James Dixon Barnes AO (né Swan; (born 28 April 1956) is a Scottish-born Australian rock singer.

His career, both as a solo performer and as the lead vocalist with the rock band Cold Chisel, has made him one of the most popular and best-selling Australian music artists of all time.

Several of his children are musicians who have on occasion joined him on stage, including drummer Jackie, his sisters Mahalia, Eliza-Jane ("EJ"), and Elly-May, and elder half-brother David Campbell.

[1] The family, including parents and four siblings John, Dorothy, Linda, and Alan, emigrated on 7 December 1961 under the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme,[3] arriving in Australia when he was five years old, on 21 January 1962.

John Dixon became the target of sexual abuse from his parents' friends' son, and left home at 13, but Barnes has said that he was one of two heroes (the other being Reg); that he "would have been killed if it weren't for him".

[1] In 1974, Orange had changed its name to Cold Chisel and began to develop a strong presence on the local music scene.

He assembled a band that included Arnott, the former Fraternity bass guitar player Bruce Howe[21] and guitarists Mal Eastick (ex-Stars) and Chris Stockley (ex-The Dingoes) and began touring and writing for a solo album.

With the release of the album in America, Barnes and a band of Canadian musicians hand-picked by his North American management team toured with ZZ Top.

[citation needed] "Good Times" was also used as the theme song for the Australian Made series of concerts that toured the country in the summer of 1986–87.

[citation needed] In 1990, Barnes recorded his fourth studio album, which featured songwriting contributions from the likes of Desmond Child, Diane Warren and Holly Knight.

[citation needed] Soul Deep became Barnes's sixth Australian number-one album and included the track "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby" with John Farnham.

In March 1993, Barnes released Heat, which was influenced by the then-current grunge trend and by the music of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The pair teamed up for an acoustic version of the track for an unplugged album Flesh and Wood, which was released in December 1993 and peaked at number two.

Also in 1993, Barnes teamed up with Tina Turner for a duet version of "The Best" in the form of a TV promotion for rugby league's Winfield Cup.

[citation needed] He faced financial ruin as his music-publishing company Dirty Sheet Music and his wife's children's fashion label both went broke.

[citation needed] The family sold their property in Bowral, in the Southern Highlands of NSW,[26] and settled for some time in Aix-en-Provence, France, attracting some adverse publicity when Barnes assaulted a television crew from Channel 7.

[citation needed] In June 1995, Barnes released his eighth studio album, Psyclone, which peaked at number 2 in Australia and featured the top-twenty single "Change of Heart".

[28] In March 1999 Barnes performed the 1978 Sylvester hit "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" live onstage at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras annual party.

An autobiographical record combining hard rock with electronic music, Love and Fear was Barnes's first album to miss the Australian top ten, peaking at number 22.

The self-titled album featured a number of songs originally written and recorded with Ozzy Osbourne by Kerslake, Daisley, and Airey.

Double Happiness was an album of duets, including several with his children, daughters Mahalia and Elly-May, sons Jackie Barnes and David Campbell.

After its initial success, it was re-released as a double CD/DVD package featuring many of his duets from previous albums, including those with INXS, John Farnham, Joe Cocker, and Tina Turner.

"When Two Hearts Collide" is a duet with Kasey Chambers, and other musicians featured on the album include Jim Moginie (Midnight Oil), Mark Punch, and Chris Haigh, as well as his four children Mahalia, EJ, Jackie, and Elly-May.

Barnes stated that the ideas for most of the lyrics and song themes came from a journal he kept during a period in his life (late 1990s to early 2000s) when he struggled with drug and alcohol addiction.

[57] In 1994, a primary school in Deloraine, Tasmania, hosted a group of children from Ali Curung, NT, for six days as part of the scheme.

[59] In late 2006, Barnes became patron of the Choir of Hard Knocks, a choral group formed by Jonathon Welch and consisting of homeless and disadvantaged people in Melbourne.

Jane studied pure mathematics, comparative religion, art history, psychology, and five languages at university in Canberra, and met Barnes in November 1979.

He remained in hospital for two weeks; on 12 December he announced, also via Instagram, that he was undergoing open heart surgery due to the infection having spread to an already-weakened valve.

[83] Barnes' career, both as a solo performer and as the lead vocalist with Cold Chisel, has made him one of the most popular and best-selling Australian music artists of all time.

[90] In 2017 Barnes was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the performing arts as a musician, singer and songwriter, and through support for not-for-profit organisations, particularly to children with a disability.