The Chris Wilson Cheersquad, which is part of the Northcote Social Club’s 20th anniversary celebrations in August, will feature Wilson’s wife Sarah Carroll and son George Carroll Wilson, as well as Barb Waters, Van Walker, Freya Josephine Hollick, Meghan Maike, Lisa Miller, David M Western, Jodi Phillis, Joyce Prescher, Patrick Wilson, Shannon Bourne, Carl Pannuzzo, Sime Nugent, Jack Meredith & Tim Rogers together with a band led by long-time Wilson guitarist Shane O’Mara and Crown Of Thorns veterans Chris ‘Dodgy’ Rogers and Ashley Davies. DJ Max Crawdaddy from 3RRR will also play
Cheersquad Records & Tapes are proud to present the first ever vinyl edition and long-awaited re-release on CD of legendary Australian singer-songwriter and bluesman Chris Wilson’s acclaimed 2002 album King For A Day, which was produced by Kerryn Tolhurst of The Dingoes and Country Radio fame. The release is set for August 1, and the LP will be released in black and a 100-copies only yellow & black pizza pie edition as well as on CD.
The album is available for pre-order now via Bandcamp with the track ‘Embers Down The Mountain’ being available to download immediately with all pre-orders. https://chriswilson2.bandcamp.com/album/king-for-a-day
Known for his work with Paul Kelly & the Messengers and with Diesel in Wilson Diesel, and his involvement with the likes of Hunters & Collectors, Harem Scarem and punk legends X as well his own bands the Crown of Thorns, The Spidermen and Skronkadoodledoo and his brilliant solo work, Chris Wilson passed away on January 16, 2019.
Cheersquad’s 2021 reissue of Wilson’s classic Live at the Continental album debuted at #19 on the ARIA album chart and came in at #20 on the Year End ARIA Blues & Roots chart. Ahead of the reissue, in December 2020, Wilson was inducted to the Music Victoria Hall of Fame by his old friend Paul Kelly.
Arriving in 2002 off the back of the 2000’s Rhythms Magazine’s “Best Blues Album” Spiderman (2000), King For A Day was the first fully original Chris Wilson album since the ARIA-nominated classic Long Weekend in 1998. The eagerly awaited album was the first on Wilson’s newly established Forge label (named after his two boys Fenn and George) and again featured long-time guitarist Shannon Bourne & drummer Dave Folley, along with Chris Rogers on bass, Kerryn Tolhurst, Cindi Boste, Sarah Carroll and Skip Sail.
To celebrate the release, Cheersquad will also present a special tribute to the late, great Wilson at the Northcote Social Club amidst the venue’s 20th Anniversary celebrations in August. Taking place Wednesday August 13, THE CHRIS WILSON CHEERSQUAD will feature an incredible ensemble of artists coming together to celebrate & perform the music of the man who was, and who remains, a figure synonymous with Melbourne’s internationally renowned live music scene. With a band led by long time Chris Wilson guitarist Shane O’Mara, alongside seasoned Wilson veterans Chris ‘Dodgy’ Rogers and Ashley Davies, the event will feature a long list of amazing vocalists to pay homage to the great man,, including his singer-songwriter wife Sarah Carroll and son George Carroll Wilson, as well as Crown of Thorns bandmate Barb Waters, Van Walker, Freya Josephine Hollick, Meghan Maike, Lisa Miller, David M Western, Jodi Phillis, Joyce Prescher, Patrick Wilson, Shannon Bourne, Carl Pannuzzo, Sime Nugent, Jack Meredith & Tim Rogers. DJ Max Crawdaddy from 3RRR will also be on the wheels of steel.
To be released August 1, 2025, King For A Day is available to pre-order on Bandcamp now: https://chriswilson2.bandcamp.com/album/king-for-a-day
Pre-save King for A Day from digital providers now https://bfan.link/king-for-a-day
Tickets available to The Chris Wilson Cheersquad at the Northcotre Social Club, Wednesday August 13, 2025 are available here
Following its original release in 2002, Wilson spoke to The Music about King For A Day, having just appeared at the Gympie Muster.
“I guess there was a good litmus test on the weekend (Gympie Muster): it seemed to go down just fine. I think there’s a lot of people who are quite open-minded. I think it’s a minority that needs music in a box.
“Spiderman was just a pure blues record that we sort of banged down in a day. King For A Day is all original for a start; it was the first time I ever had a producer; it was more a mixture of influences—blues and country and rock ‘n’ roll.
“I recorded the album twice. The first time I recorded it was just after I’d had a car accident, there was something missing in the songs. There was nothing wrong with the playing; it was the songs and me, because I had a bit of difficulty singing properly. I just thought I needed someone who would go through the stuff with me and tighten it up a bit. Kerryn Tolhurst has been with the Dingoes and stuff, and he knew a lot about songwriting, but jeez he was happy to sit down with me. I’d play him a song and he’d say, ‘That’s all right’ or ‘that should be different, try this’.”
