I wanted to be a musical theatre performer.
I never stood a chance.
One had to have a ‘sensible’ career, follow a vocation that would ‘make one successful in life’, according to my parents. The sad irony is that music has been a part of Fisher family culture for over four generations, if not longer.
My ‘sensible’ Dad, 1971.
Looking back, Granny Fisher, John’s mother, was a piano teacher. And a right cantankerous old biddy actually. She once interrupted my brother Michael while he was playing the piano at home and told him not to play anymore because he was playing by ear and couldn’t read music. Ah, such great support and empathy… Today he has his own private, semi-professional, fully sound-proofed recording studio, at his home in Queensland, complete with several keyboards, guitars and an electronic drum kit. He also writes and produces his own music. Well take that Granny Fisher…
My father played the piano (I guess Granny made him learn how to read music) and also loved musical theatre. When I was five or thereabouts he used to sing me bedtime lullabies taken from Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘The Mikado’. Before going to sleep I would lie in bed and call out “Can someone come and sing to me..?” (Note to the Fisher girls; a bit like ‘funny stories’).
The Spice Girls.
My eldest brother Mark graduated with honours from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He still plays guitar to this day, performing from time to time with a Japanese blues band. He also plays the extraordinarily difficult Shakuhachi flute, a centuries old Japanese meditative instrument made from the single mature stem of a particular type of bamboo. Now that’s dedication for you.
Chloe, Georgia and Charlotte were all ‘performers’ from a very young age, for anyone who would listen such as Grandma, my mother. Apparently Grandma had lessons in ballet, tap and contemporary dance in the late 1930’s. She even went for a casting agency photoshoot and screen test, one time before she was married, but I guess her parents weren’t keen and squashed that ambition. She candidly told me recently she couldn’t sing in tune to save her life. So it seems musical theatre ambition didn’t come from the Morris side of the family…
Charlotte in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’.
Our daughters were all keen singer/actors when they were in high school at Willoughby Girls High, performing in drama and stage musicals. They won several drama prizes between them and were known collectively as ‘the Fisher girls’. That phrase was always delivered by their teachers with a kind of approving grin. Their cousin Lily, Marks daughter, is also a talented singer and songwriter in her spare time.
So what about me?
Reginald Bunthorne, his bride, and football injury.
I went to a private school – an expensive one. When I was in year 11 they called for auditions for a Gilbert and Sullivan musical they were putting on called ‘Patience’ or ‘Bunthornes Bride’. The musical was a dig at Oscar Wilde and romantic poets. It might have been an expensive school but it seems there was no budget when it came to paying royalties for more contemporary musicals.
The headmaster at the time was a real twit, completely devoid of any musical appreciation and even less for the arts. Sadly, there were no ‘Phantom’, ‘Les Mis.’ or ‘Hamilton’ scores available back in those days. Nevertheless, possibly motivated by the subconscious recollections of my fathers bedside serenades, a friend (Ed Cox) and I went along to the auditions just to see what it was all about. Unexpectedly, I was convincing enough and somehow got the lead role. Really sorry about that Ed.
Georgia getting mic’d up…
As old as it was, I had a great time performing in that musical and discovered what really stirred and inspired me. What’s more, I got to be a rebel and grow my hair for the part. Just before the opening night I broke my ankle in a football match, which kind of made things interesting for the performances…
The following year I went along for auditions again hoping for another big part and, well I’ll be damned, was given the pivotal role as a character called Marryin’ Sam in a weird, satirical and obviously very inexpensive musical called ‘L’il Abner’ which was set in the US south in the 1950’s.
People must have liked these shows or something because I won the school prize for drama two years in a row. And so, later in life, did my daughter Georgia.
Marryin’ Sam, complete with body padding.
In year 12, my music teacher recognised my passion for singing and arranged for me to visit a friend of his who was a singing coach. Her name was Marjorie Walker. I found out later that she was very well regarded in the industry and had coached or was coaching some well known opera and music theatre personalities. She listened to me, smiled and said if I wanted to learn how to read music, do the hard yards and get used to the disappointment and cut throat nature of the business, then I should go for it! Very enlightening. However my parents weren’t exactly thrilled with the prospect of their son trying to succeed in the entertainment business, so not a lot of encouragement was forthcoming from there.
