Anthony Donald Joseph FieldAM (born 8 May 1963)[1] is an Australian musician, actor, songwriter and producer. He is best known as a leader of the children's group the Wiggles and a member of the 1980s and 1990s pop band the Cockroaches. While still a teenager, he helped found the Cockroaches with his brothers, Paul and John. The Cockroaches recorded two albums and enjoyed moderate success, interrupted by Field's service in the Army, until they disbanded in the late 1980s.
Field attended Macquarie University to receive training in early childhood education, and founded the Wiggles with fellow students Murray Cook, Greg Page and former bandmate Jeff Fatt in 1991. He worked as a preschool teacher for two years before the success of the Wiggles led him to focus on children's music full-time. The Wiggles became one of the most successful and active groups in Australia. Field, who wears a blue shirt while performing with the Wiggles, was responsible for the production aspects of their stage and television shows, albums, and DVDs. His issues with chronic pain and depression, which almost forced him out of the group at the height of their success, are well-documented. After the departure of Cook, Fatt, and Page in 2012, he is the only remaining original Wiggle.
Early life and education
Field was born in Kellyville, New South Wales, Australia. He is the youngest of seven children, and grew up in north western Sydney.[2] He came from a long line of musicians, especially the women in his family. His great-great aunt was Queenie Paul, known for performing at the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney, and his grandmother Kathleen accompanied silent movies in the mining town of Cobar. Field's mother, Marie, made sure that all of her seven children learned how to play at least one musical instrument.[3] He attended the all-boys boarding school St Joseph's College, which his great-grandfather Paddy Condon, an Italian immigrant and master stonemason, helped build.[2]
He was inspired by his sister Colleen to study early childhood education, and became convinced that teaching preschool children "was my calling".[4] He was also attracted to the profession's freedom, artistic nature, and lack of discipline, which was different from his experience in boarding school.[5] Field put off university when the Cockroaches became successful, but he was dissatisfied with touring and plagued by "perhaps irrational, but very real, feelings of inadequacy and depression".[6]
By his mid-twenties, he decided that he did not want to tour any longer, so he took two breaks. His first break was as an infantry soldier, rifleman, stretcher bearer, and ambulance driver in the 5th/7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, Australia's regular army from 1982 to 1985. He played the bagpipes in parades and on training missions,[7][8] but ended his military service in July 1985 and suffered from a bad back as a result of his training.[6] He also went backpacking in the U.K., listening to roots music, to children's music by artists like Raffi, and to recordings of children's books.[9]
In 1979, while they were students at St Joseph's, he and his brothers Paul and John formed the pop group the Cockroaches.[3][10]
In 1986 they signed with an independent label, Regular Records, which issued their first three albums, including The Cockroaches (March 1987), which peaked at No. 9 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart; it sold 70,000 copies and was certified platinum by their label. The album spawned the single "She's the One", which became the band's biggest hit when it peaked at No. 7 on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart in April 1987.
When the Cockroaches disbanded in the early 1990s, Field enrolled at Macquarie University. While at university, he decided to record an album of children's music, enlisting the assistance of fellow student and guitarist Murray Cook, former Cockroaches roadie and vocalist Greg Page, former bandmate and keyboardist Jeff Fatt, and Macquarie instructor and composer Phillip Wilcher, who later left the group.[11]
The Wiggles recorded their first CD in 1991; it sold 100,000 copies.[12] Field worked as a preschool teacher for two years before the success of the Wiggles and their extensive touring schedule, which he strongly disliked, forced him to quit.[8][13] After the production of their second album, the Wiggles adopted colour-coded shirts to wear on stage. According to Field, he wore blue because Cook and Fatt already owned shirts in their colours of red and purple respectively, so he and Page "met in a Sydney department store and literally raced to see who got the blue shirt".[14] Page ended up wearing a yellow shirt and Field originally wore a green polo shirt, but changed to blue to avoid clashing with Dorothy the Dinosaur.
Field (right/blue shirt) with the original line-up of the Wiggles, during a trip to NASA in 2004.
