1. There’s that taxi with the doors open again. This is me when we moved in with Reg. I was happy. I had just started at Mansfield Park Primary School. You can see why the tougher kids at that school thought I was an easy mark. I look innocent. 2. A very happy young Alan in very high pants and myself in a very short tie. I might have been wearing his tie and he might have been wearing my pants. Who knows? John, who was a mod and refused to wear a tie unless it was paisley, and Warren, a bloke who went out with my sister Dorothy for a while. We were all dressed up for a party. Sooner or later trouble would break out. 3. Grandpa and my sister Dorothy. The whole family loved Dot. She was a great kid and a great sister. If it wasn’t for her I think I would have died many times. 4. Reg and Mum getting married in March 1970. In the background you can see the piano that Reg played for us. It sounded great then and it still sounds beautiful now. 5. The Barnes family with their new members, the Swan clan. Grandma seems to be keeping away from us a bit. Probably the best thing. You could never tell when Mum would turn. (ALL IMAGES: BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. Me, Lisa and Alan. Mum never had a lot of money for clothes so I started borrowing stuff from John. This was one of his tight mod jumpers from Merivale. Cost him a fortune. I think Alan is wearing one I had stolen from John earlier. I would borrow them and then Mum would machine-wash them so they never fitted John again. Lisa is as usual happy and smiling. I love these two guys. 2. Linda and Dorothy. My two big sisters out looking for trouble. They always seemed to find it too. Reg would say things like, ‘Over my dead body will I let you go out with skirts that short’ – and out the door they would go. 3. My first real band, Tarkus. That’s me at sixteen, dressed in baby blue. Michael Smith is playing bass at the back. He and I are friends to this day. Mark, who is playing guitar, died quite a few years ago. This photo might have been taken at the Elizabeth Community Centre. I think it’s the only photo of this band. We weren’t that great. (ALL IMAGES: BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. Apollo Stadium in Adelaide. This was a place where you could see overseas as well as interstate bands. My mates and I would kick the back door in and charge through before the bouncers could get a hold of us. The other thing we did was at interval, as people were coming out the front doors for a smoke. We would push back into the crowd as it flooded out and grab a pass from the unsuspecting doorman, pretending we had been in for the first half of the show. One way or another, we were getting in. (NEWSPIX) 2. Me at sixteen with too much attitude and a bad haircut. I seem to have had a lot of those over the years. The attitude hasn’t gotten any better either. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION) 3. John Fraser, a mate of my brother’s; John, leaning, looking like he might have had a few drinks; and me, looking like I am after a drink. John could drink more than anybody I knew. I wanted to be just like him. I got there eventually. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
1. The big poster for Cold Chisel’s second gig at the Gawler Trotting Track. By this time, we had decided that Orange was not a good name for a band, but the poster was already printed. This star-studded line-up would pull about fifty punters to the big gig, including the horses. (THANKS TO TIM PRESTWICH) 2. Cold Chisel in 1973, on the back of a truck at the Gawler Trotting Track. Our careers at this time were going nowhere, a lot like the truck we were standing on. But this was the first line-up. Ian Moss on 335 Guitar with curly hair and no shoes. Me with flares so wide we could have done an indoor gig underneath them. My dear departed friend Steve Prestwich. A great spirit our Steve, funny and talented. Les Kaczmarek, also gone but not forgotten. And a bearded Don Walker playing a Fender Rhodes piano that he hit so hard that pieces fell off it all through the show. This was the bunch of guys I would take on the world with. My dear friends, my new family, my accomplices. (BARNES FAMILY COLLECTION)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JIMMY BARNES is a Scottish-born rock singer–songwriter who grew up in Adelaide. His career, both as a solo performer and as the lead vocalist of the legendary band Cold Chisel, has made him one of the most successful and distinctive artists in Australian music history.
A prolific songwriter and performer, Jimmy has been a storyteller for more than 40 years, sharing his life and passions with Australians of all ages at over ten thousand gigs throughout his adopted homeland. In the process he has amassed more #1 albums in Australia than the Beatles: four with Cold Chisel and eleven as a solo artist, including the iconic For the Working Class Man. Across his career Jimmy has sold over 12 million albums and he has been inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame twice.
Jimmy lives in New South Wales, with Jane, his wife of 35 years, their children, grandchildren and two schnauzers. As well as writing and recording new music and touring virtually nonstop, he is currently writing a series of children’s books, working on the second volume of his memoirs and developing a spoken-word tour based on this book.
COPYRIGHT
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2016
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
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harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Freight Train Music Pty Limited 2016
The right of Jimmy Barnes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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ISBN 978 1 4607 5213 5 (pbk)
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Barnes, Jimmy, author.
Working class boy / Jimmy Barnes.
Subjects: Barnes, Jimmy.
Barnes, Jimmy – Childhood and youth.
Rock musicians – Australia – Biography.
Immigrants – Scotland – Biography.
Family violence.
Adelaide (S.A.) – Social conditions.
781.66092
Cover design by Matt Stanton, HarperCollins Design Studio
Front cover image: Jimmy Barnes aged four, in Glasgow. Barnes Family Collection
Back cover image: bridge © Jason Charlton
Working Class Boy Page 33
