Ego: The Michael Gudinski doco reveals the wild ride of his big musical life
A new doco about the late Michael Gudinski reveals a hilarious chapter in his musical life when he realised one of the biggest dreams of his promoting career.
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Michael Gudinski was a loud, in-your-face, bearded bear of a man when he met the glamorous Sue Smith, a Melbourne radio promotions manager.
This unlikely romance forged a four decades-long love story and partnership which shines as the heartwarming centrepiece of Ego: The Michael Gudinski documentary.
In the film, which premieres at the Melbourne International Film Festival this week ahead of its cinema run from August 31, Sue Gudinski speaks for the first time since her husband’s sudden death in March 2021.
His formidable wife, who married Gudinski in 1984, fights back tears in the closing minutes of the film as she pays tribute to her love and the man who was pivotal in shaping the Australian music industry as a promoter and the founder of Mushroom Records.
“I feel so blessed to say that Michael was my husband, my best friend and … the love of my life,” she says.
Sue also shares a hilarious chapter in his musical life when he realised one of the biggest dreams of his promoting career to bring Frank Sinatra to tour Australia in 1989 with Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis Jr.
Gudinski, renowned for occasionally putting his foot in his mouth, had been told the notoriously Cranky Frankie was only to be addressed as Mr Sinatra. The Australian promoter relentlessly rehearsed his greeting.
“Someone had said no-one is allowed to call Mr Sinatra ‘Frank’; he’s referred to as Mr Sinatra,” Sue says in the film.
“(Gudinski meets Sinatra and slaps the singer on the back) ‘Frank, it’s so good to have you here, we’re in for a feast and we’re going to have a rolling good time tonight.’”
Ego captures the larger-than-life essence of Gudinski and his wild ride over five decades as a pivotal shaper of Australian culture, a champion of its artists and the natural born hustler behind the biggest international tours here, from the Police and Bruce Springsteen to Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.
Director Paul Goldman said Ego was intended to be a four-part documentary series in celebration of Mushroom Records’ 50th anniversary this year.
It became a film in the wake of the advent of Covid and then Gudinski’s sudden death a year later.
As well as Sue, Matt and Kate Gudinski, Goldman spoke to dozens of artists and industry players who were the backbone of Mushroom Records and Frontier Touring, including Jimmy Barnes, Mark Seymour, Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson, Paul Kelly, Skyhooks’ Red Symons, Kylie Minogue, Christine Anu, Neil and Tim Finn and the Temper Trap.
“Michael had an enormous effect on people. It wasn’t just that he would walk in like a cyclone and take over a room – which he did – and had the attention span of a gnat,” Goldman said.
“He was more than a force of nature, he was a life force. His belief in his artists and bands would change their careers and destinies.”
The film charts the rise of Mushroom Records from its first major signing of Skyhooks, through the next phase of success with Split Enz, the lifelong bond and historic raft of No. 1 records with Barnes, and the unique relationship with the fiercely uncompromising Hunters and Collectors.
Gudinski was obsessed with signing the Hunters. He created the White Label under the Mushroom umbrella to snare the deal and to align with the band’s independent ethos.
The stubborn music mogul even acquiesced to the band’s unheard-of demand to release Throw Your Arms Around Me, their breakthrough commercial hit and an indelible Australian anthem, as a live single in 1984. It was eventually re-recorded as a studio version in 1986 for the Human Frailty album.
“I don’t think the band really grasped just how significant that song would be, how could you? I didn’t,” Seymour said.
“I remember there was a gig in Melbourne, we were on a tour, and it happened there were a lot of people from the record company there; we played Throw Your Arms Around Me at the end of the set, in its usual spot, and the crowd went absolutely nuts, it was on another level.
“We’d released this (live) home studio recording already but Michael said after that night we had to re-record it, it had to go on an album. I remember being told ‘You guys need to make a commercial record’ because up until that time, I don’t think we were really regarded as necessarily going to be a mainstream act.”
Then there was the seismic shift in Mushroom Records from the house of rock to the home of pop music icon Kylie Minogue.
Charlene from Neighbours became a global pop star with her debut single Locomotion in 1987.
“The palace revolt at Mushroom Records when this teeny tiny thing from soap opera land came in and hogged the No. 1 spot in the charts for 10 weeks or something … yes, I am sure there were a few people out to smother me,” Minogue says in the film.
Another act to spend their entire recording career at the label was American altrock band Garbage. Frontwoman Shirley Manson and her bandmates Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker, like most of Mushroom’s artists, became lifelong friends.
Manson said Gudinski was a rare figure in the global music industry who treated the women who worked with him as equals, respected their opinions and championed their careers.
“I can count the amount of men in the music industry I have come toe to toe with on my own hands who were not sexist and Michael would be one of them; he was feminist in his thinking and progressive,” she said.
“And the glorious thing about this person is he treated everybody the same and even now in this world we are living in, it is so rare to find someone that will treat the lighting rigger in the same way as he would treat me, the lead singer.
“It’s beautiful and exceptional and why he garners so much love and respect. There are very few men like him and there never will be.”
Ego: The Michael Gudinski Story opens in cinemas on August 31.
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