Each Wiggle developed a "schtick" based on their actual behaviours, which evolved into caricatures, and served the same purpose as the uniforms in differentiating their characters and making them memorable to young children; Field's was eating.[15] Field created and played the original Captain Feathersword; the role was taken over by Paul Paddick in 1996. Field also played Wags the Dog.[16]
Field on stage in 2007
By the mid-1990s, despite the success of the Wiggles, Field reported being suicidal and "frequently gripped by anxiety, sadness, and negativity".[17] By mid-2004, shortly after his marriage and the birth of his first child, Field's serious medical issues, worsened by their heavy tour schedule, caused him to consider quitting or re-inventing the Wiggles, despite their great success in the U.K. and North America. After meeting chiropractor James Stoxen in Chicago in 2004, Field improved his health to the point that he was able to continue. He began to hire teams of chiropractors for himself, his fellow bandmembers, and castmembers in every city they performed, which he credited with making it possible for them to fulfill their touring requirements.[18] In early 2013, Field became the only original member of the group to remain after Fatt, Cook, and Page retired. He remained in the group because he wanted to continue to educate children and as Wiggles manager Paul Field stated, "to placate American, British and Canadian business partners".[19]
In July 2020, he and the other classic Wiggles appeared in the Soul Movers music video for "Circles Baby".[20]
Field's musical influences include Lightning Hopkins, Elvis Presley, and the Rolling Stones.[21] He plays several instruments, including the tin whistle, bagpipes, guitar, drums, trumpet, violin, bouzouki and didgeridoo. Field, with input from the other members, produced most of the Wiggles' music, DVDs, and live shows.[19]
Other projects
In 2018, Field, along with fellow Wiggles member Lachlan Gillespie and band members Oliver Brian and David O'Reilly, started a band for adult fans called the Unusual Commoners, which played a mixture of traditional Australian, Irish, Scottish and folk songs. They performed their first international show in St. John's, Newfoundland in late 2018.[22]
Personal life
In 1999, Field was named "Bachelor of the Year" in Cleo.
Field with his kids
In 2003, he married Michaela Patisteas, a former dancer whose family owned Griffiths Coffee in Melbourne.[23][24] They have three children, who have joined the Field family business by appearing in several of the Wiggles' TV shows and videos.[25]
Field, in describing his enthusiasm for competitive sports, has stated, "My love of cricket is abiding", a sport that "instills the same loyalty and passions in me as I know baseball does for many in North America".[28] He is a fan of the Australian rugby league club the Wests Tigers.[29] He is also a fan of singer Julio Iglesias.[30] As Field's fitness improved, to the point that his training regimen became comparable to that of an elite athlete,[31] he gained an interest in gymnastics and acrobatics.[32]
Field went public about his experience with clinical depression in mid-2007 to draw more attention to the condition.[33][34] He has stated that "being on the road is a dangerous job for someone with depression," but has dealt with it through diet, exercise, talking about it, and having a good support system (including his father before his death in 1998,[35] his wife, and his friend Murray Cook, among his bandmates).[8] He chronicled his health struggles and how he overcame them in his 2012 book How I Got My Wiggle Back.[36][37]
Field is a devout Catholic,[23][29] something that he reported helped him deal with his chronic health issues and depression, especially the spiritual practices of prayer and devotion to the Virgin Mary as expressed by Our Lady of Guadalupe.[38] He has two large tattoos on his arms: one is the Virgin Mary with the words "My life is in your hands" in Spanish; the other is a heart with the words, "My love, my heart" in Spanish. The names of his wife and his three children are also tattooed on his arms.[30] He admits that he got his tattoo of the Virgin, which he hid from fans for a long time, during a visit to Mexico while on tour in North America, in the middle of a bout with chronic pain and dental problems, as he put it, "in a moment of madness".[39]
Awards
Field was made a Member of the Order of Australia on 26 January 2010 "for service to the arts, particularly children's entertainment, and to the community as a benefactor and supporter of a range of charities".[40]
The Wiggles are an Australian children's music group formed in Sydney in 1991. As of 2022, the group members are Anthony Field, Lachlan Gillespie, Simon Pryce, Tsehay Hawkins, Evie Ferris, John Pearce, Caterina Mete and Lucia Field. The Wiggles were founded in 1991 by Field, Murray Cook, Jeff Fatt, Greg Page and Phillip Wilcher. Wilcher left the group after their first album. Page retired in 2006 due to ill health and was replaced by understudy Sam Moran, but returned in 2012, replacing Moran. At the end of 2012, Cook, Fatt and Page retired and were replaced by Gillespie, Pryce and Emma Watkins. Cook and Fatt retained their shareholding in the group and all three continued to have input into its creative and production aspects, while engaging in occasional reunion performances. Watkins departed the group in 2021, with Hawkins taking her place.
Murray James Cook, AM is an Australian musician, actor, and DJ. Cook was one of the founding members of the children's band the Wiggles from 1991 to 2012. Cook provided guitar, vocals, and songwriting in the group, and remained involved with its creative and production aspects after his retirement. In 2013, Cook served as the Wiggles' tour manager. He also remains active in many music projects, including, writing and performing with the Sydney soul-rock band The Soul Movers. He is the father of wheelchair basketball player Georgia Munro-Cook. In 2015, he was one of the members of the Australian jury for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.
Gregory John Page, is an Australian singer, musician and actor. He is best known as the original lead singer and a founding member of the children's band the Wiggles from 1991 to 2006 and then again in 2012.
Jeffrey Wayne Fatt is a Chinese Australian musician and actor. He was a member of the children's group The Wiggles from its founding in 1991 to 2012, and was also in the 1980s and 1990s pop band The Cockroaches.
Paul James Field is an Australian musician, filmmaker and author. He is best known as one of the founding members of the Sydney pub rock band the Cockroaches and the Field Brothers and as Managing Director for the children's music group the Wiggles.
