Jimmy Barnes
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Jimmy Barnes AO |
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Barnes in 2014
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | James Dixon Swan |
| Born |
28 April 1956 Glasgow, Scotland |
| Origin | Adelaide, Australia and Glasgow, United Kingdom |
| Genres | Hard rock, blues-rock, soul, rhythm and blues |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, musician |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, harmonica |
| Years active | 1973–present |
| Labels | |
| Associated acts | |
| Website | www |
James Dixon Swan AO (born 28 April 1956), better known as Jimmy Barnes, is a Scottish-born Australian rock singer-songwriter. His career both as a solo performer and as the lead vocalist with the rock band Cold Chisel has made him one of the most popular and best-selling Australian music artists of all time. The combination of 14 Australian Top 40 albums for Cold Chisel and 13 charting solo albums, including nine No. 1s, gives Barnes the highest number of hit albums of any Australian artist.
James Swan (as Jimmy Barnes was known for the earliest years of his life) was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He arrived in Adelaide, South Australia as a 5-year-old on 21 January 1962 with his parents Jim and Dorothy Swan and siblings John, Dorothy, Linda and Alan. Another sister, Lisa, was born in 1962 and the family eventually settled in Elizabeth. His father, Jim Swan, was a prizefighter and his older brother John Swan also works as a rock singer. John encouraged and taught Jim how to sing as he wasn't really interested initially. Shortly afterward, Barnes' parents divorced. His mother Dorothy soon remarried, to a clerk named Reg Barnes (died 3 September 2013). After her daughter Lisa was teased by a schoolmate about being adopted, Dorothy encouraged her children to change their surname to Barnes. All of them did except for the eldest brother, John, who would go on to be much better known as Swanee, eventually recording a series of albums under that name from the 1980s. This would later cause confusion about Jimmy Barnes and Swan; many thought them to be half- or stepbrothers.
Barnes was raised a Protestant, and considers himself a Buddhist. In September 2009 he revealed that his maternal grandmother was Jewish.
Barnes took an apprenticeship in a foundry with the South Australian Railways in 1973 but the love he and his brother had for music led him to join a band. Swanee was now playing drums with Fraternity, who had just parted ways with singer Bon Scott. Barnes took over the role but his tenure with the band was brief and before long he had joined a harder-edged band called Orange, featuring organist and songwriter Don Walker, guitarist Ian Moss, drummer Steve Prestwich and bassist Les Kaczmarek (who would be replaced by Phil Small within two years). Within a short time the group had changed its name to Cold Chisel and began to develop a strong presence on the local music scene. Barnes' relationship with the band was often volatile and he left several times, leaving Moss to handle vocal duties until he returned. After a temporary move to Armidale, New South Wales while Walker completed his engineering studies there, Cold Chisel moved to Melbourne in August 1976 and then three months later shifted base to Sydney. Progress was slow and Barnes announced he was leaving once again in May 1977 to join Swanee in a band called Feather. However, his farewell performance with Cold Chisel went so well that he changed his mind and decided to stay in the band and a month later the band was signed by WEA.
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