Former Wiggle Murray Cook back on stage after health scare

Former Red Wiggle Murray Cook will return to the stage after undergoing open heart surgery.

Former Red Wiggle Murray Cook is well and truly on the mend more than one month after he underwent open heart surgery.

The 60-year-old musician will return to the stage with his band The Soul Movers in Marrickville this Saturday for the first time since having a procedure to replace a faulty aortic valve.

“I’m really looking forward to it, it’s a little bit daunting but I’m thrilled to get on stage and see the crowd,” he said.

Pictured in Marrickville in Sydney is former Wiggles star Murray Cook. Murray is currently rehabilitating after open heart surgery following a heart attack. He is back making music but taking it easy. Picture: Richard Dobson

Cook was hospitalised late last year after he had difficulty breathing during a routine swimming session.

He has struggled with a heart murmur since he was a child but is now in recovery following his surgery.

“I’m a little up and down,” he said.

“I’ve been exercising a lot of course, mostly walking. The big thing is getting your lungs going again because during the operation they deflated my lungs to stop my heart and it takes a little while to get your heart going again so there’s a lot of breathing exercises.

“The first week I was out of hospital, I was doing two 10-minute walks a day and then each week after that it went up by 5 minutes so I’m up to two half-hour walks now. With the walking I feel good but I need to rest a fair bit. Walking uphill or up stairs takes it out of me but in the next couple of months, I’ll be better than ever in 2-3 months I’ll go back to the cardiologist for some tests but there’s no further surgeries.”

Cook, an original member of The Wiggles, retired from the popular children’s group in 2012 after more than a decade.

Cook and the other Wiggles on stage in 2012 in Sydney. Picture: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

Cook and his band will hit the stage at Django at Camelot in Marrickville on January 23.

Last year, Cook reunited with his original Wiggles bandmates Anthony Field, Greg Page and Jeff Fatt for a bushfire relief concert.

Page, 48, collapsed on stage and went into cardiac arrest at Castle Hill RSL and later underwent surgery for a coronary occlusion, a blockage of one of the major blood vessels to the heart.