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| Subject: Richard ClaptonBorn 18 May ca. 1949 Saturday 17/8/2013==re Thursday 14/2/2013==Tears In Heaven Nomination name dayRichard Wilkins David Campbell | |
Author: Richard Clapton,The Entertainment Quarter 9 October 2005 | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 17:02:20 08/17/13 Sat Richard Clapton From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Richard Clapton Richard Clapton, 9 October 2005 The Entertainment Quarter Background information Born 18 May ca. 1949 Origin Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Genres Rock and roll Occupations Singer, songwriter, producer Instruments Singing, guitar Years active 1965–present Labels Infinity, Festival, Mushroom, WEA, Warner, Sony, Columbia Associated acts Darktown Strutters, Bitch, Sopwith Camel, Sun, Renée Geyer, The Party Boys Website www.richardclapton.com Richard Clapton (born 18 May ca. 1949) is an Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist from Sydney, New South Wales. His solo top 20 hits on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart are "Girls on the Avenue" (1975) and "I Am an Island" (1982). His top 20 albums on the related Albums Chart are Goodbye Tiger (1977), Hearts on the Nightline (1979), The Great Escape (1982), and The Very Best of Richard Clapton (1982). As a producer he worked on the second INXS album, Underneath the Colours (1981). In 1983, he briefly joined The Party Boys for a tour of eastern Australia and the live album, Greatest Hits (Of Other People) (1983) before resuming his solo career. Australian rock music historian, Ian McFarlane described Clapton as "one of the most important Australian songwriters of the 1970s". On 12 October 1999, Clapton was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame. As from May 2010, he is writing an autobiography, expected for release later in the year. Contents [hide] 1 Life and career 1.1 Early years 1.2 Debut album: Prussian Blue 1.3 Girls on the Avenue 1.4 Goodbye Tiger 1.5 1980s 1.6 Later years 2 Personal life 3 Discography 3.1 Studio albums 3.2 Compilation albums 3.3 Live albums 3.4 Soundtrack albums 3.5 Singles 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links Life and career[edit source | edit] Early years[edit source | edit] Richard Clapton's year of birth is elusive: in a 2002 interview with a Melbourne newspaper, The Age, he described himself as being 50-something.[1] An article in Who magazine (1996) gives his birth year as 1951,[2] while Ian McFarlane's Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop (1999) has 1949.[3] Clapton's mother was a night nurse at a Sydney hospital and his Australian-Chinese father was a surgeon—they had a volatile relationship and divorced when Clapton was two years old.[1] During his childhood, Clapton had no contact with his father and lived with his mother who had mental health problems.[4] She would periodically place him in care until she committed suicide when he was aged ten.[4] Clapton met his father at her funeral and was subsequently enrolled in a Sydney boarding school, Trinity Grammar, at Summer Hill.[4] As an adolescent he listened to the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, and was given his first electric guitar by a school friend's father.[5] He cites Richard Wherrett—his house master and English teacher at Trinity who later became a prominent theatre director—as an early mentor.[6] In 1965, Clapton formed Darktown Strutters with Ross Andreasen, Mick Bradley, Will Fowler, Dennis Hunter, Ross Lamonde and Ian Peepman.[7] He left school in his final year without completing his mathematics examination.[5] He played guitar while training as a commercial artist in the 1960s.[8] He raised enough money to board ship in 1967 to London where he played with three locals in a pre-punk group, followed by a group with four North Americans who were raided by the police for marijuana importing.[1] Clapton changed his birth name, using the last names of two of his heroes Keith Richards and Eric Clapton.[4] His visa had expired and he moved to Germany, where he played in a band titled Bitch and worked solo in folk clubs and on streets busking.[8] Clapton, as guitarist and vocalist, was a member of Sopwith Camel (not the United States band of same name), with Burghard Rausch on drums and Michael Günther on bass guitar (both members of krautrock group Agitation Free).