Ian Melidger's Contribution To Australia

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Prime Minister Malcom Turnball, Parliamentary members, officials and fellow guests welcome to this marvellous event. I am standing before you today to nominate an outstanding individual for the distinguished title of Australian of the Year; Ian Alexander Meldrum, better known as Molly.
Ian Meldrum is a famous record producer, Australian pop music critic and journalist, who has world achieved renowned fame for being the presenter of the popular music program, Countdown from 1975 to 1987. Ian has made a significant contribution to the Australian music industry by introducing new artists to the public during in the 70’s and 80’s also by producing many significant Australian songs, like Russel Morris’s ‘The Real Thing’ and ‘I like it both ways’ …show more content…

Ian’s father was a farmer and then an army sergeant in World War 2. Molly moved a lot as a kid and stayed with his grandmother in Quambatook where he attended the local primary school. He then stayed with a few of his aunties in the ensuring years growing up. Molly developed his love for music at a young age through listening to Gilbert and Sullivan and Verdi. In the early 60’s he went to Melbourne where he briefly attended Taylors College. Molly studied how to be a disk jockey at a radio school, which later helped his producing. In 1966 Molly started to write for a weekly pop music newspaper called the ‘Go-Set’. Molly then printed his first interview with Johnny Young who was an upcoming singer from Perth at the time. Ian later was given his own column in the newspaper in 1974. His Love for everything pop music grows …show more content…

Molly’s criticism on the music industry encouraged Australian artists and producers to preform and create more inspiring music through his work. He Later became the editor and compiler of the monthly off set of ‘Go-Set’, which featured the Monkeys which was published in 1968, the last issue of this off set was publish in 1971. Meldrum went to Armstrong Studios in 1966 to observe recording processes. He learnt production and engineering techniques for producing. This led him to start producing music. In 1966 Molly appeared in episodes of a pop music TV show made for teen-age girls called Kommotion. After Kommotion ended in 1967 he later moved onto another ATV music show called ‘Uptight’. In 1974 was where the magic stared. Molly was given the job to be presenter of his well know show the Countdown. Although he did not appear on the show until 1975 when he was given the role to provide the weekly report which was renamed to ‘humdrum’ by John Paul Young. The countdown allowed for many loved artists and songs to be shown to the Australian Audience, even before some artists like Madonna became international stars. Since Ian travelled over-seas and formed many friendships, with many artists, this allowed the countdown to gain international exclusives. When he would promote and album he told the audience to “go out and buy it” but this later change to the iconic phrase “Do Your Self a

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