William Victor Simms, known as Vic Simms and Vicki Simms, is an Australian singer and songwriter. He is from

La Perouse, New South Wales La Perouse is a suburb in south-eastern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The suburb of La Perouse is located about southeast of the Sydney central business district, in the City of Randwick. The La Perouse peninsula is th ...

, and is a

Bidjigal The Bidjigal (also spelt Bediagal, Bejigal, Bedegal or Biddegal) people are an Aboriginal Australian people whose traditional lands are modern-day western, north-western, south-eastern, and southern Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia. The ...

man.''Message Stick''
"Once in a Lifetime" the story of Vic Simms

Career

Simms began his singing career at age 12 at the Manly Jazzorama Music Festival in 1957,Deadly Vibe
Vic Simms soon after

Col Joye Colin Frederick Jacobsen (born 13 April 1937), better known by his stage name Col Joye, is an Australian pioneer rock singer-songwriter, musician and entrepreneur with a career spanning some sixty years. Joye was the first Australian rock and r ...

heard him as an 11-year-old singing at a football social. He released his first single (as "Vicki Simms"), "Yo-Yo Heart" (

Festival Records Festival Records (later known as Festival Mushroom Records) was an Australian recording and publishing company founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1952 and operated until 2005. Festival was a wholly owned subsidiary of News Limited from 1961 to ...

), at age 15. He performed with

Johnny O'Keefe John Michael O'Keefe (19 January 1935 – 6 October 1978) was an Australian rock and roll singer whose career began in the 1950s. Some of his hits include " Wild One" (1958), " Shout!" and "She's My Baby". In his twenty-year career, O'Keefe rel ...

Shirley Bassey Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey (; born 8 January 1937) is a Welsh singer. Best known for her career longevity, powerful voice and recording the theme songs to three James Bond films, Bassey is widely regarded as one of the most popular vocalists ...

and

Robie Porter Robert George Porter (4 June 1941 – 16 December 2021) was an Australian country and pop-rock musician, producer and record label owner. Beginning in 1959, he performed under the stage name Rob E.G. and recorded lap steel guitar instrum ...

among other prominent singers. After getting into alcohol and committing a robbery, he was sent to prison. Whilst incarcerated in the notorious

Bathurst Gaol Bathurst Correctional Centre, originally built as Bathurst Gaol in 1888, is a prison for men and women located in the city of Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, and operated by the Department of Communities and Justice. Bathurst holds inmate ...

The Age
Jailhouse rocker he learnt how to play guitar and started writing songs. In 1973, his music was heard by a Robin Hood Foundation and they sent a tape to

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

who organised to have him record an album. This album was recorded in one hour with a mobile studio in the prison dining room and was released as '' The Loner''. It has been described as "Australia's great lost classic album of black protest music". After the release of the album he was sent on tours of other prisons, shopping malls and the Sydney Opera House as an example of a model prisoner. After he was convinced he was being used he refused to continue the shows. After his release from prison, he reentered the entertainment industry. He has toured Australian prisons and, in 1990, he toured Canada with

Roger Knox Roger Knox (born 1948) is an Australian country singer, known as the Black Elvis and the Koori King of Country. Early life Knox is from the Gamilaroi nation, part of the Aboriginal Australian community, and was born in Moree, New South Wales. ...

and

Bobby McLeod Bobby McLeod (1947 – 30 May 2009) was an Aboriginal activist, poet, healer, musician and Yuin elder. He was from Wreck Bay Village, Jervis Bay Territory. He was involved in the fight for Aboriginal rights in Australia and travelled the world sp ...

where they played in prisons and on reservations. In 1996, he released a covers album, "From The Heart". Simms was given a Deadly in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

for Outstanding Contribution to Aboriginal Music. In 2009, ''The Loner'' was added to the

National Film and Sound Archive The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national co ...

's Sounds of Australia registry.National Film and Sound Archiv
Sounds of Australia registry
In 2013, it was re-released by Sandman records. "Selections From the Loner" was released by Painted Ladies 6 June 2014. Songs from the original album were re-recorded by artists including Luke Peacock, Paul Kelly and Vic Simms himself. Simms sang "Stranger in My Country" in both the SBS documentary and accompanying cd, Buried Country: The Story of Aboriginal Country Music.

Discography

*"Yo-Yo Heart" (1961) -

Festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

*"I'm Counting Up My Love" (1961) -

*''Yo-Yo Heart'' ep (1962) -

*'' The Loner'' (1973) -

*"Back Into The Shadows" (1973) -

*"Koala Bear" (1988) - Enrec *''From The Heart'' (1996) - Bunyip

References

External links

* Listen to an excerpt o
'The Loner'
o
australianscreen online
Message Stick, Friday 21 October 2005, 6 pm ABC1.

Conversations with Richard Fidler, 18 March 2015 {{DEFAULTSORT:Simms, Vic Indigenous Australian musicians Living people Australian male singers Australian songwriters Australian guitarists Year of birth missing (living people) Australian male guitarists