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Speaker 1: Releases the story behind the album.

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Speaker 2: So it's hard to believe that was nineteen eighty six

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Speaker 2: that Whispering Jack came out. The twelfth studio album by

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Speaker 2: John Farnham, released on the twenty ninth of September nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighty six, peaking at number one on the Australian Kent

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Speaker 2: Music Reports Report Albums chart. It became the second biggest

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Speaker 2: selling album in Australia, behind only Meatloafs album Bat Out

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Speaker 2: of Hell, and the highest selling album in Australia by

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Speaker 2: an Australian artist. It remains the third best selling album

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Speaker 2: of all time in Australia because Shana Twain came along

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Speaker 2: with her.

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Speaker 1: Oh really had tight pants on? Brad Pitt b well

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Speaker 1: that carry on, it wasn't it. But anyway, that's another

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Speaker 1: album for another day. What a phenomenon it was. It's

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Speaker 1: just incredible, wasn't it?

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Speaker 2: Well, as we said prior to this, because Glenn Wheatley

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Speaker 2: mortgaged the home to raise the funds for recording of

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Speaker 2: the album, such was his belief because.

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Speaker 1: Fans he was broke, so broke. Yeah, it is incredible.

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Speaker 1: I made you think about it. After he was the

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Speaker 1: king of pop and Sadie, the Cleaning eighty all that stuff.

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Speaker 1: By the mid eighties, John was playing pub gigs, doing

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Speaker 1: Bob c Could covers and stuff like that.

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Speaker 2: What happened there was so bad. There was some bad

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Speaker 2: sort of decisions financially.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, not the best advice, not the best advice.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't playing big gigs, he was playing small gigs.

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Speaker 1: And have a listen to this. This is how broke

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Speaker 1: John Farne was.

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Speaker 3: I had to sell everything. I had to sell my

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Speaker 3: house and the car, and we didn't have durribly much

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Speaker 3: to begin with.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, hard to believe, isn't it? Really believe? Indeed? And

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Speaker 1: you talk about that relationship with Glenn Wakley. Those two

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Speaker 1: were so tight and how many times have you saved

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Speaker 1: one another's But.

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Speaker 3: I mean he got me when when I knew Whispering

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Speaker 3: Jack he needs you moved to that album in pretty

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Speaker 3: solid actually gone, there was a big one.

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Speaker 1: Why did you keep backing him?

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Speaker 3: I mean probably, well, mainly because I believed him, and

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Speaker 3: mostly because.

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Speaker 1: He's my friend. And Glenn, when John couldn't get a

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Speaker 1: record deal, what made you believe that he had the

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Speaker 1: talent when a lot of other people didn't think he

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Speaker 1: had it. I just think that John threw that not

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Speaker 1: a good advice, just lost a little bit of direction.

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Speaker 1: He never lost his talents. So true.

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Speaker 2: It all happened fairly quickly really, because it was nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighty five. Farnham was still in the Little Riverband. When

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Speaker 2: he started collecting a song list for a future album.

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Speaker 2: He just had this germ of an idea of I'm

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Speaker 2: going to, you know, make this album that's going to

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Speaker 2: go on to be just a huge piece of Australian

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Speaker 2: album history. It was an early nineteen eighty six that

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Speaker 2: sound engineer Ross Fraser suggested to Glenn Wheatley it was

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Speaker 2: time to start working on said solo album, and that's

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Speaker 2: when they searched in Vain for a producer and record

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Speaker 2: label willing to work with Farnham. They couldn't, so Fraser

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Speaker 2: took on the produce a role, and that's why weakly

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Speaker 2: provided that financial support.

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Speaker 1: Isn't it hard to believe too? We look at the

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Speaker 1: success of it now, the sales and the history and

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Speaker 1: all the rest of it, and how it's such an

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Speaker 1: iconic album. But even John wasn't sure whether he could

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Speaker 1: believe in himself at that stage. Well, he didn't a

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Speaker 1: nervous wreck going to.

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Speaker 2: A life as we saw in that amazing documentary probably

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Speaker 2: is good shown up and you mentioned LB there.

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Speaker 1: One of his bandmates was David Hirschfelder, that musical genius

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Speaker 1: who was for many years part of his band and

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Speaker 1: the musical director. Really he is David talking about putting

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Speaker 1: together you the voice.

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Speaker 4: We decided to go for the machine gun sort of

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Speaker 4: handclap effect as a sort of militaristic it's also celebratory tribalism.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what we were doing, but it.

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Speaker 4: Just all that sort of stuff seemed to feel right

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Speaker 4: for the lyric of the song. But in the solo section,

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Speaker 4: my idea was pan pipes, all these pan pipes of

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Speaker 4: the Andes, and I simulated them all on synthesizers and

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Speaker 4: samples of actual pan pipes as well. But John said,

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Speaker 4: it's something this thing is just not quite lifting enough.

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Speaker 1: I know, bag pipes. Wow, what a moment. Absolutely bag pipes.

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Speaker 1: It's just increating. Yeah, they did.

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Speaker 2: And also because at that time John was still trying

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Speaker 2: to shed that Sadie the cleaning lady Johnny Johnny Farnham's

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Speaker 2: sort of persona, and initially the public interest in the

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Speaker 2: rebranded former teen Ardle was difficult to cultivate and radio

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Speaker 2: stations refused to play him. So there was that great

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Speaker 2: story about them taking your voice into the Sydney radio

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Speaker 2: station two DAYFM. And this is back in the days

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Speaker 2: where you could actually just.

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Speaker 1: Run into the studio with the song.

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Speaker 2: They play this now, and they did and the rest

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Speaker 2: is history.

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Speaker 1: And that's that weird story. It happens a few times

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Speaker 1: where they go, we may not even put the name

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Speaker 1: of the artist on here, so there's no bias. But

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Speaker 1: the Wheatleys, even though they're back, John, they didn't really

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Speaker 1: like the recording of your the voice at the start.

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Speaker 1: This is such an amazing story.

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Speaker 4: And we had a bottleshep we think we're going to

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Speaker 4: the studio and get ready to hear it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, hit me. I played it to me and I

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Speaker 1: left me flap. Glen and I looked at each other

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Speaker 1: and it was like, that's not It wasn't quite And

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Speaker 1: John looked at us, said you don't like it, do you?

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Speaker 1: I said, well, it wasn't like the demo. He said no,

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Speaker 1: but we recorded it properly.

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Speaker 4: My problem is I thought that your vocal on the

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Speaker 4: demo was better than the vocal they've done on this,

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Speaker 4: and he was angry.

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Speaker 1: So he got very angry with me. Rossphrase that I'm

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Speaker 1: going out there and I'll sing it again. Turn the

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Speaker 1: lights out, turn the cans up well, and then people

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Speaker 1: in the studio when I'm trying to sing because I

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Speaker 1: get paranoid. If you won't be laughing at me, be

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Speaker 1: talking about me, you oughta.

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Speaker 3: Boice, lay understand, making eyes of making tea.

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Speaker 1: And he sang the living hell out of that.

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Speaker 2: Song, and the hiss on our arms in the back

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Speaker 2: of our necks came up and it was like, that's

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Speaker 2: the song.

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Speaker 1: Look got him. Now I got the pot count as well. Amazing.

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Speaker 2: Isn't it worst story when when your album becomes your

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Speaker 2: alter ego Whispering Jack, that that says it all.

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Speaker 1: Really doesn't get much better, does it,