Peter Combe

Peter Combe (born 20 October 1948) is an Australian children's entertainer and musician. Musical genre - Children's Music

He has had 22 releases, including seven gold albums, two platinum, three ARIA awards and one ARIA final nomination.

Some of his best-known songs are "Toffee Apple", "Spaghetti Bolognaise", "Mr Clicketty Cane", "Juicy Juicy Green Grass" and "Newspaper Mama".

Biography

Peter Combe was born in Adelaide on 20 October 1948, the third of four children. His early influences growing up in the '50s were The Springfields, from whom he discovered the joy of harmony, learning the ability to harmonise from an early age. He was inspired by the folk singers of the 1960s like Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. He formed his own folk group and taught himself to play guitar. Later on, he became fascinated by the music of The Beatles and Billy Joel.

Peter studied to become a primary school teacher, and first started as a classroom teacher in 1969. Soon he became a specialist music teacher. During this time he started writing songs for his students to sing, and from this start he wrote several 'operettas' for his classes to perform to their parents. One of the early ones was Bows Against The Barons, based on the Geoffrey Trease novel set in the time of Robin Hood. Later the song Robin Hood's Dream was to appear on the album Newspaper Mama.