"Once I was a simple man, a poor common farmer, I gave you six ribbons to tie back your hair."
Jonathan James "Jon" English (26 March 1949 – 9 March 2016) was an English-born Australian singer, songwriter, musician, actor and playwright. He emigrated from England to Australia with his parents in 1961. In the early 1970s, he landed the role of Judas in the Original Australian Production of Jesus Christ Superstar. While he was touring, he recorded his first four albums. His first hits included "Handbags And Gladrags", "Hollywood Seven" and "Turn The Page", the latter of which was his first number one. At the same time, he appeared in guest roles in popular television drama shows, including Matlock Police and the Homicide TV-movie Stopover.1977 culminated with English's fifth album and the hit single "Words Are Not Enough", plus a concert tour with Thin Lizzy. He took a short break from the rock music scene in 1978 when he appeared in the lead role of the television miniseries Against the Wind. In partnership with Mario Millo, English also wrote the incidental score and the theme song "Six Ribbons", which became a number one hit in more than six countries.Studio Album Discography:
- 1973 - Wine Dark Sea
- 1974 - It's All A Game
- 1976 - Hollywood Seven
- 1977 - Minutes To Midnight
- 1977 - Words Are Not Enough
- 1980 - Calm Before The Storm
- 1981 - In Roads
- 1983 - Some People
- 1987 - Dark Horses
- 1988 - Busking
Notable compilations:
- 1976 - Modern English (16 Great Hits)
- 1978 - English History
- 1993 - The Best Of Jon English (20th Anniversary Edition)
- 2001 - English History Vol. 2
- 2011 - 6 Ribbons - The Ultimate Collection
- 2014 - Black Label note
Other studio tidbits:
- 1972 - Laid note
- 1978 - Against The Wind (The Original Soundtrack) note
- 1982 - Jokers And Queens note
Filmography: note
- Jesus Christ Superstar as Judas Iscariot (1972)
- Stopover note as Gordon Haynes (1974)
- Against the Wind as
Jonathan Garrett (1978) - Touch And Go as Frank (1980)
- All Together Now as Bobby Rivers (1991 - 1994)
- The Pirates of Penzance as the Pirate King (1994)
- The Mikado as The Mikado (1996)
- H.M.S. Pinafore as Captain Corcoran (1997)
- Time Trackers as Old Troy (2007)
"On Hollywood Seven, tropes for rent til your name goes up in lights..."
- Adam Westing: His role as Bobby Rivers on the sitcom All Together Now probably counts as this.
- Butt-Monkey: The narrator of "Some People" is this, who attempts to present himself as a Millionaire Playboy type and consistently failing.
- Careful with That Axe: Has a truly effective scream, which is used to good effect in many of his songs. It's most prevalent in his performance as Judas.
- Cover Version:
- In addition to the aforementioned cover of "Turn The Page" by Bob Seger, he also covered "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who, "Playing With Fire" by The Rolling Stones, "Stand By Me" by Ben E King and "Free Ride" by The Edgar Winter Group.
- His stage show Rock Show, being a tribute to Classic Rock, consists entirely of these.
- Dead All Along: The song She Was Real ends with the revelation that Susie had been dead for years, which the narrator does not take well.
- Determinator: The subject of the song "Hell Or High Water".And you know she's gonna make it, come Hell or high water
Scramble to the top, no matter what they taught her
Burning all the bridges, come Hell or high water
Scramble to the top, no matter what they taught her - Downer Ending: Songs like "Hollywood Seven", "She Was Real" and "Waterloo" have depressing outcomes for their protagonists.
- Epic Rocking: "Prelude/Tomorrow", "The Miracle", "Midnight Suite", and "She Was Real" all exceed six minutes.
- Face on the Cover: With the exception of In Roads, all of Jon's studio albums feature him on the cover, with the cover for It's All A Game being the most extreme example as it's literally a close-up of Jon's face with the title at the top.
- Horrible Hollywood: "Hollywood Seven" is a song about a young women who comes to Hollywood with dreams of being a star, but her lack of job opportunities forces her to become a prostitute to make ends meet and is implied to be killed by one of her clients. The song ends with another girl with similar dreams arriving in Hollywood and renting the same room.
- Large Ham: Tends to go all out in live performances and his acting roles, such as The Pirate King.
- Let's Duet: Jokers And Queens with Marcia Hines, a fellow cast member of Jesus Christ Superstar.
- Live Album: With the exception of the Title Track that starts off the album, Beating The Boards is an album of Jon on tour with his band The Foster Brothers.
- Longest Song Goes Last: The 6 minute 23 second long "The Miracle" is the final track on the Hollywood Seven album and the Minutes To Midnight album ends with the 9 minute 16 second long "Midnight Suite".
- Money Song: "Money Is" from Hollywood Seven and "Money Money" from Busking.
- Mr. Fanservice: Spends nearly half of his screentime in the Touch And Go TV Movie wearing shorts and no shirt.
- New Sound Album: Although Jon's style of music has been pretty consistent for the most part, there are a couple examples of this.
- Calm Before The Storm has a few Disco-influenced songs like "Down In Frisco" and "Feel Like Dancing".
- Dark Horses and Busking see an increased usage of synthesizers.
- Nice Guy: A rather friendly and down to earth guy, according to those who knew him.
- One-Man Band: The song "Always The Busker" from the album Busking mainly uses an acoustic guitar for instrumentation for the first half of the song. At that point in the song, the singer claims that "If you listen real close, I can sound like a whole damn band!", prompting synths and other instrumentation to appear.
- Pop-Star Composer: In addition to his acting roles, Jon often supplied music to most of the shows he appeared on.
- At least more than half of his It's All A Game album is basically the soundtrack to the Stopover TV Movie that he appeared in.
- The Power of Rock: "I'm A Survivor" is about the many forms rock music can take and how it will always endure.
- Product Placement: In "She Was Real", the narrator refers to his motorcycle as his Yamaha.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Jon wore a pink top in this concert
. In the Black Label compilation that the concert was included with, Jon's explaination for this choice is somewhere between I Was Quite a Fashion Victim and It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. - Rearrange the Song: His covers of Play With Fire and Behind Blue Eyes have a more dramatic, atmospheric sound to them in places.
- As for his own songs, the version of "Touch And Go" in the TV movie of the same name is noticeably different from the version on the In Roads album, with the latter adding female backing vocalists.
- Saw "Star Wars" Twenty-Seven Times: When asking his mother for more money, the narrator of the song "Some People" says "Don't worry, I saw the Midnight Express thirty six times and I know where to keep my stash."
- Sharp-Dressed Man: On the Minutes To Midnight album cover, Jon is wearing a white suit and holding a cane.
- Shout-Out:
- "The Shining" from In Roads. Although it came out around the same time as the movie, the song is filled with book specific references.
- His Wine Dark Sea album has song called "Monopoly", with lyrics influenced by the eponymous board game. The song also namedrops Scrabble.
- The song "Sandcastles" from Hollywood Seven contains the line "Come on, baby. Light my fire. I need loving like a funeral pyre."
- Soprano and Gravel: Jon's duets with Marcia Hines utilize this dynamic.
- Step Up to the Microphone: In "Straight Ahead" from Some People, each member of Jon's backing band sings a line in the song's bridge.
- Take That!: "Laughing At The Guru" pokes fun at the Hare Krishna scene that was big in The '70s.
- Truck Driver's Gear Change: Averted in "Hollywood Seven", which shifts gears in a more complex way.
- War Is Hell: The song "Waterloo", in which a young man fights and dies in the eponymous battle.
