Ringo Starr of The Beatles and American actor-director Zach Braff have congratulated Men At Work frontman Colin Hay after he was honored with the Ted Albert Award for outstanding services to Australian music at the 2023 APRA Music Awards.
Hay was on hand at the APRA awards ceremony on Thursday night (April 27) to accept the honor when he was surprised with a congratulatory video from the former Beatles drummer, who said: “What a great pleasure it is for me to tell you it. that Colin Hay receives Australia’s Ted Albert Award for outstanding services to Australian music – and American music, English music.”
Starr continued, “Anyway Colin, you deserve it and I love you and you’re a great member of Ringo and his All-Starr Band. It’s always a pleasure to be on stage with you and I’m sure people tonight will enjoy you as much as I do. So I say peace and love, peace and love to Australia”.
American actor Zach Braff – best known for his role in the TV series Scrubs — also shared her own video message, telling Hay, “Your music has meant so much to me in so many different phases of my life. When I was young, I listened to Men at Work, and when I was fresh out of college, your solo music really transformative for me”.
Braff also referenced calling in Hay Scrubs for three guest appearances, saying “I recruited you to join Scrubs, and I was lucky enough to have you let me use one of your brilliant songs. I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you The garden state.”
“You continue to blow me away. I just saw you when you played in Los Angeles. I feel so honored to know you and call you a friend, you are a very good man, you are an inspiration to a lot of people,” Braff added.
Taking to Instagram after the awards ceremony, Hay wrote: “I attended 2023 [APRA AMCOS] awards last night, receiving the Ted Albert Award, along with co-recipient, the late great Colleen Ironside. I witnessed an extraordinary array of musical talent that night, and was so happy to be a part of it. It was a very emotional evening. I would like to personally thank the amazing [Ringo Starr] and [Zach Braff]for their kind words, and of course to APRA/AMCOS, for putting it all together.”
Colin Hay is a founding member of the iconic Australian rock band Men At Work, which formed in 1978 and first broke up in 1986. The band has since reunited and split up several times since, with Hay being the only constant member in all iterations of the band .
Hay has also released a rich discography of solo work consisting of 15 studio albums to date. His most recent album is 2022’s ‘Now and the Evermore’, while his most recent release comes in the form of the January 2023 single ‘Hello World’ featuring Kodi Lee.
Colin Hay also appears with Ringo Starr in the latter’s Ringo and His All-Starr Band, which also features Edgar Winter, Warren Ham and more.