Joe Dolce

Joe Dolce

Man sitting on back door steps, wearing jeans, boots, black T-shirt and sun glasses. Rests left elbow on left knee with left forefinger pointing to his right. Right fist hidden inside left hand and he is facing forward.

Joe Dolce, 2005
Background information
Born (1947-03-19) March 19, 1947
Origin Painesville, Ohio, U.S.
Genres Pop
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, poet, essayist
Years active 1968–present
Labels MCA Records Full Moon/Astor, Hammard, PolyGram
Associated acts Joe Dolce Music Theatre
Website joedolce.net

Joseph "Joe" Dolce[1] (/ˈdoʊltʃeɪ/, originally /ˈdoʊlts/; born March 19, 1947 in Painesville, Ohio) is an American-Australian singer/songwriter, poet and essayist who achieved international recognition with his multi-million-selling song, "Shaddap You Face", released under the name of his one-man show, Joe Dolce Music Theatre, worldwide, in 1980–1981.[2][3][4]

The single reached number one in 15 countries,[5] it has sold more than 450,000 copies in Australia, and has remained the most successful Australian-produced single since, selling an estimated six million copies worldwide.[6] It reached No. 1 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart for eight weeks from November 1980.[4]

Biography

Dolce was born in 1947, the eldest of three children, to Italian-American parents, in Painesville, Ohio, graduating from Thomas W. Harvey High School in 1965. During his senior year, he played the lead role, of Mascarille, in Molière's "Les Précieuses Ridicules" for a production staged by the French Club of Lake Erie Girls College, which was his first time on stage, acting and singing an impromptu song he created from the script. The play was well received and his performance was noted by director, Jake Rufli, who later invited him to be part of his production of Jean Anouilh's "Eurydice".

His co-star in "Les Précieuses Ridicules" was a sophomore, on a creative writing scholarship, at Lake Erie, Carol Dunlop, who introduced him to folk music, poetry and the writings of William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. Dunlop later married the Argentine novelist Julio Cortazar. Dolce attended Ohio University, majoring in Architecture, from 1965–67, before deciding to become a professional musician.

Musical and theatrical career

While attending college at Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio, he formed various bands including Headstone Circus,[2] with Jonathan Edwards who subsequently went on as a solo artist to have a charting hit song in the US 'Sunshine'. Edwards subsequently recorded five Dolce songs including, "Athens County", "Rollin' Along", "King of Hearts", "The Ballad of Upsy Daisy" and "My Home Ain't in the Hall of Fame", the latter song becoming an alt country classic, also recorded by Robert Earl Keene, Rosalie Sorrels, JD Crowe & the New South, and many others.

Move to Australia

Dolce relocated to Melbourne, Australia in 1978 and his first single there was "Boat People"—a protest song on the poor treatment of Vietnamese refugees—which was translated into Vietnamese and donated to the fledgling Vietnamese community starting to form in Melbourne. His one-man show, Joe Dolce Music Theatre, performed in cabarets and pubs with various line-ups, including his longtime partner, Lin Van Hek.

"Shaddap You Face"

In July 1980, he recorded the self-penned "Shaddap You Face",[1] for the Full Moon Records label, at Mike Brady's new studios in West Melbourne.[2][6] When in Ohio, Dolce would sometimes visit his Italian grandparents and extended family—they used the phrases "What's the matter, you?" and "Eh, shaddap", which Dolce adapted and used in the song.[6] He wrote the song about Italians living in Australia and first performed it at Marijuana House, Brunswick Street, Fitzroy in 1979.[6] Dolce paid A$500 for the recording and spent $1000 on the music video clip, which was created by Melbourne filmmaker, Chris Lofven. It became a multi-million-selling hit, peaking at No. 1 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart for eight weeks from November 1980,[4] in UK from February 1981 for three weeks,[2][7] also No. 1 in Germany, France, Fiji, Canada, Austria,[8] New Zealand[9] and Switzerland.[10][11] Dolce received the Advance Australia Award in 1981.[12] The song has had hundreds of cover versions over the decades including releases by artists as diverse as Lou Monte, Sheila (France), Andrew Sachs (Manuel, of Fawlty Towers), actor Samuel L. Jackson and hip-hop legends, KRS-One. It has been translated into fifteen languages including an aboriginal dialect.

Subsequent artistic career

Follow up single, "If You Want to Be Happy" charted in Australia (No. 7) and New Zealand (top 40).[4][8][9] Dolce's subsequent singles included "Pizza Pizza", "Christmas in Australia" and "You Toucha My Car I Breaka You Face" and he released two albums during this period, Shaddap You Face and The Christmas Album. With Lin Van Hek, he formed various performance groups including Skin the Wig, La Somnambule (1984) and the ongoing Difficult Women (1993).[2][3] Van Hek and Dolce co-wrote "Intimacy",[13] for the 1984 film, The Terminator's soundtrack.[14] He was a featured lead actor in the Australian film Blowing Hot and Cold (1988). He has continued to perform solo and with Van Hek as part of their music-literary cabaret Difficult Women. In the past decade, he has also received extensive recognition as a poet and essayist, with works appearing in Best Australian Poems 2014 & 2015.

Personal life

In 1976, he married Zandie Acton, the sister of fashion icon Prue Acton, in Berkeley, California. They had two children, Ever and Brea, and moved to Australia in 1979, separated and divorced. He met singer-writer-painter Lin Van Hek in 1980, in Tiamos Coffee Shop, in Carlton, Victoria. They have remained together for thirty-seven years and have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren.

