"Billy Baxter" is a song by Australian rock group Paul Kelly and the Dots, released on 20 October 1980 as the lead single from the album ''

Talk Talk may refer to: Communication * Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people * Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people * Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct ...

'' (1981). It was written by band members Paul Kelly and Chris Langman. It peaked at No. 38 on the Australian

Kent Music Report The Kent Music Report was a weekly record chart of Australian music singles and albums which was compiled by music enthusiast David Kent from May 1974 through to January 1999. The chart was re-branded the Australian Music Report (AMR) in July ...

Singles Chart. The song was produced by

Joe Camilleri Joseph Vincent Camilleri, (born 21 May 1948) aka Jo Jo Zep or Joey Vincent, is a Maltese Australian singer-songwriter and musician. Camilleri has recorded as a solo artist and as a member of Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons and The Black Sorrows. Jo Jo ...

(from

Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons are an Australian blues music, blues and rock music, rock band that features the singer, songwriter and saxophonist Joe Camilleri (aka "Jo Jo Zep"). The band was active in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and had severa ...

) for

Mushroom Records Mushroom Records was an Australian flagship record label, founded in 1972 in Melbourne. It published and distributed many successful Australian artists and expanded internationally, until it was merged with Festival Records in 1998. Festival Mu ...

. In early November the group performed the track on national pop music TV show, ''

Countdown A countdown is a sequence of backward counting to indicate the time remaining before an event is scheduled to occur. NASA commonly employs the terms "L-minus" and "T-minus" during the preparation for and anticipation of a rocket launch, and eve ...

'' – it was Kelly's first TV appearance. The song's subject, Billy Baxter, is an Australian musician and was a long term member of '' Coodabeens Footy Show'' on

ABC Radio National Radio National, known on-air as RN, is an Australia-wide public service broadcasting radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2. History 1937: Predecessors an ...

Background

Paul Kelly and the Dots had formed in August 1978 in Melbourne from the remains of High Rise Bombers, the Dots underwent line-up changes prior to the release of "Billy Baxter". Their debut single "Recognition" was issued in 1979, under the name The Dots, on an independent label, but had no chart success. "Recognition" line-up were Kelly (vocals), Chris Langman (guitars), Chris Worrall (guitars), Alan Brooker (bass guitar) and John Lloyd (drums). More changes occurred, they signed to

and released "Billy Baxter" on 20 October 1980, which peaked at No. 38 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart. Note: Used for Australian Singles and Albums charting from 1970 until

ARIA In music, an aria (Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompanime ...

created their own

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabul ...

in mid-1988. In early November that year, Paul Kelly & the Dots performed "Billy Baxter" on national pop music TV show, ''

'' – it was Kelly's first appearance on television. Their debut album, ''

'' followed in March 1981 and peaked at No. 44 on the related albums chart. Kelly was later dissatisfied with his earliest albums: "I wish I could grab the other two and put 'em in a big hole". The subject of the song, Billy Baxter, is an Australian vocalist (ex-Ghetto Blasters, Big Fans of Jesus, The Hollow Men and solo). He was a Disc Jockey on Melbourne

community radio station Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting. Community stations serve geographic communities and communities of interest. They broadcast content that is popular ...

3RRR 3RRR (pronounced "Three Triple R", or simply "Triple R") is an Australian community radio station, based in Melbourne. 3RRR first commenced broadcasting in 1976 from the studios of 3ST, the student radio station of the Royal Melbourne Institut ...

and is a long term member of '' Coodabeens Footy Show'' on several Melbourne radio stations since 1981 (

, several versions of

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

and

3AW 3AW is a talkback radio station based in Melbourne. It broadcasts on 693 kHz AM. It began transmission on 22 February 1932 as Melbourne's fifth commercial radio station. The station is owned and operated by Nine Entertainment Co. Hist ...

). Kelly said, "Billy is a very entertaining person. I used quite a bit of him in the song, but it was never meant to be accurately biographical of Billy." The B-side to the single, "Hard Knocks", was featured in the soundtrack of the 1980 AFI Award nominated film of the same name. On the

Australia Day Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Observed annually on 26 January, it marks the 1788 landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove and raising of the Union Flag by Arthur Phillip following days of exploration of Port Ja ...

