Biography
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Years Active
1975 – 1984 (9 years)
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Members
- Gary Young
- James Valentine (1982 – 1982)
- Jeff Burstin
- Joe Camilleri
- Tony Faehse
Joe Camilleri (born 1948 in Malta) is a legendary Australian singer, songwriter and saxophonist. He has also recorded under the pseudonums "Jo Jo Zep" and "Joey Vincent".
He began his music career playing blues and R&B, and in the late 1960s he was a member of Adderly Smith Blues Band but according to Australian rock historian Ed Nimmervoll Camilleri was sacked for sounding too much like Mick Jagger and for upstaging the other band members.
Camilleri gained national prominence in Australia in the late 1970s as lead singer, songwriter and saxophonist in Jo Jo Zep & the Falcons, formed in 1975. Incorporating influences from blues, R&B, soul, punk, New Wave and reggae, the group achieved considerable commercial and critical success in Australia.
During this period Camilleri also produced recording for other artists and recorded his own side projects under the name Joey Vincent.
After the demise of the Falcons in 1983 Joe achieved his greatest success with his long-running group The Black Sorrows, which began as an informal semi-acoustic band playing blues, R&B and zydeco.
The group soon developed a strong fan following and garnered wide critical acclaim for its recordings and superb live performances, and The BLack Sorrows was widely acknowledged as one of the best live bands in Australia. It showcased the vocal talents of the sister duo Vika and Linda and the compositional prowess of Camilleri and his longtime writing partner Nick Smith and the superb playing of Camilleri's longtime guitarist Jeff Burstin. They released a string of commerically successful and critically acclaimed albums in the 1980s and 1990s including A Place In The World, Dear Children (an Australian Top 20 album in 1987), and Better Times.
His most recent project is the 2005 album Limestone, a collaboration with Bomba's Nicky Bomba.
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