, INXS was described by the U.K. music paper Melody Maker as 'a sad vegetable specimen of mindless hoary old rock music', and in New Musical Express as 'a depressingly definitive example of excruciating, boring, incredibly unimaginative MTV rock'.
In July, 1986 INXS opened for British band Queen at London's Wembley Stadium, in front of 130,000 people.
When INXS and Jimmy Barnes recorded the revival of Easybeats' 'Good Times', the band's guitarist, Tim Farriss, was absent. He was game fishing.
In January, 1987, the INXS/Jimmy Barnes single 'Good Times' debuted at No. 1 on the national singles charts.
Between November, 1980 ('Just Keep Walking') and September, 1987 ('Need You Tonight') INXS managed 16 national Top 40 hit singles.

INXS's sixth album Kick (October, 1987) debuted at No. 2 on the national charts (kept out of the top spot by the Various Artists '87 Hots Up album). Accordingly the band just missed out on making it three albums in a row to debut nationally

Col Joye

Col Joye's first professional performances in 1957/58 were characterised by an uneasiness about his stage name (i.e. Joye) which he felt sounded corny and a desire to look as 'hip' as possible with the limited resources he had available to him. In those days he took to the stage with a home made guitar and a pair of brown shoes painted white to fit the local concept of what all the best dressed U.S.
rock singers were wearing.
Col's first big singing engagement was at promoter Bill McColl's Jazzorama concert held at Manly (NSW) in October, 1957. He decided the show would be a good place
to launch himself and his group under a new name. Several alternatives including Col Jay and the Playmates were considered before they decided on Col Joye and the Joy Boys. Ironically they had second thoughts and contacted McColl with the hope of changing it, but it was too late, the posters had already been printed.
Col Joye's first regular singing engagement was warm-up act for a movie called The Tommy Steele Story at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney.
In 1960 during Conway Twitty's first tour of Australia he met and was impressed by Col Joye. So much so that Conway wrote a country flavoured song entitled 'Bad Man' especially for Col. The record became Col's fifth top twenty hit in April, 1960.
Col and his brothers Kevin and Keith demonstrated their business expertise early in their careers by establishing Joye Enterprises and their own publishing company
Joye Music in 1960. This was Barry Gibb's first publishing company.
Barry Gibb of The Bee Gees composed Col Joye's twelfth Top Forty hit 'Starlight Of Love' early in 1963.
In 1966 Col established his own record label, ATA Artists to have releases on ATA include — Andy Gibb, Little Pattie, Johnny Devlin, Laurie Alien, Sandy Scott, Judy Stone and of course Col Joye and the Joy Boys.
Col Joye's biggest selling single didn't happen during his five year reign in the charts as a pop/rock idol spanning 1959 to 1964. It happened a decade later in June, 1973 with 'Heaven Is My Woman's Love' which was also the biggest selling Australian single that year.
Col's 'Oh Yeah Uh Uh' (October, 1959) was the biggest selling single for 1959.

Anne Kirkpatrick
Anne Kirkpatrick is the daughter of country singers Joy McKean (once recognised as the Queen Of Country Music) and Slim Dusty (real name David Kirkpatrick).
Anne Kirkpatrick has a Degree in Biological Science.

Karen Knowles
Karen Knowles was the first Australian schoolgirl to have a Gold single (50,000 copies of 'Why Won't You Explain') in December, 1980.

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