CeLeBRATING 25 YEARS Of THe APRA MUSIC AWARDS

Colin Hay. Photo > Kane Hibbard
> David Albert, John Watson,
Michael McMartin, John Woodruff. Photo > Tony Mott
> Renee Geyer and Marianna Annas.
Photo > Tony Mott
> Shannon Noll and Adam Reily.
Photo > Tony Mott
> Damian Trotter, Augie March and
Clare Bowditch. Photo > Tony Mott
> Eskimo Joe. Photo > Kane Hibbard
> Peter Garrett, Shadow Minister for Climate
Change, Environment & Heritage, Arts.
Photo > Kane Hibbard
> Auntie Joy Murphy. Photo > Kane Hibbard
> Katie Noonan. Photo > Kane Hibbard > Phrase.
Photo > Kane Hibbard
> Senator, The Honourable George Brandis SC,
Minister for The Arts and Sport.
Photo > Kane Hibbard
> Eddie Jacobsen.
Photo > Tony Mott
2007 APRA MUSIC AWARD WINNERS
Most Performed Australian Work
Title: Lift
Artist: Shannon Noll
Writers: Adam Reily* / Bryon Jones /
Shannon Noll^ / Andrew Roachford (PRS)#
Publishers: BMG Music Publishing Australia* /
eMI Music Publishing Australia Pty Ltd^ /
Mushroom Music Pty Ltd #
Most Performed Foreign Work
Title: Feel Better
Artist: Santana featuring Steven Tyler
Writers: Burleigh Johnson (ASCAP) /
damon Johnson (ASCAP) /
James Scoggin (ASCAP)*
Publishers: Peermusic Pty Ltd / EMI Music
Publishing Australia Pty Ltd*
Most Performed Australian Work Overseas
Title: Are You Gonna Be My Girl
Artist: Jet
Writers: Nicholas Cester / Cameron Muncey
Publishers: BMG Music International / Famous Music
on behalf of Get Jet Music. Inc
Most Performed Dance Work
Title: Flaunt It
Artist: TV Rock featuring Seany B
WriterS: Sean Berchik / Ivan Gough / Grant Smillie
Publisher: Sony / ATV Music Publishing Australia Pty Ltd
Most Performed Urban Work
Title:
Artist:
Writer:
> Jonathan Biggins.
Photo > Kane Hibbard
Get Up Outta The Dirt
Butterfingers
eddie Jacobson
Most Performed Country Work
Title: Nothing At All
Artist: Kasey Chambers
Writer: Kasey Chambers
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing Australia Pty Ltd
Most Performed Blues and Roots Work
Title: Songbird
Artist: Bernard Fanning
Writer: Bernard Fanning
Publisher: BMG Music Publishing Australia Pty Ltd
Most Performed Jazz Work
Title: Love Me For The Cool
Artist: Mark Sholtez
Writer: Mark Sholtez
Publisher: EMI Music Publishing Australia Pty Ltd
Song of The Year
Title: One Crowded Hour
Artist: Augie March
Writer: Glenn Richards
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing Australia Pty Ltd
Breakthrough Songwriter
Glenn Richards
Songwriter of the Year
Myles Heskett / Christopher Ross /
Andrew Stockdale (Wolfmother)
Ted Albert Award For Outstanding Services
to Australian Music
Michael McMartin
the view from the stage
By Jonathan Biggins
The 2007 APRA Awards, this year celebrating 25 years of rewarding excellence in
Australian songwriting, was a curiously restrained affair. Maybe the audience was
over-awed by the opulence of the venue, Melbourne’s magnificent Town Hall with its
pendulous chandeliers and vast pipe organ dominating the stage. Mind you, always
good to be at a music awards where the biggest organ on display doesn’t belong to
one of the nominees.
Even most of the live performances, after a rousing start from Eskimo Joe performing
their Song-of-the-Year nomination, Black Fingernails Red Wine, took on an introspective
flavour. I think we can safely say Phrase’s urban work Hold On is on this side of melancholy
but while Katie Noonan’s exquisite cover of Bernard Fanning’s Watch Over Me was never going to wander into
toe-tapping territory, TV Rock with Seany B (not to be confused with Humphrey B) certainly did. Colin Hay returned in
solo acoustic mode to reprise Who Can it Be Now, the first hit from Men at Work’s legendary Business as Usual, which
in 1982 (the first year of the APRA awards) was the highest selling album in the world. You could understand every word he
sang - probably because we all knew every word. And funny to think that even now, after twenty-five years, we still
have no idea who it could’ve been now.
APRAP July 2007 > 08
Things brightened up with the simultaneous appearance of Tex Perkins and Tim Rogers. Obviously workshopping
some material for their future careers as new-wave stand-up comedians, rock’s senior enfants terribles took us
briefly to an edgier universe, although it’s hard to pump the ‘tude when you’re working through the nominations list
for Most-Performed Jazz Work. Maybe they should’ve torn up the winner’s envelope in a frenzy as some sort of
post-modern tribute to the guitar-trashing antics of The Who and every other pale imitation since.
> Tex Perkins, Bernard Fanning and Tim
Rogers. Photo > Tony Mott
Federal Arts minister Senator George Brandis did an admirable job reading out the nominations for most-performed
Australian work overseas. Later, Midnight Oil frontman and Shadow Minister for the Arts, Peter Garrett, recognised the
40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal rights and introduced Kev Carmody, Paul Kelly and Missy Higgins,
who navigated their way through Droving Woman, a reflective story-telling epic that ran for a good nine minutes. And Songof-the-Year
winners Augie March (wrapping up proceedings with a solid live performance of One Crowded Hour) have all
but cornered the introspection market with their tweed coats, leather elbow patches and Edwardian facial hair - if they
were any more contemplatively laid-back they’d be carpet tiles.
> TV Rock
- Sean Berchik,
Ivan Gough and
Grant Smillie.
Photo > Tony Mott
> David Faulkner and David
HirSchfelder. Photo > Tony Mott
Still, I did manage a rock-and-roll moment at the after-show party which was held in a small phone-booth masquerading
as a pub in Bourke Street. I was accosted by an inebriated woman, apparently romantically attached to an unspecified
nominee, who seemed to specifically blame me for their failure to take out the award. She fixed me with eyes struggling
to focus and slurred repeatedly “I wanna kick your arse”. Thankfully, she didn’t. Or, more accurately, couldn’t - it was
all she could do to remain upright. Roll on next year!