Richard Clapton

Throughout the Seventies and into the Eighties Richard Clapton was Australia's most renowned singer songwriter. While his songs on record put him in that 'heart on the sleeve' category, on stage Richard always had a darker more menacing presence, able to rock with his backing band and hold his own against the best of the pub rock bands he shared stages with.

When Richard Clapton left school in Sydney he became a commercial artist At the same time he took up guitar and in 1967 travelled to London to further both interests. Joining a band as a guitarist, after a while, he gave up art and concentrated solely on his music. After three years in England his working visa expired and Richard moved on to Berlin, where he played in a band called Bitch as well as working folk clubs on his own.

Clapton returned to Sydney in early 1972 with just the clothes he was wearing, his guitar, and a collection of songs about his wanderings through Europe. When his first Festival single 'Last Train To Marseille' didn't change his financial position, Richard was forced to temporarily give up his solo career for a six-week stint as singer for jazz-fusion group Sun. In November 1973 Richard was able to release his first album, 'Prussian Blue', filled with those European songs. The album didn't set the world on fire. Glitter rock had reared its platformed head, and middle of the road pop like 'Tie A Yellow Ribbon' were the order of the day on radio. But critics raved about 'Prussian Blue', and the album sold in respectable numbers, encouraging Festival to keep the faith.

The next single was all-important. Festival Records demanded a hit. The single. 'Travelling Down The Castlereagh' had on its B-side a song about Richard's ritual visit to a street near to where he lived, just to watch the girls go by. Radio loved 'Girls On The Avenue' and it was this song which presented Festival and Richard with the hit they needed, a bitter-sweet experience for Richard himself. Almost universally it was assumed that his song was a sympathetic ode to street walkers. The girls on the street thought so. Even his record company thought so, and the album of the same name saw Richard depicted with what appeared to be the heroines of his song. One really was!

'Girls On The Avenue', the song and the album, assured that Richard Clapton had Australia's attention from now on. The rest of the album's songs revisited the themes on Richard's first album. Looking for new experiences he moved to Melbourne, an artistic plus but a financial minus, subjects he visited on his third album, 'Mainstreet Jive'. In late 1976 and early 1977 Richard Clapton took his band on tour back to Germany and on to the rest of Europe. On his return he released a new non-album single, 'Capricorn Dancer', which consolidated Richard's place as one of Australia's finest songwriters.

Richard himself had decided to return to Berlin to live. His experiences, freezing in Germany while thinking of his sunburnt homeland, inspired a song called 'Goodbye Tiger', and also fuelled the songs which filled Richard's 1977 album of the same name. 'Goodbye Tiger' was his most successful album yet. Clapton had made the important transition from hit singles to hit albums.

Richard Clapton spent most of 1978 touring and recording overseas. After including a couple of American recorded tracks on the compilation album 'Past Hits And Previews' he released an all-American album 'Hearts On The Nightline', followed by an album that was what it said, 'Dark Spaces'. His understanding of that side of rock and roll saw him produce the second INXS album, 'Underneath The Colours', containing their first version of 'The Loved One'.

A new record contract with WEA found Richard back at his commercial best for 1982's 'The Great Escape'. As the title suggested he wasn't happy with his relationship with his previous record company. But after just one WEA album he moved to Mushroom for the next album, the soulful 'Solidarity'. By now INXS were the biggest thing in Australian rock, and Jon Farriss' name as producer brought Clapton back to WEA for 'Glory Road', followed by a live album, 'The Best Years Of Our Lives'.

Richard Clapton spent the next five years in contractual limbo. He himself moved from manager to manager and briefly he tried his hand at the producer/manager role for a band called Red Not Blue. April 1993 finally saw Richard Clapton back on record with 'Distant Thunder'. It took his own money and those of friends like INXS to back the project, this time released through Sony. Personally embittered by his fluctuating fortunes, the songs themselves showed that Clapton had lost none of his songwriting skills. His absence from the studio had given him time to assemble a fine set of songs.

Three years later Clapton surfaced with a second Sony album, 'Angeltown'. Obviously still a favourite amongst his musician friends, somewhere along the line Richard Clapton had lost contact with the record buying audience. At the 1999 ARIA Awards Richard Clapton was inducted into the Hall Of Fame. He continues to perform on a regular basis.