BON SCOTT

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Bon Scott, best remembered as the original frontman of the legendary hard rock band AC/DC, was born in Forfar, Scotland on July 9th 1946. He moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1952, and eventually settled in Fremantle.

In the July 2004 issue of Classic Rock, Scott was rated as number one in a list of the 100 Greatest Frontmen of all time. Subsequently in 2006 Scott made the top 5 list in Hit Parader magazine on their list of 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Vocalists of all time.

Scott’s vocals were inspired by his idol, Little Richard, and after working as a postman, bartender and a truck packer, Scott started his first band, The Spektors, in 1966 as drummer and occasional lead singer. After a year the Spektors merged with another local band, the Winstons, and formed the Valentines, in which Scott was the co-lead singer.

After the Valentines disbanded in 1970 Scott joined the progressive rock band Fraternity. They released the LPs Livestock and Flaming Galah before touring the UK in 1973, where they changed their name to Fang. During this time they played support slots for Status Quo and Geordie, whose frontman Brian Johnson would eventually succeed Scott in AC/DC after his death.

Scott replaced Dave Evans as the lead singer of AC/DC on October 24th 1974, when it became obvious the band and Evans were heading in different directions.

Scott’s wife, Irene Thornton, later wrote that, “The first time Bon saw AC/DC was in August of 1974. They came through Adelaide with the Lou Reed and Stevie Wright tour, and played their own show at the Pooraka Hotel. ‘Get up there, Bon,’ Vince kept saying. The band didn’t have a singer that night; they were playing instrumental versions of old rock ‘n’ roll standards, finally with enough pressure from Vince, Bon climbed on stage. He didn’t realize that AC/DC had just sacked Dave Evans and they wanted Bon to replace him. Like Bon, the Youngs were Scottish, so there was an instant bond.”

Let’s celebrate together Bon Scott’s brief but very special place in history as the iconic lead singer in the early chapters of one of the greatest rock bands of all time before his untimely and tragic death on February 19th 1980.

The information in the biography above is from Wikipedia and All Music’s artist biography by Jason Ankeny with excerpts from Irene Thornton.