by Jeff Apter
‘He was shafted,’ John said. ‘He was offered a deal to come clean, which is what he did, and the deal was reneged upon. Where’s the justice in that?
‘He made a mistake and, quite frankly, he paid a higher price than Gary and Joan or Peter and Mary. He’s scarred from it – so are we all.’
On the day of Wheatley’s release from prison in mid-May 2008, John was the first person to call. It was 5 a.m.
‘I’ve been doing a lot of fishing, Wheats,’ John told him, breaking the ice. ‘But more importantly, are you okay?’
They agreed that John shouldn’t visit Glenn during his period of home detention; there were just too many paparazzi camped outside.
‘I think that would be flaming the fire,’ Wheatley’s wife, Gaynor, told the press. ‘He won’t visit until everybody goes away.’
She joked that Farnham was the only person happy with her husband’s incarceration – it meant he didn’t have to work.
This had been the longest, toughest period of Wheatley’s life, which perhaps explained the effusive way Wheatley spoke this May morning at the Star: he was relieved to finally be free.
‘It’s also a great honour to announce that my friend John Farnham is going to come back to the concert stage later this year, for a series of shows that I think are going to be exceptional,’ Wheatley continued, his mind back on the job at hand.
Farnham joined the press conference and got straight down to it, revealing that Star City management had invited him down a few months earlier to ‘do a reccie’ of the Lyric Theatre. ‘And I instantly fell in love with it.’
‘I’ll never tour on the scale we did in the past, those huge venues,’ he explained, circumventing the inevitable questions about his uncertain retirement. ‘That was then, this is now. But to work in an amazing venue like this, it’s incredible, it sounds amazing. I’m thrilled. And I’ve been able to put the band back together. None of them died in the interim, which is good.’
Had anything changed during his downtime?
‘My hair’s gotten a little thinner – I haven’t, but that’s okay. I’ve been riding my horses and doing some fishing. I think half the fish in the Coral Sea have my fingerprints on them, but it’s time to give them a break.’
A question was raised about one of his unlikely recent appearances: he had briefly fronted British band Coldplay at the Sound Relief concert in March 2009, a fundraiser for victims of the Black Saturday Victorian bushfires, a very special one-off. Wheatley, still lying low at the time, reluctantly picked up the home phone one night, praying it wasn’t another reporter hot for another ‘life on the inside’ exclusive.
‘Hello, is this Glenn?’ an unmistakably English voice asked. ‘This is Chris Martin.’
Chris Martin – really? Lead singer of one of the planet’s biggest bands, partner of Hollywood starlet Gwyneth Paltrow, Martin was a superstar. He’d called with a tantalising offer – would John be willing to sing ‘You’re the Voice’ with Coldplay at Sound Relief?
Wheatley gave Martin John’s number, a conversation ensued and a meeting was arranged – in the John Farnham Room at the Rod Laver Arena, no less. Not that Martin needed reminding how big a star Farnham was; he’d toured Australia enough to know that they didn’t come any bigger than ‘Farnesy’.
‘I think I said yes straight away – I didn’t “umm” very long,’ said John. ‘I said to the guys [in Coldplay], “How do we break this up? Which part will I sing? Which part will you sing?” And they said no, we’ll play it, you sing it.’
On show day, an understandably nervous John readied himself in the wings as Martin, already on stage with Coldplay, stepped to the mic. Fifty thousand punters looked on. They had no idea what was about to take place.
‘What do you do,’ Martin said, looking out over the crowd, ‘to impress everyone from Row 1 to Row 5000? Well, you do something different. Ladies and gentleman, here to sing Australia’s national anthem, please welcome John Farnham.’
‘You’re the Voice’ was a song that never failed to rouse an audience, whether at one of John’s full-house gigs or the 2006 Commonwealth Games closing ceremony. Wherever and whenever John chose to dust off his signature tune – the Spirit of the North post-cyclone fundraiser at Cairns in June 2006 or 2005’s Tsunami Benefit concert at the Melbourne Music Festival – the reaction was always the same: mass euphoria.