At the time of the chat with The Music, Wilson had been performing with the line-up on the album for about two years. He explained how they came together: “I just heard Shannon playing in a guitar factory. He was only 21 at the time. I didn’t even see him; I just heard him and I thought, ‘That guitar is fantastic.’ I looked around the corner and there was this cherub sitting there with a guitar in his hands. I asked him if he wanted to do some gigs, and we just started playing acoustically, with a little electric. Dave Folley the drummer, he just sort of drifted in. We used to have this Tuesday night residency in a pub, in the corner, and he just drifted in and brought his kit in piece by piece. Then we went electric and played as a three-piece for quite a while. Then Chris Rodgers, he’s played bass with me for about 20 years, I rang him up and said, ‘Do you wanna do some gigs?’ He completed the band.”
MORE ABOUT CHRIS WILSON
Chris Wilson was a giant of Australian blues and roots music. A big man with a big voice and an even bigger heart, he followed in the footsteps of early pioneers like Dutch Tilders, Matt Taylor and Broderick Smith (and led the way for the likes of Kerri Simpson, Jeff Lang, Ash Grunwald and the Teskey Brothers) and took his feeling for blues into the rock and punk worlds, eventually becoming the heart and soul of Melbourne’s legendary thriving live scene.
Wilson began his career with the pub R&B/soul rocking Sole Twisters before joining heavy hitting post-punk blues enthusiasts Harem Scarem in time for their revered Pilgrim’s Progress album – taking centre stage with his harp on their burning version of Iggy & The Stooges’ “Open Up & Bleed” amongst other great tracks – in 1986. He was known initially as an instrumentalist; he was often seen with a sax hanging off his neck but it was his harp playing that quickly drew attention. In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, he was adding harp to the work of friends Hunters & Collectors (he played on 1987’s What’s a Few Men), Crowded House on their album Woodface, punk-rock legends X, and most famously, Paul Kelly & The Coloured Girls (and most famously there on “Dumb Things”), with whom he undertook a 45-date North American tour.
Soon enough Chris found his voice upfront of his own group, Crown of Thorns. And what a voice it was; a rich, elastic baritone that fearlessly traversed areas that few since Tim Buckley had ventured through. At the same time Wilson also made his mark as a songwriter, and seemingly overnight he became the complete package.
Local success for records by Crown of Thorns and another project, The Pubdogs, featuring “Evil” Graham Lee of Triffids/Coloured Girls fame – all released on a label run by 3RRR’s revered blues DJ Max Crawdaddy – led to a deal with Mushroom’s Aurora label, home also to Archie Roach. Debut solo album Landlocked followed and in 1993 he was nominated for best male artist and breakthrough artist at the ARIAs. That in turn was followed by Live at the Continental, which soon became his fans’ favourite, and which had a deep resonance with many.
In 1996, Mushroom paired him up with Diesel as Wilson Diesel for the hugely successful Short Cool Ones – a top 20 smash. The sprawling double CD The Long Weekend followed in 1998 and showed the huge potential of his appeal to an audience of pub-going rock fans who grew up on the Dingoes and Cold Chisel and the like. Along the way Chris opened for both Bob Dylan (who sought him out backstage to shake his hand) and Elvis Costello and earned himself a clutch more ARIA nominations.
Chris soon turned away from the spotlight, preferring to play local and hang with his young and also musical family; wife Sarah Carroll was a member of much-loved country trio Git amongst other projects. They moved down to the Bellarine Peninsula, and Chris continued life and work as a harmonica teacher, running programs for boys at local schools and phoning in music book reviews to 3RRR-FM’s influential Off The Record program. And the music still flowed. New albums, new projects, and he was by now a scene elder – he had new artists who could use his helping hand. Late in his life, as sons Fenn Wilson and George Carroll Wilson (aka Pollyman) started making names for themselves on the scene, he recorded a final album featuring his new-found drumming skills and teamed up again with old mate Steve Lucas from X in the roaring pub blues rock band the Heinous Hounds, which featured one time Keith Richards & The X-Pensive Winos member Jerome Smith and another old pal, drummer Ash Davies. His final festival performances, at Port Fairy in 2018 with punk blues trio Skronkadoodledoo, including Fenn on drums and Shannon Bourne on guitar, were the stuff of legend, complete with bleeding hands and blown-up amplifiers.
In July 2018, Chris announced that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was unlikely to perform again. His final album was released, eponymously titled. A fundraising concert at the Corner Hotel was organised and quickly sold out. Chris passed away on January 16 2019 to an outpouring of grief as great as any that Melbourne had experienced in a long time.
On October 8 2020, it was announced that Chris would be posthumously inducted into the Music Victoria Hall of Fame. Wilson’s family accepted his induction with wife Sarah Carroll and sons Fenn Wilson and George Carroll Wilson performing a version of Chris’s powerful ‘Hand Becomes Fist’. Wilson’s induction, by Paul Kelly, closed Music Victoria’s annual awards ceremony at the Recital Centre on December 9.
Kelly began his induction speech by quoting Bob Dylan’s recent take from Walt Whitman and describing Wilson as a “man of multitudes“. He went on to describe Wilson’s deep love of music from “it seemed… every country in the world” which he “absorbed” into his own “mongrel music, a multitudinous music, a music of contradiction and tension”. He described a man who was a “teacher and a preacher” and “ferocious and tender and all the shades in between”; a “huge hearted man”, a “shy man who listened deeply and talked quietly”.
The award was accepted on Wilson’s behalf by his Sarah, Fenn and George – all three, bold and adventurous musicians in their own right.
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