Col Joye, a trailblazing architect of Australian rock & roll and ARIA Hall of Fame inductee, passed away on August 6, 2025, at the age of 89.
Born Colin Jacobsen in Sydney in 1936, he embarked on his musical journey in 1957 alongside his brother Kevin’s ensemble, the KJ Quintet.
When invited to play at Manly’s Jazzorama, the band abandoned a planned rechristening to Col Jay and the Playboys, instead emerging as Col Joye and the Joy Boys.
In 1959, Joye and his colleagues topped Sydney’s charts with “Bye Bye Baby,” then made history as the first Australian artists to claim the national No. 1 spot with “Oh Yeah Uh Huh,” which reigned for four consecutive weeks.
Throughout the 1960s, they accumulated multiple top-ten hits and became regulars on the television program Bandstand, before Joye scored his final chart leader in 1973 with “Heaven Is My Woman’s Love.”
Beyond performing, Col and Kevin Jacobsen founded Joye Enterprises, Joye Music and the ATA label and talent agency. Their most notable signing was the Bee Gees, whom they discovered during a 1961 engagement in Queensland.
The Bee Gees went on to become the first Australian act to top the US Billboard Hot 100 with “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” in 1971, a feat they repeated eight more times over the next decade. Their younger brother, Andy Gibb, also notched three solo No. 1s.
In 1988, Joye was inducted into the inaugural class of the ARIA Hall of Fame alongside luminaries such as Joan Sutherland, Johnny O’Keefe, Slim Dusty, AC/DC and the duo Vanda & Young.
“From groundbreaking recordings to television, publishing, concert promotion and artist management, Col Joye’s remarkable six-decade career transformed Australian music,” said ARIA CEO Annabelle Herd. “He proved that homegrown talent could captivate audiences in an industry dominated by US and UK acts. Our deepest condolences to his family.”
