Glenn Wheatley

You'll know Ben from Neighbors as Ned Willis, from Warnie as Mark Waugh, and from the stages around the country in Pretty Woman and Elvis: A Musical Revolution.

He's now taking on another real-life figure and legend in music manager Glenn Wheatley, also in Whispering Jack, opening this November at the Roslyn Packer Theater.

Thank you again for, for joining us, and, um, congratulations.

Like, this has been a huge, huge project already, um, and rehearsals haven't even begun.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

Bonnie, you are playing Gaynor Wheatley, and Ben, you are playing Glenn Wheatley.

What is your guys' experience with the Whispering Jack album?

The couple had two children.

Uh, Farnham was being managed, had been managed by Daryl Sambell from 1967 to 1976, and by his long-term friend Glenn Wheatley, who, uh, originally played in The Masters Apprentices, of course, uh, from 1980 to the latter's death in 2022.

Uh, Australian musicologist Ian McFarlane described John Farnham as the most popular s- and successful solo artist in history of Australian rock and pop.

Now I'm gonna play When Something Is Wrong With My Baby, with Jimmy Barnes...

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Yes, this is Indigo FM, and I'm Funnel.

Now, John Farnham's manager since 1980, Glenn Wheatley, died from complications of COVID-19 on February 1st, 2022, at the age of 74.

Over the years, the pair ha- ha- and their respective families had become very close friends.

And there are some wonderful stories behind it.

Glenn Wheatley mortgaging the house to produce it and all this sort of stuff.

So I'll speak with a music journo in the next hour, Christy Eliza, and we'll just reminisce about 40 years since that extraordinary...

A group of songs, 10 singles in total, some of the famous ones, of course, being You're the Voice and Touch of Paradise, Pressure Down, Reasons, all on that iconic album from 1986.

the launch of the second coming, really, the second chapter of John Farnham's incredible career.

But to get there, well, as you can appreciate, like with all of these sort of legendary tales, it wasn't a linear situation.

There were some incredible twists and turns and a lot of bravery put on the line, not just by John, but by Glenn Wheatley and some other very iconic names.

But here we are, 40 years on, and the impact of that album on our culture continues.

It was the first song I wrote for Mondo Rock with him and we played it at the very first Mondo Rock show.

So Mondo Rock played it for quite a few years before John Farnham recorded it, but we had the same manager we had for a while, which was Glenn Wheatley.

And, you know, John and Glenn used to come along and see us play.

And so he knew that song.

You know why it's about coin? Because he's got none.

He's got none because Glenn Wheatley took a whole stack.

Well, he's got two, isn't he? He got violated a while ago.

Yeah.

Well, yes, this is an idea that came out of a meeting between...

Tony Cochran is a good South Australian boy and his wife, Thea, who had lunch the best part of a year ago, I think, with Gaynor Wheatley, the wife of the late, great Glenn Wheatley, who was John's manager and friend for all those years.

And they thought, wouldn't it be good to celebrate the songs of John, you know, for no apparent reason, but...

But let's just put on a concert.

But I

remember one of those...

I remember after our celebrity race, they were... simpler times dare i say but uh i remember uh glenn wheatley and john and i walking sort of down the main straight after our race and you know we all tend walking five feet in the air when we were kings and i remember the fa18s what the one probably just one of them flew over the main straight and i remember wheat's looking up

that's next boys that's bloody next We were going to take on the

He's

screaming at Glenn Wheatley to get on stage and he's as nervous as a kitten but he gets up on stage, the audience goes mad, drops a couple of mother-in-law gags and you can't get him off.

I went down a rabbit hole just on the humour thing on the weekend watching some YouTube clips and like famous interviews and there's a great interview before he performed at the Olympics and he's like, oh, I'm so nervous, I'm not going to do it sober.

That's what will get me through.