Colin Petersen
| Colin Petersen | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Frederick Colin Petersen |
| Born |
24 March 1946 Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia |
| Genres | Rock, psychedelic rock, psychedelic pop, baroque pop, soft rock |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter, record producer, actor |
| Instruments | Drums, tom-tom, guitar, vocals |
| Years active | 1956–present |
| Labels | Spin, Polydor, Atco, Parlophone |
| Associated acts | Steve & The Board, Bee Gees, Humpy Bong |
Frederick Colin Petersen (born 24 March 1946) is an Australian drummer, record producer and former child actor. He played as a member of the bands Steve and the Board, the Bee Gees and Humpy Bong. In August 1969, he left the Bee Gees and he was replaced by Pentangle drummer Terry Cox to record the songs for their 1970 album Cucumber Castle.
Frederick Colin Petersen began his acting career at the age of seven. When he was still nine years old in late 1955, he starred in the film Smiley (released in 1956), with Ralph Richardson, but by the time he was twelve in 1958 he was forced to cease acting as his mother felt it was interfering with his education. Other film credits included The Scamp (1957), A Cry from the Streets (1958) and, much later, Barney (1976). In 1958, before his mother took him back to Australia, he was screen tested for the part of the young hero in Tiger Bay, but the part eventually went to the then 12 years old Hayley Mills instead, the part being rewritten for a girl. He attended the Humpybong State School at the same time that Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb did (they went to Scarborough State School first, and then later went to Humpybong). Petersen was in Barry's class, though they seldom crossed paths in any significant way. While at school he developed an interest in music, starting out on piano but switching to drums. After leaving school he played with several bands including Steve and the Board, and became acquainted with Maurice Gibb, who invited him to sit in on one of the trio's sessions in Sydney. He ended up becoming friends with the family and ultimately played on as many as a dozen of the Bee Gees' early Australian sides.
Petersen moved to England in 1966, little knowing that the Bee Gees would soon be doing the same and they recruited him as their permanent drummer shortly afterwards – the first non-Gibb brother to become an official member of the Bee Gees. He played on the albums Bee Gees' 1st, Horizontal, Idea, Odessa, and Cucumber Castle. He was an equal partner in the group from early in their period in the UK, and the Gibb brothers regarded his playing as essential to their sound. He and fellow band member Vince Melouney, who would play lead guitar and had also moved to the UK, had some trouble when, in the late summer of 1967, they were threatened with deportation because of an error in the way they had secured their visas. That problem was solved only by the intervention of the group's manager, Robert Stigwood, who mounted a publicity campaign that embarrassed the government into permitting them to remain in the UK. While he was a Bee Gee, he and Maurice Gibb wrote "Everything That Came From Mother Goose" with lead vocals and guitar by Colin, but it was not released and also in 1968, Petersen played drums on The Marbles' debut single "Only One Woman".
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