Ronald Belford "Bon" Scott was a Scottish-born Australian rock musician, best known for being
the lead singer and lyricist of Australian hard rock band AC/DC from 1974 until his death
in 1980. He was born in Forfar and lived in Kirriemuir, Scotland, for 5 years before moving
to Melbourne, Australia, with his family in 1952 at the age of six. The family lived in
the suburb of Sunshine for four years before moving to Fremantle, Western Australia.
Scott formed his first band, The Spektors, in 1964 and became the band's drummer and
occasional lead vocalist. He performed in several other bands including The Valentines
and Fraternity before replacing Dave Evans as the lead singer of AC/DC in 1974.
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" ahead of Freddie Mercury and Robert Plant. Hit Parader ranked
Scott as fifth on their 2006 list of the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Vocalists of all time.
AC/DC's popularity grew throughout the 1970s, initially in Australia, and then internationally.
Their 1979 album Highway to Hell reached the top twenty in the United States, and the band
seemed on the verge of a commercial breakthrough. However, on 19 February 1980, Scott died after
a night out in London. AC/DC briefly considered disbanding, but the group quickly recruited
vocalist Brian Johnson of the British glam rock band Geordie. AC/DC's subsequent album,
Back in Black, was released only five months later as a tribute to Scott. It went on to
make the list of best-selling albums worldwide .
Biography 1946–64: Early Years
Ronald Belford Scott was born on 9 July 1946 at the Fyfe Jamieson Maternity Hospital, Forfar,
Scotland to Charles Belford "Chick" Scott and Isabelle Cunningham "Isa" Mitchell, and
grew up in Kirriemuir. A younger brother Derek was born in 1949. The Scott family emigrated
from Scotland to Australia in 1952: they initially lived in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine
and Bon attended nearby Sunshine Primary School. A second brother, Graeme, was born in 1953.
Bon was the oldest of Derek, Graeme, and Valerie. Bon did have an older brother born before
him named Sandy Scott, but he died shortly after birth.
In 1956, the family moved to Fremantle, Western Australia, and Bon joined the associated Fremantle
Scots Pipe Band, learning the drums. Scott attended North Fremantle Primary School and
later John Curtin College of the Arts until he dropped out at the age of 15 and spent
a short time in Fremantle Prison's assessment centre and nine months at the Riverbank Juvenile
Institution relating to charges of giving a false name and address to the police, having
escaped legal custody, having unlawful carnal knowledge and stealing twelve gallons of petrol.
He attempted to join the Australian Army but was rejected for being deemed "socially maladjusted."
1964–70:The Spektors and The Valentines Scott's vocals were inspired by his idol,
Little Richard. After working as a postman, bartender and truck packer, Scott started
his first band, The Spektors, in 1966 as drummer and occasional lead singer. One year later
the Spektors merged with another local band, the Winstons, and formed The Valentines, in
which Scott was co-lead singer with Vince Lovegrove. The Valentines recorded several
songs written by George Young of The Easybeats. "Every Day I Have to Cry" made the local top
5. In 1970, after gaining a place on the National Top 30 with their single "Juliette", the Valentines
disbanded due to artistic differences after a much-publicised drug scandal.
1970–74: Fraternity Scott moved to Adelaide in 1970 and joined
the progressive rock band Fraternity. Fraternity 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 front man, Brian Johnson,
became the lead singer of AC/DC after Scott's death. During this time, on 24 January 1972,
Scott married Irene Thornton. In 1973, just after returning to Australia
from the tour of the UK, Fraternity went on hiatus. Scott took a day job at the Wallaroo
fertiliser plant and began singing with the Mount Lofty Rangers, a loose collective of
musicians helmed by Peter Head from Headband, who explains "Headband and Fraternity were
in the same management stable and we both split about the same time so the logical thing
was to take members from both bands and create a new one ... the purpose of the band was
for songwriters to relate to each other and experiment with songs, so it was a hotbed
of creativity". Other ex-Fraternity members also played with the band as did Glen Shorrock
pre Little River Band. During this time, Head also helped Scott with his original compositions.
Vince Lovegrove said "Bon would go to Peter's home after a day shovelling shit, and show
him musical ideas he had had during his day's work. Bon's knowledge of the guitar was limited,
so Peter began teaching him how to bridge chords and construct a song. One of the songs
from these sessions was a beautiful ballad called "Clarissa", about a local Adelaide
girl. Another was the country-tinged Bin Up in the Hills Too Long, which for me was a
sign of things to come with Bon's lyrics; simple, clever, sardonic, tongue-in-cheek ..."
In return, Scott recorded vocals for Mount Lofty Rangers songs "Round & Round" and "Carey
Gully". Head released these original recordings in 1996, also teaming up with producer Ted
Yanni, another old friend of Scott's, to create an entirely new backing for Round & Round
& Round that more accurately reflected the original intentions Head had. Long out of
print, and massively bootlegged, this EP finally got an official digital release in June 2010.
