Joe Camilleri

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joe Camilleri (born 21 May 1948 in Malta) is a legendary Australian singer, songwriter and saxophonist. He has also recorded under the pseudonyms "Jo Jo Zep" and "Joey Vincent".

He began his music career playing blues and R&B, and in the late 1960s he was a member of Adderly Smith Blues Band but according to Australian rock historian Ed Nimmervoll Camilleri was sacked for sounding too much like Mick Jagger and for upstaging the other band members.

Camilleri gained national prominence in Australia in the late 1970s as lead singer, songwriter and saxophonist in Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, formed in 1975. Members included Camilleri, Jeff Burstin, Wayne Burt, John Power, Gary Young, Tony Faehse and later multi-media personality Wilbur Wilde on sax. Incorporating influences from blues, R&B, soul, punk rock, New Wave and reggae, the group achieved considerable commercial and critical success in Australia. Hit singles for The Falcons included the enigmatic "Taxi Mary", "Hit & Run", "Shape I'm In" and "Puppet On A String".

During this fertile period, Camilleri also produced recording for other artists and recorded his own side projects under the name Joey Vincent.

After the demise of the Falcons in 1983, Joe achieved his greatest success with another long-running group The Black Sorrows, which began as an informal semi-acoustic band playing blues, R&B and zydeco.

The group soon developed a strong fan following and garnered wide critical acclaim for their recordings and superb live performances. The Black Sorrows were widely acknowledged as one of the best and hardest working live bands in Australia, showcasing the powerful vocal talents of sisters Vika and Linda Bull and the compositional prowess of Camilleri and longtime writing partner Nick Smith plus the superb playing of Camilleri's longtime guitarist Jeff Burstin. They released a string of commercially successful and critically acclaimed albums in the 1980s and 1990s including A Place In The World, Dear Children (an Australian Top 20 album in 1987), and Better Times all spawning chart-topping singles "Harley and Rose, "Never Let Me Go", "Chained To The Wheel" and "Better Times" which went on the become Australian classics.

Joe has four children (youngest to oldest) Charlie,Isabella,Harlan and Natalie.

His most recent project is the 2005 album Limestone, a collaboration with Bomba's Nicky Bomba.