Recent

Joe Dolce has achieved further recognition as a serious poet and essayist winning the 25th Launceston Poetry Cup in Tasmania in 2010. He has set poems to music by Sappho, Sylvia Plath, Les Murray, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Andrew Lansdown and C.P. Cavafy. He wrote "Hill of Death" from a poem of Louisa Lawson's that won Best Folk Gospel Song at the Australian Gospel Awards. "Cocaine Lil", an eighteenth-century public domain lyric, formed the basis for an up-tempo blues song – both of these poems-set-to-music appeared on his 2007 album The Wind Cries Mary. "Cocaine Lil" was also included as a featured track in Australian Guitar Player Magazine for Dolce's extraordinary one-take no overdubbed forty-bar guitar break.

He has had over 150 poems, including thirty new unpublished song-lyrics, selected by Queen's Medal for Poetry recipient Les Murray for publication in Quadrant, as stand-alone poetry, including two poems in Best of Quadrant Poetry 2001–2010.

He has had four essays published in Meanjin- "The Benefit of Smoking" (May 2013), "My Craft or Sullen Art: Poetry, Songwriting" (May 2014), "Todesengel and the Seven Dwarfs" (May 2015) and "Dirty Laundry: The Art of Confessional Writing" (September 2017).

The Monthly published his essay on art censorship, "Shaddap You Facebook", in April 2013.

Quadrant has also published seventeen of his essays including: "Biblical Imagery in the Songwriting of the Creative Infidels: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave and Paul Kelly" (Jan–Feb 2012), "Hey Mr Cowbell Man: Sir Christopher Ricks' Dylan's Visions of Sin" (March 2012), "Anti the Anti" (June 2012), "Who Is This White Fella Fella?" (October 2012), "In the Op Shop With Percy Grainger" (November 2012), "Father Scapegoat" (January–February 2013), "Pen Pencil or Keyboard" (March 2013), "Elysium in Paraguay" (July–August 2013), "Graham Greene's Lolita" (April 2014), "Speechless" (July–August 2014), "William S. Burroughs: Scientologist" (Apr. 2015), "Florence Foster Jenkins: Dire Diva of Din" (June 2016), "Polymaths and Monomaths" (July–August 2016), "Ain't Gonna Work on Bob Dylan's Farm No More" (October 2016), and "The Great American Songbook: The Classical Music of America" (April 2017).

In 2014, he was shortlisted for both Newcastle Poetry Prize and the Canberra Vice-Chancellor's Poetry Prize, appearing in both anthologies.

Dolce's poetry, photographs and song-lyrics have been published in Meanjin, Overland, Island magazine, Southerly, Cordite, Eye to the Telescope, Contrappasso, The Canberra Times, Sotto, Stars Like Sand, Australian Love Poems, Carmenta, Journey, Australian Poetry Magazine, Best of Vine Leaves, Going Down Swinging, PEN International (in English & Arabic translation), Best of Little Raven, Voltage (USA), Tupelo Press (USA) Not Shut Up (UK) and American Association for Australian Literary Studies (Antipodes) (USA). He released his first book of poems HATBOX in 2010.

He is included in Best Australian Poems 2014 and 2015, edited by Geoff Page, published by Black Inc.

In May 2015, the Aphids Theatre Company produced a successful contemporary Futurist deconstruction of his life story, called A Singular Phenomenon, which ran for three sold-out nights at The Malthouse Theatre, in Melbourne, and was nominated for a Green Room Award in 2016.

In February 2016, he was invited to join the staff of the Australian Institute of Music, teaching Composition & Ensemble, and personal tutoring in setting poetry to music.

Discography

Albums

Singles

Bibliography

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Poetry

Collections

Essays and other contributions

Short stories

Reviews

References

  1. 1 2 ""Shaddap You Face" at APRA search engine". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA). Retrieved 9 January 2010.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 McFarlane, Ian (1999). "Encyclopedia entry for 'Joe Dolce'". Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86508-072-1. Archived from the original on 19 April 2004. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
  3. 1 2 Spencer, Chris; Zbig Nowara, Paul McHenry with notes by Ed Nimmervoll (2002) [1987]. "DOLCE, Joe". The Who's Who of Australian Rock. Noble Park, Vic.: Five Mile Press. ISBN 1-86503-891-1. Retrieved 9 January 2010. Note: [on-line] version established at White Room Electronic Publishing Pty Ltd in 2007 and was expanded from the 2002 edition.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. St Ives, NSW: Australian Chart Book Ltd. ISBN 0-646-11917-6. NOTE: Used for Australian Singles and Albums charting from 1974 until ARIA created their own charts in mid-1988. In 1992, Kent back calculated chart positions for 1970–1974.
  5. ↑ Joe Dolce official site – biography
  6. 1 2 3 4 Jenkins, Jeff; Ian Meldrum (2007). "Chapter 22: Joe Dolce". Molly Meldrum presents 50 years of rock in Australia. Melbourne, Vic: Wilkinson Publishing. pp. 167–168. ISBN 978-1-921332-11-1.
  7. ↑ Roberts, David (2005). Guinness World Records: British Hit Singles and Albums (18th edition). Guinness World Records Limited. p. 14. ISBN 1-904994-00-8.
  8. 1 2 3 "Discographie Joe Dolce Music Theatre". Austrian Charts Portal. Retrieved 10 January 2010. Note: Some information is in German.
  9. 1 2 3 "Discography Joe Dolce Music Theatre". New Zealand Charts Portal. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
  10. ↑ "Discographie Joe Dolce Music Theatre". Swiss Charts Portal. Retrieved 10 January 2010. Note: Some information is in German.
  11. ↑ "Joe Dolce Music Theatre – Shaddap You Face". Australian Charts Portal. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
  12. ↑ "Joe Dolce". Countdown. Retrieved 12 January 2010.
  13. ↑ ""Intimacy" at APRA search engine". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA). Retrieved 10 January 2010.
  14. ↑ ""Terminator Cues" at The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)". ASCAP. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
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