"Like making any new record, at first it was a bit of a struggle. It's a puzzle. You've got to figure out the pieces. Then it starts falling into place."

 

Actually, Ross Wilson's back catalogue is like one of those 10,000-piece double-sided puzzles with no straight edges. Tributary, his first acoustic album for Australia's premier legacy label, Liberation Blue, could have been put together a hundred different ways. But it was always going to blow your mind.

 

"The first thing I had to work out was how to make it interesting to me," says the voice of Daddy Cool, Mondo Rock and a maze of other musical ventures. "I didn’t wanna pick up an acoustic guitar and play the songs the same but softer. Like, you can't beat the original Eagle Rock. You've got to take it somewhere completely different."

 

Somewhere like a ragtime gin joint circa 1908, in the case of that unassailable Oz radio classic. Another early '70s gem, Bom Bom, wakes up in a French Caribbean dancehall in an Afro-Cuban sea breeze. Mondo Rock's State of The Heart is playfully recast as Daddy Cool doo-wop, and Bed of Nails is stunningly reborn as a mournful bluegrass hayride.

 

Other transformations are more subtle. Mondo's biggest hit, Come Said The Boy, wears a melancholy melodica motif, new bass line and vital re-emphasis in the backing vocal department. Hi Honey Ho leans closer to Tamworth while Zoop Bop Gold Cadillac takes a spin through LA's Mexican quarter.

 

"A lot if it is about choosing the right players," says Ross, a connoisseur of musos and styles after 40 years at every frontier of popular music. Jazz pianist and arranger John McAll and bluegrass maestro Gerry Hale are vital cogs in his umpteenth studio ensemble. Check out Dorian West's sighing slide guitar on an older, sadder Cool World, and the fluid percussive grooves of Nicky Bomba and Stuart Fraser on Fugitive Kind and a haunting Heartbreak Hotel, the album's sole, resonant cover.

 

Then again, some of the greatest moments here simply come from the back of the singer's own head: the lost or forgotten likes of Boy You’re Paranoid, Aliens Walk Among Us and Searching For My Baby sound like pieces of a brand new puzzle, glued together with If You Ever Come Back, a new song that closes a circle begun by a teenaged loner circa '65.

 

"Come Back Again was about this loser teen guy, following the girl back from the dance, moping around the streets late at night. That was me before I joined a band," Ross laughs. "If You Ever Come Back is the same guy, but now he's older, sitting in a room, probably in a straitjacket by this time."

 

Always the same guy, always completely different, and maybe a little crazy after all these years. That's Ross Wilson for you.

 

ROSS WILSON

Timeline

 

1964   Forms school R&B band, The Pink Finks

 

1965   First single, Louie Louie

 

1966   Hones songwriting chops with The Party Machine

 

1968   Relocates to UK with avant garde pioneers, Procession

 

1969   Forms Melbourne prog rock band Sons Of The Vegetal Mother

 

1970   Daddy Cool takes Melbourne live scene by storm

 

1971   Eagle Rock leads record-shattering sales of debut album

            Daddy Cool is first Oz contender on US touring circuit

 

1972   Top 10 second album, Sex, Dope, Rock'n'Roll: Teenage Heaven

 

1974   Ross produces Skyhooks' milestone debut for Mushroom Records

 

1976   Debut solo recording, Living In The Land Of Oz

Produces Jo Jo Zep, The Sports

 

1977   Forms Mondo Rock

 

1979   Primal Park album

 

1980   Second Mondo line-up's Chemistry album yields four smash singles

 

1983   Writes and produces Pat Wilson's #2 hit, Bop Girl

 

1984   Modern Bop spawns biggest Mondo hit, Come Said the Boy 

 

1986   Produces The Johnnys debut album

 

1987   Co-writes John Farnham hit, Touch of Paradise

 

1989   Debut solo album, Dark Side of the Man

 

1991   Forms power funk outfit, RAW

 

1994   Daddy Cool/ Skyhooks single hits Top 40

 

2001   Eagle Rock voted #2 in APRA's Greatest Australian Songs

New solo album GoBONGO GoWild! launches live rebirth

Now Listen! The Best of Ross Wilson compiles 30 songs on 2CDs

 

2002   Plays to 150,000 on Long Way To The Top tour

 

2003   Country & Wilson album accentuates roots

 

2003   The Essential Mondo Rock, 29 tracks on 2CDs

 

2004   DJ Damon Boyd samples Come Said The Boy on #1 dance hit

 

2005   Daddy Cool perform for the first time since '75

The Complete Daddy Cool DVD

 

2006   Mondo Rock play to 80,000 on Countdown Spectacular tour

 

2007   The New Cool, Daddy Cool's first album in 32 years

Daddy Cool tour with the Beach Boys

 

2008   Tributary, acoustic album on Liberation Blue