page_title: Rolf Harris
section_title: Musical recordings and experimentation
hierarchical_section_title: Rolf Harris / Career in television, music, and art / Musical recordings and experimentation
caption_attribution_description: English: Rolf Harris playing a Giulietti accordion at Nightingale House, London.
context_page_description: Rolf Harris is an Australian entertainer whose career has encompassed work as a musician, singer-songwriter, composer, comedian, actor, painter and television personality. He was convicted in 2014 of the sexual assault of four underage girls, which effectively ended his career.
  Harris is known for his songs "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" and "Jake the Peg" and his recording of "Two Little Boys". He often used unusual instruments in his performances: he played the didgeridoo; is credited with the invention of the wobble board; and is associated with the Stylophone. During the 1960s and 1970s, Harris became a successful television personality in the UK, later presenting shows such as Rolf's Cartoon Club and Animal Hospital. In 2005, he painted an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. He lived in Bray, Berkshire, England, for more than six decades.
  In July 2014, at the age of 84, Harris was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison on twelve counts of indecent assault on four female victims during the 1970s and 1980s. He was released on licence in 2017 after serving nearly three years.
context_section_description: Harris has released 30 studio albums, two live albums and 48 singles. In 1960 his single "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" reached number 1 in Australia, and in 1969 "Two Little Boys" reached number 1 on both the Irish and UK charts. His 1992 Rolf Rules OK? album was nominated for the ARIA Music Award for Best Comedy.
  Harris is credited with inventing a simple homemade instrument called the wobble board. As well as his beatboxing, similar to eefing, Harris went on to use an array of unusual instruments in his music, including the didgeridoo (the sound of which was imitated on "Sun Arise" by four double basses), the Jew's harp and, later, the stylophone (for which he also lent his name and likeness for advertising).
  His version of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven", featuring didgeridoo and wobble board, reached the UK top ten in 1993.  Harris also recorded a version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" and performed the Divinyls' "I Touch Myself", accompanied only by his wobble board, for "Denton's Musical Challenge" on MMM radio's Breakfast Show (the recording was released on the first Musical Challenge compilation album in 2000). Harris also recorded an Australian Christmas song called "Six White Boomers", about a joey kangaroo trying to find his mother during the Christmas period. The song describes how Santa Claus used six large male kangaroos ("boomers"), instead of reindeer. In October 2008 Harris announced he would re-record his popular 1969 song "Two Little Boys", backed by North Wales' Froncysyllte Male Voice Choir, to mark the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I. Proceeds from the release were donated to the Poppy Appeal. Harris was inspired to make the recording after participating in My Family at War, a short series of programs that aired during the BBC's "Remembrance" season, broadcast in November 2008. He discovered that the experiences of his father and uncle during the Great War mirrored the lyrics of the song.
caption: Harris playing the accordion in 2008
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