Into the Spotlight

‘Come and see my cabaret show, Dad. You’ll love it,’ Elly-May said proudly one day. ‘Oh, and could you please invite a bunch of your friends too?’

I suspected that maybe I was being used as rent-a-crowd. If I went along and took all my mates, the place would be reasonably full. But Elly-May is my youngest daughter and naturally I would do anything for her (and for any of my kids). Even force my friends to go to a show midweek, when I know they all have work the next day.

‘All right, baby, where and when is it on? You’d better give me the times so I can tell all the gang. If you want a crowd, I’ll need to give them a heads-up.’

‘It’s next Tuesday, at eight o’clock,’ Elly said casually as she headed for the door. It was Friday, so that wasn’t a lot of notice, especially as it was close to Christmas and everybody was flat out. But then again, it was for Elly-May.

Not only is she my youngest daughter, but she’s had a tough life. A life full of challenges. She was born small and frail, arriving very prematurely at just twenty-six weeks – three and a half months early. Her odds of survival weren’t that good. Not thirty years ago anyway. But she was a fighter from day one.

Being born so early affected Elly-May physically. She had trouble with some of her motor skills and walking was especially difficult. When she was two, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. That led to her being fitted with splints and undergoing countless operations and procedures, and enduring chronic pain. Yet all the while she smiled and brought brightness into our lives.

Since then, Elly-May has had to struggle every day just to get by, let alone become the beautiful, accomplished young woman she is now. She’s funny, positive and strong, but frail and needy at the same time. She’s also very smart and, dare I say it, a little bit manipulative. Let’s just say she likes to get her own way, and that’s not easy in our family, so she has to have a few tricks up her sleeve. And she seems to have trained me to respond to those tricks more than the others. Hence I’m the go-to person when she wants anything. Which is fine because I like to spoil her.

Elly-May’s first spotlight was a heat lamp that helped keep her alive.

It’s not easy being part of our family business. You would think that my success in the music world would smooth the way for Elly. But it is as much a hindrance as it is a help. Ask any of her siblings. People always expect more from the children of performers. Plus she has so much close competition. Her mum, Jane, is amazing. She writes songs, sings and plays various musical instruments – guitar, bass, piano and bagpipes, to mention just a few. Elly’s sisters and brother are all high achievers too. Mahalia is a superwoman who can do anything she puts her mind to. She writes songs and manages tours, and she’s a great soul singer. Eliza-Jane has the voice of an angel (and the temper of a demon!), can play beautiful guitar and could engineer and produce an album if you wanted her to. She has spent years singing backing vocals with me and with our dear friend Neil Finn. Jackie, my son, topped his year in music at Cranbrook School and graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, one of the world’s most prestigious music schools, with flying colours. He’s an excellent drummer, a very accomplished piano player and also writes songs and sings really well.

These guys don’t cut Elly-May any slack, especially if she messes anything up. They want her to be tough. So she’s had to fight her whole life to crawl out from their shadows, even just for a chance to sing with the family. It’s been harder still for her to do her own thing, develop her own ideas, be herself. That’s meant steadily building up her confidence, and the cabaret show she’d been working on really seemed to be helping with that. I couldn’t wait to see it.

‘What songs are you singing, baby?’ I asked. I wanted to know what to expect.

‘Oh, you know. A bit of this and a bit of that. You’ll just have to wait and see, Dadda.’ She smiled and blew me a kiss.

I had absolutely no trouble talking people into coming out early in the week to see Elly’s show. In fact, I soon found out that most of our close friends were already going. The word was out. Elly didn’t need me to fill the room. She pulled her own crowd. I got the feeling that I was the last to know how good she really was.

Of course I’d seen her sing. She performs with my band most nights, but to be out front, alone, was a new challenge and I wanted her to nail it. I was probably more nervous than she was, but I tried not to let her see it. I’d known for a while that she was working on a show and I’d even seen parts of it, but it was clear that she had refined her ideas since then, adding costumes, props, gags, lights and special effects. She’d even poached Clayton Doley, the piano player from my band. And with Clayton behind her she was confident enough to take the show to anyone.

The venue was to be Elly-May’s favourite bar, a little place called Low 302 in Crown Street, Surry Hills. She and her friends had held parties there for years. Elly told me she’d roped in a lot of those friends to be part of the show. One was the maître d’ at the bar. Another friend would be the compere. Her cousin James, who plays great guitar and sings, was to be the opening act. Her favourite barman had been promoted to sound guy, but he still had to run and get Elly any drinks she needed during the show. Lucky it was a small bar.

One of Elly’s best friends, Mel, who also happened to be the bar manager, would be playing the trombone in the show. And the stage dressing had been assigned to a couple of other friends who are particularly tall as well as beautiful: Grace Garrett, daughter of Peter Garrett, my dear friend from Midnight Oil, and Kitty Callaghan, daughter of Mark Callaghan from GANGgajang. Both also had roles throughout the show, dancing, playing percussion, rearranging the stage props and even escorting people onto and off the stage.

The following Tuesday I arrived at the venue a little early to make sure my friends were well looked after. Grace and Kitty were standing on the tiny stage, sticking stars to the ceiling and pinning up curtains. No need for ladders – a smart move by Elly. I had to laugh. Friends in high places, you might say. Elly was running around giving final instructions to her troupe as they carried costumes from the car. A lot of costumes.

