[citation needed] Wilson's father was an amateur jazz musician and his mother would play classical music on the piano at their home in the Melbourne suburb of Hampton.

[3] In 1958, at ten and a half years old, he and his father attended their first rock & roll show featuring Johnny O'Keefe, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly and the Crickets.

[3] Wilson returned to Australia later that year and formed Sons of the Vegetal Mother (1969–70), again including Hannaford and Rudd, a group inspired by the work of Frank Zappa.

[8] Known for their "good time" image, Daddy Cool's repertoire mixed covers of 1950s R&B and doo-wop classics with original compositions mostly written by Wilson.

[7] Around this time Ross and wife Pat both appeared naked in a short film directed by Chris Löfvén titled "The Beginning" which is an extra on the DVD release of Oz.

After Daddy Cool broke up late in 1972, Wilson and Hannaford formed the short-lived Mighty Kong which included former Spectrum drummer Ray Arnott and Company Caine guitarist Russell Smith.

[7] Whilst performing with Mighty Kong, Wilson was impressed by a fledgling Melbourne band called Skyhooks and signed their main songwriter Greg Macainsh to his publishing company.

[7] Also performing at Sunbury in 1974 were Skyhooks and, despite being booed off stage, Wilson recommended the band to Mushroom Records boss Michael Gudinski.

[7][10] Contractual problems with Porter's Wizard label, to whom Wilson was signed at the time, forced him to wait out the end of his recording contract.

[11] Wilson performed "Livin' in the Land of Oz" (also released as a single), "The Mood", "Greaseball", "Who's Gonna Love You Tonight" and "Atmospherics", with fellow ex-Daddy Cool members Gary Young and Wayne Burt; he produced the soundtrack which also featured the film's stars Joy Dunstan and Graham Matters singing a track each and two tracks by Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons.

[12] To promote his single, Wilson formed Mondo Rock: My longest lasting project, Mondo Rock (76–90) started as an occasional thing to help promote my 1st solo single "Living in the Land of Oz" & it wasn't until 1978 that we issued our debut single[13]Mondo Rock went through several incarnations but the best known line-up included bassist Paul Christie (ex-Kevin Borich Express, later in The Party Boys), guitarist and songwriter Eric McCusker, (ex-The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band), drummer John Hackett (ex-Stars) and James Black on keyboards and guitar.

Wilson returned to performing in the late 1990s and he has released two albums of new material plus a two-CD retrospective covering his entire career, including many rare tracks.

He has also collaborated with children's group The Wiggles, singing on their re-recording of "Eagle Rock" and playing the part of "King Mondo" in the video "Space Dancing".

[20] In 1996 Wilson was part of the pre-game entertainment at the ARL Grand Final at the Sydney Football Stadium, with other famous Australian music acts, The Del Tones, Glenn Shorrock, Christine Anu and Kate Ceberano.

[3] In August 2009, Wilson celebrated 45 years in music with the commemorative "5 Decades of Cool" concert at the Palais Theatre, St Kilda, Melbourne.