The Wiggles are an Australian children's music group formed in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1991. Since 2012, the group members are Anthony Field, Lachlan Gillespie, Simon Pryce, and Emma Watkins.[1] The original members were Field, Phillip Wilcher, Murray Cook, Greg Page, and Jeff Fatt.[2] Wilcher left the group after their first album. Page retired in 2006 due to ill health and was replaced by understudy Sam Moran, but returned in 2012, replacing Moran. At the end of 2012, Page, Cook, and Fatt retired, and were replaced by Gillespie, Pryce, and Watkins. Cook and Fatt retained their shareholding in the group and all three continued to have input into its creative and production aspects.

Field and Fatt were members of the Australian pop band The Cockroaches in the 1980s, and Cook was a member of several bands before meeting Field and Page at Macquarie University, where they were studying to become pre-school teachers. In 1991, Field was inspired to create an album of children's music based upon concepts of early childhood education, and enlisted Cook, Page, and Fatt to assist him. They began touring to promote the album, and became so successful, they quit their teaching jobs to perform full-time. The group augmented their act with animal characters Dorothy the Dinosaur, Henry the Octopus, and Wags the Dog, as well as the character Captain Feathersword, played by Paul Paddick since 1993. They travelled with a small group of dancers, which later grew into a larger troupe. The group's DVDs, CDs, and television programs have been produced independently since their inception. Their high point came in the early 2000s, after they broke into the American market.

The group was formally consolidated in 2005. They were listed at the top of Business Review Weekly's top-earning Australian entertainers four years in a row, and earned A$45 million in 2009. In 2011, the worldwide recession hit The Wiggles, as it had done for many Australian entertainers; they earned $28 million, but they still appeared second on BRW's list that year. The Wiggles have enjoyed almost universal approval throughout their history, and their music has been played in pre-schools all over the world. They have earned several Platinum, Double Platinum and Multi-Platinum records, as well as sold 23 million DVDs and 7 million CDs, and have performed, on average, to one million people per year. The group has also earned multiple Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) and Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Music Awards.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Background 1.2 Early career 1.3 Success at home and abroad 1.4 Page's retirement 1.5 Moran era 1.6 Reunion with Page 1.7 Departure of Page, Cook, and Fatt 1.8 "New Wiggles" era 2 Band members 3 Musical style 4 Educational theory 5 Brand and finances 6 Reception 6.1 Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) awards 6.2 Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) 7 Discography 8 See also 9 Footnotes 10 References 11 Works cited 12 External links History Background

Anthony Field and Jeff Fatt were members of The Cockroaches, a Sydney pop band known for their "good-time R&B material"[3] and several singles recorded by independent labels during the 1980s.[4] In 1988, Field's infant niece, who was the daughter of Cockroaches founder and band member Paul Field, died of SIDS, and the group disbanded.[5] Anthony Field enrolled at Macquarie University in Sydney to complete his degree in early childhood education,[2] and later stated that his niece's death "ultimately led to the formation of Wiggles".[5] Murray Cook, also "a mature-aged student",[6] was the guitarist in the pub rock band Bang Shang a Lang before enrolling at Macquarie.[6][7] Greg Page, who had been a roadie for and sang with The Cockroaches during their final years, had enrolled in Macquarie to study early childhood education on Field's recommendation.[6][8] Field, Cook, and Page were among approximately 10 men in a program with 200 students.[9][note 1]

In 1991, while still a student, Field became motivated to use concepts in the field of early childhood education to record an album of music for children.[2][10] The album was dedicated to Field's niece.[5] A song he wrote for The Cockroaches, "Get Ready to Wiggle", inspired the band's name because they thought that wiggling described the way children dance.[2][8] Like a university assignment, they produced a folder of essays that explained the educational value of each song on the album.[10] They needed a keyboardist "to bolster the rock'n'roll feel of the project",[6] so Field asked his old bandmate Fatt for his assistance in what they thought would be a temporary project.[11][note 2]

The group received songwriting help from John Field, Anthony's brother and former bandmate, and from Phillip Wilcher, who was working with the early childhood music program at Macquarie.[13][note 3] After contributing to their first album, hosting the group's first recording sessions in his Sydney home, and appearing in a couple of the group's first videos, Wilcher left the group and went into classical music.[13][14][note 4] The group reworked a few Cockroaches tunes to better fit the genre of children's music; for example, The Cockroaches song "Hot Tamale", written by John Field, was changed to "Hot Potato".[15] Anthony Field gave copies of their album to his young students to test out the effect of the group's music on children; one mother returned it the next day because her child would not stop listening to it.[16]

"Get Ready to Wiggle" First recorded in 1991 on The Wiggles' first album, this was originally a Cockroaches tune changed slightly to fit the genre of children's music. "Do the Monkey" "Do the Monkey", recorded by The Cockroaches in 1989. With very little changes, it is almost the same as The Wiggles' version, showing how The Wiggles revamped many songs in The Cockroaches' library. "Do the Monkey" Originally a Cockroaches tune, one of the many songs in The Cockroaches' library that was changed from Australian pop to children's music Problems playing these files? See media help.