Author(s): Jeff Apter

Music

The life, death and rock'n'roll rollercoaster career of AC/DC frontman Bon Scott. Australia has produced any number of great rock and roll frontmen and women. But none has left quite the same mark as AC/DC's Bon Scott. No one had the same skill with lyrics as Bon, who called his words 'toilet poetry', his 'dirty ditties'. Everything Scott delivered, either on stage or in the studio, was done with a nod and a wink and the biggest grin this side of Luna Park. Scott was, in some ways, rock's answer to Paul Hogan, a true Aussie larrikin. He could also vividly depict life on the road, best heard in the classics 'Long Way to the Top' and 'Highway to Hell'. When he first appeared on Countdown in 1975, as AC/DC rocked 'Baby Please Don't Go', the impression he left was indelible. The ugliest schoolgirl to ever appear on the small screen, Scott was a mess of tattoos and pigtails, wearing an awkwardly short skirt, all the while puffing on a ciggie. His bandmates, not just the audience, were in hysterics. The video quickly became part of Oz rock folklore. Scott was always the joker in the AC/DC pack. He'd happily pose for a photographer with a joint dangling from his lips or be interviewed in cut-off shorts with a banana provocatively stuffed into his waistband. Anything to elicit a laugh. The off-stage stories surrounding Scott are the stuff of legend. A survivor of a weekend spent with Bon at the Squire Inn at Bondi said that 'it was like a scene out of Fellini's Satyricon'. Previous biographies have concentrated on the dark side of Bon Scott - especially his premature death at the age of 33 - but this is the first to focus on the man's remarkable gifts as a lyricist, frontman and rascal. In short, the real Bon Scott.