Men At Work
Singer/songwriter Colin Hay grew up in a town on the west coast of
Scotland called Saltcoats, where his father owned a music store.
In 1967, at the age of 14, he moved with his parents to
Australia.
After working in the 70s as part of a musical duo with
guitarist Ron Strykert, he formed Men At Work in 1979 around
Melbourne's La Trobe University, where drummer Jerry Speiser was
a science major, keyboardist and horn player Greg Ham studied law
(and Hay applied himself to "this and that").
The group took up a residency at the tiny Cricketer's Arms
Hotel in Richmond, Melbourne. Within a short time the band were a
big draw card at venues all around the city. In fact, before
releasing any vinyl, the band were Australia's highest paid
unrecorded band.
CBS Records eventually signed them and put them together with
Peter McIan, a Los Angeles-based producer who happened to be in
the country to record an album with New Zealand pop singer Sharon
O'Neill.
By January 1983, the single Down Under had made the
Number One position on the Australian, US, British, Canadian and
several European charts. Not only did it introduce the Vegemite
sandwich to the world, but it also declared Australia to be the
place where "women glow and men chunder".
In October 1983, the song was officially adopted as the theme
to the Australian 'America's Cup' challenge (which was
eventually won by the Australian syndicate led by Alan Bond). The
album from whence Down Under came was called Business
As Usual and sold more than 10 million copies throughout more
than fifty countries and stayed at Number One on the US charts for
15 weeks.
Not bad for an album that only cost around $30,000 to record .
. .
Their second album, CargoI, was not as
successful overseas (although it did reach Number One in Australia).
Regardless, the LP sold more than a million copies in the US on
advance orders alone.
Following the break-up of Men At Work at the end of 1985, Colin
Hay embarked on a solo career, enjoying minor success with the Looking
For Jack album (March 1987) and the single Hold Me
(March 1987).
In February 2010, a Sydney court decided that a flute
riff from Down Under was swiped from the 1934 song Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum
Tree, written
by Marion Sinclair for a Girl Guides Jamboree.
Kookaburra
copyright holder Larrikin Music hoped to trouser 40-60 per cent of
the song's earnings from songwriters Colin Hay and Ron Strykert,
although a costs hearing "ordered that the band must pay
five per cent of money earned from the song since 2002 as well as
future royalties".
Hay defended
that any reference to Kookaburra was "inadvertent, naive,
unconscious", adding: "By the time Men At Work had
recorded the song, it had become unrecognisable."
EMI Music appealed in March 2011, describing the offending flute riff as
"at
most, a form of tribute to the tune", which can only be
detected by a "highly educated musical ear". The court
disagreed, allowing Larrikin Music to proceed with
its claim for "millions of dollars" from Hay and
Strykert.
Flute player Greg Ham was discovered dead at his Melbourne
home on 19 April 2012.
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