Australian music legend Billy Thorpe died on this day in 2007.
Billy Thorpe. photo by Ros O'Gorman
Billy was one of Australia’s most enduring rock stars, after starting his career and first achieving success in his teens as a pop star and then reinventing himself as Australia’s loudest rock act of the 70s.
In the 80s, Thorpe moved to the USA and scored a Top 40 hit with ‘Children of The Sun’. He then released three more albums in America.
In the 90s Billy teamed up with his mate Mick Fleetwood and formed The Zoo and then moved back to Australia.
Thorpe’s signature song was ‘Most People I Know Think That I’m Crazy’. Before that Australian airways had songs like ‘Mashed Potato’, ‘Sick and Tired’, ‘Over The Rainbow’, ‘Love Letters’ and ‘Poison Ivy’ in constant high rotation.
In the new Aztecs of the 70s, Thorpe stayed true to his influences but recreated the songs into furious live moments with ‘CC Rider’, ‘Be Bop A Lula’, ‘Rock Me Baby’ and ‘Ooh Poo Pa Doo’ staples of the Aztecs setlist.
Billy died of a massive heart attack on February 28, 2007. He was 60.
