Jimmy Barnes

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Two Fires (1990)
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Two Fires (1990)

Jimmy Barnes (born James Dixon Swan, April 28, 1956 in Glasgow, Scotland) is a popular Australian rock singer. His father Jim Swan was a prizefighter and his older brother John Swan is also a rock singer.

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[edit] Biography

Barnes arrived in Adelaide, South Australia with his family in January, 1961 and eventually settled in the town of Elizabeth. Shortly afterward, Barnes' parents divorced. His mother Dorothy remarried a clerk named Reg Barnes and all of the children except Jimmy's older brother John took their step-father's surname. This would later cause confusion when Jimmy and John became well-known as, because of their different surnames it was commonly believed they were half-brothers or step-brothers.

Barnes took an apprenticeship in an iron smelter with the South Australian railways in 1973 but the same year joined Cold Chisel, then called Orange. The band moved to Armidale, New South Wales late in that year and went on to become one of Australia's biggest-selling and most legendary acts. Barnes recorded seven albums with Cold Chisel between 1978 and 1983, when the band split. He then launched a solo career almost immediately with his first album Bodyswerve entering the Australian charts at Number One. It was the first of a remarkable run of top charting albums for Barnes, as each of his first six solo albums all debuted in the Number One position, a feat that no other Australian artist is likely to match. His list of Number One albums now totals eleven, including three Cold Chisel albums, more than any other Australian artist.

In 1986, Jimmy Barnes recorded two songs with INXS, an Easybeats cover "Good Times" and "Laying Down The Law", which he co-wrote with INXS members Andrew Farriss and Michael Hutchence. "Good Times" was used as the theme song for the Australia Made series of concerts that toured the country in the summer of 1986 - 87. Both songs later appeared on the soundtrack of classic '80s teen vampire film The Lost Boys. These recordings were the first in a long line of songs Barnes would record with other well known singers and artists. In 1991 he recorded a version of "When Something is Wrong With My Baby" with John Farnham as a single and centerpiece track for his Soul Deep album. The following year he released a version of "Simply The Best" as a duet with Tina Turner that was used as the theme song for that year's Australian Rugby League advertising campaign. His 1993 album Flesh and Wood also featured several duets, including songs with Joe Cocker, Archie Roach, Tommy Emmanuel and a version of The Band's "The Weight" with the Badloves. 2005's Double Happiness was a complete album of duets, including several with his children, daughters Mahalia and Elly-May, son Jackie and oldest son, entertainer David Campbell. Roachford, Smoky Dawson and Tim Rogers of You Am I are among others who appear on that album.

Early in his solo career, Jimmy Barnes was determined to break into the US market. His second album For the Working Class Man was tailored in this direction, featuring remixed songs from Bodyswerve plus five new tracks including "Working Class Man" that was written by Journey musician Jonathan Cain and would become Barnes' signature tune. Several US musicians worked on the album including Cain, Charlie Sexton, singer Kim Carnes and British drummer Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac. The album had little impact internationally however, but the next album release Freight Train Heart (1987) did create some interest. Again featuring contributions from a range of US musicians including Huey Lewis and Journey members Randy Jackson and Neal Schon, Freight Train Heart found moderate success outside of Australia and as recently as 2003 was named as one of the top 100 rock albums of all time by British magazine Powerplay.

In Australia, Jimmy Barnes' success remained virtually unmatched. The Number One success of his first three albums continued with the live album Barnestorming, the funk-tinged Two Fires and Soul Deep, which saw him eschew his blue-collar hard rock for a white soul sound. Most remarkably, all of these albums not only reached Number One on the Australian charts, they debuted there upon release. No other singer, Australian or otherwise, has come close to this achievement.