But the audience feedback at Sound Relief was perhaps the most rousing of all: 50,000 voices joined as one, chanting every single word back at John and the band. A sea of waving arms stretched from one end of the SCG to the other; the staid old ground, bathed in sunshine, was fit to burst. It was epic – great theatre, a truly inspiring few minutes of music. Many of the crowd hadn’t even been born when ‘You’re the Voice’ became a monumental hit, yet their mad-for-it response said multitudes – the song transcended age and audience. As its end neared, John put a friendly arm around Martin’s shoulders; this was rock-and-roll nirvana.
‘To have the reaction was just … unbelievable,’ said Farnham. ‘Amazing. Absolutely amazing. It was one of the highlights of my life – when I walked off stage I was two feet taller.’
Sound Relief raised $5 million for bushfire victims. And ‘You’re the Voice’ returned to the singles list, doing some healthy business on the iTunes download chart.
Sound Relief also inspired John; he buttonholed Wheatley immediately afterwards.
‘I know we called the tour The Last Time,’ he shouted above the din of the still-cheering crowd, ‘but that was great. I really want to tour again.’ He’d erased all the horrors of Dame Stevie Nicks in 2006.
Wheatley couldn’t have been more pleased. The Farnham by Demand / Star City tour soon started taking shape.
Back at the Star press conference, discussion returned to the new room at Star City: what did it have going for it?
‘It’s nice to be able to see people, to eyeball them,’ John figured. ‘There’s not a bad seat in the house here. To be able to come out and get close to the people who’ve supported me for 40 years is fantastic. Music affects people, and to be able to look into their eyes, you can affect them that little bit more. I’m looking forward to it very much.’
So is this the end, one reporter asked?
John wouldn’t commit: he knew how tricky things could get when you gave the impression you’re retiring.
‘I’m not dead yet,’ he chuckled.
He was asked about his time out of the limelight; did he have any secret methods to keep his voice in shape?
‘At about 5.30 every night I gargle with a glass of red wine, which makes my voice feel good – ’ here John paused, a punchline imminent. ‘So then I gargle with another one.’
After a quick hint at a new album, a joke about Wheatley’s time away (‘he’s been on tax rehab’) and a chuckle about his legendary mullet – ‘I couldn’t grow it back if I tried!’ – John got to his feet, ready to go.
‘Thank you for your patience, thank you for your questions and with any luck I’ll see you out there. Thank you very much indeed.’
Jack was back. Again.
Judging by the result, with Jack, John’s 20th studio LP, released in October 2010, he was hell-bent on having the best possible time in the studio. There was a lot of the vibe of 331/3 spilling over into this record, as John and the band raised some dust during such big moments as takes on Percy Sledge’s ‘247365’ and ‘Hit the Road Jack’ – of course! – which bled into a red-blooded read of Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’. ‘Nobody Gets Me Like You’ also locked into a good-natured groove. Just as he had with 331/3, John dusted off his vinyl collection, covering songs made famous by Ray Charles and Curtis Mayfield. True soul, with more than a little swing. Seven new tracks rounded out the album.
John wasn’t averse to a moment or two of reflection; the big strings and heavy emotions of ‘Nobody Gets Me Like You’ harked back to the show tunes of his very early records, such as 1972’s Johnny Farnham Sings the Shows. But that’s where
the comparison ended: John was now singing with all the hard-won wisdom and insight of a guy who’s done more than a few laps of the block. The same hand-on-heart emotion ran through ‘Today’. Perhaps, judging by this and the big closer, ‘Sunshine’, Stevie Nicks was right – John really was the Frank Sinatra of Australia.
Jack didn’t quite hit number one; instead it peaked at a paltry number two, held off by neo-metal upstarts Linkin Park. No matter; Jack was a strong record, and if it was indeed his studio farewell, there was plenty for his fans to savour.
John did a few ‘Live by Demand’ shows in support of Jack, but it was when he went back on the road during the latter months of 2011, under the banner ‘Whispering Jack 25 Years On’ that things went large again. A batch of songs recorded at Melbourne venue The Chapel, entitled The Acoustic Chapel Sessions, emerged just before the tour began. He’d also cut a different type of covers album in 2005, entitled I Remember When I Was Young, where he tackled the Oz pop/rock songbook – everything from Daddy Cool’s ‘Come Back Again’ to Cold Chisel’s ‘Forever Now’, Oz Crawl’s ‘Reckless’ to Men at Work’s ‘Overkill’.