The doors opened and the room quickly filled. Not only with friends but with all sorts of punters. I sat in a corner and looked around the room. I recognised a few big guys from local record companies, as well as singers, guitar players, TV stars, dancers, chefs, actors, bikies and bankers, as well as a few high-profile people from the Sydney cabaret scene. All waiting for the show to start, all waiting to see my baby. I started to sweat with anxiety. I needed a drink.

On my way to the bar, I spotted some fans I’d seen many times in the front rows of my own shows. I nodded as I walked past. ‘Hey, how are you doing? Thanks for coming out to see my girl. I think you’ll like the show,’ I said, adopting the role of proud dad.

One of them smiled and replied, ‘Oh, we’ve seen it many times, Jimmy. But it’s nice to see you here tonight.’

When I got back to my table, the show was almost ready to begin. I sat like a nervous stage mother waiting for the show to commence. There was a buzz in the air. Everywhere I looked there were celebrities and musicians. Daniel Johns from Silverchair bounced through the room shirtless like the rock star he is, with a beautiful girl on his arm. Each of them had a large glass of something that looked deadly. Daniel had a slightly crazed expression on his face, like he was looking for trouble. He thumped my back on the way past. ‘Hey, Jimmy. What are we singing with her tonight?’

I didn’t think I was singing anything. ‘Whatever you like, Daniel. You dream it and I’ll scream it.’

On the stage were a few props: two chairs and a table with bottles of whisky spread across it. I started to worry. Was Elly taking after her dad a little too much? Later, during the break, I was relieved to hear that the bottles were filled with tea.

Elly started the show with a routine about being disorganised. She picked up a large book and said, ‘I’ve written my stage patter in this book. I’m a bit nervous and I might forget things. Okay, let me see where we are up to.’ She smiled and flicked through her book. ‘Ah, yes, here we go. Now I know where I am.’

She closed the book. ‘Good evening.’

The crowd laughed.

Elly then proceeded to introduce each song she sang with a series of great gags. My girl was funny!

The owner of the bar, Aref Jaroudy, had been given the job of operating the smoke machine and the lights. As the night wore on, he was the butt of many jokes.

‘Not enough smoke, man,’ Elly would say waving her hand and gesturing for him to smoke the room out. Then it would be, ‘Stop. You’re killing me with the smoke now. Get it together or I’ll have to put you back on wardrobe duty.’

The songs began and as she introduced each number she broke out a few stories that gave everyone in the room an insight into her struggles. Even me, and I knew all her stories.

‘I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but I’ve got cerebral palsy. And although I would love to go out walking, I can’t. So I’m going to do the next best thing and sing a song about it for you.’ And she broke into the Patsy Cline song ‘Walking After Midnight’. I looked around the room and saw I wasn’t the only one crying.

The show was moving, confronting, even outrageous at times. And all of Elly’s friends did everything they could to make it a success. I was mesmerised by my darling little girl as she held the audience in the palm of her hand. Jane and I sat with our arms round each other, feeling so proud and laughing along with the rest of the crowd.

Elly invited one of the young guys from the bar up on stage for Dusty Springfield’s ‘You Don’t Own Me’ and pushed and prodded him as she leaned close and sang softly in his ear, only to shove him away again as she hit the chorus – to the cheers of every woman in the room.

Then we were all silenced as Elly began to sing Radiohead’s ‘Creep’. When she whispered the line ‘I wish I was special’, I nearly fell apart.

At one point both Elly and Clayton left the stage, only to return in silver space suits for the David Bowie song ‘Space Oddity’. Sometimes it has seemed to me that Elly feels she is not from this world. But this night she was right at home.

One of her gags involved pouring a large glass of what the crowd assumed was whisky and drinking it down in one. ‘Ah, that’s better. I drink to forget, you know. Now I’ve forgotten what it was I wanted to forget, so it’s working for me.’

The audience roared, but I felt a tinge of pain in my heart, even though I knew it was just tea. Had she inherited some of my darker traits, my more destructive inclinations?

Elly invited me on stage then made me sit at a table and sing a song while she made faces behind my back. She was very funny and everyone was laughing, including me. Thirsty again, I grabbed one of the whisky bottles on her table and discovered that not all of them contained tea.

Elly gave me an innocent look. ‘Oops! Sorry, Dad. That’s just in case I get a sore throat.’ Then she smiled at me and said, ‘Thanks for your help, Dadda. Kitty will show you to your seat now.’ As I walked off stage, she called out, ‘In fact, Dad, my throat is a bit sore right now.’ And she laughed and poured herself a big one.

The crowd roared again. I smiled awkwardly.

Further jokes and stories of struggle and survival were capped off by a rendition of Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’. That brought the house down, and the crowd gave Elly a huge ovation. After that, it was time for us oldies to get out of there so the kids could party on – no one wants to get drunk in front of their parents.

As we walked out, I thought about why the performance had been such a revelation. None of our family had ever seen or treated Elly as someone with a disability. We’d always wanted her to have as normal a life as possible. But perhaps that had blinded us to some of her suffering. That night, in front of a crowd of strangers, my daughter had shown us just how much physical and emotional pain she’d really had to deal with. She’d never wanted us to see it before because she never wanted us to worry about her. Now she’d demonstrated that she could stand proud and handle that pain with incredible style and grace.

It was one of the best nights of my life. My baby had found her mojo.