Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons

Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons is the group which started one of Australia's most talented musicians, Joe Camilleri, making music of his own. It didn't happen straight away, but it did happen.

By the time Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons was formed in 1975 Maltese-born Joe had already spent some ten years in the Melbourne music scene, and become one of its mainstays, well-known and admired amongst his peers. From mid-sixties r&b group the King Bees he moved to blues purists the Adderly Smith Blues Band, who sacked him for sounding too much like Mick Jagger and for being too much of a showman, neither of which he could help. Joe was just doing what came naturally, but Adderly Smith took themselves very seriously, priding themselves on educating audiences on where the songs the Rolling Stones were recording originally came from. Joe spent the early seventies in more innovative, even eccentric bands like Lipp and the Double Dekker Brothers, the Sharks and the Pelaco Brothers (the latter with Stephen Cummings of the Sports).

In late 1975 Ross Wilson was still waiting out his Daddy Cool/Mighty Kong recording contract, keeping himself busy by producing Skyhooks. He also decided to produce a version of Chuck Berry's 'Run Rudolph Run', the kind of retro rocker Daddy Cool used to record, as a one-of Christmas single for Mushroom Records.

Since contractually he couldn't perform the vocals himself, Ross asked musician around town Joe Camilleri to sing and play on the record, and front it. In Maltese "Joe" is "Zep". The name put on the single was Jo Jo Zep and his Little Helpers. To promote the single it seemed a good idea to put together a scratch band comprising some of the other people who had worked on the record, more Ross Wilson cohorts. On stage they called themselves Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons.

The single wasn't a hit, but the band stayed together. When Ross Wilson formed his own Oz label, he signed the band and produced their records. The first Falcons single 'Beating Around The Bush' was one of the tracks on the Ross Wilson soundtrack for a movie, also called 'Oz'. The band had become an outlet for another of Ross Wilson's songwriting proteges, Wayne Burt, who wrote great songs in that r&b/soul idiom that was the Falcons' stock and trade in the beginning. A team player throughout his career, Joe Camilleri didn't entertain the idea of writing songs himself until Wayne Burt left and the band had to find new songs from somewhere. Written with other band members the new songs shifted the band into the 'new wave' rock which was sweeping though rock worldwide at the time - as both an answer to, and support of the punk rock's demand for change in the latter Seventies. The king of new wave Elvis Costello thought so much of Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons' 'So Young' single, he ended up recording a version himself, an incredible complement then, and still a great complement in retrospect considering Elvis' own songwriting.

In 1978 the Oz label folded and Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons moved back to Mushroom, still in the twilight between their old r&b and their new contemporary sound. Mushroom was very eager to connect with the 'new wave' in England and had brought over English producer and latterday Procol Harum member Peter Solley to produce Mushroom's other major contender in that field, the Sports. One night Solley saw JJZ & TF perform, and on the strength of a new song, 'Shape I'm In' asked to produce Jo Jo Zep as well.

The partnership with Peter Solley brought the group to major success. Until now they'd been a cult band, and known for their live performances. On stage there was never a set list. They decided what they played on the spot. Now they had hit singles ('Hit And Run', 'Shape I'm In', 'All I Wanna Do') and nationally selling albums ('Screaming Targets', 'Hats Off Step Lively'). They were major contenders at home and on the Next Big Thing list internationally. But ultimately it wasn't a happy period for Joe Camilleri himself. Peter Solley wanted things too much his way. Hit records wasn't necessarily why Joe and the others were playing music.

In June 1981 Joe Camilleri disbanded the Falcons. He was planning to record a solo album, but the record company convinced him otherwise, and put the new line-up Joe put together back in the studio with Peter Solley. To avoid interference and conflict Joe came into the studio with the songs already written and arranged. The new extended band was now simply Jo Jo Zep - no Falcons. The 'Cha' album explored a bold new direction, salsa influenced, with Jane Clifton brought in to sing on the album's hit single 'Taxi Mary'.

Together with ex-Split Enz Eddie Reynor, Joe produced 'Losing Game', the band's first single in America. After a disastrous tour of America where Joe told one hostile San Francisco audience "no wonder your parents lost the Vietnam War" 'Losing Game' was Jo Jo Zep's last single. The group would get together again for reunion performances, but essentially Jo Jo Zep's story was finished.

Joe Camilleri wasn't finished. Next, he formed the Black Sorrows.