School finished and I went off to start my ‘sensible’ career as a hotelier. Mum and Dad zealously encouraged me to go to yet another very expensive school, a Swiss hotel school no less. In the absence of anything else, it seemed like an excellent idea. Later I found out that my entry came by way of an application originally made for Mark, but he didn’t want to go. Well, I didn’t care. Thanks to Hotel School there was lots of skiing, pub singing, wine, women and hangovers. I just scraped through. Luckily my parents never found out just how close I came to wasting their money. It really is amazing how much you can ‘cram’ the night before an exam if you really put your mind to it.
Surprise; I played drums at hotel school. How? Well my brothers and I had a garage band when we were barely teenagers which apparently drove my parents out of the house due to all the noise, on at least one occasion. I had quite a good time playing drums at college because girls liked drummers it seems. And yet, I never sang. (Singing in the pub doesn’t count).
Channeling George Michael, Foshan.
Fast forward 8 years to when I was the Director of Food and Beverage at Hyatt Regency Perth. One night the GM took us all out and we ended up in a karaoke bar. I sang ‘Born to be wild’ with the financial controller, Richard Russ. It was a lot of fun, again. Later that year we put on a Blues Brothers performance of ‘Jailhouse Rock’ in the bar under the hotel. That was also a lot of fun, again. Then it all went quiet for a few years.
Fast forward once more to Davao, Philippines 2009. By now I was General Manager of a hotel. (Money well spent after all?) As you probably know singing is a way of life in the Philippines. Just look at the number of super talented Filipino’s who have won popular reality shows around the world such as X-factor, AGT, BGT, champions etc. I started singing again, encouraged by my staff.
The amazing ‘Lotus’ and I performing ‘the prayer’…
By the time I moved to Foshan, China, in 2011, I was happily into it all again, albeit in a sometimes off key and amateur fashion. Soon I was singing a lot and even became a regular ‘walk up to the mic’ performer at a local bar and restaurant called ‘Jen’s Cafe’. That happened during the pre-opening phase of the hotel project I was working for. Many thanks go to the unstoppable ‘Lotus’ who encouraged me to get on stage.
Most of the time she, her support singer and I were the only people in the bar. Typically our way to finish off the night was to ‘perform’ the David Foster/Carole Bayer Sager hit ‘The Prayer’ made famous by Céline Dion and Andrea Bocelli. We could build and belt as much as we liked because there was seldom any body left in the bar at that time to upset. Although on one occasion an Italian project manager did actually come up and say we were great.
By the time I left Foshan to move to Huangshan in central China, I had a repertoire of some 30 songs, ranging from Elton John to Elvis Costello. It really was my [secret life of] Walter Mitty period. Then some of my staff found out and asked me to sing at a sales function in front of about 200 invited guests. But that’s another story…
‘Born to be wild’ with Clive on guitar.
Sadly, I never did much karaoke again once I left Foshan. Well not like I did at Jens Cafe. Very occasionally in recent years I picked up a mike, but have now mostly fallen out of practice.
Forward to the present day where I live in Penang, Malaysia. Thanks to the pandemic, Malaysian political chaos and their on-going collective incompetence, we have been moving in and out of lockdowns for over a year and a half. Socialising and entertaining is not high on the recovery agenda.
Before the mess I did get to do some guest appearances with my mate Clive’s band in an Australian themed bar called ‘the shed’, singing the Jimi Hendrix version of ‘Hey Joe’ and Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to be wild’ (once again) but that was short lived. Live performance music and karaoke bars all closed back in early 2020.
More recently, out of the blue, I decided to make a music video for my daughters. You will find another blog about it here on this site. That particular project had me exploring a different creative path.
In part two I’ll tell you how I got really carried away and decided to get back into the musical theatre groove by way of this new video project. It took a lot of effort, caused quite a bit of frustration and gave rise to some very funny moments involving a few confused locals.
The actual video is currently in the final stages of shooting and editing, but will be coming soon. So until then my friends, stay safe and get vaccinated (please)…
