Colin James Hay
Looking For Jack

THE REVIEW

Once upon a time, there were the Men At Work. And you would need to be over thirty (at least) or have a strong musical passion to remember them and talk about them... Unfortunately for me, I've passed that threshold some time ago, and I remember everything about the Men, perfectly.
I recall the insane comparison with the Police, perhaps because both the men at work and the policemen were among the few who combined punk and reggae roots. Perhaps for those two voices, Sting and Colin, so incredibly original and unique in the so-called light music scene of the early eighties.
I remember well that we all listened to, bought, and danced to "Who Can It Be Now", with that saxophone intro that was so fun to imitate back then. With that dry and precise drumming, so very eighties.
I remember that many of us bought the first album, "Business As Usual", that fewer bought the second, "Cargo", driven by the big single "It's A Mistake", and that almost no one bought the third, and last, "Two Hearts", an album that had become fashionable to call rubbish. Maybe without having listened to it, or having listened to it with senselessly severe ears, as was fashionable in the eighties.
I also remember very well that Colin Hay and his Band completely disappeared from the national interest, too often led and orchestrated by a short-sighted and silly market.

Only a few of us did everything possible to follow the solo career of Colin James Hay, and very few of us know that in the mid-nineties the men at work reunited and recorded an excellent live in Brazil. Naturally, needless to say, it was unreachable in the lands where figures like Pausini and Bocelli flourish.
But let's get to the album being discussed. That album with the black-and-white cover where CJH looks slyly, with the famous eye (the straight one, who knows...?) from under his glasses. The album that I found on vinyl in France, which already led one to think...
Well...: the album is beautiful. It is the first in a series of beautiful albums by a singer/songwriter/rocker with great compositional and especially vocal qualities. An absolute celebrity in Australia, who has many devotees in the USA, and practically ignored by us... but let's not keep hitting this note... I've already saddened you enough.

We're at the end of the eighties, in 1987, and on the radio, and on what was then DJTelevision (was it called that...?) the video of the single "Hold Me" circulated, shyly and briefly, a good track but certainly not the best of the work. To go to the atmospheres loved by those who adored the Men At Work, you should head to the second track "Can I Hold You", or direct yourself to the eighth, the reggae of "Ways Of The World".
The absolute best of the production, however, is found in track three, the title track, dedicated to the incomparable Jack Nicholson, all supported by a splendid drum, the protagonist's guitar, and Herbie Hancock's piano.
But the album is entirely beautiful. Played and written extremely well. Naturally, but it's really useless to say, sung like a god, in the sense that there are good chances that god has that voice. And to think that, in all the specialized magazines, at the turn of the year two thousand, when listing the 100 best albums of the century or the best one hundred voices, you had the displeasure of encountering some Oasis brother or some sad Bono imitator, but there was no trace of the famous and beloved (elsewhere) Colin James Hay.

After this album, quite a few followed, all available for import from Australia or the USA, otherwise, more prosaically— but necessity is the mother of invention...— you can manage to download a lot, but not always everything, from the Internet.
If you want to give it a try, besides "Looking For Jack", I recommend "Topanga", "Wayfarin Sons", the acoustic "Going Somewhere", and the penultimate of unreleased tracks, the excellent "Company Of Strangers".

For a fun curiosity, also widely noteworthy is the episode of "Scrubs", where CJH, guest of honor, first plays a sick person and then even the dead man who emerges from the crypt with a guitar under his arm, singing "Overkill".
If you don’t already know him, trust me: a great.