Ross Wilson

Ross Wilson (b. 1947), musician and producer, started playing in bands as a schoolboy, fronting the Pink Finks and the Party Machine in the late 1960s. In early 1970 he and Ross Hannaford formed Sons of the Vegetal Mother, which evolved into Daddy Cool. Daddy Cool played 1950s rock & roll songs with a 1970s attitude, and the mix electrified live audiences. 'Eagle Rock', released in June 1971, sat at number 1 for 11 weeks. Soon after, Daddy Who? Daddy Cool broke all previous sales records for an Australian album. Wilson split from the group in 1972 to form Mighty Kong; when they disbanded, he produced the first three albums for Skyhooks, while rejoining Daddy Cool in 1974-1975. Later, he produced albums for Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons, The Sports, The Dynamic Hepnotics and his own very successful band, Mondo Rock. Recently he has produced the band The Screaming Jets. As a musician, Wilson has toured almost incessantly from the 1970s to the present; his latest release, his fifteenth studio album, is Come in Peace (2011). In early 2001 'Eagle Rock' was voted the second-best Australian song ever (behind the Easybeats' 'Friday on My Mind'). An essay on Wilson's website suggests wryly that Wilson is 'probably the only person in Australian rock music who can't make a comeback simply because he's never been away.' Rock historian Ian McFarlane holds that over his career of some four decades, Wilson 'has given more to the institution of Australian rock and pop than can ever possibly be repaid'.