Remembering legendary Australian music promoter Michael Gudinski

The death of Michael Gudinski, Chairman of the Mushroom Group of companies, at the age of 68 on Monday has led to widespread recognition of his achievements in championing Australian music and helping shape the nation’s sound over five decades.

His 45-year career saw him advance the cause of numerous Australian acts, including Skyhooks, Kylie Minogue, New Zealand-created Split Enz and more recently, Eskimo Joe and Evermore.

He also brought to Australia many of the world’s top artists, including Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, the Police and more recently, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift.

When COVID-19 shut down the music industry in 2020, Gudinski launched the online live music series The State of Music, in support of local musicians who lost their livelihoods overnight - which evolved into the ABC TV show The Sound.

Michael Solomon Gudinski was born in Melbourne on 22nd August 1952 to Russian Jewish parents who had come to Australia from Europe after surviving the Second World War.

He got his first taste of the entrepreneurial life aged just seven, when he charged Caulfield Cup racegoers to park in a vacant block next to his house.

By the age of 15, he was organising dances and earning $500 a week, with bands showing up on his parents’ doorstep for payment.

After booking acts such as The Aztecs and Chain (who he also managed), Gudinski dropped out of his final year of high school and established his first booking agency, Consolidated Rock, in 1970.

Learning the music business on the job, in 1972, with business partner in Ray Evans, Gudinski booked a major musical coup with the inaugural Sunbury Festival.

More than 35,000 fans paid $6 for a three-day ticket.

It was quickly followed by him promoting John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, his first international tour, later that year.

As he later told a biographer “it was the most money I’d ever made in one night in my life.”

Later that year, at the age of 20, he set up Mushroom Records.

Low on funds after a shaky start, Mushroom Records struck gold by signing Skyhooks in 1974.

The seminal Australian act’s first album Living in the 70’s topped the charts for four months, selling 240,000 copies and paved the way for dozens of other top selling acts.

In 1987, he signed a young singer who would become Australia's biggest international pop star - Kylie Minogue.

Last month, she praised Gudinski for organising a concert to benefit small towns hit by both bushfires and the pandemic, writing on Instagram “his passion for the music scene, for performers, crews and audiences knows no bounds.”

Gudinski also threw his weight behind transformative Indigenous artists Archie Roach and Yothu Yindi, whose careers have left an immense cultural legacy.

In 1979, he launched the touring agency, Frontier Touring, bringing some of the biggest international names to Australia in the 1980s and 1990s, including Frank Sinatra and The Rolling Stones.

In 2019, US entertainment publication Billboard ranked Frontier the third-largest promoter in the world.

In 1993 Gudinski sold 49% of the Mushroom Records label to News Ltd (now News Corp) and the remaining 51% stake in 1998, while keeping the Mushroom Group name.

Speaking of his passion for Australian music, Gudinski once said “the talent was always here but the industry was a cottage industry.

“It was very frustrating because, at the time, Australians always thought anything that came from overseas - whether it was music, cars or fashion designs - was better.”

Gudinski collected a number of ARIA awards over the years including the special achievement award in 1992. In 2013 he was acknowledged as the inaugural Aria industry icon.

In 2006 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) while in May last year was named as the most influential person in the Australian music industry for 2019 by The Power 50, a listing of the Australian music industry’s 50 most influential people.

As late as last Friday he was with Midnight Oil at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, with Frontier staging the band’s Makarrata Live tour.

He is survived by his wife Sue, son Matt (Executive Director of Mushroom Group since 2013), his singer-songwriter daughter Kate, grandchildren Nina-Rose and Lulu, and a team of more than 200 across a range of touring, merchandise, publishing, and management companies.

On the announcement of his death, Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe was among the first to post a tribute on social media, writing on Twitter “Seems almost impossible. A towering figure on the Australian cultural landscape.

“I’m not sure we ever agreed on anything … still didn’t stop us from being mates for 30 years. I’m going to miss him deeply. My love to his family.”

State Funeral
This afternoon it has been announced that Victoria will hold a state funeral for Michael Gudinski. afternoon it has been announced that Victoria will hold a state funeral for Michael Gudinski.

Click here to view a selection of indutry tributes to Michael Gudinski compiled by Australasian Leisure Management.

Images (from top): Michael Gudinski in 2018; after founding Mushroom Records in 1972; co-promoting Frank Sinatra in 1988 and with Kylie Minogue, Molly Meldrum and Tina Arena at the 2017 opening of the Music Industry Vault in Melbourne.