Unrecorded original compositions of Scott's, "Been Up In The Hills Too Long" and "Clarissa"
have been recorded by Head on his Peter Head & The Mount Lofty Rangers "Lofty" album, also
released in digital format only in 2011. "About 11 pm on 3 May 1974, at the Old Lion
Hotel in North Adelaide, during a rehearsal with the Mount Lofty Rangers, a very drunk,
distressed and belligerent Bon Scott had a raging argument with a member of the band.
Bon stormed out of the venue, threw a bottle of Jack Daniels on to the ground, then screamed
off on his Suzuki 550 motorbike." Scott suffered serious injuries from the ensuing motorcycle
accident, spending three days in a coma and a further 18 days in hospital. Vince Lovegrove
and his wife, by then running a booking/management agency, gave Scott odd jobs, such as putting
up posters and painting the office during his recovery, and shortly after introduced
him to AC/DC who were on the lookout for a new lead singer.
"There was a young, dinky little glam band from Sydney that we both loved called AC/DC ...
Before another AC/DC visit, George Young phoned me and said the band was looking for a new
singer. I immediately told him that the best guy for the job was Bon. George responded
by saying Bon's accident would not allow him to perform, and that maybe he was too old.
Nevertheless I had a meeting with Malcolm and Angus, and suggested Bon as their new
singer. They asked me to bring him out to the Pooraka Hotel that night, and to come
backstage after the show. When he watched the band, Bon was impressed, and he immediately
wanted to join them, but thought they may be a bit too inexperienced and too young.
After the show, backstage, Bon expressed his doubts about them being "able to rock". The
two Young brothers told Bon he was "too old to rock". The upshot was that they had a jam
session that night in the home of Bon's former mentor, Bruce Howe, and at the end of the
session, at dawn, it was obvious that AC/DC had found a new singer. And Bon had found
a new band." Like Scott, Malcolm Young and his younger
brother Angus Young of AC/DC were born in Scotland before emigrating to Australia in
their childhood with their family. Fraternity later reformed and replaced Scott
with Jimmy Barnes. 1974–80: AC/DC
Scott replaced Dave Evans as the lead singer of AC/DC on 24 October 1974, when it became
obvious the band and Evans were heading in different directions, with Evans having personal
clashes with band members and management. With the Young brothers as lead and rhythm
guitarists, session drummer Tony Currenti and George Young as a temporary bassist, AC/DC
released High Voltage, their first LP in Australia in 1975. Within a few months Currenti was
replaced by Phil Rudd and Mark Evans was hired as a permanent bassist, and AC/DC began recording
their second album T.N.T., which was released in Australia in December 1975. The first AC/DC
album to gain international distribution however was a compilation of tracks from the first
two albums, also entitled High Voltage, which was released in May 1976. Another studio album,
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap was released in the same year, but only in Australia; the
international version of the album was released in November 1976 in the UK and in March 1981
in the U.S., with a different track listing. In the following years, AC/DC gained further
success with their albums Let There Be Rock and Powerage. The 1978 release of Powerage
marked the debut of bassist Cliff Williams, and with its harder riffs, followed the blueprint
set by Let There Be Rock. The album was the last produced by Harry Vanda and George Young
with Bon Scott on vocals and is claimed to be AC/DC's most underrated album. Only one
single was released for Powerage – "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation" – and gave AC/DC their
highest chart position at the time, reaching #24. An appearance at the Apollo Theatre in
Glasgow during the Powerage tour was recorded and released as If You Want Blood You've Got
It. The band's sixth album, Highway To Hell, was
produced by Robert "Mutt" Lange and was released in 1979. It became AC/DC's first LP to break
the U.S. top 100, eventually reaching #17, and it propelled AC/DC into the top ranks
of hard rock acts. 19 February 1980: Death
On 15 February 1980 Scott attended a session where Malcolm and Angus Young were working
on the beginnings of two songs that would later be recorded on the Back in Black album;
"Have a Drink On Me" and "Let Me Put My Love Into You" with Scott accompanying on drums
rather than singing or writing lyrics. Scott was not a part of the next album's success.
On 19 February 1980, Scott, 33, passed out after a night of heavy drinking in a London
club called the Music Machine. He was left to sleep in a Renault 5 owned by an acquaintance
named Alistair Kinnear, at 67 Overhill Road in East Dulwich, South London. The following
afternoon, Kinnear found Scott lifeless and alerted the authorities. Scott was rushed
to King's College Hospital in Camberwell, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. It
has been contended that pulmonary aspiration of vomit was the cause of Scott's death, but
the official cause was listed on the death certificate as "acute alcohol poisoning" and
classified as "death by misadventure". As part of the funeral arrangements, Scott's
body was embalmed by Desmond Henley; it was later cremated and Scott's ashes were interred
by his family at Fremantle Cemetery in Fremantle, Western Australia.
