Mike Brady | |
---|---|
Born | Michael Brady 28 February 1948 England |
Occupation(s) | Musician, radio presenter |
Michael Brady AM (born 28 February 1948) is an English-born Australian musician, most commonly associated with the Australian rules football anthems "Up There Cazaly", referring to 1910s St Kilda and 1920s South Melbourne player Roy Cazaly, and "One Day in September", which were released by The Two-Man Band. Both songs have become synonymous with Australian rules football and are traditionally sung on AFL Grand Final day in September.
Brady was born in England in 1948 and migrated to Australia in the 1950s with his family. His first job was at the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation factory in Port Melbourne, Victoria, as a sheet metal worker. [1] He started performing when he was 15 and he was one-third of the 1960s pop act MPD Ltd (which stood for Mike, Pete [Watson] and Danny [Finley]) which had hits in Australia including "Little Boy Sad" and "Lonely Boy". The band toured Australia and the U.K. Brady also toured Vietnam entertaining troops, with a different band which included Wayne Duncan, Gary Howard and country brother and sister act Ricki and Tammy. After the breakup of MPD Ltd.,
In the early 1970s, Brady continued to release a number of singles, including two which reached the Australian top 50. [2] . He sang backing vocals for Renée Geyer's second album It's a Man's Man's World. [3]
In the mid-1970s, Brady started his own record company called "Full Moon Records" and a publishing company called "Remix Publishing".[ citation needed ]
In 1978, The Mojo Singers had reached the top of the Australian charts with the single "C'mon Aussie C'mon" which had been written to promote World Series Cricket, shown on Channel Nine. Seven Network reached out to Brady to write a jingle for the Victorian Football League (VFL), which Brady wrote "Up There Cazaly", referencing footballer Roy Cazaly. He worked with Pete Sullivan on recording the jingle.
The popularity of the jingle led to the release of the song in July 1979 credited to The Two-Man Band and it reached #1 on the Australian charts in September 1979 and was the most popular single recorded by an Australian artist that year. [2] The song became the highest selling Australian single ever with sales of over 240,000 as of October 1979 [4] and 260,000 as of the end of 1980. [5]
The Two-Man Band released a further three top 100 singles in 1980 and 1981.
In July 1981, Brady released, Mike Brady Presents: The Songs of Football's Greatest, an album referencing numerous VFL players. the album peaked at number 44 on the ARIA Charts.
In 1982 Brady wrote "You're Here to Win" as the theme song for the 1982 Commonwealth Games.
Brady has continued to work in advertising, writing jingles such as "Dodo, Dodo, internet that flies" for Dodo Internet and "Lucky you're with AAMI". [6]
In 1987, Brady recorded versions of all of the VFL team's theme songs for an album in 1987. Brady also co-wrote and produced another popular AFL (Australian Football League) jingle, "That's What I Like About Football", sung by Greg Champion.
In 2003, "Up There Cazaly" was reworked as "Up There Australia" to show support for Australian troops in the War of Iraq in 2003.
In addition to his jingle writing and performing, Brady also works at Melbourne radio station, 3AW He is the host of Mike to Midnight, Saturday nights from 6pm until Midnight, during the non-football months and occasionally fills in on other 3AW programs such as Nightline. [7]
Brady is also the chairman of Cogmetrix, a predictive people analytics company that uses cognitive neuroscience software for talent management; recruitment, productivity and organisational development.
Brady has for a number of years sung the Australian national anthem before the start of the Puffing Billy Great Train Race in Belgrave. [8]
Brady is a board member on the Prostate Cancer Foundation Australia Victorian Board and has performed at many men's health events. [9] He has been a board director of Variety Victoria and is a Life Member of the organisation. [10]
Brady is a patron of the Bali Children Foundation and the Australian Huntington's Disease Association (Vic), and is involved with the Bluearth Foundation, Melbourne Legacy and the Yooralla Society. He is also an Australia Day ambassador. [1] [9]
Brady lives in Melbourne, Australia. He has four children, including Michael Brady Jr., a maritime history researcher and illustrator that runs the YouTube channel Oceanliner Designs.
Title | Album details | Peak chart positions |
---|---|---|
AUS [2] | ||
Invisible Man |
| — |
Mike Brady Presents: The Songs of Football's Greatest |
| 44 |
Country to Country |
| — |
Bloodlines (The Australian Irish Story) |
| — |
Title | EP details |
---|---|
Up There Mike Brady |
|
Year | Title | Peak chart positions | Album |
---|---|---|---|
AUS [2] [13] | |||
1970 | "Finger Poppin'" / "Big White Bird" | 76 | Non-album singles |
"Sympathy" | 42 | ||
1971 | "Oh Lord, Why Lord" | 50 | |
1972 | "Hello Mum" | — | |
1981 | "The Cube" / "The Headless Horsemen" | — | |
1982 | "You're Here to Win" | 49 | |
1988 | "We'll Be There" | — | |
1995 | "The Diggers Legacy (How Could We Forget)" | — | Non-album singles |
1998 | "Courage in Their Eyes" | — | |
1999 | "Up There Cazaly '99" (with Haley White) | 78 | |
2014 | "Up There Cazaly" (re-release) [14] | — | |
2017 | "Come My Children" (live - featuring Russell Morris) [15] | — | |
2018 | "This Place" [16] | — | |
2019 | "When I Was Young" [17] | — |
In the 2013 Queens Birthday Honours List, Mike Brady was made a member of the Order of Australia (AM) "For significant service to the community, and to music as a composer and performer". [18] In 2017 he was named Victorian of the Year by the Victoria Day Council.[ citation needed ]
Countdown was an Australian pop music TV series on national broadcaster ABC-TV from 1974 to 1987, it presented music awards from 1979 to 1987, initially in conjunction with magazine TV Week . The TV Week / Countdown Awards were a combination of popular-voted and peer-voted awards. [19]
Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1979 | himself | Most Outstanding Achievement | Nominated |
3AW is a talkback radio station based in Melbourne, Australia, owned by Nine Entertainment. It broadcasts on 693 kHz AM. It began transmission on 22 February 1932 as Melbourne's fifth commercial radio station.
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Roy Cazaly was an Australian rules footballer who played for South Melbourne and St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He also represented Victoria and Tasmania in interstate football, and after his retirement as a player, turned to coaching. Known for his ruck work and high-flying marks, he inspired the common catchphrase "Up there, Cazaly!", which in 1979 became a popular song of the same name, securing his place in Australian folklore.
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"Up There Cazaly" is 1979 song by Mike Brady, written to promote Channel Seven's coverage of the Victorian Football League (VFL). It was first performed by the Two-Man Band, a duo of Brady and Peter Sullivan, and has since become an unofficial anthem of Australian rules football.
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The Two-Man Band were an Australian band formed by Mike Brady and Peter Sullivan. They are best known for their number 1 single "Up There Cazaly". The song became the highest selling Australian single ever with sales of over 240,000 as of October 1979.
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MPD Ltd or M. P. D. Limited were an Australian pop music band formed in 1965 by core members Mike Brady on lead vocals and guitar, Pete Watson on bass guitar and lead vocals, and Danny Finley on drums. They used their first initials to provide the name. Their popular singles were "Little Boy Sad" and "Lonely Boy" (October). MPD Ltd issued an album, The Best of MPD Ltd, in 1966 on Go!! Records before disbanding in 1967. Pete Watson died of an illness on 30 April 1972.