MORE FOR ARIA HALL OF FAME

Melbourne born Helen Reddy is one of the most successful female recording artists of the seventies. Throughout her sensational career, she achieved four US Number 1 singles, sold more than 15 million albums and 10 million singles and was the first Australian singer to win a Grammy Award.

During her showbiz-infused youth, Reddy performed with her family on the vaudeville circuit and kicked off her own broadcasting career on ABC Radio with Helen Reddy Sings. In 1965, Reddy won Channel Nine’s Bandstand “Starlight Competition”, the prize for which included a trip to the US, which would prove to be the catalyst for her international rise to fame. After doing it tough in New York for a few years, Reddy moved to LA, following which she signed with Capitol records in 1970.

Her debut album I Don’t Know How to Love Him was released in 1970 and achieved Gold sales, and featured her first US Top 40 single, a cover of the track “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”, from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar. She immediately followed up with a second effort, a self-titled album, again in 1970. Helen Reddy’s first US Number 1 I am Woman, was a song she co-wrote with Australian musician Ray Burton, and was the title-track of her Platinum selling third LP released in 1972. The track was a slow burner; after initially being recorded and released on her debut album, this newly recorded version gathered momentum as female radio audiences began requesting it on their local networks, and it eventually became the unofficial anthem for the feminist movement. The track soared to the top of the charts and won Reddy a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, for which she delivered a famous acceptance speech, referring to God as a woman.

Reddy followed with further classic albums, Long Hard Climb (1973) which achieved Platinum sales and featured the hit “Delta Dawn” which reached Number 1 in the US and “Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)” which reached Number 3, Love Song for Jeffrey (1974) which achieved Gold status, and Free and Easy (1974) also certified Gold and featured the hit “Angie Baby” which also reached Number 1. The second half of the seventies saw Helen Reddy maintain her incredibly prolific output of recordings with Ain’t No Way to Treat A Lady (1975) which achieved Gold sales, Helen Reddy’s Greatest Hits (and more) (1975) attained multi-Platinum sales, Music, Music (1976) which again achieved Gold sales, Ear Candy (1977), We’ll Sing in The Sunshine (1978), Live in London (1978) - a double live album and Reddy (1979).

As well as various film roles and theatre performances in London’s West End and on Broadway in New York, Reddy was a regular guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson as well as hosting The Midnight Special for a year in 1975. Reddy was also the first Australian to host her own primetime variety show on an American network, The Helen Reddy Show, which aired on NBC. She continued to make music right up until the year 2000.

After releasing a staggering nineteen albums with 14 Top Ten singles between 1971 and 1978, Helen Reddy retired in 2002. With her beguiling take on a wide range of musical styles, Reddy’s effortless and sublime talent for reflecting profound truths and describing love, life, hope and strength in a mere three minute song is still revered and celebrated today. One of the great performing artists to emerge from this country, Helen Reddy’s career is a true landmark in Australian music.

Formed in Sydney 30 years ago, Rose Tattoo came to prominence playing a similar style of blues-rock made popular by AC/DC and fast became an institution of Australian rock. With their raw, heavy, hard street-rock sound and a trademark bluesy slide guitar, Rose Tattoo won loyal fans both internationally but especially struck a chord on local shores where they were anointed one of Australia’s premier rock bands.

The band was the vision of slide guitarist Peter Wells, and their initial goal was to create the “meanest loudest, most in your face rock band around” and true to their intentions, Rose Tattoo became notorious as a self-styled gang of rock’n’roll outlaws, bent on mayhem and destruction, and they quickly developed a reputation around Sydney clubs and pubs for their in-your-face, brutal, no-nonsense hard rock.

The band’s initial line-up (which would change many times over during the lifespan of the band) featured the passionate, fierce, throaty vocal performances and dramatic stage antics of Gary “Angry” Anderson, Ian Rilen on bass, Peter Wells on slide guitar, Mick Cocks on rhythm guitar and Dallas “Digger” Royall on drums. Future line-up switches would introduce the likes of Rob Riley (rhythm guitar), Georgie Leach and Steve King (bass guitar) as well as Paul DeMarco (drums) amongst others.

Rose Tattoo first signed to Albert Productions upon recommendation from AC/DC’s Bon Scott and worked on their first four albums with the help of Easybeats’ Harry Vanda and George Young. Their debut album Rose Tattoo (1978) was later re-titled Rock ‘n Roll Outlaw, featured the single “Bad Boy for Love”, which climbed into the Australian Top 20. In the three years that followed, Rose Tattoo toured relentlessly, maintaining their outlaw image performing at several penal institutions, including Parramatta Jail. In the early eighties the band toured the UK and Europe, including a legendary, frenzied performance at the Reading Festival where Angry head-butted the amp stacks until his forehead was bleeding. In 1981 they released their second album Assault & Battery. The album reached Number 1 on the UK Heavy Metal Charts and the Top 30 in Australia and produced two big singles “Out of This Place” and “Manzil Madness”.

Their third album, the classic Scarred for Life, followed in 1982 and produced three singles including the track “We Can’t be Beaten”, which reached Number 14 on the Australian charts. Their fourth studio LP and the final recording produced by Vanda and Young, Southern Stars, was released in 1984 and included the hit single “I Wish” and saw the band once again, true to form, serve up their unique brand of rootsy, hard-rock and metal. After the release of Southern Stars, Rose Tattoo ground to a halt and did not reform until 1993, when none other than Guns & Roses put in a special request for them to get back together to support the Gunners on their Australian Tour.

Sadly earlier this year, founding band member Peter Wells lost his four-year battle with prostate cancer and passed away in March at the age of 59. Sorely missed by his family, friends, band members and fans alike, Wells will be remembered as a legendary rock ‘n roll soul who inspired many and whose music will live on for generations to come.

Rose Tattoo’s musical grit, guts, guile and sheer rock ‘n roll heart has written them into the annals of music history as making a hefty contribution, both in the studio and on stage, to the definition of Australian heavy rock.

The 2006 ARIA Hall of Fame event will be broadcast exclusively on subscription television. Foxtel and Austar Digital subscribers will be able to see this special telecast on VH1 on Sunday, August 20th at 8.30pm.