Veteran Australian music journalist, author, Ed Nimmervoll dies

One of Australia’s long-standing music journalists and authors, Ed Nimmervoll, died in Melbourne after a battle with a brain tumour. He was 67.

He was to have been inducted into The Age Music Victoria Hall of Fame on Wednesday November 19 alongside Daddy Cool, as part of their awards.

Born in Austria in September 1947, Nimmervoll began at Go-Set magazine in the mid-60s, initially as its Top 40 chart compiler and later its editor in the early ‘70s. It was a time when Australian rock became serious and started to articulate local experiences. Nimmervoll championed the movement, giving their records the same critical appraisal as accorded to overseas albums, and urging his readers to support them.

In 1975, he founded Juke Magazine, stepping down a year later to concentrate on writing a weekly column for the magazine, analyzing trends in the music industry. He also worked as researcher at radio and TV production house MCM Media (now Authentic Entertainment), and created Take 40 Australia. Since 2000, he was editor of the Australian rock music history website HowlSpace.

Soft spoken and with an encyclopedic knowledge of music, he also turned out a series of books outlining Australian rock music history. These included Friday On My Mind a day-by-day chronology, The Emerging Years on its ‘60s pop scene with Brian Cadd, Renee Geyer’s Confessions Of A Difficult Woman and was involved in Glenn Wheatley’s memoirs Paper Paradise.

Nimmervoll also co-wrote the track Eureka on Russell Morris’ current album Van Diemen’s Land. Earlier he co-penned Red Headed Wildflower from Little River Band’s Sleeper Catcher 1978 album.