Don Walker (musician)
Encyclopedia
Don Walker is an Australian musician and songwriter known for writing many of the hits for Australian pub rock
Pub rock (Australia)
Pub rock is a style of Australian rock and roll popular throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and still influencing contemporary Australian music today....

 band Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel is a rock band that originated in Adelaide, Australia. It is one of the most acclaimed Australian rock bands of all time, with a string of hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s and huge sales that continue to this day, although its success and acclaim was almost completely restricted to...

. He played piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 and keyboard with the band from 1973 to 1983, when they disbanded. He has since continued to record and tour, both solo and with Tex, Don and Charlie
Tex, Don and Charlie
Tex, Don and Charlie is an Australian super group formed by Tex Perkins from The Cruel Sea, Beasts of Bourbon and others, Don Walker from Cold Chisel and widely respected guitarist Charlie Owen. Their first album Sad But True was released in 1993 with the second released in 2005.The band was...

, and worked as a song-writer for others. In 2009, he released his first book.

Richard Clapton
Richard Clapton
Richard Clapton 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" and "I Am an Island"...

 describes Walker as, "the most Australian writer there has ever been. Don just digs being a sort of Beat poet, who goes around observing, especially around the streets of Kings Cross
Kings Cross, New South Wales
Kings Cross is an inner-city locality of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately 2 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney...

. He soaks it up like a sponge and articulates it so well. Quite frankly, I think he's better than the rest of us."

Walker is considered to be one Australia's best songwriters.

Early life

Donald Hugh Walker was born in Ayr North Queensland to a farmer father and schoolteacher mother. He lived on a cane farm his father owned on Rita Island on the Burdekin River
Burdekin River
The Burdekin River in Queensland, Australia rises on the western slope of the Seaview Range and flows into the Pacific Ocean at Upstart Bay over 200 km to the southeast of the source. The river was first encountered by Europeans during the expedition led by Ludwig Leichhardt in 1845 and named...

 until the age of 4. His family later moved to Grafton, where a local piano teacher taught him, "a little bit of Chopin.....a lot of Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...

 repertoire, and also Winifred Atwell
Winifred Atwell
Una Winifred Atwell Una Winifred Atwell Una Winifred Atwell (27 February or April 1910 or 1914There is some uncertainty over her date and year of birth. Many sources suggest 27 February 1914, but there is a strong suggestion that her birthday was 27 April. Most sources give her year of birth as...

." Later, he, "got into organ and the main influences were Stevie Winwood
Steve Winwood
Stephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood is an English international recording artist whose career spans nearly 50 years. He is a songwriter and a musician whose genres include soul music , R&B, rock, blues-rock, pop-rock, and jazz...

's 60s stuff and Ray Manzarek
Ray Manzarek
Raymond Daniel Manzarek, Jr., better known as Ray Manzarek , is an American musician, singer, producer, film director, writer, co-founder and keyboardist of The Doors from 1965 to 1973, Nite City from 1977–1978 and Manzarek-Krieger since 2001.Manzarek is listed #4 on Digital Dreamdoor's "100...

."

Having completed a degree in physics in the 70s, Walker was working for the Weapons Research Establishment, modelling airflow for F-111s, when he formed Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel is a rock band that originated in Adelaide, Australia. It is one of the most acclaimed Australian rock bands of all time, with a string of hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s and huge sales that continue to this day, although its success and acclaim was almost completely restricted to...

.

Walker moved to Kings Cross
Kings Cross, New South Wales
Kings Cross is an inner-city locality of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately 2 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney...

 in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 in 1976, and stayed there for three decades. Local landmarks are mentioned in many of his songs.

Cold Chisel

From the earliest days Walker was the creative songwriting force for Cold Chisel. He became known for his passionate and raw lyrical observations on the Australian society and culture of the time. His songwriting credits include the hit singles "Flame Trees
Flame Trees
"Flame Trees" is a song by Australian pub rock band Cold Chisel from their 1984 album Twentieth Century. It is one of their best known songs, and was written by drummer Steve Prestwich and organist Don Walker...

," "Saturday Night
Saturday Night (Cold Chisel song)
"Saturday Night" was a 1984 single from Australian rock band Cold Chisel, the second released from the album Twentieth Century and the first to be issued after the band's official break-up. The song is a picture of late-night city life written by organist Don Walker based on his observations of...

," "Choirgirl
Choirgirl (song)
"Choirgirl" was a 1979 single from Australian rock band Cold Chisel. A ballad with an R&B influenced melody,the single was released months before the album East that it featured on. It was the first time the band had recorded with producer Mark Opitz....

