Billy Thorpe dead

[Ford Fairlane]

I nearly dropped my breakfast when I read it this morning. An Australian rock icon gone so suddenly. RIP Billy. Most people I know ...

'Genius' showman dies

February 28, 2007 - 6:28AM

Australian rock legend Billy Thorpe has died after suffering a major heart attack.

"Mr Billy Thorpe did pass away at St Vincent's Hospital in the early hours of this morning," St Vincent's spokesman David Faktor told the Nine Network.

"I understand he passed away from a heart attack. His family were with him when he passed away."

Emergency crews attended his home in Sydney just after midnight (AEDT), where the 60-year-old was suffering from chest pains.
He was accompanied by his family when ambulance officers took him to St Vincent's Public Hospital.

He remained in emergency in a serious condition but went into cardiac arrest around 2.30am (AEDT).

Hospital staff were unable to revive him.

Thorpe was born in England but emigrated with his family to Brisbane in the 1950s.

He moved to Sydney in 1963 and recorded his first song the next year with his band Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs.

They went on to perform at sellout venues across Australia and had a string of hits in the 60s and 70s, including Some People I Know.

His music career spanned five decades and he also wrote two autobiographies.

The former manager of Billy Thorpe, who died today from a heart attack, says the performer was a "genius" showman.

Mr Browning, who went on to manage ACDC, said Thorpe created what became known as the pub music scene, and was "king" in Melbourne.

"He was amazing, I remember standing on the side on the stage at the Myer Music Bowl in front of 200,000 people and watching Billy work the crowd," he told the Seven Network.

"I don't think there has ever been anyone in Australia that has been able to work the crowd like Billy Thorpe.

"He was just amazing, an actual genius as a showman."

'Impossible to comprehend'

Billy Thorpe shaped Australia's pub music scene, music journalist and historian Glenn A Baker says.

"It seems impossible to comprehend," Mr Baker told ABC Radio this morning.

The music journalist was to accompany Thorpe to Morocco, where Thorpe was working on a recording project.

"Thorpe was just always involved in something," he said.

"He had so much music in him and there was just such an extraordinary sort of appetite for what he was doing."

Thorpe was born in England but emigrated to Brisbane with his family in the 1950s and later moved to Sydney in 1963 to jumpstart his music career.
Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs became a major rock outfit, selling out concert venues and producing chart-topping songs in the 60s and
70s.

"Thorpe came up in that crop of 60s teen idols but there was a greater dimension to him," Mr Baker said.

"After he was a teen idol he went to Melbourne for a few years ... he completely re-orientated himself and then turned Australian rock on its ear with a thunderous, pulverising music.

"The Aztecs just become a byword for really the origins of Australian pub rock.

"It's the one form of music we've done better and more convincingly than any other.

"This sort of loud, roaring, howling, ferocious, sort of pub-based bluesy rock and roll and Thorpe was that incredibly powerful voice.

"There was something that was just primal about Thorpe's blood-curdling roar. There was nobody like him on the stage."

AAP

 

[shaz63]

Heard it on Triple M.. Couldnt believe it.

This is a sad day for Australian Rock and Roll.

Billy bought us Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs in the 60's and 70's.

RIP Billy.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Sad indeed. I was listening to the ABC after AM this morning and alot of people who had met him in Sydney or went to his shows called in and wanted to talk about him. One lady who missed seeing him in her youth caught his show at an RSL club a couple of weeks ago. She said he played an hour of solo acoustic music then an hour of rock with his band.

He has been travelling to Morocco in the recent years and had almost completed an album. I guess that will be out in the next few months.

From all the calls two things stood about Billy's life. On stage he was wild, energetic, talented and very very loud. Every caller made this point about how loud he was. The other was that away from the stage he was a quiet devoted family man. One caller said that Thorpe moved in next to her grand parents in the late 70's. They were worried that there would be loud parties etc and make life hell for the oldies. She said he was just a normal suburban dad who loved his ife and kids and blended in like everyone else in the street.

I'm sure he'll be joining up with Johnny O'Keefe and Bon Scott for one last big gig.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

I managed to see him in the Long Way to the Top concert in Adelaide. he played some Original Aztecs and some Sunbury Aztecs stuff and was involved in the big bash at the end of the show. He was very loud, very good and very charismatic. Probably only Lobby Lloyd was louder.

