A Musical Journey – Part 4 – Oh No, Not You Again.

In this fourth and final installment, we’ll leave the Kelly’s behind us and take on some of the other famous names of Australian rock.  Barnes and Moss with Cold Chisel and Reyne with Australian Crawl were just a few of the leading lights of the Australian music scene in the late 1970s and into the 80s.

It would surely be seen as unfair for me to say that, on the whole, there hasn’t been a great deal of iconic music created in the last 15 years or so.  I’m obviously very wrong and even more out touch looking at the very recent Triple J ‘Hottest 100 Australian Albums of All-Time’, which was packed with albums, perhaps as much as 50%, being produced in the last 10 years.In support of my argument, I offer James Dixon Barnes, lead singer of the recently re-formed Cold Chisel.  Flame Trees was featured on their 1984 album ‘Twentieth Century’.  My favourite version of the song is the album version.  It is subtle, gentle, vulnerable, something remarkable from such a powerful voice like Barnes.  It is a huge karaoke hit, perhaps the second favourite Chisel song behind Khe Sanh.  This is Jimmy Barnes doing a karaoke version of Cold Chisel’s ‘Flame Trees’ in 2007.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Barnsey as much as any other red-blooded Aussie bloke.  Maybe a little more after I heard the following 30 second clip.

Now, I am about to break the rules.  The next clip is from Vimeo not YouTube, but to let the story flow a little more, I’m inserting it here.  So we had Jimmy Barnes then Jimmy Barnes covering Split Enz, now we have Wilco covering Split Enz.  A YouTube music session isn’t complete for me without some Wilco, so here is Wilco & Neil Finn with “I Got You”.

I profess to be a jack of many trades, but a master of none.  One trade I’ve never really been anything in is animation.  Maybe in another life.  The next song is a favourite of mine from Wilco, with a pretty cool home-made clip “Hummingbird”.

I’ve run out of segues, so here is a clip from Countdown in 1981, the other great Australian band I mentioned earlier, Australian Crawl, with ‘Oh No, Not You Again’.

Cold Chisel had a two-pronged vocal assault.  Jimmy Barnes sang most of the hits, but the other singer was the equally talented singer/songwriter, Ian Moss.  Here he teams up with ex-Noiseworks & some-time-INXS singer Jon Stevens & Southern Sons supremo Jack Jones with a Beatles classic, Come Together.

Jack Jones was serious business in the early 1990s.  He was John Farnham’s backup singer & rhythm guitarist and this led into the formation of Southern Sons (with Farnham’s guitarist Phil Buckle).  The Son’s first & biggest hit was off their 1990 Album, Southern Sons.  The song was ‘Heart in Danger’.  Some time between 1995 and 2005 when he released a solo album, Jack Jones reverted to his birth name of Irwin Thomas.  I thought I saw a Irwin Thomas acoustic version of Heart in Danger, but I can’t find it now, just a couple of short grabs.  There is a version from 2010, which is the Southern Sons rock/pop version, with ‘Jack Jones’.  I guess if I had two names, I’d go by either, as long as I was getting paid.

Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked.  Here is another Beatles song, She’s Leaving Home, by Irwin Thomas.  I honestly didn’t recognise him, but looking at his videos, he seems to be enjoying what he is doing at the moment, and I am genuinely happy for him.  I like it when people find a place where they are happy.

Well that ends the journey, an evening of YouTubing when the rest of the world sleeps.  Hopefully there won’t be a second edition of these videos coming up in the near future.