John Farnham: Finding the Voice traces the singer’s life and career, his journey to find an artistic voice and become one of Australia’s most beloved performers. It’s an enthralling new doco that helps us try and understand ‘The Voice’, writes David Michael Brown.
John Farnham: Finding the Voice
John Farnham is a national treasure. His 1986 Whispering Jack album topped the Australian charts for an unheralded 25 weeks and has sold 1.68 million copies to date. He has soundtracked the lives of a generation of Australians. No matter where they are in the world, if an Aussie hears the opening handclaps of You’re the Voice, a singalong is guaranteed.
In these days of instant Insta-success, however, his journey to this level of recognition was far from an easy one and Poppy Stockell’s exhaustive rock doc covers every exhilarating high and soul-destroying low. His ’60s popster to Aussie rock legend rags-to-riches story has it all: Hit novelty singles, fired managers, empty pub gigs, sold-out stadiums, dodgy fashions, massive mullets and that globe-conquering anthem.
From his humble beginnings in the quiet suburbs of Melbourne after his family relocated from Dagenham in the UK when he was 10 years old, a teenage Farnham gave up his plumbing apprenticeship to start a recording career. Under the name Johnny Farnham and dressed as the “guy from the Johnny Walker bottle… without the hat,” he released his number one single Sadie (The Cleaning Lady) in 1967. Much like David Bowie and The Laughing Gnome, Farnham couldn’t escape the gimmicky albatross around his neck. The track may have helped him make his name in the early days, but the track became so synonymous with his name he couldn’t escape it.
The filmmakers have sourced an astonishing collection of footage and photographs from the period, not only of Farnham’s childhood and early years as TV Week’s King of Pop, an award he won for five consecutive years from 1969, but of a groovy Australia during the swinging ‘60s, an era when the country was still trying to find its own voice. The grainy home movies and monochrome musical moments gives way to widescreen images of Farnham playing in Germany at the peak of his European success in the late eighties.
It wasn’t always that way. The Age of Reason singer’s mid ’70s slump had seen the singer singing to crowds of 15 backed by a band who couldn’t keep time. In 1982 he had a successful 3-year stint as lead singer of the Little River Band but even that was mired by the way he succeeded Glenn Shorrock. His time with the band not only reminded everyone what an astonishing voice Farnham had but also cemented the friendship between the singer and Glenn Wheatley. The Masters Apprentices’ bass guitarist turned music industry entrepreneur and the man who was instrumental in resurrecting Farnham’s career, starting by re-mortgaging his house to record the Whispering Jack album.
Unsurprisingly, that album’s lead single, You’re the Voice gets extended special treatment. Recorded in a garage studio, the song was the first to be released under the name John Farnham and signposted a new career as a solo artist. The song has become the country’s unofficial national anthem. Just don’t tell Daryl Braithwaite.
Braithwaite joins an impressive line-up of talking heads in John Farnham: Finding the Voice, including fellow rocker Jimmy Barnes and famous fans and collaborators like Richard Marx, Celine Dion and Robbie Williams. We also hear from many of Farnham’s band members, including keyboard virtuoso David Hirschfelder and guitarist Tommy Emmanuel, and colleagues. Gaynor Wheatley offers some essential firsthand insight, privy as she was to the minutia of her husband and Farnham’s relationship.
The lack of recent on-screen interviews with Farnham himself is keenly felt but the singer, along with his friend and collaborator Olivia Newton-John, lend their voices to proceedings with audio interviews. Newton-John’s tragic death last year, along with Wheatley’s, who filmed an essential interview for the documentary before he died due to COVID complications, lend the film a sombre poignancy, especially when considering Farnham’s current health issues.
John Farnham: Finding the Voice pays tribute to the man who keeps on fighting and now, Farnham is doing just that. We already knew that he is the voice, but now this enthralling new documentary helps us try and understand him. For any Farnham fan, this is a must-see.
