Mary Azzopardi was born in Malta and is the thirteenth child in a family of 15 children. She migrated to Australia with her family when she was two. Coming from a family with a musical background there was no doubt in Mary's mind that she wanted to be a singer. As a child she entered many talent quests and always came home with trophies for first prize and singing solo and duets with her sister Rita.
Mary's first professional band experience was with nine-piece band Afrika which included four members of her family. Afrika was heavily influenced by Earth Wind and Fire, Aretha Franklin, The Commodores Parliament and other great funk bands of the era. Afrika toured extensively around Australia for seven years from 1973 - 79. They cut their self titled debut album in the late 70s on the Axent label which Mary sang on a couple of tracks and played sax.
After Afrika split, she sang with different cover bands of all styles of music around the traps in Sydney. One of these bands was Hot Cargo where she met Costa Coulounis (Danny D'Costa) a keyboard/vocalist with whom she teamed up together and became a songwriting duo called Thats That. They signed a recording deal with True Tone records and in the late 80s and released a couple of EPs and made their debut on TV show Countdown.
Mary's talent began to get noticed and she soon found herself doing sessions with Wendy Mathews. Also during this time she toured with The Models on their Australian Made Tour. She then toured with the Rockmelons and sang on their 'Tales Of The City' album.
More tours and backing vocal sessions followed which included some of the biggest names in the music industry: Ian Moss, Jimmy Barnes, Midnight Oil, John Farnham, INXS, Mondo Rock, The Angels etc. Another huge highlight was when she backed American legend Soul Brother Number One James Brown on his Australian tour. Mary has appeared on many TV shows including Hey Hey Its Saturday, Andrew Denton and The Midday Show. She was also a backing vocalist on Australian Idol during series two. Mary is still singing in bands after many years in the industry and she also teaches and shares her knowledge and experience to aspiring vocalists.
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