John William Michael Field is an Australian composer and songwriter. He was a founding mainstay member of the Sydney pub rock band the Cockroaches on rhythm guitar and sharing lead vocals. He has written tracks for the children's music group, the Wiggles, including "Hot Potato". His brothers, Paul Field and Anthony Field, were also bandmates in the Cockroaches.
The Cockroaches were an Australian pub rock band primarily active throughout the 1980s. The band was founded in 1979 by the Field brothers—Paul, John, and Anthony —and Tony Henry on drums and Joseph Hallion on saxophone. They were joined in 1981 by Jeff Fatt on keyboards. In 1986 they signed with an independent label, Regular Records, which issued their first three albums, including The Cockroaches, which peaked at No. 9 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart; it sold 70,000 copies and was certified platinum by their label. The album spawned the single "She's the One", which became the band's biggest hit when it peaked at No. 7 on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart in April 1987. In 1988, The Daily Telegraph described the Cockroaches, who played over 300 gigs a year, as the "Hardest Working Rock'n'Roll Band" in the country.
Paul Andrew Paddick is an Australian singer and actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Captain Feathersword, "the friendly pirate", a character associated with the children's band the Wiggles, where he eventually came to be known as "the fifth Wiggle".
Phillip Leslie Wilcher is an Australian pianist and classical music composer who was a founding member of the children's music group the Wiggles. When Wilcher published his first work, "Daybreak", at the age of 14, he was one of the youngest classical composers in Australia.
The Wiggles is the debut album by the Australian children's band the Wiggles, released in 1991 by ABC Music distributed by Phonogram. As a student music project at Macquarie University, the band assembled a group of songs reworked from the Cockroaches as well as arrangements of children's music. It was the only album that involved Phillip Wilcher as one of the group's members. The album sold 100,000 copies, and received Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) and Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) awards.
Yummy Yummy is the fourth studio album by Australian children's music group the Wiggles. it was released in 1994 by ABC Music. A companion video was also made in 1994, and it was re-recorded in 1998.
Big Red Car is the fifth album by Australian band the Wiggles, released in 1995 by ABC Music distributed by EMI. This album won the ARIA Award for Best Children's Album in 1995.
Wake Up Jeff! is the sixth album by Australian band the Wiggles, released in 1996 by ABC Music distributed by EMI. It won the ARIA Award for Best Children's Album in 1996.
Wiggle Time is the first home video from The Wiggles. It was released in 1993. It contains songs from the albums The Wiggles, Here Comes a Song and Stories and Songs: The Adventures of Captain Feathersword the Friendly Pirate. It also contains two songs newly recorded. The Wiggles and their friends Dorothy the Dinosaur, Henry the Octopus and Captain Feathersword all made their debuts.
Wiggly, Wiggly Christmas, released in 1996 by ABC Music distributed by EMI. It is the Wiggles' seventh album and the group's first Christmas album. It was made into a video the following year.
Simon James Pryce is an Australian children's entertainer, singer and actor. He is best known for his work as the Red Wiggle of The Wiggles since 2013, and also for the children's show The Kingdom of Paramithi.
The Wiggles Pty Ltd is the business created by the founders of the Australian children's music group The Wiggles. The group was protective of their brand, and adopted many of the same business practices as The Cockroaches, the former band of Anthony Field and Jeff Fatt, two of their founding members. They remained as independent as possible, and retained full creative control and ownership of every aspect of their business. As Field stated, The Wiggles Pty Ltd was "not your regular 'corporate culture'." The group made decisions by consensus and made business decisions based upon their experience as performers and their knowledge of early childhood education. They did not tour with a large troupe of dancers, cast, and crew until the late 1990s, and had high expectations regarding the behaviour and attitude of everyone associated with the group. They made careful decisions regarding their endorsements of toys and other products, and avoided over-extending their brand by only licensing products that correlated with their image.
The Wiggles characters are a group of characters who perform with the Wiggles, the Australian children's music group. Aside from the eight Wiggles, four secondary characters, along with a troupe of singers, actors, and dancers, appear in their television series, videos, and live concerts. These characters were developed in the 1990s and were originally played by group members and by Anthony Field's brother Paul Field, the band's manager. Later in the group's history, the characters were played by hired actors dressed in the characters' costumes.
Live Hot Potatoes! is the first live concert album released by Australian children's music group, the Wiggles. It was released in 2005 in Australia by ABC Music, distributed by Roadshow Entertainment. It won the ARIA Music Award for Best Children's Album.
Och Aye the G'nu is a 2017 children's album credited to Australian singer-songwriter, Jimmy Barnes and the Wiggles. It was first mentioned by Anthony Field in the Wiggles' 25th anniversary feature interview. The album was released in March 2017 and peaked at number 34 on the ARIA Charts.
↑ Field credited two doctors, chiropractors James Stoxen from Chicago and Richard Gringeri from Santa Clara, California, with the improvement in his health Field 2012, p.7.
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