Sherbet founding member Clive Shakespeare has passed away after a long battle with cancer. Shakespeare was born Clive Richard Shakespeare in Southampton, England and emigrated with his family in the 1960′s.
He formed Sherbet around 1969 and was guitarist with the band through to 1975 when he was replaced by Harvey James who also passed away from cancer recently. Clive also co-wrote some of Sherbet’s biggest hits including ‘Cassandra’, ‘You’ve Got The Gun’, ‘Life’, ‘Only One You’, ‘Slipstream’ and ‘Silvery Moon’.
He was also known as a record producer having worked on such albums as Paul Kelly’s debut solo album ‘Post’.
Clive was aged 62 when he passed away.
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I saw the original line up of Sherbet a number of times back in the early 70′s and that line up for me was always the best.
One memorable show at the Capitol Theatre billed as a “Battle Of The Bands” between Sherbet and Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs, now that was a night to remember!!
Too many people get taken by cancer, it’s a hideous thing to go through, very sad news and a great loss.
RIP Clive.
I only saw them once in their heyday & they were bloody fantastic. It was one of the 2SM free concerts in Victoria Park. Before that day we’d always written them off as a bit of a “girls band” but they were brilliant. Instant convert!
I was stunned when I heard this news yesterday. Clive, the original guitarist, could have made Sherbet into a rock band. Instead he was fired in 1976 & they continued down the path of frothy pop. And now both he & his replacement, Harvey James, are gone, far too soon. Very, very sad. RIP Clive.
I sort of saw them at the Goulburn Lilac Time Hall around 1974 when I was about 11. The smoke machine was pumping so much I doubt anyone saw them much that night!! LOL
The Lonely Hearts recorded some demos at Clive’s home studio at Lindfield (around Sept/Oct 1981 as I recall). Apart from him being a really great guy and a pretty competent engineer one of the things I remember most vividly was his toilet.
It was a long narrow room with the loo at the end of this narrow coridoor but the standout feature was that all the walls were covered in Sherbert gold records!
Well this news slipped under the radar a little, heard nothing about it until I had a look at this site today which I had bookmarked a few months ago. Gees I remember seeing Sherbet in Townsville on the Howzat tour in winter 76 so Harvey James would have just replaced Clive Shakespeare. I was all of 11 years of age and this was my first experience of a rock concert, support was TMG as they quite often were to Sherbet in the mid 70′s and they were my fav band with Sherbet and SKyhooks close behind. A story to tell was that I was hit in the head with a flying can of soft drink (no plastic cup only regulations in those days) thrown by people at the back to protest against the people up the front dancing and jumping and blocking their view so there I was with my eldest sister who was 17 at the time trying to drag me off to get medical attention for all the blood streaming from my head with me protesting I was going to miss the encore! Needless to say my parents would not let me go to see SKyhooks when they toured that summer
I have just been told of the sad death of the great Clive Shakespeare. What a great loss to the world of music this will be and it comes so close to the death of another great member of Sherbet Harvey James.
I live in the UK but have been a fan of Sherbet since the early 70′s and i can’t describe how saddened i am about the loss of these great musicians and would like to pass on my sympathy to the families of these great men and i hope that the remaining members of sherbet do not forget what these men did for the group, and i still hope that one day they will come to the UK and meet some of their fans.
To Clive and Harvey R.I.P and may God look after you.
Had the pleasure and privilege of seeing both Harvey and Clive play the same night with Sherbet on their 1984 farewell tour. I preferred Harvey’s playing style, but I admire Clive’s muscianship and his vision in forming one of the greatest Aussie bands of all time. RIP. Bet he is jamming with Harvey right now!