Inconsistencies in media accounts of Scott's death have been cited in conspiracy theories,
which suggest that Scott was killed by exhaust fumes redirected into the car, or that Kinnear
did not exist. Additionally, Scott was asthmatic, and the temperature was below freezing on
the morning of his death. Shortly after Scott's death, the remaining
members of AC/DC briefly considered quitting. However, it was eventually decided that Scott
would have wanted them to continue and after the encouragement of Bon's family that they
continue, the band hired Brian Johnson as the new vocalist.
Five months after Scott's death, AC/DC finished the work they began with Scott and released
Back in Black as a tribute to him with two tracks from the album, "Hells Bells" and "Back
in Black", dedicated to his memory. It is now the fourth best-selling album in history.
The French rock band Trust wrote their hit song "Ton dernier acte" in memory of Scott
in 1980. German hard rock band Kingdom Come wrote and recorded a song titled "Bon Scott"
for their album, Ain't Crying for the Moon, as a tribute to the former AC/DC frontman.
His grave site has become a cultural landmark; more than 28 years after Scott's death, the
National Trust of Australia decreed his grave important enough to be included on the list
of classified heritage places. It is reportedly the most visited grave in Australia. On 7
July 2006, to mark his 60th birthday, the Metropolitan Cemeteries Board completed refurbishments
on the Bon Scott Grave Area. This consisted of a Bon Scott Arch and Memorial Entrance
gate off Carrington Street in the north-west corner of Fremantle Cemetery. On 9 July 2006,
60 years to the day from Scott's birth, the bronze plaque was stolen from the site.
Legacy
AC/DC released a box set named Bonfire as a tribute to Scott on 18 November 1997. It
contains four albums; a remastered version of Back in Black; a "rarities" album with
alternate takes, outtakes, and stray live cuts, Volts; and two live albums, Live from
the Atlantic Studios and Let There Be Rock: The Movie.
Live from the Atlantic Studios was recorded on 7 December 1977 at the Atlantic Studios
in New York City. Let There Be Rock: The Movie is a double album
which was recorded on 9 December 1979 at the Pavillon de Paris in Paris, and was the soundtrack
of the motion picture, AC/DC: Let There Be Rock.
Romanian hard rock group Iris recorded the song Ultimul mic dejun al lui Bon as a tribute
to Bon Scott, released on their 1997 album Lună plină.
In 2003, Scott was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member
of AC/DC. Members of Scott's family joined the band at the podium to accept the honour
in his place. In 2003 Scott's final studio album with AC/DC,
1979's Highway to Hell ranked 199 on Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
In 2004 the song "Highway to Hell" that Scott co-wrote with Malcolm and Angus Young ranked
254 on Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
In the July 2004 issue of UK magazine Classic Rock, Scott was rated as number one in a list
of the "100 Greatest Frontmen," ahead of Freddie Mercury and Robert Plant.
ACDC Lane is a street in the central business district of Melbourne. It was renamed on 1
October 2004 as a tribute to AC/DC. The trademark lightning bolt or slash used to separate the
AC and the DC in the band's name contravened the naming policy of the Office of the Registrar
of Geographic Names, so the punctuation was omitted on the street sign. Melbourne's Lord
Mayor John So launched ACDC Lane with the words, "As the song says, there is a highway
to hell, but this is a laneway to heaven. Let us rock." Bagpipers then played "It's
a Long Way to the Top." Those were all songs from Bon Scott era. The lane contains a rock
'n' roll nightclub called the Cherry Bar. More recently a new street in Kirriemuir has
been named after Scott. Kirriemuir hosts an annual festival known
as 'Bonfest' as a tribute to Bon Scott and AC/DC. It was originally held in July on the
weekend closest to his birthday but recently moved to May because of other events in the
local area during July. On 6 May 2006, the town of Kirriemuir in Scotland
held a service and unveiled a Caithness stone slab commemorating the singer. A message was
read from long-time friend and fellow member of The Valentines, Vince Lovegrove in which
he said: A bronze statue of Scott was unveiled at Fremantle
Fishing Boat Harbour in Western Australia on 24 February 2008. The statue portrays Scott
atop a Marshall amplifier. A Screen Australia-backed film depicting Scott's
life from 1974 until his death in 1980 was announced on 28 July 2011. The film will be
directed by Eddie Martin and will be produced by Lizzie Atkins.
References
References Walker, Clinton, Highway to Hell: The Life
and Times of AC/DC Legend Bon Scott, Verse Chorus Press, ISBN 0-283-06263-0 .
Stenning, Paul, AC/DC – Two Sides to Every Glory, Chrome Dreams, ISBN 1-84240-308-7 .
Wall, Mick, Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be, Orion, ISBN 978-1409115342 .
Engleheart, Murray, AC/DC MAXIMUM ROCK & ROLL: The Ultimate Story of the World's Greatest
Rock-and-Roll Band, It Books, ISBN 978-0732283834 . External links
AC/DC official website AC/DC at DMOZ
Bon Scott at the Internet Movie Database