Mike Brady (musician)

Early life and career

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. He started performing when he was 15 and he was one-third of the 1960s pop act MPD Ltd. (which stood for Mike, Pete and Danny) 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., Brady continued to record occasionally and had a top 10 hit with "Sympathy".

Discography

1. Goodbye Doc (Darrel Baldock)
2. The All Bionic Football (Peter Moore)
3. One Goal to Beat 'Em All (Peter Hudson)
4. Big Gub From Over West (Polly Farmer)
5. It All Sounds Like Football to Me (Ted Whitten)
6. Bobby Dazzler (Bobby Skilton)
7. Flyin' High to Glory (John Coleman)
8. The Infamous Captain Blood (Jack Dyer)
9. The Ballad of the Paleface Kid (Keith Greig)
10. The Heart of the Lion (Kevin Murray)
11. Those Cold Blue Eyes (John Nicholls)
12. Kiss of Death (Lou Richards)
13. Man of Iron (Ron Barassi)

Up There Cazaly

Brady started working as a jingle writer and was very successful. He also started his own record company called "Full Moon Records" and a publishing company called "Remix Publishing".

In 1979, the Seven Network approached Brady to write a jingle to promote the Victorian Football League (VFL). 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 and Seven was looking for a jingle to promote its Australian Rules broadcasts.

Brady wrote "Up There Cazaly", named after a phrase used by team mates to encourage Cazaly to take his spectacular marks and had since been used by Australian troops in World War II. He worked with Pete Sullivan on recording the jingle.

The popularity of the jingle led to the release of the song credited to the Two-Man Band. It reached #1 on the Australian charts in September 1979 and was the most popular single recorded by an Australian artist that year. It sold 250,000 copies making it the most popular single ever released by an Australian artist in Australia at that time.

Later career

Brady had established recording studios in Melbourne, Australia. In July 1980, in Brady's studios, Joe Dolce and his group the Joe Dolce Music Theatre recorded the song "Shaddap You Face", which had been a success in Dolce's cabaret show. Dolce took the song to Mushroom Records and Festival Records but neither label was interested. Dolce went back to Brady who agreed to finance the record.

By November 1980 the song had topped the Australian charts and became the (then) best selling Australian song in Australia ever. Elton John had made a bid for the rights but had been knocked back. By February 1981 "Shaddup You Face" had reached the top of the United Kingdom charts and was becoming an international hit in Europe and the United States. The song would sell four million copies worldwide. Elton John had persuaded Andrew Sachs of Fawlty Towers to record a version but it failed to chart. In 1982 Brady wrote "You're here to win" as the theme song for the XII Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, Australia.

Since then 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". He continued to write material for the VFL. In the early 1980s he reworked "Up There Cazaly" into a theme song for the Sydney Swans' relocation into Sydney. He wrote "One Day in September" about the VFL grand final and recorded versions of many 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. "Up There Cazaly" was reworked in 1999 with Haley White for its 20th anniversary but failed to make the same impact. It was reworked as "Up There Australia" to show support for Australian troops in the War of Iraq in 2003.

Brady has written songs for popular Australian artists such as John Farnham and Tina Arena and produced albums by Arena and Colleen Hewett. He also wrote the song "Courage in their Eyes" for the Seven Network's Olympics coverage.

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.

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.

1982 re-recording

In 1982 "Up There Cazaly" was rewritten and released as "Up There Old England" by Cliff Portwood and members of the 1966 FIFA World Cup team. Cliff Portwood was a long-time friend of Mike Brady and had permission to use this song along with Peter Sullivan, Cliff's pianist in Australia for the World Cup in 1982. Mike flew to England to help Cliff record the song, but unfortunately it was never released, due to the B side of the song having a portion of "Land Of Hope Glory" on it, creating a minor licensing issue just as it was getting major airtime on the radio.

Honour

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". In 2017 he was named Victorian of the Year by the Victoria Day Council.

Community and charity work

Brady is a board member on the Prostate Cancer Foundation Australia Victorian Board and has performed at many men's health events. He has been a board director of Variety Victoria and is a Life Member of the organisation.

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.

Personal life

Brady lives in Melbourne, Australia. He has four children.

Like many people, Brady has experienced highs and lows in his business life. In the 1980s and 1990s, he ventured into property development, hotels, timber milling and restaurants and lost a large amount of money. Since then he has fought back to financial success.