," (a teary ballad about abortion) "Breakfast At Sweethearts," "Cheap Wine," and the iconic Australian Vietnam war song "Khe Sanh
Khe Sanh (song)
"Khe Sanh" is an Australian song, released as a 45 rpm single in May 1978, and named after the Battle of Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War. The song, performed by Cold Chisel, having been written by pianist Don Walker and featuring the vocals of Jimmy Barnes, is about an Australian Vietnam veteran...

" (voted the 8th greatest Australian song of all time by the Australian Performing Rights Association in 2001). Many of these songs still receive airplay on Australian radio to this day and have become ingrained in Australian music culture
Music of Australia
The music of Australia is the music produced in the area of, on the subject of, or by the people of modern Australia, including its preceding Indigenous and colonial societies. Indigenous Australian music is a part of the unique heritage of a 40–60,000 year history which produced the iconic...

.

During his time with Cold Chisel he produced his first work outside the band, the soundtrack to the Australian movie "Freedom", directed by Scott Hicks
Scott Hicks
Robert Scott Hicks is a film director from Australia. He is best known as the screenwriter and director of Shine, the Oscar-winning biopic of pianist David Helfgott. Hicks's work has been nominated for an Academy Award as well as winning an Emmy Award.-Personal life:Hicks was born in Uganda, the...

. The soundtrack was released as an album and featured members of Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel is a rock band that originated in Adelaide, Australia. It is one of the most acclaimed Australian rock bands of all time, with a string of hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s and huge sales that continue to this day, although its success and acclaim was almost completely restricted to...

 and Michael Hutchence
Michael Hutchence
Michael Kelland John Hutchence was an Australian musician and actor. He was the founding lead singer-songwriter of rock band :INXS from 1977 to his death in 1997, a period of twenty years. Hutchence was a member of short-lived pop rock group Max Q and recorded solo material which was released...

.

Post-Cold Chisel

After Cold Chisel disbanded in 1983, Walker had a five year hiatus before resuming recording and performing using the name "Catfish." Ostensibly a band, Catfish was in effect a solo project, featuring Walker on vocals, keyboards and penning all the songs. Catfish featured various backing musicians, such as Charlie Owen
Charlie Owen (musician)
Charlie Owen is an Australian guitar player who lives in St Kilda Melbourne Australia. He is a member of Tex, Don and Charlie, The Beasts of Bourbon, Tex Perkins and The Dark Horses, Large Number 12s, Maurice Frawley and The Working Class Ringos, Tendrils, the Divinyls and Tex Perkins and his...

, Ian Moss
Ian Moss
Ian Moss is an Australian rock musician, best known as the guitarist and occasional singer of Cold Chisel. In that group's initial ten year career, Moss recorded eight albums, three of which were No. 1 national hits. His solo career began with a No. 1 album and single and five ARIA Awards...

, Ricky Fataar
Ricky Fataar
Ricky Fataar is a South African multi-instrumentalist of Malay descent, who has performed as both a drummer, and a guitarist. He gained fame as an actor in the comedic television movie, The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash, a spoof on the actual history of The Beatles, and for his performance as a...

 and David Blight, a much-admired harmonica player. Performing as a singer live for the first time, Walker recalled it initially being, "so hard I had to get half-happy on alcohol to manage it."

The first album, Unlimited Address, released in 1989, showed a jazzier, Eastern European side to Walker's songwriting, reflecting his travels during the previous years. Despite being critically lauded, sales were moderate, the album reaching number 49 in the national charts. The next album, "Ruby," was a return to Australia in sound and lyrical subject matter. Again, it was well received by critics but sold relatively poorly. The track "Charleville" was later to receive country music awards when covered by Slim Dusty
Slim Dusty
David Gordon "Slim Dusty " Kirkpatrick AO, MBE was an Australian country music singer-songwriter and producer, with a career spanning nearly eight decades. He was known to record songs in the legacy of Australian poets Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson that represented the Australian Bush...

.

In early 1992 Don performed an acoustic live performance for alternative radio station JJJ
JJJ
JJJ may refer to:* J. Jonah Jameson or JJJ, a character in the Marvel Comics universe* Jesse Jackson, Jr., an American politician* John Joe Joyce or JJJ, an Irish boxer* JJ Radio or Triple J, an Australian radio station* J. J. Johnson, jazz trombonist...

 with Charlie Owen, James Cruickshank and Tex Perkins
Tex Perkins
Tex Perkins is an Australian singer-songwriter, who is widely known for fronting the popular Australian rock-band The Cruel Sea, but has also performed with the Beasts of Bourbon, Thug, James Baker Experience, The Butcher Shop, Salamander Jim, and Tex, Don and Charlie. He has also released many...

