James Valentine, the versatile Australian artist, writer and broadcaster who was inducted into the ARIA Corridor of Fame as a member of Fashions, and whose pivot to broadcasting earned him tens of millions of followers and worldwide awards, has died following a battle with most cancers. He was 64.
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“James handed peacefully at house surrounded by his household, who adored him,” Valentine’s household remarks in a press release, issued Thursday, April 23.
A gifted saxophonist with an ear for jazz, Valentine was a distinguished recording and touring artist by the Nineteen Eighties with a string of Australian bands, together with Fashions, Absent Buddies, and the Wendy Matthews Band, Jo Camilleri, Stephen Cummings, Kate Ceberano, and others.
Valentine carried out on the band’s fourth, and most commercially profitable album, Out of Thoughts, Out of Sight, which peaked at No. 84 on the Billboard 200 in 1986, and logged 18 weeks on the chart. The gathering yielded three home high 40 hits “Huge on Love,” Barbados” and the title monitor, which reached No. 37 on the Billboard Scorching 100 in 1986, and chalked up 13 weeks on the checklist.
When Fashions have been inducted into the ARIA Corridor of Fame throughout a ceremony in Sydney again in 2010, Valentine took his place on stage together with his former bandmates. Simply days later, co-frontman and bass participant James Freud died by suicide, aged 51.
“We have been most likely an enormous deal in our heads,” Fashions drummer Barton Worth tells the Australian Broadcasting Company, “however James by no means took it that severely.” Bandmate Roger Mason provides, “he was a really down-to-earth particular person. The truth is, I’d must say, annoyingly, he was probably the most mature one within the band.”
Valentine, it turned out, was a expertise within the studio and was magic on the mic. He hosted radio and tv packages throughout the ABC for 30 years, together with 20-plus years presenting the 702 ABC Sydney Afternoons radio present.
His inquisitiveness and fervour for exploring the issues that make us tick made his present a preferred one effectively exterior of Sydney; in 2020, he collected a Bronze Award for Greatest Two-Method Phone Discuss/Interview Present on the New York Competition’s Radio Awards.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese led tributes to Valentine. “He was somebody who was at all times price listening to,” Albanese instructed 702 ABC Sydney. “He was so fascinating and he was so energetic. All of our ideas are together with his household and his mates and, certainly, the ABC household at present.”
ABC chair Kim Williams depicted Valentine as a “inventive polymath,” whereas New South Wales premier Chris Minns recounted the late artist and presenter’s “quirky, distinctive approach of speaking with folks in Sydney,” noting “he was each an and fascinating particular person, which is exclusive. He will probably be massively missed.”
Australia’s Governor-Normal Sam Mostyn has revealed that Valentine was final weekend made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), a prestigious award within the nationwide honors system, recognizing distinctive service or achievement.
“His concepts have been, as they have been on radio, simply pretty, light, smart, actually necessary issues about how group comes collectively and the way all of us have a job to play,” Mostyn explains.
In March 2024, Valentine instructed listeners that he’d been identified with oesophageal most cancers, and took a go away of absence to pursue therapy. He returned to the Afternoons slot in 2025, however left as soon as extra in June when scans revealed a tumor had been detected in his omentum.
Valentine is survived by his spouse Joanne and their two kids.
