Love is in the Air all over Australia

Photo Credit: Wikimidia COmmons/Eva Rinaldi
Photo Credit: Wikimidia COmmons/Eva Rinaldi

Feel like a bit of 1970s nostalgia? Time to get out your flares and your platform shoes because Love is in the Air all over Australia.

Singer John Paul Young was one of the biggest-selling Australian stars of the’70s with hits like Pasadena, Standing in the Rain and Yesterday’s Herotopping the charts. By the time the ’80s rolled around, however, the hits had dried up and in his own words, “my career was dead”.  Fortunately, a little film called Strictly Ballroom came along in 1993 and made him a star all over again due to JPY’s song, Love is in the Air dominating the movie soundtrack.

 In 2019, Young is still doing what he says is a “labour of love” – singing and getting people dancing. After almost 50 years in the business, he finds “sometimes the fans in the audience are quite young – barely in their teens – but mostly they’re older fans – my music gives them back their youth.” His current show ­- ‘The Vanda & Young Songbook’ – highlights the songs written by Aussie hit makers George Vanda and Harry Young in particular. “They wrote all my hits bar one – I’m a great fan of theirs,” he says.

Photo Credit: Wikimidia COmmons/Eva Rinaldi

Young, a Scottish immigrant, was a newly qualified sheet metal worker and not long out of high school when his mates convinced him to join their band as lead singer. “I always loved singing but it never occurred to me to do it professionally,” he said. The rest was history – as well as selling millions of records as a solo artist, he sang at the Sydney 2000 Olympics and was named OAM in 2012 for his services to the music industry and charity.

John Paul Young and The Allstar Band The Vanda & Young Songbook, kicked off last night on Friday, February 22 in NSW before moving onto concert dates in WA, SA and Queensland.  

SHARE THIS ARTICLE

Print Recipe

BECOME A MiNDFOOD SUBSCRIBER TODAY

Let us keep you up to date with our weekly MiNDFOOD e-newsletters which include the weekly menu plan, health and news updates or tempt your taste buds with the MiNDFOOD Daily Recipe. 

Member Login