. In 1993 Tex, Don and Charlie
Tex, Don and Charlie
Tex, Don and Charlie is an Australian super group formed by Tex Perkins from The Cruel Sea, Beasts of Bourbon and others, Don Walker from Cold Chisel and widely respected guitarist Charlie Owen. Their first album Sad But True was released in 1993 with the second released in 2005.The band was...

 released their first album, "Sad but True" on Red Eye Records. The record, an acoustic country-tinged affair, returned Walker to some level of popular awareness and received rave reviews in magazines like Australian Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone Australia
Rolling Stone Australia is an Australian-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published monthly, it is the Australian edition of the United States' Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone was initially released in Melbourne in May 1970 as a supplement in Revolution, an...

. About half the songs were written by Walker, including "Sitting in a Bar." The band toured strongly on the back of the album, later releasing a live album "Monday Morning Coming Down," featuring tracks from "Sad But True" plus some covers of standards. Walker says, "They're recording warts that are all over every record but most producers clean them off; we love 'em so we leave 'em."

2005 saw the release of a third Tex, Don and Charlie
Tex, Don and Charlie
Tex, Don and Charlie is an Australian super group formed by Tex Perkins from The Cruel Sea, Beasts of Bourbon and others, Don Walker from Cold Chisel and widely respected guitarist Charlie Owen. Their first album Sad But True was released in 1993 with the second released in 2005.The band was...

 album, "All is Forgiven," similar in style to the first. Again, Walker wrote about half the songs, including the long-anticipated, "Harry was a Bad Bugger," described by Chris Johnston as, "the Australian song of the year." The album was shortlisted for the inaugural Australian Music Prize
Australian Music Prize
The Australian Music Prize is an annual award of $30,000 given to an Australian band or solo artist in recognition of the merit of an album released during the year of award. The award made by Australian Music Prize Ltd, a sole-purpose entity sponsored by a variety of music industry figures and...

.

1994 was the year of Walker's first full release under his own name, "We're All Gunna Die." He stated that it was the first album to carry his name as, "it was the first record that finished up how I wanted it.” It was recorded almost live in the studio over a period of 4 days with a band featuring David Blight, Garrett Costigan on pedal-steel guitar and Red Rivers on guitar. The music is a ragged mix of country, Chicago blues and balladry, and features the song "Barrel of Eternity." It would be another 12 years before Walker was to produce another solo recording, the well-received "Cutting Back." From 2005 to 2012 he toured Australia occasionally with his backing band, the Suave Fucks.

Walker published his first book, Shots, in 2009. It was an autobiographical collection of smaller pieces, rarely more than a few pages in length. The subject matter was mostly recollections of rural Australia or life with Cold Chisel before they became widely famous. A separate piece by Walker had previously been included in The Best Australian Essays collection for 2007.

Shots received a number of positive reviews: The Age described the memoir as "a whip crack across a landscape of rural Australia, lonely highways and endless gigs;" in the Australian Book Review
Australian Book Review
Australian Book Review is Australia's leading literary review. Created in 1961 the ABR is an independent non-profit organisation that publishes articles, reviews, commentaries, essays, and new writing...

it was called "a quite wonderful book [that] blasts away every last vestige of the crude, boozy, foot-stomping, flag-waving Australiana
Australiana
Australiana is an item of historical or cultural interest of Australian origins. Australiana often borrows from Australian Aboriginal culture, or the stereotypical Australian culture of the early 1900s....

 that has until now enveloped the Cold Chisel story like a filthy smog, leaving behind only the simmering highways, the trashy motels, the dank pubs and the monotonous suburbs of a nation slouching apathetically through the remnants of the 20th century." Readings from Shots, as performed by Walker, were aired on Radio National
Radio National
ABC Radio National is an Australia-wide non-commercial radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.Radio National broadcasts national programming in areas that include news and current affairs, the arts, social issues, science, drama and comedy...

 throughout late 2009.

Walker has worked with many other artists, most notably with song writing credits on Ian Moss
Ian Moss
Ian Moss is an Australian rock musician, best known as the guitarist and occasional singer of Cold Chisel. In that group's initial ten year career, Moss recorded eight albums, three of which were No. 1 national hits. His solo career began with a No. 1 album and single and five ARIA Awards...

' hit album, "Matchbook" and Jimmy Barnes
Jimmy Barnes
James Dixon Swan , better known as Jimmy Barnes, is a Scottish-born Australian rock singer-songwriter. His father Jim Swan was a prizefighter and his older brother John Swan is also a rock singer. It was actually John who had encouraged and taught Jim how to sing as he wasn't really interested at...

' single "Stone Cold." He has written with or had songs recorded by TOFOG, Jimmy Little
Jimmy Little
Jimmy Little AO , is an Australian Aboriginal musician, singer, songwriter and guitarist, whose career has spanned six decades. For many years he was the only Aboriginal star on the Australian music scene...

