Joe Dolce

Joe Dolce, 2003

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Shaddap You Face   US 181 06/27/1981 (4 weeks)

Singles

Shaddap You Face   DE 1 03/30/1981 (25 weeks)   AT 1 04/01/1981 (14 weeks)   CH 1 03/29/1981 (12 weeks)   UK 1  gold 02/07/1981 (10 weeks)   US 53 05/02/1981 (14 weeks) If you want to be happy   DE 38 06/22/1981 (9 weeks)   AT 7th 07/15/1981 (6 weeks)

Joseph "Joe" Dolce (born October 13, 1947 in Painesville , Ohio , United States ) is an American musician living in Australia , who is best known for his song Shaddap You Face .

biography

While studying at Ohio University , Dolce played in a band called Finite Minds. When their singer left the group, he teamed up as guitarist with Gary Gans with the trio Johnathan Edwards and Malcolm and Todd McKinney. In June 1967 they made a big tour along the east coast and called themselves Sugar Creek. But it wasn't right in the band and after they had just finished an album in 1969 and their equipment had been stolen from the truck, Joe Dolce left the band and started a solo career. When Jonathan Edwards also went solo shortly afterwards, the band broke up.

In the following years Dolce was a singer and songwriter in country and folk, from this time My Home Ain't in the Hall of Fame , which became a country standard, also dates .

From 1974 he was on the road with a Poetry Music Fusion Group he founded, but it was only moderately successful. So the cut came for him in 1978. He left the USA with his wife, an Australian dancer who got an engagement in Australia. Even when the relationship broke up shortly afterwards, he stayed there and finally restarted with the Joe Dolce Music Theater. It was a real show with his own musicians, in which he played, parodied and imitated his own songs. The number that would make him famous was that of the Italian immigrant Giuseppi with a mandolin, who performed the show and was repeatedly prevented from singing himself. Since he himself is of Italian descent, his imitation of broken English with a strong Italian accent was particularly authentic. The title Shaddap You Face (correctly actually “Shut up your face”, which means something like “shut up”) was very well received in Australia and sold over 350,000 times. It also became the most successful Australian single of all time internationally.

The song became a worldwide success and reached number 1 on the charts in 15 countries, including Great Britain , Germany , Austria and Switzerland , Canada and France. The title has sold over four million times worldwide.

His subsequent version of the Jimmy Soul classic If You Want to Be Happy was unsuccessful internationally. The other singles, who all tried to imitate the style of Shaddap You Face , were not at all internationally and less and less successful in Australia.

In the following years he was also active as a film composer, e.g. B. wrote the title Intimacy of the Terminator 1 soundtrack (1984). He was also seen in several small film and television roles in Australia in the late 1980s, but an acting career did not turn out to be.

In the years that followed, Dolce returned to his shows and composing. With his long-time partner Lin Van Hek, he was touring with a show called Difficult Women , which he also performed in Canada and Europe. He also goes to folk festivals and is successful with his numerous compositions in the field of country folk and gospel. In 2004 he received an Australian award for the best folk gospel song for Hill of Death .

Shaddap You Face

→ Main article : Shaddap You Face

Joe Dolce also repeatedly uses his music to express criticism of society. His first song in Australia was Boat People (1978), which was about the Vietnamese boat refugees. Most recently he wrote a protest song against the Iraq war in 2003 ( One Iraqi Child , 2003). With Shaddap You Face he took up the situation of the Italian minority in Australia. This also had a socio-political significance for Australia in the early 1980s, because there the southern European immigrants were not highly regarded and first had to fight for their place in society.

There are now well over 30 other recordings of the song by other artists, also in Spanish, French and German. A German version Mensch ärger dich nicht was a radio hit for Gottlieb Wendehals in 1981 . Also noteworthy are the versions by EMF and the hip-hopper KRS-One .

Members of the Music Theater

• Mike Williams (bass guitar)
• Garth Thompson (drums)
• Peter McCutcheon (piano, synth-acc)

Discography

Albums

• 1981: Shaddap You Face
• 1981: Joe Dolce Christmas Album

Singles

• 1980: Shaddap You Face
• 1981: If You Want to Be Happy
• 1981: Reggae Matilda
• 1981: Ain't No UFO Gonna Catch My Diesel
• 1981: Christmas in Australia
• 1981: I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus
• 1981: Christmas at Our House
• 1981: Jingle Bell Rock
• 1982: You Toucha My Car I Breaka You Face ( feat.Giuseppe )
• 1984: Pizza Pizza
• 1989: Shaddap You Face (Italo House Mix)
• 1998: Shaddap You Face - NRR (No Room for Racism) (with Hung Le)

Awards for music sales

Platinum record  New Zealand 1981: for the single Shaddap You Face

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
New Zealand (RMNZ)	-	platinum1	15,000	nztop40.co.nz
United Kingdom (BPI)	gold1	-	400,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	gold1	platinum1

swell

1. ↑ Chart sources albums: US
2. ^ The Billboard Albums by Joel Whitburn , 6th Edition, Record Research 2006, ISBN 0-89820-166-7 .
3. ↑ Chart sources singles: DE, AT, CH, US UK

Web links

• Official website (English)
• Sound carrier by Joe Dolce in the catalog of the German National Library
• Joe Dolce in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Joe Dolce at Allmusic (English)
• Joe Dolce at Discogs (English)
• Detailed article at Buzzle.com (English)
• Interview with Joe Dolce (English)
• Articles about Shaddap You Face in The Age (English)