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Forty years after its release, John Farnham's 1986 album Whispering Jack remains a landmark in Australian music. The album spent 25 weeks at number one, revived Farnham's career and produced enduring songs, especially the unofficial national anthem You're the Voice. Its success followed years of declining popularity, limited industry support and Farnham's earlier work with Little River Band, with manager Glenn Wheatley continuing to believe in his talent.
Forty years after its release, John Farnham's Whispering Jack remains one of the most remarkable stories in Australian music history. The 1986 album spent 25 weeks at number one, produced enduring hits that remain part of our national conscience, and transformed John Farnham from a fading teen idol into one of the country's most beloved performers.
Its centrepiece, You're The Voice, is bigger than a pop song: the unofficial anthem still inspires singalongs at pubs, stadiums and festival fields decades later. By the mid-80s, Farnham's career was drifting. Record labels weren't interested. His attempts at chart success weren't connecting.
A stint fronting world-conquering Aussie rockers Little River Band didn't kickstart the resurgence he hoped for. So, Whispering Jack wasn't the work of a music industry machine backing a sure thing. It was the result of the work of a small team of people convinced they saw something the rest of the industry had missed.
As Johnny Farnham, he dominated Australian charts in the late 1960s and early 1970s, scoring a massive hit with Sadie , the best selling Australian single of the '60s. But, as tastes changed, Farnham's commercial fortunes faded. He moved into musical theatre and TV, proving he remained an endearing entertainer, but not necessarily a recording artist to watch. A reinvention was needed.
Johnny became John. And while he had flashes of success, like cracking back into the Top 10 with a version of The Beatles's Help in 1980, the momentum didn't stick. His time with Little River Band proved valuable, particularly the exposure to large-scale touring in America, but didn't provide the breakthrough Farnham and his manager Glenn Wheatley, who died in 2022, were searching for. By 1985, many in the industry believed Farnham's biggest successes were behind him.
Wheatley never accepted that.
"We all knew what he had," Wheatley told News Corp in 2018. "He's one of the greatest singers of our time. We just had to find the right songs for him.
" Finding songs wasn't too hard — there were plenty around. Finding someone willing to back the project was another story. Neither record labels nor producers showed much interest. Eventually, Wheatley and Farnham decided to do it themselves.
"I had to find out whether I could get the money to make the album for a start," Farnham told the ABC's John Hall in 1987. Wheatley's label became his record company and the gamble got bigger. The budget for the album was about $150,000. Speaking to Jen Jewel Brown for the National Film and Sound Archive in 2014, Wheatley recalled: "I ended up having to do it on my label again.
I had to mortgage my house to do it.
"Building Whispering Jack The team eventually settled on live sound engineer Ross Fraser as producer. He wasn't a known name, and it wasn't a conventional move. Together, Farnham, Fraser and Wheatley embarked on an exhaustive search for material.
"We sent telexes all over the world to all the publishers and record companies that we were looking for songs. "We literally got two boxes, we put 'no' on one box and 'maybe' on the other box, and we just went through them all. "I had to listen to the songs in their entirety because, being a budding songwriter myself, I understand how much work these people put into it. So, I had to at least give them that courtesy.
"The eventual album only contained 10 tracks, but every arrangement was meticulously worked over. A month of pre-production was followed by more than two months in the studio. You can still hear that commitment when you hit play on Whispering Jack 40 years on. Its sound – synthesisers, drum machines and enormous production – is unmistakably rooted in the '80s.
Yet somehow it doesn't feel trapped there. The commitment in those performances — from Farnham and his band — and the strength of those songs prove this hard-won success was well deserved.
"The last song we found was You're The Voice," Wheatley told the National Film and Sound Archive. "When I first heard it, my heart almost stopped," Farnham told the Toronto Star in 1987. "I felt like I'd discovered lost treasure. " According to the story that has since become part of Australian music folklore, label manager Doris Tyler heard the song first and wasn't especially convinced.
But Ross Fraser was. Driving to Farnham's house one afternoon, the producer reportedly played the cassette over and over. The more he listened, the more certain he was that the song had to be on the record. It made the cut, but when it was released, it wasn't an easy sell.
Wheatley and the team were dogged in chasing airplay before commercial radio fully embraced it. You're The Voice became a phenomenon and its success propelled Whispering Jack to number one, where it remained for 25 weeks. Follow-up singles Pressure Down, A Touch of Paradise and Reasons kept momentum rolling. The album became much bigger than anyone had dared imagine.
That mortgage Wheatley took out to fund the album was repaid many times over. Whispering Jack went on to become the highest-selling album in Australia by an Australian artist. It also reached number six in the UK and topped the charts in Sweden. You're The Voice charted across Europe, an unusual feat for an Australian artist at the time.
When Wheatley and Farnham heard the news that the album had reached number one, they were together in a car.
"I was saying, 'Do you realise John that we have a number one record? '" Wheatley recalled in Forbes's book Whispering Jack. "He said, 'I can't believe this is happening'. ""I'm really working hard.
"All my life things have come too easily to me. I put everything on the line this time. And now it feels as if I deserve it. "
John Farnham Whispering Jack You're The Voice Australian Music Album Anniversary
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