 

[shaz63]

Sad indeed. I was listening to the ABC after AM this morning and alot of people who had met him in Sydney or went to his shows called in and wanted to talk about him. One lady who missed seeing him in her youth caught his show at an RSL club a couple of weeks ago. She said he played an hour of solo acoustic music then an hour of rock with his band.

He has been travelling to Morocco in the recent years and had almost completed an album. I guess that will be out in the next few months.

From all the calls two things stood about Billy's life. On stage he was wild, energetic, talented and very very loud. Every caller made this point about how loud he was. The other was that away from the stage he was a quiet devoted family man. One caller said that Thorpe moved in next to her grand parents in the late 70's. They were worried that there would be loud parties etc and make life hell for the oldies. She said he was just a normal suburban dad who loved his ife and kids and blended in like everyone else in the street.

I'm sure he'll be joining up with Johnny O'Keefe and Bon Scott for one last big gig.

Going to be one hell of a gig. Just a pity with the venue its being held

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Between 1967 and 1972 Australia went thru a great cultural schsim. The Baby Boomer generation changed the Australian culture at grass roots level which culminated with the election of the Whitlam government and then implementing into law many of these cultural changes. In SA the Dunstan government played it's part.

Up front in this process of this cultural change was Rock n' Roll music. The lead act of Rock n' Roll in Australia during these years was Billy Thorpe. That is why over the next few days you will hear a lot about Billy. He played his part but will never be considered as important as the pollies. This also is the reason why the people I have heard on talk back talk so passionately about him and the impact on their lifes.

After his music career went into hiatus he showed his other side of his personality by moving to the USA to expand his business as a toy maker, which he made a lot of money out of. He continued to make albums and sold hundred of thousands of albums both in the USA and Oz. He returned home in the early 90's and back to Rock n' Roll. I have read his autobiography Sex and Thugs and Rock n' Roll which is a great book about music in Oz and Sydney and Kings Cross of the 1960's. One day I will read his other autobiography Most People I Know.

He was one of the major organisers of the Long Way to the Top. On radio I heard one of Aztecs tell the story that they got the idea for the very loud sound from the Beatles concert in NZ.

The bloke was a teen idol at 16, a hard driving rocker that all the guys admired and the women chased by 22 and looked about 30 when he died despite his tough rocking day.

For a generation he was the orginal superstar Thorpie, not the bloke who wears a tight body suit. Usually you wish you were a few years younger than you actually are. Today I wish I was a decade older and could have lived thru some of those heady times when Billy rocked Oz.

 

[Toots Hibbert]

He was a legend in the true meaning of the word. I always liked his stuff but just how good he was hit home to me one day a few years ago driving in the car listening to "It's almost summer". The inventiveness of those vocals, the absolute confidence to try anything and get away with it...magic.

RIP Billy.

 

[rooboy]

I managed to see him in the Long Way to the Top concert in Adelaide. he played some Original Aztecs and some Sunbury Aztecs stuff and was involved in the big bash at the end of the show. He was very loud, very good and very charismatic. Probably only Lobby Lloyd was louder.

Ford, I saw Lobby Lloyd a couple of months ago with the Purple Hearts ( Mick Hadley etc) He apparently is very sick with lung cancer. He still is a great guitarist and still was cracking up about the accoustics.
A bastard about Billy, I saw him at Byron Bay Blues a couple of years ago and he still had the audience eating out of his hand.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Ford, I saw Lobby Lloyd a couple of months ago with the Purple Hearts ( Mick Hadley etc) He apparently is very sick with lung cancer. He still is a great guitarist and still was cracking up about the accoustics.
A bastard about Billy, I saw him at Byron Bay Blues a couple of years ago and he still had the audience eating out of his hand.

Heard he was very sick. I think I might've heard mention of some benefit concerts, maybe even organised by Thorpey.

He was the original Spinal Tap amp goes up to 11 guy. I reckon my internal organs rattled when he played.

 

[rooboy]

Heard he was very sick. I think I might've heard mention of some benefit concerts, maybe even organised by Thorpey.

He was the original Spinal Tap amp goes up to 11 guy. I reckon my internal organs rattled when he played.

Funny you should say that I saw him in Melb decades ago and had ringing in my ears for several days afterwards. Right up there for loudness with Dave Hole and D1ck Dale.

Go the Crows.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Set your VCR / DVD burner / Foxtel IQ to the ABC, for 12.40am Saturday night/Sunday morning for a Rage, Billy Thorpe special, that will go all night.