[5][9] Clapton emerged in the early 1970s as a singer-songwriter in the "troubadour" style of Neil Young and Jackson Browne. Debut album: Prussian Blue[edit source | edit] In 1972, Clapton returned to Australia and signed a publishing deal with Essex Music and a recording deal with Infinity Records, a subsidiary of Festival Records. His debut single, "Last Train to Marseilles", was released in October. Clapton was backed by Red McKelvie (guitar, ex-The Flying Circus), Kenny Kitching (pedal steel), John Capek (piano, ex-Carson) and John Bois (bass guitar) and Tony Bolton (drums), both from Country Radio (see Greg Quill). At the end of the year he briefly joined a jazz-rock group, Sun, for six weeks into early 1973—he replaced their previous singer Renée Geyer.[3][8] Clapton's debut LP album, Prussian Blue appeared in November—it included "Last Train to Marseilles" from a year earlier—and was produced by Richard Batchens (Blackfeather, Sherbet). Two more singles were issued, "All the Prodigal Children" in October and "I Wanna Be a Survivor" in July 1974. On "Hardly Know Myself" and "I Wanna Be a Survivor" Clapton was backed by The La De Das, with other tracks variously featuring McKelvie, Glenn Cardier (guitar), Russell Dunlop (drums), Mike Perjanik (organ), Trevor Wilson and Mike Lawler (bass guitar) and Ian Bloxham (percussion).[3] According to rock historian Noel McGrath, the album suffered from lack of radio exposure—Australian commercial pop radio was overtaken by a local version of the Drake-Chenault "More Music" format—with a drastically restricted play list shutting out many Australian performers. Due to Clapton's solid grass-roots support, Prussian Blue sold steadily by word of mouth and four years later it was still selling 200-500 copies per week.[10] Critics praised his album which contained songs written while in Europe and Festival kept him on their books.[8] He spoke about the song Prussian Blue in Rolling Stone magazine saying it was "the only song I ever contrived". He said it "came about when I was going through my 'wanna-write-me-a-masterpiece stage, which everyone goes through." He said it took him "six weeks getting all the right clever rhymes and all."[11] Girls on the Avenue[edit source | edit] Clapton's commercial breakthrough came with his single, "Girls on the Avenue", issued in January 1975. Although Festival had little faith in the song—initially releasing it as the B-side of "Travelling Down the Castlereagh"—it was picked up by radio and became a major hit, reaching the No. 4 spot on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart in March.[12] According to Clapton:[13] "Not only did I not feel that Girls On The Avenue was the perfect song, but Festival Records rejected that song six times. They'd say to me, 'What's the chorus, is it 'Don't you slip' or 'Friday night ...'?' I don't know! Why does a song have to have a hook or a chorus? You either like the song or you don't!" The song was written about Clapton's visits to a street near his home to watch girls walking past—it was seen as a paean to prostitutes by the record label, radio commentators and the prostitutes themselves.[8] The song itself took a half an hour to write.[11] He said the only real money he ever made out of Girls on the Avenue was when it became available "on one of those bargain Explosive Hits" (compilations) and they sell about 400,00 each time."[11] According to Clapton, there were three cover versions of Girls on the Avenue that he knew of at the time (1976). One was by Mike McGear, another by ex-Fairport Convention member Trevor Lucas and an obscure Greek version.[11] The album, Girls on the Avenue, also produced by Batchens appeared in April; for touring and session work, he formed the Richard Clapton Band with John Carr on guitar, Ken Firth on bass guitar, Ace Follington on drums, McKelvie on guitar, and Tony Slavich on keyboards.[7] The album cover depicted Clapton with three women—one was a prostitute.[8] Other tracks dealt with similar themes to his debut album. Because of the commercial nature of the song, he was accused of selling out by deliberately writing a commercial song, a claim he refuted.[11] A second single, "Down the Road", was released in June but did not chart.[12] Clapton moved to Melbourne to write new material for his third album, Main Street Jive released in July 1976, again produced by Batchens.[7][8] He contributed six tracks to the film soundtrack for Highway One (1976).[14] The soundtrack included the single "Capricorn Dancer", which reached No. 40 in early 1977 and remains a concert staple.[3][12] Other contributors to the soundtrack, produced and engineered by Batchens, were The Dingoes, Bilgola Bop Band, Skyhooks and Ol' 55 with one track each.[3][14] Clapton toured Europe at the end of 1976 with his band including Slavich, Michael Hegerty (bass guitar, ex-Stars), Kirk Lorange (lead guitar) and Jim Penson (drums, ex-Blackfeather).[3][7] [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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