, Slim Dusty
Slim Dusty
David Gordon "Slim Dusty " Kirkpatrick AO, MBE was an Australian country music singer-songwriter and producer, with a career spanning nearly eight decades. He was known to record songs in the legacy of Australian poets Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson that represented the Australian Bush...

, Kate Ceberano
Kate Ceberano
Kate Ceberano is an Australian singer. She achieved success in the soul, jazz and pop genres as well as in her brief forays into musicals with Jesus Christ Superstar and film...

, Wendy Matthews
Wendy Matthews
Wendy Joan Matthews is an Australian adult alternative pop singer originally from Canada who has been a member of Models and Absent Friends and is a solo artist...

, Troy Cassar-Daley
Troy Cassar-Daley
Troy Cassar-Daley is a multi-award-winning country musician from New South Wales, Australia.He released his first EP, "Dream Out Loud", in 1994 and was nominated for his first Golden Guitar for Best Male Vocalist the same year...

, Graeme Connors, Anne Kirkpatrick
Anne Kirkpatrick
Anne Kirkpatrick is an Australian country music singer. She is the daughter of country singers Slim Dusty and Joy McKean.Kirkpatrick has released thirteen albums. She won Golden Guitar Awards at the Tamworth Country Music Festival in 1979, 1991, and twice in 1992. She also won an ARIA Award for...

, Mick Harvey
Mick Harvey
Michael John Harvey , is an Australian rock musician, composer, arranger and record producer. He is best known for his long-time collaboration with the singer and songwriter Nick Cave...

, Melinda Schneider
Melinda Schneider
Melinda Schneider is an Australian country music performer and the daughter of yodeler Mary Schneider. Schneider performed with her mother on the album The Magic of Yodeling at the age of eight. She studied dance as a child and made her acting debut on the popular Australian drama A Country...

, Katie Noonan
Katie Noonan
Katie Anne Noonan is an Australian singer-songwriter. In addition to a successful solo career encompassing opera, jazz, pop, rock and dance, she sings in the groups george and Elixir, duets with her mother, Maggie Noonan and is currently playing with support from the group The...

, Jeff Lang
Jeff Lang
Jeff Lang is an Australian songwriter, singer and slide guitarist. A leading performer in the Australian roots music scene and purveyer of his self-described "disturbed folk" style, which incorporates primarily folk, blues and rock...

, Normie Rowe
Normie Rowe
Norman John "Normie" Rowe AM was a major male solo performer of Australian pop music in the 1960s. Known for his bright and edgy tenor voice and dynamic stage presence, many of Rowe's most successful recordings were produced by Pat Aulton, house producer for the Sunshine Records, Spin Records and...

 and Adam Brand
Adam Brand
Adam Brand is an Australian musician who sings country music. Active since 1997, he has released seven studio albums and thirteen singles. His first three albums are all certified platinum in Australia...

. He also produced Moss' album "Petrolhead."

He is the brother of the Australian novelist, Brenda Walker
Brenda Walker
Brenda Walker is an Australian writer. She studied at the University of New England in Armidale and, after gaining a PhD in English at the Australian National University, she moved to Perth in 1984. She is now Winthrop Professor of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia...

 and son of Australian novelist Shirley Walker. He is a Brisbane Broncos
Brisbane Broncos
The Brisbane Broncos are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the city of Brisbane, the capital of the state of Queensland. Founded in 1988, the Broncos play in Australasia's elite competition, the National Rugby League premiership. They have won six premierships and two...

 supporter.

APRA Awards

  • 2008
    APRA Awards of 2008
    The Australasian Performing Right Association Awards of 2008 are a series of awards which include the APRA Music Awards, Classical Music Awards, and Screen Music Awards. The APRA Music Awards ceremony occurred on 16 June at the Sydney Hilton, they were presented by APRA and the Australasian...

     Country Work of the Year APRA Award
    APRA Awards
    The APRA Music Awards are several award ceremonies run in Australia and New Zealand by Australasian Performing Right Association to recognise songwriting skills, sales and airplay performance by its members annually....

     win for "Everything's Going to be Alright", co-written with Troy Cassar-Daley
    Troy Cassar-Daley
    Troy Cassar-Daley is a multi-award-winning country musician from New South Wales, Australia.He released his first EP, "Dream Out Loud", in 1994 and was nominated for his first Golden Guitar for Best Male Vocalist the same year...

    , was presented by Australasian Performing Right Association
    Australasian Performing Right Association
    The Australasian Performing Right Association is a copyright collective representing New Zealand and Australian composers, lyricists and music publishers. The association's head offices located in Sydney Australia, and it has branch offices in Auckland, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth...

    .

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK