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Vallins, John (19th January 1950-Present)

He is a singer-songwriter, musician and producer born in Melbourne, Australia, to a musical family.

In the early 1960s he was a member of The Kinetics and after leaving them he joined Tin Tin, which was led by Steve Kipner, who was the son of their producer, Nat Kipner.  With them he moved to London, was managed by Robert Stigwood and Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees, had the Top 10 hit “Toast and Marmalade for Tea” and toured the United States.

Collaborating with Nat Kipner to write songs, they wrote for many artists in the European market and saw major success when Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams took their song “Too Much, Too Little, too Late” to the top of the charts in 1978.

In 1976, in London, he joined up with Gary Keady in a production/composition collaboration to produce and sing on Starlord which was a series of songs described as “The story of a Jesus like alien travelling through space and time offering a peaceful hand to troubled worlds like earth”.

In 1978 he was a founder member of the trio Sewerside who returned to Australia when they were promoting their first single “Picture Book”.  Once back in Sydney the trio formed That Record Company label but lost a lot of money by putting out a video for “Picture Book” which would be banned by the rock show Countdown.

In 1979 they expanded Sewerside into an 8-man concept group and gave it the new name of World.   With this band the three original members decided to combine 18 of their songs from the London days and came up with the Starlord Odyssey rock opera and take it around the Sydney theatres.  In 1981 the compositions that he had done with Gary Keady on Starlord were added to once more and made into a stage musical, which would pave the way for the 1989 movie Sons of Steel.

He would also compose the music for the 1996 movie Black Man Down.  The singer Allona recorded his song “Over You”, co-written with Gary Keady, and he also has works feature on the album A File of Life by the Japanese artist Hikaru Nishida.

Now living back in Australia he continues to write for the TV and film industry in collaboration with British and American composers.  In the field of education he is a teacher of songwriting at Camp Creative, which is part of the Creative Arts Course Summer School of Australia.

Sources:

  1. http://www.poparchives.com.au/feature.php?id=1418
  2. http://www.sons-of-steel.com/songs_library/starlord.htm
  3. http://uk.imdb.com/name/nm0885170/
  4. http://www.campcreative.com.au/courses-music.php