He founded Mushroom Records in 1972 before expanding his business into the sprawling Mushroom Group.
Michael Gudinski, the Australian music pioneer whose Mushroom Group would become the model for independent music ventures, and who with his tumultuous, exuberant personality became the face of his country’s music scene, has died. He was 68.
Gudinski died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Melbourne on Monday night. He is a shock to everyone involved with the Australian music industry.
Talk to Billboard Just last week, Gudinski was his typical, enthusiastic self, looking forward to new TV projects, vaccination vaccines and the return of full-scale tours in these parts.
No other figure has done more to shape the Australian music industry than Gudinski.
In a keynote interview during the 2010 Bigsound conference in Brisbane with this reporter, Gudinski recounted how Michael, at the age of just seven, bulged his growing business muscles on Caulfield Cup Day when he charged racers with parking in an empty block has.
Gudinski would go further with bigger things.
In 1972, at the age of just twenty, Gudinski launched Mushroom Records, which would develop into the largest independent record company in Australian music, and later his publishing house Arm Mushroom Music, which remains the most important independent publishing industry in the country.
Mushroom achieved early success with Skyhooks, whose debut album, Life in the 70s, recorded at number 1 in Australia for 16 weeks and sold 240,000 copies, an achievement that no Australian album achieved at the time.
Over the decades, Gudinski would lead the careers of numerous artists, from Kylie Minogue and Jimmy Barnes to the British signing of Ash and Garbage.
In 1998, he sold Mushroom Records to Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited Group (now News Corp), the proceeds of which enabled Gudinski to realize his dream of building an independent musical force, which included touring, record companies, publishing, merchandise, booking agencies, film discussed. and television production and creative services.
Today, Mushroom Group covers more than two dozen companies and brands from Frontier Touring to The Harbor Agency, with the label I Oh You, Liberation and Bloodlines, Mushroom Music Publishing, the neighboring rights operation Good Neighbor, and the new addition, Reclusive Records .
Founded in 1979, Frontier Touring is Australia’s leading independent promoter and record breaker. Gudinski and Frontier Touring yielded Ed Sheeran’s overall conquest Divide tour of Australia and New Zealand, which has moved more than 1.1 million tickets, a record of all times for a single trek.
The latest outing under the Frontier Touring banner, Midnight Oil’s Makarrata Live Tour, kicked off Sunday at Mount Cotton in Queensland.
With the pandemic that halted the tour in 2020, Gudinski found a way to make the music play. He was the head of the online and television concert series Music From the home front, The sound and The state of music.
“It’s not about my labels,” Gudinski said. Billboard in a 2020 interview. “It’s about Australian music.”
Regarding the pandemic that threatens to destroy the living industry, Gudinski says, “I learned that you have to turn something negative into something positive.”
Gudinski achieved almost everything in his extraordinary life and career, including being a member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2006 for services to the entertainment industry and a Melbourne Cup victory. Upon his departure, he misses the one thing he quietly desired: an American no. 1.
He is survived by his wife Sue, son Matt and partner Cara, daughter Kate and husband Andrew and their children Nina-Rose and Lulu, and more than 200 Mushroom Group staff, whom he often called ‘family’.
This story first appears on Billboard.com.