Richard Clapton started his working life as a trainee commercial artist before taking his guitar and heading to the UK and Germany in 1967. After five years, he returned to Australia and recorded his first album, Prussian Blue.

Somewhat outside of the mainstream of Australian music, this first album yielded no commercial hits and disappeared pretty much without trace. In 1975, he was brought back into the studio and told to create a hit single. During those sessions, he recorded a song that became his big break into the Australian music scene, Girls on The Avenue, which went to number 2 on the Australian charts. The album of the same name was released soon after – an album that was closer to the mainstream, which was reflected in a more universal acceptance of his music.

By 1976, Richard Clapton was an engrained part of the live music scene across Australia and it was during this year that he produced arguably his best known song, Capricorn Dancer, which was also part of the soundtrack of the film “Highway One”.

Clapton continued to develop his songwriting and live performance skills throughout the remainder of the 1970’s and into the 1980’s. By this time, as a veteran of the music scene, he started to work with and promote two young up and coming bands in Australia – INXS and Cold Chisel.

Throughout the remainder of the 1980’s and 1990’s, Clapton continued to record powerful albums, including the creatively ambitious Glory Road, in 1987.

Richard Clapton was inducted in the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1999 and during the same year released his Definitive Anthology album, a collection of his best work from the previous 25 years.  He continues to tour and perform live around Australia and will on 5 September, perform the entire Goodbye Tiger album at the State Theatre in Sydney.