Rick Springfield

Between Australia and the United States, Rick Springfield built from the 1970s a career blending pop rock, power pop and AOR radio rock. Born in 1949 in Guildford near Sydney, he first made a name for himself with the Australian band Zoot before launching a solo career and settling in Los Angeles. Early albums such as “Beginnings” (1972) and “Comic Book Heroes” (1973) established a body of melodic, guitar- and vocal-centered songs that reached wider recognition in the early 1980s with “Working Class Dog” (1981) and the single “Jessie’s Girl”. Springfield followed with “Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet” (1982) and “Living in Oz” (1983), where his writing moved toward American radio rock and incorporated more keyboards. Alongside his music, he pursued an acting career—most notably on the soap General Hospital and in various TV series and films—maintaining his presence in popular culture. After a quieter period he returned in the late 1990s with “Karma” (1999) and several studio albums, later exploring more roots and blues-rock on “The Snake King” (2018), while continuing to tour regularly across North America and Europe.