1990's Two Fires featured songwriting contributions from the likes of Desmond Child, Diane Warren and Holly Knight and vocal contributions from Brian Setzer, as well as from Barnes' own wife Jane and children Mahalia, Eliza-Jane, Elly May and Jackie. The following year he took the bold step of releasing an album of soul covers. Soul Deep went on to become Jimmy Barnes' most successful album ever, spawning the No. 3 single "When Something is Wrong With My Baby", a duet with John Farnham. Re-releases of the album were issued in special gatefold sleeves with collector cards and extra live tracks. It remains one of the best-selling Australian albums of all time.

The 1993 album Heat saw Barnes return to rock. The album broke his run of Number One release but did contain the hit "Stone Cold", written by former Cold Chisel bandmate Don Walker. It marked the first time Jimmy Barnes had worked with any member of his old band for almost a decade. The pair teamed up for an acoustic version of the track for Flesh and Wood, which appeared later the same year.

Following this, in the mid-90s, Jimmy Barnes' career suffered a slump. The singer faced financial ruin as his music publishing company Dirty Sheet Music and his wife's childrens' fashion label both went broke. The family sold their enormous property in Bowral, New South Wales and settled for some time in France. While there, Barnes did considerable live work throughout Britain and toured with the Rolling Stones. His 1995 album Psyclone was virtually ignored but in 1996 the greatest hits compilation Hits returned Jimmy Barnes to the top of Australian charts. It was the beginning of a comeback that was hastened by the reformation of Cold Chisel in 1998, and followed up by another string of solo releases, including a second album of soul tunes, Soul Deeper (2000), and two live albums, the first an acoustic performance and the second a performance of his soul songs. He appeared live on stage with INXS at some shows throughout Australia between 1999 and 2001, but the reception was not encouraging.

In 2004, Jimmy Barnes recorded an album with Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse, Uriah Heep drummer Lee Kerslake, bass player Bob Daisley and keyboards player Don Airey under the name Living Loud. The self-titled album featured a number of songs originally written and recorded with Ozzy Osbourne by Kerslake, Daisley and Airey.

Double Happiness, released in July 2005, reaffirmed his popularity, debuting at #1 on the ARIAnet Albums Chart, his sixth album to do so. Jimmy Barnes was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame on the 23rd of October, 2005 for his solo career efforts. Coupled with Cold Chisel's previous induction, Barnes is the only artist to be entered into the Hall of Fame twice.

Barnes' unique vocal style has long polarised audiences. Possessed with a voice of incredible power and volume, once described as "like a cross between John Fogerty and an angle grinder", his detractors suggest that much of his work is little more than screaming, and certainly his over-the-top rendition of the Percy Sledge classic "When a Man Loves a Woman" from the 1987 live album Barnestorming would support this argument. A more objective view of Barnes' style however reveals a voice of enviable range and character and his later blues, soul and acoustic-oriented albums display a widely diverse vocal ability adaptable to virtually any style. In an interview with Andrew Denton[1], Barnes revealed that a doctor told him that when Barnes sings, he makes use of his false vocal cords rather than his true ones. Barnes was not aware of this at the time.

[edit] Discography

With Cold Chisel

  • Cold Chisel (1978)
  • Breakfast At Sweethearts (1979)
  • East (1980)
  • Swingshift (1981)
  • Circus Animals (1982)
  • 20th Century (1984)
  • The Barking Spiders Live (1984)
  • Radio Songs (compilation) (1985)
  • Razor Songs (compilation) (1988)
  • Chisel (compilation) (1991)
  • The Last Stand (1992)
  • Teenage Love (1994)
  • Last Wave of Summer (1998)
  • Studio Sessions (1999)
  • Chisel (compilation) (2001)

Solo

Other recordings

  • The Great Escape - Richard Clapton (backing vocals on 'I Am An Island') (1982)
  • Good Times (single, duet with INXS) (1986)
  • Living Loud (with Living Loud) (2004)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Interview with Jimmy Barnes, Enough Rope with Andrew Denton. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (2004-10-11).
  • CD Universe. The song lists on the Double Happiness album are provided here on whom he sung with, etc. [1]

[edit] External links

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