To many fans, great musicians are a source of national pride. Canadians perk up when Alanis Morissette or Rush come on the radio; Aussies love Men At Work almost as much as their vegemite. So it's a little surprising to find where some famous musicians actually were born.
Take Gene Simmons for instance. Few bands can evoke “USA” more than Kiss, with their over-the-top stage shows and brash, bold marketing. Yet the bat-eyed face of the band is not from “Detroit Rock City” but Israel. He was born in the then-new country as Cham Witz in 1949 and came to New York with his mother (a Nazi concentration camp survivor) at age 8.
Another singer with family ties to Nazi brutality is Australia's favorite song-and-dance gal, Olivia Newton John. Her mother was German and her grandfather, Max Born was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who took the whole family away to escape Hitler's regime. Newton John's parents met and got “Physical”...in England! ONJ didn't see Down Under until she was 6 and her father took a job teaching in Melbourne.
WWII also factored into the surprising birthplace of one of SoCal's quintessential voices. Jackson Browne was actually born in Germany (like ONJ, in 1948). His journalist father was American, but had been stationed in Heidelberg writing for Stars and Stripes. The family took the “Load Out” to “Stay” in California in the early '50s.
With no less than 69 Top 10 hits in Britain, Cliff Richard has been called the “English Elvis.” Yet, you'd be “Dreaming” if you thought he was actually born in the British Isles. Harry Webb, as he was named by his parents, entered the world in India, where his British dad worked for the railways. Only after the land had declared independence, when the youngster was 8, did the ramily move to a new land (England) and shortly thereafter in his case, a new name as well!
One more child of a Brit who worked overseas is famous “Irish” balladeer Chris deBurgh. His father was an English diplomat and his mother an Irish “Lady In red” who had little Chris while working in Argentina. The singer lived in South Africa, Malta and various spots in Africa before finally settling in Ireland to go to university in Dublin.
Music is more of a universal language than we might have realized!