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Read by: Jimmy Barnes, the Author
Running Time: 12 hrs 35 mins.
Categories: Biography, Memoir
Released: 2017
Media: mp3 on CD; Unabridged
ISBN: 9781038611499
The Author
Barnes has achieved 15 solo number-one albums in Australia, more than any other artist. Additionally, Barnes achieved five more as the lead singer of Cold Chisel, bringing his combined sum to 20 number-one albums in Australia, comfortably eclipsing the Beatles (with 14), Madonna and Taylor Swift (12), Eminem and U2 (11).
Barnes was born James Dixon Swan in the Cowcaddens area of Glasgow, to Dorothy and Jim Swan. His father was a prizefighter. His maternal grandmother was Jewish, but he was raised Protestant. He called his childhood environment a "slum" of alcohol and violence, saying that his mother had him and his four siblings (John, Dorothy, Linda and Alan) before she was 21.
His older brother John became a successful musician as founder and lead singer of the rock band Swanee. John encouraged and taught Barnes how to sing, as he was not initially interested. He and his family arrived in Australia, when he was five years old, on 21 January 1962. They originally lived in Adelaide, though they eventually settled in nearby Elizabeth. Another sister, Lisa, was born later that year.
Shortly afterwards, their parents divorced. His mother remarried, to a clerk named Reg Barnes, who died on 3 September 2013. Jimmy adopted the name James Dixon Barnes, after his stepfather.
In November 1979, Barnes met Jane Mahoney (born 1958 as Jane Dejakasaya in Bangkok, Thailand), the stepdaughter of an Australian diplomat. Barnes began a relationship with her. They married in Sydney on 22 May 1981 and Jane gave birth to their first child, Mahalia, named after Mahalia Jackson, on 12 July 1982.
Barnes is a practising Buddhist. He has seven children: four with his wife Jane (Mahalia, Eliza-Jane, Jackie and Elly-May – all musically known as The Tin Lids); one with Kim Campbell (a previous relationship), David; and two daughters (Amanda and Megan) from two earlier relationships.
He is brother-in-law to fellow musician and long-time collaborator Diesel, who married Jane Barnes's sister Jep in 1989.
Barnes is a supporter of the Port Adelaide Football Club.
On 28 November 2023, Barnes announced via Instagram that he was being treated in hospital for a bacterial infection. He remained in hospital for two weeks; on 12 December he announced, also via Instagram, that he was undergoing open heart surgery due to the infection having spread to an already-weakened valve.In 2017 Barnes was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the performing arts as a musician, singer and songwriter, and through support for not-for-profit organisations, particularly to children with a disability.
The sequel to Jimmy Barnes' unforgettable childhood memoir, the number one best seller Working Class Boy.
It’s a life too big and a story too
extraordinary for just one book. Jimmy Barnes has lived many lives—from
Glaswegian migrant kid to iconic front man, from solo superstar to proud
father of his own musical clan.
In this hugely anticipated sequel to his critically acclaimed best seller Working Class Boy,
Jimmy picks up the story of his life as he leaves Adelaide in the back
of an old truck with a then unknown band called Cold Chisel.
A spellbinding and searingly honest reflection
on success, fame and addiction, this self-penned memoir reveals how
Jimmy Barnes used the fuel of childhood trauma to ignite and propel
Australia’s greatest rock ’n’ roll story.
But beyond the
combustible merry-go-round of fame, drugs and rehab and across the Cold
Chisel, solo and soul years, this is a story about how it’s never too
late to try to put things right.
"Riveting storytelling." - The Sydney Morning Herald
"Rare is the man who has lived this hard, this fast and this dangerously—only to survive and chronicle it all so superbly." - Lisa Wilkinson, author
"Working Class Man is a gripping account of a rock’n’roll life that could have ended in disaster. The fact it didn’t is proof of Jimmy’s extraordinary strength of will and physical endurance. You think you know a man and then you read this. All the mind-boggling excesses and the emotional extremes are revealed here, with brutal honesty and sparkling wit. Jimmy has found his real voice; it’s great writing, imbued with a spirit of generosity that knows no bounds - just like the man himself." - Neil Finn
On Media
Audiobook on CD-ROM, complete with cover art on CD. Supplied in windowed CD sleeve, no case provided.
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