Martin Sharp (1942-2013) is now my favorite Australian, with the obvious exception of my daughter-in-law. Sharp was kind of a psychedelic Renaissance man; I’d heard about him in one context, then another, then I began to investigate the big picture, and the whole story is bloody amazing.
Sharp was primarily an illustrator and cartoonist, and is widely known as Australia’s foremost pop artist. When he was 21 years old he became one of the founders and editors of Oz magazine, a satirical publication inspired by Lenny Bruce, and which had things in common with Paul Krassner’s The Realist and Charlie Hebdo. The great art critic and author Robert Hughes (later of Time magazine) was one of their earlier contributors. Their targets included police brutality, the Vietnam War, gay-bashing, racism, censorship, and organized crime and corruption. The magazine was frequently in hot water with authorities in Australia and the UK, usually over obscenity matters. In 1971 (after Sharp had left) John Lennon wrote and produced (but did not sing on) a tune called “God Save Oz” to raise money for legal costs during one of their obscenity trials. The song includes the lyric “God Save Us from the Queen” — a good five years before the Sex Pistols. It also features the sarcastic line “Let’s fight for Mickey Mouse“, a knowing nod to the fact that the establishment always sides with the powerful. (Timely at the moment now that the rodent is in the public domain). This song anticipates the tone and content of Some Time in New York City. If more of the songs on that record had been more like “God Save Oz” it mightn’t have been quite so excoriated. At any rate, Oz finally folded in 1973.
Meantime, Sharp had moved to London in 1966, initially working on the English version of the magazine, but quickly becoming involved in the rock community. Here’s where you know his work even if you think you don’t. He is best known for his collaborations with Eric Clapton during the Cream era. Sharp wrote the lyrics to the songs “Tales of Brave Ulysses” and “Anyone for Tennis”, and designed the covers for Disraeli Gears (1967 — I’ve got that one hanging in my office), and Wheels of Fire (1968).
1968 was the year Martin Sharp first heard the one-of-a-kind Tiny Tim perform, and this heralded a new era of obsession for him. During the ’70s, Sharp did posters for Circus Oz and Sydney’s Luna Park, as well as murals for the latter. At the same time, he became Tiny Tim’s principal supporter at the very same time interest in his work was declining in the States. He painted multiple portraits of him, booked him for gigs Down Under at Luna Park and other places, produced recordings with him, and put him at the center of a massive film project (never finished) called Street of Dreams, which purported to tie Tiny Tim’s 1979 marathon performance at Luna Park with the Ghost Train Fire, through some sort of cosmic, theological connection. It is no doubt the outlandish, seemingly acid-inspired nature of this web of theory that allowed people to dismiss Sharp’s genuinely solid research on the circumstances of the fire for so long. Abe Saffron? Yes, he was connected. Tiny Tim? Not so much.
Sharp’s last decades seem to have been spent rambling around his mansion Wirian, working on Street of Dreams and other projects. His official website is here.
For more on show business history, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous,