What am I listening to? – they ask me again and again. Everything. Regardless of genre or performer. Grant freedom. Because independence from genres allowed us to have truly special musical experiences for the first time. Find them, live the experience: cool. Sharing it with someone is one of the greatest joys.
Jimmy Barnes, an Australian-born rock singer, fronted Cold Chisel for ten years prior to his solo career. He became a solo performer in the early 1980s and by last November had become his fifteenth chart-leading solo album.
the most number-one albums in the Australian charts, with a band and by itself—twenty in number—tied to his name. This is ahead of the Beatles 14 times, Madonna 12 times and U2 11 times.
The books of an Australian rock icon have also received a lot of attention. In 2017, his memoir Working Class Boy topped the bestseller lists, and he was awarded the Australian Book Publishers Literary Accolade for Biography of the Year. His volume, published the following year with the title Working Class Man, also won the award.
“We’re Still Changing and Learning” is not the title of the song. That’s what he says about himself, a rock musician who’s still changing and learning, who’s matured into a man and who, by his own admission, grew up very slowly. However, he went through his mistakes and became what he is today: a practicing Buddhist, living with a happy family background, and a man willing to make changes for the sake of development.
In 2017, he was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia.
Stone Cold, which you can hear from him here, is a composition by his former bandmate. With Don Walker on vocals, Joe Bonamassa on guitar, and the band’s stellar two decades after its release, a brutally strong version was born. I’m not surprised that a commenter wrote under the video: I ask everyone to take seven minutes of their children’s lives to show them what real music looks like before it’s gone.
Stone Cold – Jimmy Barnes – featuring Joe Bonamassa