This was a 25th anniversary worth celebrating; it had been a hell of a ride. In the mid-1980s, John had been on a fast track to suburban club hell. Then he and Fraser (and Hirschfelder, whose contribution shouldn’t be overlooked) found some magic in a suburban garage, Wheatley stumped up the cash and the rest became Australian pop history. John then built on Whispering Jack’s overwhelming success, becoming a homegrown superstar all over again. Sure, he’d been a bit fickle when it came to retirement, flustering some fans, but audiences still clamoured to see him.
Again, the Whispering Jack anniversary tour was a Wheatley idea. Farnham, by his own admission, was a bit reluctant.
‘I don’t know, Glenn, would anyone want to be involved in that?’ he asked. ‘Would anyone want to see that?’
John knew that he’d been lucky; he’d filled rooms for nearly all of the post-Whispering Jack era. He didn’t want to mess with his success.
‘I don’t want to play to half-full houses, beating a horse to death,’ he told Wheatley.
His fears were unfounded, of course. John and the band packed venues across the country during October and November 2011, playing 27 shows in all. Throughout the tour John was in typically chatty mood on stage, especially when eager fans rushed down the front and started handing over gifts, flowers and trinkets. He responded, Elvis style, with a kiss and a smile. Sometimes he gave a lucky fan a sweaty handkerchief.
‘I’ll tell you a story,’ he announced at one of the early shows, as he handed over a hanky. ‘I’ve got about 70 dollars worth of product in my hair, 30 of which is in my eyes. What I put on the handkerchief is not perspiration, it’s gel. If you run that through your hair, it’ll be stiff for a week.’
Then a pause, followed by one of Farnham’s patented cheeky grins.
‘I wish I hadn’t said that.’
Just like John, the crowd couldn’t help themselves; they burst into laughter. They couldn’t get enough of The Voice.
EPILOGUE
Jack’s Back
Sydney Entertainment Centre
16 December 2015
John Farnham owned this stage. Greats such as Dire Straits and Elton John may have performed many shows here, but the Sydney Entertainment Centre – now officially the Qantas Credit Union Arena – belonged to Farnham. As of 16 December 2015, Farnham had played 77 concerts at the Ent Cent. Staggering. Guinness Book of Records stuff.
Certainly some things had changed since Farnham first trod the Entertainment Centre’s boards in 1983. His once-golden mane was now close-cropped, showing more scalp than hair, while several inches and a number of clothes sizes had been added amidships. The 1980s-era full-length coat had long been relegated to the back of the wardrobe, along with the leather strides, replaced by a dapper black dinner jacket, sans tie. His look was more gracefully ageing Vegas crooner than middle-aged pop star. Yet John seemed totally cool with the changes that Father Time, and the good life, had wrought upon him. He was comfortable in his own skin – not something that could always be said of him in the past.
What hadn’t changed one bit was his voice. If anything, he seemed to be singing better than ever, taking songs to places they’d rarely been before, sparring vocally on stage with his four-member mini-choir. John riffed and ad-libbed, twisting lyrics and playing with his inflections, seeing where each song, every note, would lead him. It was remarkable to watch: a master going about his craft. As much as he admired the ‘Human Natures’ – as he referred to them with a chuckle during the intro to ‘Everytime You Cry’ – who needed them when you had this band?
The diehard Farnham fan base, which with the passing of time had proved more stable than the Rock of Gibraltar, loved every single minute of it. The audience was a sea of mobile phones, cries of love and wild applause from the moment John strode on stage and launched into ‘Age of Reason’. A Farnham concert circa 2015 was pitched somewhere between a Hillsong meeting – but with far better songs – and Elvis in Vegas in the early 1970s. Farnham was singing the soundtrack to the lives of these 12,000 fans – and the millions of other dedicated Farnham lovers – and they responded with the kind of mad love usually reserved for pennant-winning footy teams.
Surprisingly, there were also a lot of under-30s in his audience now, blowing up just as wildly as the over-60 set when he launched into ‘You’re the Voice’ and ‘Pressure Down’. Maybe they’d commandeered their parents’ music collections: who knows? But it seemed that the words ‘Farnham’ and ‘uncool’ had drifted apart over recent years. Even the critics and naysayers had finally come around.
