Early years Daryl Braithwaite and his twin brother, Glenn, were born on 11 January 1949 and were raised in a
working-class family in
Melbourne, Australia. Braithwaite attended Punt Road State School and Christ Church Grammar in
South Yarra, where the twins sang in the school choir. In 1963, his family moved to the
Sydney beach-side suburb of
Coogee, where he attended
Randwick Boys High School until the end of year 10. He then began a
fitter-and-turner apprenticeship, set up by his father, which he completed in 1969, but decided that this was not the career path for him and decided to pursue a musical career instead. As a teenager, he sang in various local pop music groups, first with Bright Lights, in 1967, which included Bruce Worrall on bass guitar. In March 1970, at the age of 21, he joined
Sherbet, a pop band that had already released a single, "Crimson Ships". That group had formed in April 1969 with the line-up of Dennis Laughlin on lead vocals (ex-Sebastian Hardie Blues Band, Clapham Junction),
Doug Rea on bass guitar (Downtown Roll Band), Sammy See on organ, guitar and vocals (Clapham Junction),
Clive Shakespeare on lead guitar and vocals (Downtown Roll Band), and Danny Taylor on drums (Downtown Roll Band). According to Australian musicologist
Ian McFarlane, Sherbet were "one of the country's biggest bands over the next ten years", and Braithwaite rose to national fame as their lead singer.
Early solo career: 1973–1979 Braithwaite started a parallel solo career alongside his work in Sherbet. In March 1973, he played the lead role in the Australian musical theatre production of
the Who's
rock opera Tommy. In October of the following year, amidst unfounded rumours that he was leaving Sherbet, he issued his debut single, a cover version of "
You're My World", which went to No. 1 for three weeks. His next single, "Cavalry" (August 1975), was co-written with his Sherbet bandmate
Tony Mitchell, which reached No. 13 on the
Kent Music Report singles chart. Braithwaite's solo recordings from 1974 to 1978 appeared only on 7-inch singles. A compilation album of his singles,
Daryl Braithwaite... Best Of, was issued in 1978 on Razzle Records/
Festival Records. His debut solo studio album,
Out on the Fringe, appeared in the following year, at a time when Sherbet had briefly broken up. He recorded that album in the United States with Steve Kipner and Terry Shaddick producing.
Solo career on hold: 1980–1987 By 1980, the members of Sherbet were back together and had renamed themselves
The Sherbs. At this point, Braithwaite put his solo career on hold to concentrate on work with his bandmates. However, The Sherbs had only a very few minor hits and broke up in 1984.
Comeback: 1988–1999 In April 1988, Braithwaite began recording his comeback album
Edge. This LP featured a somewhat more
adult contemporary sound than Braithwaite's previous work, and it spawned four hit singles that returned him to the Australian singles charts after an absence of nearly a decade. Two of these hits, "
As the Days Go By" and "
All I Do", were penned by Canadian songwriter
Ian Thomas; a third, "
One Summer", was a Braithwaite original. Braithwaite went on to have a number of solo hits in the early 1990s, including the Australian No. 1 "
The Horses", Braithwaite then worked alongside Jef Scott, Simon Hussey and
James Reyne to create the 1992 self-titled album
Company of Strangers. Braithwaite sang lead or co-lead vocals on four of the album's tracks, including two Australian top-40 singles: "
Motor City (I Get Lost)" (No. 26, 1992) and "
Daddy's Gonna Make You a Star" (No. 35, 1993). In the interim, Braithwaite toured regularly, and in 1997 he returned to the musical theatre stage in the Melbourne production of
Chess. From 1999 onwards, he also resumed occasional touring with a reunited Sherbet.
2005–present After more than a decade away from the recording studio, Braithwaite featured on the track "The Euphonious Whale" from
James Reyne's 2005 album,
And the Horse You Rode in On. A new studio album from Braithwaite titled
Snapshot appeared later in 2005. It included four songs co-written by Braithwaite, including "See You Around Sometime", which was written with
Mark Seymour and had been previously recorded by Seymour for his album
One Eyed Man. In 2006, Braithwaite sang on two new Sherbs tracks specially recorded for a greatest-hits compilation,
Super Hits; they were The Sherbs' first new recordings in 22 years. Braithwaite then resumed his solo career with the 2008 release of
The Lemon Tree, an album of acoustic reworkings of both solo and Sherbet hits, and a few covers. In 2007, Braithwaite performed "One Summer" on the soap opera
Neighbours. In 2013, Braithwaite was re-signed by
Sony Music Australia. CEO
Denis Handlin said in a statement: "Daryl is an icon of the Australian music industry and we are delighted to welcome him home to Sony Music." He released his first album of new material since 2005, titled
Forever the Tourist. It featured the lead single "Not Too Late". The album peaked at number 47. At the
ARIA Music Awards of 2017, Braithwaite was inducted into the
ARIA Hall of Fame by
Jimmy Barnes. To coincide,
Sony Music Australia released a new compilation,
Days Go By, which debuted at No. 5. In June 2020, Braithwaite released the single "
Love Songs", which became his first top-50 single in 27 years. On 4 March 2023, Braithwaite joined pop-star,
Harry Styles, on stage at the
Accor Stadium in Sydney, Australia. Together, the artists performed "The Horses" to an audience of 83,000 fans. ==Discography==