John Peter Farnham (born July 1, 1949), is an Australian pop singer. Whilst not having the international success of, for example, Kylie Minogue, Savage Garden, or The Seekers, domestically he has remained one of Australia's best-known performers over a career spanning more than 30 years. He is the only Australian artist to have a number one record in five consecutive decades.
Born in Dagenham, Essex, England (on the outer north-eastern suburbs of London), Farnham spent the first years of his life there before immigrating to Australia in 1959. An undistinguished student, he began a plumbing apprenticeship before taking leave from that to pursue music.
His first commercially-successful recording was a novelty song entitled "Sadie the Cleaning Lady", in 1968, which sold 180 000 copies in Australia, the largest-selling single by an Australian artist of the decade. The clean-cut pop star made several more successful albums, but by the 1970s his recording career began to dwindle and he turned to television, appearing in a situation comedy and narrating documentaries, whilst singing in clubs. He also performed in a number of musicals and in the Australian television comedy series Bobby Dazzler as the leading character of the same name. His one recording hit in this period was a reworking of the Beatles' "Help!" in 1980.
From 1981 until 1984, he fronted the Little River Band after Glenn Shorrock departed. This was a move away from cabaret and into rock music. With Farnham, the group recorded three albums, which had some modest success, though not enough to pay back the advances the record company had given the band. During his time with the Little River Band, they recorded a concert in Melbourne that aired in America on HBO. The concert video was only one hour long, and it highlighted some of the songs from the The Net as well as reworked versions of LRB classics such as "Cool Change" and "Reminiscing". "Please Don't Ask Me", a song written by Graham Goble, and a hit for Farnham almost three years previously, was played during the Australian opening of the show. Despite positive Australian and US reviews, this performance has never been officially released on VHS or DVD.