(26 January) long week-end in 1982, Kelly performed the song at the Mushroom Evolution Concert backed by

. The concert celebrated Mushroom Records' 10th anniversary and was held at the

Myer Music Bowl The Sidney Myer Music Bowl is an outdoor bandshell performance venue in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is located in the lawns and gardens of Kings Domain on Linlithgow Avenue close to the Arts Centre and the Southbank entertainment precinct ...

. The song appeared on both the triple LP and the video release of the concert of the same name.

Composition and recording

"Billy Baxter" is a

ska Ska (; ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walki ...

-influenced song of two minutes and forty-three seconds. It was written by Paul Kelly and Chris Langman. From 1977 to 1978 Kelly and Langman had shared a house in the Melbourne suburb of

South Yarra South Yarra is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 4 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Melbourne and Stonnington local government areas. South Yarra recorded a popul ...

, where according to Kelly, "Chris and I sat around for hours, days playing guitars ... I played him my new songs as they kept coming and we made up tunes together". Kelly and Langman also co-wrote " Leaps and Bounds", which appeared on Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls' album ''

Gossip Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others; the act is also known as dishing or tattling. Gossip is a topic of research in evolutionary psychology, which has found gossip to be an important means ...

'' (1986). According to the lyrics, Billy Baxter's attributes include: lost limitations, imitations, a thousand faces, a lover, a gambler, a lesson for all the crew, a hungry heart, love to burn, in love with abandon but never loses control, walks right through disaster and still whole, plays pantomimes. Kelly had met

(from Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons) when the latter was looking for someone to co-write songs with, Kelly gave Camilleri "Only the Lonely Heart" (aka "Only the Lonely Hearted") and "Hand Me Down". Camilleri recommended Kelly to Mushroom Records and put up the money to produce the group's debut album, ''Talk''. The song was produced by Camilleri for Mushroom Records. Kelly remembered "I'd done my back badly and couldn't stand or sit for any length of time, so I had to do my vocals lying on the floor... If I could gather up every copy of that first record and bury them all in a big hole, I would. But that's no fault of Joe's". The B-side, "Hard Knocks", was produced by

Trevor Lucas Trevor George Lucas (25 December 1943 – 4 February 1989) was an Australian folk singer, a member of Fairport Convention and one of the founders of Fotheringay. He mainly worked as a singer-songwriter and guitarist but also produced many albums ...

(of United Kingdom folk group

Fairport Convention Fairport Convention are an English folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Martin Lamble after their first gig.) They started o ...

Reception

Reviewed at the time of release in

Roadrunner The roadrunners (genus ''Geococcyx''), also known as chaparral birds or chaparral cocks, are two species of fast-running ground cuckoos with long tails and crests. They are found in the southwestern and south-central United States and Mexico, us ...

, the song was deemed, "Unlistenable. A sort of reggae David Watts/Billy Hunt, it reeks of a calculated attempt at commercial success."

Track listing

Personnel

Paul Kelly and the Dots members * Paul Kelly – vocals *Paul Gadsby – bass guitar *Chris Langman – guitars *John Lloyd – drums *Chris Worrall – guitars *Chris Dyson – guitar, vocals *Tony Thornton – drums *Alan Brooker – bass guitar *Tim Brosnan – guitar *Michael Holmes – guitar Recording details *Producer –

("Billy Baxter"),

("Hard Knocks") **Remixer – Camilleri ("Hard Knocks"), Jim Barton ("Billy Baxter") *Engineer – Jim Barton *Studio – AAV Australia, Melbourne

Charts

References

External links

"Billy Baxter"
30-second sample of live version by Paul Kelly backed by

from the ''Mushroom Evolution'' concert performed on 26 January 1982, stored at

Music Australia Music Australia is a free national online service hosted by the National Library of Australia in conjunction with over 50 cultural organisations across Australia. It was launched on 14 March 2005. It covers all types, styles and genres of Australia ...

site for

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

. Note: requires browser to be in 32-bit mode and .asx compatible. {{DEFAULTSORT:Billy Baxter Songs about musicians 1980 singles Paul Kelly (Australian musician) songs Songs written by Paul Kelly (Australian musician) 1980 songs Mushroom Records singles