Harry Vanda

Harry Vanda (actually John Jacob Hendrickus Vandenberg, born March 22, 1946 in The Hague) is an Australian pop musician, singer, guitarist, songwriter and producer.

Born as Hendrikus Vandenberg in the Netherlands, the family emigrated Vandas early 1960s to Australia and settled in Sydney. Vanda was the mid-1960s known by the time of his most successful pop band in Australia, The Easybeats, as a guitarist and songwriter. Together with the rhythm guitarist of the Easybeats, George Young, he wrote all subsequent hits of the group, including the international hits Friday on My Mind.

Vanda's first wife, Pam, committed suicide the mid-1960s, just as the Easybeats were going to move to London. Vanda had to leave in the care of his family in Holland his young son.

The mid-1970s, after the dissolution of the Easybeats, Vanda and Young returned to Australia and began to work as a production team. In 1974, they had recorded a number of successes. They wrote and produced hits for, inter alia, John Paul Young, Cheetah, Stevie Wright, Rose Tattoo, The Angels, William Shakespeare, Mark Williams and especially for AC / DC, where George Young's brothers Malcolm and Angus play.

Together with George Young Vanda moved in the late 1970s on the tape project Flash & the Pan, which had recorded several hits, including Europe.