Biography

As the lead singer of one Australia's most popular acts of the '70s, teen pop/rock outfit Sherbet, Daryl Braithwaite found concurrent success as a solo artist, taking his first single, a cover of "You're My World," to number one in 1974. Before the end of the decade, he charted seven more times as a soloist. After his band split in 1984, Braithwaite made a successful comeback in 1988 with the album Edge. Embracing a still highly melodic but more slickly produced adult contemporary sound, it took him to the top of Australia's album chart. He continued to find the charts with periodic album releases into the 2010s. Born in Melbourne in 1949, Braithwaite moved to Sydney in the mid-'60s and sang in several bands before joining guitarist Clive Shakespeare, keyboardist Garth Porter, bassist Tony Mitchell, and drummer Alan Sandow in Sherbet in 1970. Between then and Sherbet's demise in 1984, Braithwaite enjoyed great success, both with the band and with a number of solo single releases, including his debut "You're My World," which became a number one hit in 1974. He reached the Top Ten again with 1976's "Old Sid" and 1977's "Love Has No Pride/Fly Away." His first full-length solo release, Out on the Fringe, arrived via Infinity in 1979. Around that time, Sherbet briefly called it quits, but re-formed as the Sherbs in 1980. That version of the band didn't fare as well on the charts, and they disbanded after releasing a final single, "Tonight Will Last Forever," as Sherbet in 1984. Braithwaite continued to play solo concerts for a couple of years, then left the music industry, working for a time as a road maintenance laborer. In 1988, however, Braithwaite returned to music when he signed with CBS/Sony and released Edge. With four hit singles (including the Top Ten song "One Summer"), Edge topped the Australian albums chart and was followed in 1991 by the quadruple-platinum Rise. It offered "The Horses," only his second solo number one single since 1974. Featuring covers of material written by such likeminded artists as Bruce Hornsby, Robbie Robertson, and Sheryl Crow, Braithwaite's 1993 album Taste the Salt, reached the number 13 spot. A 1994 retrospective of his Sony solo career -- Six Moons: The Best of 1988-1994 -- also charted and included exclusive material, such as the Tim Finn-penned "Blue Hills." Although Braithwaite's next studio album wouldn't arrive for another 12 years, he spent the intervening period touring widely, both as a solo artist and with a re-formed Sherbet, as well as making the occasional musical theater appearance. When the self-released Snapshot arrived in 2005, it featured production from Scott Kingman, founder of the disbanded Melbourne rock act Horsehead. Three years later, 2008's The Lemon Tree revisited key tracks from his career in an acoustic setting. Coinciding with the release of his first-ever live DVD, the year 2011 marked 40 years since Braithwait's first hit single with Sherbet. In 2013, he made music news again when French electronic duo Daft Punk used a sample of the Sherbs' 1982 hit "We Ride Tonight" for "Contact," the closing track of their multi-territory number one album, Random Access Memories. That year, Braithwaite also released his seventh studio LP, Forever the Tourist. It reached Australia's Top 50. In 2017, he was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame, and Sony issued the solo compilation Days Go By. It took him to the Top Five of the album chart for the first time in over 25 years. ~ Marcy Donelson & Jonathan Lewis, Rovi