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headonismHeadonism
By Peter Head with MJ Cornwall
(BookPOD)

The history of Australian rock and roll is chockablock with yarns about people who had their shot at The Big Prize. Adelaide-born Peter Head (nee Beagley) gave it a better shake than most,  rising to prominence as pianist for prog rockers Headband, touring his bum off and playing in a pre-AC/DC band with some bloke named Bon Scott.

This is a man who rubbed shoulders with everyone from Elton John to John Mayall, John Farnham to the Rolling Stones. Adelaide-raised, Head did what a lot of Aussies did in the‘60s and followed his nose to work as a muso in England...only to suffer the same fate as many, if not most, of his peers and have it rubbed in Pommy squalor.

In the ‘80s Head transplanted himself to Sydney and became a fixture in the piano bars of Kings Cross. It was probably a natural progression for a bloke who kicked off his career as a 13-year-old backing bump-and-grind dancers in seedy Hindley Street bars. Along the way, he directed stage shows, toured nationally with the likes of Robyn Archer, carved out a regular place on the bill of the Adelaide Festival, filled in as backing pianist for “Here’s Humphrey”. 

It’s a little-known fact that he and Headband were bumped from the seismic line-up at Sunbury ’72 due to time constraints. The same Sunbury that put Billy Thorpe’s Aztecs in lights. Given that luck, what could you do other than suck more piss?  (Or imbibe a spliff of the green.) As Maxwell Smart would say:“Missed it by that much”.

But this isn’t a tragedy about defeat being snatched from the jaws of victory.  Peter Head has seen his share of success. Sure, he spent a lot of time bouncing in and out of shit jobs to make ends meet. Such was the lot of a jobbing musician in the six decades spanned. Including brushes with Don Dunstan and Molly Meldrum, “Headonism” tracks the highs, and all too common lows, of a career spent in many interesting places,

Dave Graney's succint foreword nails it. Peter Head has more yarns than a container ship full of Merino sheep and spins them at will.  His story is artfully told. Head’s literary collaborator, MJ Cornwall, steers the ship and it’s propelled by punchy snapshots that are framed by uniquely Aussie turns of phrase and large doses of sly humour.

Cornwall’s the writer who brought us the PJ Proby tome, “PJ and Me”,  and “To Be Frank”,  the fictional memoir of the late Frank Thring. That last one’s unreviewed here but “PJ and Me” was a gem, and it and “Headonism” might have made him my new favourite Aussie writer.  It’s no stretch to say there are echoes of the Beats in the rolling cadence of “Headonism”.

Adelaide might be a sleepy place these days, but this book vividly recalls a time when it pumped. Cornwall has plenty of base material to work with, but his stylings play a critical role in bringing the book’s 227 pages to life.

Of course it's available in all good bookstores. 

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