Australian music icon is eternal entertainer. AUSTRALIA is highly regarded for producing great pop music, with sounds that have lived on for decades.
But have you ever wondered who set the standards and was Australia's first pop icon?
The crown belongs to Col Joye, a man whose music remains an important part of Australian music history.
Joye was recently featured on Festival Record's 50th anniversary release Spinning Around Volume 1 alongside legends such as The Bee Gees, Johnny O'Keefe and Olivia Newton-John. Joye's career as a musician began in 1957 when he joined brother Kevin's jazz group, The KJ Quintet. The band's formation coincided with the rise of rock and roll and the group moved on from jazz to become one of the first bands in Sydney to perform the new style of music.
With a lack of resources to refer to, the band used US rock and roll movies to complete their look and sound.
Joye's brother Keith built the group the electric guitars and amplifiers that were unavailable in Australia and Joye became famous for his unique horned guitar.
And to complete their look, the band painted their shoes white before each performance.
As the band progressed, so did their name and they soon became known as Col Joye and The Joy Boys. Performances on Bandstand were regular and in 1959, the band had its first major hit with the track Oh Yeah Uh Huh. The track went down as one of Australia's first locally recorded national number one hits.
The band had a strong line of hits for many years before Beatlemania set in and saw the demise of the band's popularity.
But in 1973, Joye emerged as a solo artist and had a major hit with the ballad Heaven Is My Woman's Love which reached number one on the charts.
As well as performing, Joye and his brother Kevin Jacobson were involved with the business side of the music industry.
They developed a management and publishing business and the pair looked after the likes of artists such as Little Pattie, Judy Stone and The Bee Gees. Col Joye, still as strong as ever, continues to perform and will bring The Col Joye Show to ClubNova Panthers Newcastle on Friday night with Little Pattie, Judy Stone and Sandy Scott. Doors open at 7.15pm and tickets are available from the club for $25.
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