Farnham still had his onstage patter perfected, a willingness to share his inner dag with his devoted fans. He never missed. Miraculously, in a blink he could shift emotional gears seamlessly between a deeply heartfelt ballad such as ‘Burn for You’ and the kind of aw-shucks, funny-old-world repartee for which he was renowned.
‘John is just an amazing singer, completely intuitive,’ Lindsay Field once said of his boss and friend. ‘He’s one of the only guys I know who can be singing from his heart, turn around and crack a joke, and then go straight back into it.’ Tonight that gift was on ample display.
Chatting to the audience of 12,000 people as if he’d just bumped into them down the shops, Farnham casually mentioned a significant moment that had occurred before the show: he had been officially handed the hefty sign from the Farnham Room, the Entertainment Centre’s Green Room.
‘Jilly looked at me and at the sign,’ he said, laughing, ‘as if to say, “Where are you going to put that?”’
He made it seem as though being presented with a chunk of the Sydney Entertainment Centre was a perfectly ordinary occurrence. John not only owned the stage – now he owned a slice of the building.
Even at 66, Farnham could still talk the talk of everyday Australia. He bantered a bit more about the missus, joked about his age (‘The band’s aggregate doesn’t even reach mine’) and took cheap shots at his manager; at one point he chastised him for not juicing up his water bottle. (‘Bloody Wheatley,’ he smirked, as he chugged his H2O, hoping for something a little stronger.)
And while his set was now peppered with material from Whispering Jack and beyond – the standing-ovation-ready closing bracket included ‘You’re the Voice’, ‘That’s Freedom’ and ‘Pressure Down’ – he didn’t completely disregard his beginnings. His set was barely 15 minutes old when he responded to the first yelled request for ‘Sadie’.
‘Bugger it,’ he laughed, ‘you asked for it.’
Then he stopped himself. Something needed to be said.
‘You know, I don’t hate this song, not at all,’ explained John, dispelling a popular myth. ‘Sadie’s the reason I’m standing here tonight.’ Then, after a beat, ‘It’s just not the best song I’ve ever recorded.’
With another laugh he began reminiscing in song about the woman with ‘red deterg
ent hands’, the crowd up and singing along with him.
All of this was evidence, if it was still required, that Farnham’s popularity was constant, regardless of his many, many farewells and Last Times. And the lure of performing was too strong. So here he was in 2015, still every inch the singer’s singer, a regular guy who took simple pleasure in the thrill that hit him when he opened his mouth and let rip. He’d been doing this now for 50 years; why give up when he was loved with so much fervour, when there was so much goodwill in the air – and when the houses remained very, very full? His audience wasn’t going anywhere. Nor was he.
John Farnham was and would always be The Voice.
DISCOGRAPHY
For a comprehensive discography, see www.johnfarnham.info.
ALBUMS
Sadie (1968)
Friday Kind of Monday / Are You Havin’ Any Fun? / Turn Around / Painting a Shadow / Pay the Waiter / There’s Got to Be a Word / Sadie (The Cleaning Lady) / Woman, Woman / The Old Bazaar in Cairo / Miss Elaine E.S. Jones / Otherwise It’s Been a Perfect Day
Everybody Oughta Sing a Song (1968)
Everybody Oughta Sing a Song / Jamie / There Is No Season to My Love / Two-Bit Manchild / The Last Thing on My Mind / Strollin’ / Scratchin’ Ma Head / I Don’t Want to Love You / Confidentially / Rose Coloured Glasses / Grand Unspeakable Passion / Sunday Will Never Be The Same / You Can Write a Song
Looking Through a Tear (1970)
One / I’ve Been Rained On / Mirror of My Mind / The World Goes Round and Round / All Night Girl / You’re Breaking Me Up / Two / Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head / Looking Through a Tear / Visions of Sugarplums / What Can I Do / In a Moment of Madness / Ain’t Society Great / 1432 Franklin Pike Circle Hero
Christmas Is … Johnny Farnham (1970)
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town / Christmas Is / The Ringing Reindeer / Little Drummer Boy / Jingle Bells / Good Time Christmas / Everything Is Beautiful / White Christmas / The First Noel / Silent Night / There’s No Place Like Home / Little Boy Dear / It Must Be Getting Close to Christmas / Christmas Happy