The write-ups and obituaries of the music industry icon,who died in his sleep on Monday night,will highlight the big-selling and groundbreaking acts he worked with as a record label boss and promoter – Kylie Minogue,Jimmy Barnes,Skyhooks are just a few – and they’re definitely an important part of his legacy.
But Gudinski’scontribution over almost 50 years was richer than that,extending well beyond his best-known acts. What he managed to do went deeper. He was a relentless enthusiast for all music,especially Australian music. He did a great deal to change perceptions of what Australian musicians could do on the stage,in the recording studio and in the business.
He was no music snob. Mushroom was home to Paul Kelly and Yothu Yindi and Peter Andre. As one of his colleagues told me,“Michael was as enthusiastic about Kylie Minogue’s music as he was about what Chris Wilson was doing. To him,it was about giving everyone a chance to be heard.”
It’s hard to comprehend in these days when the international success of,say,Sia and Tame Impala is hardly noteworthy,but when Gudinski first started out as an 18-year-old promoter in 1970,Australia was still something of a musical backwater. True,the Redcliffe-raised Bee Gees had repatriated to the UK and enjoyed success on both sides of the Atlantic,and the Easybeats,also foreign-born,had notched up a hit in Britain withFriday On My Mind. But Australian music itself was an added extra for most fans. When international acts visited,which happened rarely,the tours could go badly. This happened in 1968 when the Who and the Small Faces were hounded by the press,authorities and local airlines for being rowdy and unco-operative.
Local acts mostly recorded singles rather than albums. Bands like Axiom and the Masters Apprentices would score a succession of hits in Australia,head to London,make some recordings,fail to break through and break up. That started to change with the success of Daddy Cool in 1971 and Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs,a massive live act,in 1972. The first big local music festival,Sunbury,outside Melbourne,in 1972 showed that Australian music was starting to assert itself.
Gudinski could see that and wanted in. He formed Mushroom Records later that year and signed up a diffuse array of acts – blues singer Matt Taylor,psychedelic pop band Madder Lake,a free-form instrumental outfit called MacKenzie Theory. There was something distinctively outre about these choices,a sign that Mushroom was definitely not an Australian offshoot of an international record company like EMI or Warner Bros driven by external commercial imperatives. Mushroom’s idiosyncratic choices were clearly being made here.