Singer Marcia Hines opens up ahead of the launch of her 50th anniversary tour

Much-loved music icon Marcia Hines will reclaim her permanent Australian Idol judge’s seat in 2024. Find out who she is replacing from this year’s season.

There’s a note of defiance in Marcia Hines calling her career-spanning compilation and tour Still Shining.

More than 50 years after moving to Australia to star in the Hair musical, Hines is not only revered as a national treasure but has never been more relevant.

After her cameo in the reboot of Australian Idol this year, the much-loved entertainer will make a full-time return to the judge’s panel for next year’s season, alongside her neighbour Amy Shark and old mate Kyle Sandilands, to replace Meghan Trainor who welcomed her second son Barry this week.

Australian singer, Marcia Hines is launching her 50th anniversary compilation and tour. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

Hines said she was delighted when she was invited back to Idol this year after a fan-led campaign.

“I was surprised and delighted because I really love that gig: I don’t know if people realised how much it meant to me,” Hines said.

“Why? Because like me, they just want to sing, they want to find a career in singing.”

Hines was just 16, and oblivious at the time that she was pregnant with daughter Deni, when she landed in Australia from Boston in 1970 to star in Hair and then as the first black woman to perform the role of Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar.

Marcia Hines and Kyle Sandilands reunited on the set of Australian Idol. Picture: Channel 7

Her success on the theatre stage launched her recording career in 1975 with a clutch of chart-storming covers including Fire and Rain, I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself and What I Did For Love.

And then there was her signature hit You which reached No. 2 in 1977 and cemented her status as our Queen of Pop, a title she won courtesy of fan votes for three years in a row.

“Winning Queen of Pop for the first time was a career highlight; winning the second and third time was seriously cool too,” she says with a hearty laugh.

Hines was a regular presence on Countdown, hosted her own television show and continued to star on the theatre stage but was forced out of the recording studio after falling out with her producer Robie Porter.

Her success on the theatre stage launched her recording career in 1975 with a clutch of chart-storming covers. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

Porter owned her record deal and after their bust-up, Hines was legally obliged to wait for the contract to expire before she could sign with a new label. The music industry equivalent of “gardening leave.”

She has only now reintroduced the song Shining, the title song of her second studio album which Porter co-wrote and produced, into her setlist because of the legal battle.

“I’ve not sung Shining for 20 years. I didn’t like it, it just reminded me of all the bad stuff I went through with Robie and all the litigation,” she said.

“Back then I couldn’t sing for five years and wasn’t allowed to record – we called it The Hiatus.

“Look, everything happens for a reason, and I think that happened because I was so popular then, I would have burnt out.”

Singer Marcia Hines in 1999.

So she stayed home with her mum Esme, who had moved to Australia to help raise Deni.

“When I could sing again, I went to London to work with people there, and it was all so fresh again.”

Hines, with Peter Rix, her manager of five decades, has mastered the art of reinvention. Her disco diva era through the noughties made her Queen of Pop again with the LGBTQIA+ community.

Since 2015, she has been the star of disco musical Velvet and its reboot Velvet Rewired.

“It’s not so much a master plan as keeping things continuing on nicely. We talk about a lot of offers and how I feel about them; Peter never makes me do anything I don’t want to do. Ever, ever, ever,” she says.

“And my intuition is always very good. I never saw my career as an overnight success, I saw it as spending a long time on the stage by taking a page out of the books of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, the old school. I don’t know if they knew they were going to be stars, they just wanted to sing.”

Singer Marcia Hines bound for a 28 day tour of Russia.

Work ethic is also at play in shoring up the longevity of her pop culture presence. She credits her Jamaican roots for fuelling the ambition which prompted her as a teenager to audition for Hair and move across the world to pursue her love of singing.

“I have Jamaican parents and Jamaican people are very ambitious. (Former US Secretary of State) Colin Powell’s a cousin, Grace Jones is a cousin, we’re all ambitious,” she says.

“I knew I was taking a big chance on coming to Australia for Hair but I thought it was only for six months. What bad can happen in six months? The gig was great, it was paid well, great company.”

When Hines arrived in Australia, the teenager was placed under the guardianship of legendary promoter Harry M Miller.

She would haunt the then vibrant, bustling hub of Kings Cross with her castmates, crossing paths with the hundreds of American servicemen on R&R from the Vietnam War.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana meet Australian singer, Marcia Hines after the 1983 Melbourne Concert Hall show.

Hines and her African American co-stars were a source of fascination for Australian audiences in the early 1970s.

“There were a lot of black kids in the cast and we were the toast of the country because Hair was such a big show. And back then, the Cross was happening because there were all the guys from Vietnam on R&R. Australia was interesting to me back then because nothing stayed open. Nothing!”

Fast forward 50 years and the front rows of her Still Shining tour, which kicked off last week, are full of tweens and teens alongside those who have stayed the course over 50 years and are intrigued to hear new singles Last One Standing and Hard To Breathe among her enviable catalogue of hits.

She credits that generational refresh to Idol.

“I think Idol started the resurgence and then I kept being in people’s consciousness, not too big, not too small, just a presence,” she said.

Hines, who will also star as Teen Angel in the new production of Grease next year, celebrates her 70th birthday later this month, joking “I just keep trying to moonwalk away from it.”

“I feel good, I’m healthy, I’m happy, the gigs keep coming and it’s nice to still be relevant.”

Still Shining: The 50th Anniversary Ultimate Collection is out now. For all tour dates and tickets, marciahines.com

Originally published as Singer Marcia Hines opens up ahead of the launch of her 50th anniversary tour