Gavin Wood's Podcast

Richard Clapton began his recording career in 1974. Australia was still in the vice-like grip of the cultural cringe. He plunged into the “deep water” and legends like Skyhooks and Paul Kelly, Cold Chisel, INXS, Midnight Oil, and hundreds of others, followed in his wake.

Clapton’s songs are still omnipresent on the radio to this day, his records charting the political landscape of the nation and the turbulent lives of two generations.

Clapton grew up in Sydney in the 1960s before hopping a plane for London, and then later to Germany, where he wrote a first album, Prussian Blue (1973) which was one of the first major Australian “singer-songwriter” albums.

Fast track to 1975, Clapton had the critics on side but his label at the time, Festival Records, insisted on a hit single. However, it was the song they picked as a B-side called “Girls On the Avenue” that reached #1 on the national charts and put Clapton at the top of his class. Like Americans Jackson Browne and Bruce Springsteen, Richard Clapton developed a sound based on melodic rock while his lyrics were poetic musings on his state of mind or the state of the nation.

In 1980 he released the searing Dark Spaces, an indictment on the meanness and mendacity that would blow through the 1980s. Ten years after his first release, Richard Clapton was a tribal elder to whom younger artists like Jimmy Barnes, INXS and Cold Chisel turned as a mentor.

INXS asked Clapton to produce their second album, Underneath the Colours, and they became firm friends. They, and Cold Chisel, returned the favour on Clapton’s The Great Escape album with INXS drummer Jon Farriss going on to produce The Glory Road album. Few records of that time captured the roller coaster ride of the late 1980s as well as Glory Road.

These albums brought Clapton’s melodic gifts and his love of electric rock & roll into lockstep.

In the 1990s Richard continued to write and record and tour and his 1990s songs reflect a hard-won maturity. Indeed, Richard counts 2003’s Diamond Mine as amongst his best albums – and the critics unanimously agreed.

In 1999 Richard Clapton was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.

In 2014, his first memoir “The Best Years of Our Lives” was published by Allen and Unwin. The book connected with people of all generations because it was not only a story of Clapton’s journey, but it also documented the story of the lives of thousands of fans who had travelled the same road. Young people – fascinated by how it was “back in the day” also became a new generation of fans. The book continues to flourish through “word of mouth”, resonating with so many people in so many ways

Richard Clapton has never been rich. He has never had the pleasure of passing through life in a luxurious rock star bubble. In a career that now spans over 40 years he has battled everything from bad managers and capricious record companies to debt, taxes, personal tragedy and a thousand room service dinners. The fact that he’s come through it all with his sanity intact surprises all who know and love him.

Reyne was born in Lagos, Nigeria.

He formed a band called Spiff Rouch. By early 1978 Spiff Rouch had split, and Reyne formed Clutch Cargo, with Binks, Robinson, Williams and his younger brother David Reyne.

In late 1978, Clutch Cargo was renamed Australian Crawl and started to gain popularity on the pub circuit. The band went on to sell more than one million albums in Australia in the 1980s.

In 1987, Reyne released his self titled debut solo album and started the "Rip it Up" tour. The first two singles released from the album, "Fall of Rome" and "Hammerhead.

His debut was followed in May 1989 by his next solo release, Hard Reyne, which featured the hits "House of Cards" (#17 ARIA Charts and "One More River" (#22 ARIA Charts.

In 1991, Electric Digger Dandy was released. ". It remains Reyne's highest-charting album in Australia, reaching No. 3 on the ARIA albums chart.

In 1992, he recorded a duet with country singer James Blundell. Later that year he joined former Sherbet frontman Daryl Braithwaite, Jef Scott and Simon Hussey to create the album Company of Strangers, which spawned three Australian top 50 singles: "Motor City ,"Sweet Love", "Daddy's Gonna Make You a Star.

October 1994 saw the release of his fourth album, on the RooArt label, The Whiff of Bedlam, recorded in Los Angeles with Stewart Levine.

Reyne returned to the studio in 1997 to work with producer Ashley Caddell. Now signed to Village Roadshow Music, the first release was "Brand New Emperor's Clothes" in October 1997.

In 2004 he released Speedboats for Breakfast, which included the singles "Bug" and "The Rainbow's Dead End".

Reyne hosted Dig, a music show on ABC2 (2006–2007), and made an appearance on The AFL Footy Show in Melbourne in 2006. In May 2007, he released a new studio album, Every Man a King, which features the singles "Light in the Tunnel" and "Little Man You've Had a Busy Day". A second acoustic album, Ghost Ships, was released in September 2007.

In April 2010 Reyne released, TCB (Taking Care of Business), a collection of Elvis Presley covers. The album debuted at number 32 on the ARIA Albums chart.

In the Australia Day Honours of 2014, Reyne was recognised with a Medal of the Order of Australia in the General Division "for service to the performing arts as a singer/songwriter, and through support for a range of charitable organisations".

Universal Records released a two-CD set, The Anthology, on 1 August 2014. The double album featured all of Reyne's earlier hits on Disc 1 and a collection of his more recent material and radio singles on the Disc 2. In late 2014, Reyne launched a "James Reyne Plays Australian Crawl" series of shows across Australia. Performing only songs from the Australian Crawl catalogue, Reyne stated it was the closest thing to a reunion as fans were ever to get.

In July 2019, Reyne released an original song titled "Fearless" for the Australian film Palm Beach soundtrack.

In April 2020, Reyne announced the release of his twelfth studio album Toon Town Lullaby, alongside the album's lead single of the same name. Toon Town Lullaby released in July 2020.

Michael Glenn Chugg AM (born 15 June 1947) is an Australian entrepreneur, businessman and concert tour promoter. As a promoter and manager he was a founder of Frontier Touring Company (1979–99) and Michael Chugg Entertainment (2000–present). On 8 June 1998, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia with the citation "for service to music and the performing arts, particularly in relation to the promotion of Australian artists and to fundraising for youth and children's charities". In 2010, he co-authored his autobiography, Hey, You in the Black T-Shirt: The Real Story of Touring the World's Biggest Acts, with journalist, Iain Shedden. In March 2014 on the 50th anniversary of his start as a promoter, Denis Handlin (ex CEO of Sony Music Australia) opined "Chuggy is noisy, wild, cantankerous, the oldest teenager I know and very often a nightmare to deal with. But somehow we all love him because he lives and sweats the business with 100 per cent persistence and passion". At the ARIA Music Awards of 2019 Chugg received the ARIA Industry Icon Award.

Norman John Rowe AM (born 1 February 1947)[1] is an Australian singer and songwriter of pop music and an actor of theatre and soap opera for which he remains best known as Douglas Fletcher in 1980s serial Sons and Daughters. As a singer he was credited for his bright and edgy tenor voice and dynamic stage presence. Many of Rowe's most successful recordings were produced by Nat Kipner and later by Pat Aulton, house producers for the Sunshine Records label. Backed by his band, The Playboys, Rowe released a string of Australian pop hits on the label that kept him at the top of the Australian charts and made him the most popular solo performer of the mid-1960s. Rowe's double-sided hit the A-side, a reworking of the Doris Day hit "Que Sera Sera" /with b-side a cover of Johnny Kidd & the Pirates "Shakin' All Over" was one of the most successful Australian singles of the 1960s.

Between 1965 and 1967 Rowe was Australia's most popular male star but his career was cut short when he was drafted for compulsory military service (called National Service in Australia) in late 1967. His subsequent tour of duty in Vietnam effectively ended his pop career. Unable to recapture the musical success he enjoyed at his peak in the 1960s, he carved out instead a career in theatre and television.