National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 56 | April 2002


Michael Wade: Well It Was 40 Years Ago Today

In December last year, the National Library of Australia was fortunate to secure the cooperation of musician Michael Wade in an interview for the Oral History Collection. It is rare indeed to find a figure in the Australian music industry whose skills have been so wide-ranging and who has been part of the industry for so many years. Michael is highly regarded as a guitarist, songwriter, composer, arranger, musical director, record producer and music engraver. He is a pioneer of computer music programming in Australia.

It was 40 years ago that Michael became serious about music, trading in the Eko electric guitar and Moody amplifier that his grandmother had bought for him for a Fender Stratocaster and Bandmaster amp.

The interview, recorded by Dr Barry York over two days, focuses on the twists and turns in Michael’s development as a musician and also provides insights into his personal life, childhood, teenage years and relationships. In the course of this fascinating exploration, light is also thrown on broader contextual issues, such as the changes in recording technology, venues, audiences and styles over the decades, the transition to music computerisation, the contributions of contemporaries (such as Marcia Hines and Jon English) and the ‘fickle’ nature of the industry. According to Michael, there was no sense of planning in his early life and no parental guidance. His commitment to the guitar was everything.

Born in Sydney in 1947, Michael Wade found escape from his ‘strange insular’ childhood through his family’s old Krysler radiogram. He quickly became hooked on the popular music of the late 1950s. Such was his enthusiasm that aged 12 he strummed a tennis racquet along to the rock hits of the day. Later that year he obtained his first guitar—an acoustic—again courtesy of his grandmother, and in 1960 she bought him his first electric guitar. There was no turning back. At the age of 13, he joined up with a friend, Frank Galea, to form a band called ‘The Ramblers’.

In 1963, the Ramblers became ‘The Midnighters’ and signed a recording contract with RCA. Michael, just 15, wrote the band’s first single, ‘Goofy Foot’ and two other singles aimed at the ‘surfie’ market. Michael’s total dedication to the guitar meant that his skills were developing and diversifying rapidly. From 1965 to 1968 he worked around Sydney, mainly Kings Cross, with a line-up called ‘Climax’. Then, in 1968, the opportunity arose to tour Vietnam with a scratch band for the US Army.

Michael’s recollections of the four-month tour highlight the way in which oral history interviews can throw light on important issues outside the original concern of the interview. The musical sets performed on the tour reflected the outlook of the soldiers. While Michael found that different levels of the US military hierarchy had different musical preferences, there was one number that united them all: Eric Burdon’s ‘We gotta get outta this place’. In Vietnam, Michael’s musical skills were further developed through association with African–American servicemen. It was there that he became influenced by the jazz guitar style of Wes Montgomery.

The 1970s saw Michael in big demand as a creative musician. In 1972, he played lead guitar and was bandleader for the original Australian production of Jesus Christ Superstar and two years later he and the rhythm section of Jesus Christ Superstar formed themselves into the band ‘Baxter Funt’. They played gigs with Marcia Hines and also provided the musical backing for Reg Livermore’s Betty Blockbuster Follies and Wonder Woman. Michael was arranger, composer and musical director on the Livermore projects. In 1977/78 he was musical director and conductor of the Jesus Christ Superstar revival and also the revival of Hair.

The 1980s were an adventurous time for him. He established a recording studio at Bondi, became a sheet music/folio arranger-engraver for major music publishers and pioneered computer music in the rock opera Rasputin. During the 1990s, while still interested in computer music, music direction and conducting, he branched out into writing. An interest in numerology resulted in a regular column in Woman’s Day and his book Lifequest was published in 1995. He is an occasional contributor to Macworld magazine and, last year, began writing a semi-fictional, semi-autobiographical book.

The interview is an important addition to the Oral History Collection and reflects the National Library’s interest in musicians, songwriters and popular culture.
—Barry York

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: dthomas@nla.gov.au