This year Radioinfo will take you back 50 years to the songs that charted in 1974. It was a mighty fine year for music.
May 21 1948, was a momentous day for Australian music. Joseph Vincent Camilleri was born in Malta, aka Jo Jo Zep, or simply Joe. In Sussex England, Gerard Hugh Sayer was also born, better known to us as Leo.
Leo moved to Sydney nearly two decades ago now and became a naturalised Australian in 2009. He lives in the Southern Highlands, and if you live there you are quite likely to run into him at the shops where he will greet you as exuberantly as if you were a long lost friend.
Not all that long ago, during the Black Summer bushfires, I was at the FireAid music event in the Highlands and was supposed to interview Sayer. He’d gone missing from backstage and was eventually found moshing in the pit. He is known as the Energiser Bunny and deserves all of that reputation and more.
1974 was the start of Sayer’s musical career and The Show Must Go On, an ironic choice given the last 24 hours, his first hit here and in his then UK home, where it went to No 2. That will be significant later.
To showcase the song’s meaning, about dealing with life’s poor choices, Sayer famously dressed in pierrot clown costume and makeup to perform it on British TV, as you can see below.
From here the diversity of his music and lyrics, from upbeat poppy numbers like this, the emotional and personal Orchard Road, wonderful storytelling within Moonlighting, the disco flavoured You Make Me Feel Like Dancing as well as writing hits for other people, like Dreamin’ for Cliff Richard, saw Sayer enjoy significant success all over the world with him actually having more No 1 hits on the US Billboard Charts than in the UK.
This one, Moonlighting and You Make Me Feel Like Dancing were all UK No 2 hits. His first UK No 1 was the ballad When I Need You, from Feb 1977. Here in Australia Leo’s biggest hit was also You Make Me Feel Like Dancing which got to, you guessed it, No 2.
Since 1974 Leo’s had ups and downs, but exactly like this song, the show must go on. In 2022 he released a really wonderful album of Beatles’ covers called Northern Songs. Late last year he was very unwell, ending up in hospital for three weeks, and had to cancel an extensive tour of the UK. But he’s back up and running now and has rescheduled the 19 dates starting in September before heading back to Australia in November for a gig (and probably more by then, knowing Leo) in Queensland.
With radio and voiceover legend Ron E Sparks passing away last weekend I was inspired to select Leo this week after seeing this glorious picture on the Retro Stream radio show Facebook page, of Leo and Ronnie, in 1978, at the 2SM studios in Sydney.
The hair still hasn’t changed a bit!
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and music trivia buff for Radioinfo, pictured here with Leo Sayer.