John Farnham

In a career of over thirty years John Farnham has proved himself Australia's most enduring performer and recording artist. His 1987 album 'Whispering Jack', was the first album to sell more than one million copies in Australia alone. But "Johnny" Farnham did not come into the music business with a burning ambition to be famous. It was more a case of the business finding him, not John chasing it.

He came to Australia at the age of ten as part of your typical "knees-up" English family, who liked to gather around the piano for singalongs. One uncle went a little further, staging charity shows in Essex County which young Johnny regularly performed at. That uncle and other members of the extended Farnham family migrated to Australia together. And so, singing in public was natural and everyday to John. It was no big deal for him to join a high school band called The Mavericks, playing the local dances. It started becoming a bigger deal when a band with a wider circuit of work spotted him and asked Johnny to be their lead singer. Singing with Strings Unlimited fitted neatly around his daytime existence as a plumbing apprentice.

Things became complicated when his path crossed with that of an accountant acting as manager for singer Bev Harrell. Darrell Sambell spotted something in Johnny he though he could promote, and approached John and then his parents. It was a big decision, a series of big decisions. Sambell best knew his way around the Adelaide music scene. In the first place it meant a lot of travelling for John. Then it meant applying for a two year leave from his plumbing apprenticeship. He never went back to complete it.

His voice on the TAA 'Susan Jones' advertising jingle led 18-year-old led Johnny Farnham to signing a recording contract with EMI in September 1967. Producer David McKay, who initiated the contract, had a thing about this song from America, 'Sadie (The Cleaning Lady)'. No-one else had the same faith in it, including the singer himself, but who was he to argue? Even when it was first released in November there was no clue to what was about to unfold. Radio stations weren't rushing to play it.

The ABC's groundbreaking 'This Day Tonight' current affairs show had just begun and decided to film a segment following this unknown singer around for a day during his media calls. Radio announcers' egos replaced any reservations they might have had about the record. They happily let themselves be filmed putting 'Sadie' on air as Johnny stepped into their studios with a hired-for-the day real life 'Sadie'. And once the song was on air, there seemed no stopping it. It became the biggest selling Australian-made single in history, earning the singer three Gold records. Quite a start to a career! More than 'Sadie' itself, it was the singer's bright boy-next-door personality which had scored the hit.

The vaudevillian 'Underneath The Arches' was released next as a kind of follow-up, but its equally promoted non-novelty B-side 'Friday Kind Of Monday' set the pattern for the pop singer we would recognize as Johnny Farnham from now on. The hits just kept coming. Farnham was the most popular singer in the country. He could do no wrong. After a couple of singles written by Melbourne songwriter Hans Poulsen, Farnham started covering hits from America ('One' and 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head') and making them his own. Any prospect of trying his luck overseas was overruled by a busy schedule. Bit by bit he was being pushed into mainstream fabric of Australian show business, highlighted by a starring role in the stage musical 'Charlie Girl'.

If Johnny wanted it any other way, it was probably denied him. In April 1973 when the singer decided to marry Jillian Billham, one of the dancers he met during 'Charlie Girl'. His manager just refused to admit it would happen. Even when the invitations had been sent out Sambell was denying it. But it happened. It's a symbol of just how out of touch Sambell had become with Farnham's needs personally as well as professionally.

In January 1976 Farnham and Sambell parted company, not on the best of terms, but the damage had been done. The singer's career was in a downward spiral, destined to be banished forever to the oldies or cabaret circuit. Even his record company lost faith and dropped him.

The first hint of 'another' Johnny Farnham had appeared in on his final EMI offering, 'J P Farnham Sings', an album full of Australian songs. The Aztecs' 'Most People I Know' was given a jazz swing arrangement invented by 'J P' himself.

More than four long and hard years later John had a chance to show that side of himself again, when he sang a radically revamped version of The Beatles 'Help' on a Peter Faiman produced Royal Command Performance TV special. Farnham sang his heart out, as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did. He could sniff another chance. He'd taken on Little River Band's manager Glenn Wheatley. He'd changed his name to John Farnham and put a line between himself and all the songs he used to sing as "Johnny". He was also recording an album with LRB's Graham Goble.

Goble saw producing his favourite singer as a chance to get some more of his songs recorded, since the struggle to get songs on LRB albums was always such a bunfight. The resulting album 'Uncovered' contained Graham Goble songs like 'Please Don't Ask Me', a recorded version of 'Help', and John Farnham's first songwriting credit, 'Jilly's Song'.

The album re-established John Farnham, but would have far wider repercussions. In September 1982 Graham Goble was motivated to convince other members of LRB that John should replace Glenn Shorrock as the group's lead singer. John saw this as his chance for a shot at international recognition at last. LRB's American record company was agog. The group was replacing the singer of all their hits with an unknown!. It was a hurdle Farnham, for all his talent and personality, could not overcome and at the end of 1985, after just three years and two albums, he left LRB to begin work on a new make-or-break solo album.

While his manager searched in vain for a record deal and a record producer, John started looking for songs. As the months rolled on, and still no producer in sight, John started workshopping songs with front-of-house soundman Ross Fraser. The months continued to roll by and Farnham and Fraser decided they had everything they needed to produce the album themselves. Manager Glenn Wheatley whipped up a record deal. The anthemic single 'You're The Voice' restored John Farnham to Number One for the first time in 17 years. The carefully crafted album 'Whispering Jack', released in October 1986 was Number One for 18 weeks, and became the biggest selling album in Australian history.

Since then John Farnham has worked hard to make sure he never lets his career slip away again. Subsequent albums, 'Age Of Reason', 'Chain Reaction' and 'Then Again' established John Farnham as Australia's undisputed No.1 performer, the only Australian who can consistently mount arena size concerts to satisfy his following.

'You're The Voice' sold a million copies in Europe, and international interest has continued to beckon but the dedicated family man, happy with his career as it is, has left those ambitions pass him by.

Subsequent albums, 'Age Of Reason', 'Chain Reaction' and 'Then Again' established John Farnham as Australia's undisputed No.1 performer, for the next 15 years the only Australian who could consistently mount arena size concerts to satisfy his following.

In 2002 Farnham playfully (as it turned out) threatened to put an end to his concert years with one last mammoth round of performances, 'The Last Time', ending with a final concert at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on June 15, 2003. It is understood Farnham raked in $53 million for his lap of honour, which played to 430,000 people. 'The Last Time' tour DVD sold over four times platinum and became the highest selling DVD by an Australian artist. It wasn't the end of course, and calling that tour and it's accompanying live album 'The Last Time' (after the Rolling Stones song '(This could be The Last Time') would come to haunt Farnham.

In 2005 he toured with Tom Jones and released the covers album 'I Remember When I was Young (Songs From The Australian Songbook). In 2006 he toured with Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks. March 2006's Commonwealth Games in Melbourne saw Farnham's last major public performance for some time, until March 2009 when he joined the all-star Sound Relief line-up in aid of Victorian bushfire victims. England's Coldplay, on tour in Australia, had agreed to appear acoustically in Sydney and contacted Farnham to join them for a performance of 'You're The Voice'..