Colin Hay To Receive The Ted Albert Award For Outstanding Services To Aus Music At APRA Music Awards

After being honoured with APRA AMCOS' Billions Award for his songwriting on Down Under, effectively joining Spotify’s Billions Club, Colin Hay has received the Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music alongside the late trailblazing promoter Colleen Ironside. 

The multi-talented Colin Hay rose to international fame with seminal ’80s hitmakers Men At Work. While the band would reach the heights of stardom—they took home a GRAMMY Award for Best New Artist and sold more than 30 million records worldwide on the strength of #1 singles like Who Can It Be Now? and Down Under - by 1985, they’d called it quits.

Hay said about his latest honour, “To receive the news that APRA wanted to bestow this most prestigious Ted Albert Award is very special indeed. This award is for outstanding services to Australian Music. I think services is the key word here. It’s important to realise at some point in your life that it is a valuable thing to be of service. To be of some use.”

Colleen Ironside began her career at the Harbour Agency in Sydney before branching out with her booking agency APA, promoting clients such as INXS,  Ratcat, Jenny Morris, Wendy Matthews, and James Reyne.

By 1994, she was hired by Frontier Touring and became the Head of its Asia division, where she managed tours by Pearl Jam, R.E.M. and Tom Jones, among others. 

In 1999, she set up Live Limited and tours by The Rolling Stones, Elton John, David Bowie, Sting and countless other music heavyweights. In 2005, she worked as Senior Vice President of bookings for Live Nation in Pan-Asia. She was there for five years before reviving Live Limited, promoting heavyweight artists Janet Jackson in Hong Kong, Bruno Mars in Malaysia and Bob Dylan in Hong Kong and Vietnam. 

Colleen Ironside died in 2022 in her beloved Thailand, where she had lived for many years, her legacy as an acclaimed promoter intact. 

Dean Ormston, the CEO of APRA, said about Ironside and Hay, “We are very proud to salute two uniquely Australian music industry figures, the late Colleen Ironside and Colin Hay, who both honed their talent and started careers at home, which sent them out into the international scene and onto huge success. 

“Colleen championed Australian songwriters and artists and created live music pathways into Asia with a business acumen that was years ahead of her peers. Colin is a songwriter of the highest level and with the biggest heart, whose songs continue to connect and hit  #1 on the charts. We look forward to honouring them with the Ted Albert Award at this year’s APRA  Music Awards.”

The APRA Music Awards take place today at ICC Sydney with hosts Celia Pacquola, Fred Leone and Henry Wagons.