Joe Camilleri joins elite club of Australian artists to release 50 records with new Black Sorrows album

The new Black Sorrows record St Georges Road marks the 50th album Joe Camilleri has released over his almost five decades on the Australian charts.

Treasured Australian musician Joe Camilleri almost didn’t release his 50th record.

The veteran music man wrapped recording of the new Black Sorrows album St Georges Road in March last year just as Australia shut down and put up the Closed sign to gigs.

Like so many independent musicians who are out the front of the venue “before the cymbal stops sizzling” to sell their new record direct to fans, without shows or the support of a record label, he struggled to see the point in releasing his new music.

“Like a good country city boy – I live out in the country now – I was going to take it out and shoot it. I thought it was never going to come out,” he said.

Musician Joe Camilleri wasn’t sure he was going to release St Georges Road. Picture: Tania Jovanovic/Supplied

After he shared it with some music mates who recognised the quality of the new stuff, songs about life, death and the eternal quest for love, they encouraged the 73-year-old artist to forge ahead with the release.

In the meantime, Camilleri was searching for a lockdown project and as he looked at the covers of the records he has made over the past 45 years, from Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons, through to Black Sorrows, he discovered he had hit the 50 records milestone.

The Hold On To Me hitmaker and producer calls himself an “accidental” musician who fell into a career, a factory worker who was bitten by the music bug when he was shoved up on stage by his friends one night at a gig in the mid 1960s.

His early hits with the Falcons – Hit and Run, Shape I’m In and their cover of the Dionne Warwick standard Walk On By – established the band as one of the biggest touring acts in Australia in the late 70s.

But when they broke up, he spent a few years in the wilderness – working at a fruit market in Footscray – before the Black Sorrows formed in 1983.

While its ranks have included about 40 prominent Australian musicians over the decades – including Vika and Linda Bull – songs like Hold On To Me, Harley and Rose, Chained To The Wheel and Never Let Me Go have remained beloved by a legion of fans.

Camilleri still reckons he’s an “accidental” musician after almost 50 years. Picture: Ian Ritter / Supplied

“I think what keeps you going is I’m a fool for it,” Camilleri said.

“I never expected a life in music, I did all those other jobs like working in factories and on the railways but I think when Hit and Run got on the radio, and there was nothing else like it then, that’s when a certain amount of ambition became involved.

“And slowly, I got better at it.”

Camilleri is happily relieved his 50th record will now have its moment, ironically on an independent label called Ambition Music, but will have to wait until 2022 before he gets to share it with his fans, with more than 45 shows again rescheduled due to lockdowns.

Camilleri still gets excited about the process of making new music and performing. Picture: Arsineh Houspian/Supplied

“I’m just not used to not working. Music is kind of like the seasons of life; there’s times when you can write and you’re fluent at that and there’s times when you play and you feel that is a necessity,” he said.

“But I am still really excited by the process of everything.”

And he’s not alone among Australia’s veteran musical storytellers, who remain enthralled by the relentless quest to write the perfect song or live recording.

The late Slim Dusty is still a chart star. Picture: Supplied

The late Slim Dusty, whose latest compilation Gone Fishin’ debuted at No. 11 on the ARIA charts this month, has more than 100 records to his credit.

Other members of the elite 50 Records Club include Jimmy Barnes across his Cold Chisel and solo career, Judith Durham as a solo artist and member of The Seekers, Dame Joan Sutherland, Olivia Newton-John and John Farnham, factoring his stint with Little River Band as well.