Brian Cadd's musical odyssey began seated at a family heirloom

"When Molly said that, Elton had a look on his face and gave a smile. I could tell he was thinking, 'You're nothing like me.' It was hilarious," Cadd said with a laugh.

Cadd's swag of Australian songs are as relevant and memorable today as when they were penned five decades ago, both to newly born daughters and adults alike.

Due to this, Cadd will be headlining the Social Justice Advocates of the Sapphire Coast's fundraising concert at Club Sapphire on Sunday, October 13.

His story begins seated at his family's heirloom, an upright piano stuck in the hallway, where the Australian singer-songwriter used to "bang out novelty lines" at the age of three.

Over the next decade, Cadd began to develop a repertoire of tunes, dabbling in music. At family gatherings, his mother and his biggest supporter, Jean, would volunteer him to perform some of his pieces.

"When I was 12, Rolf Harris was just about to head to England, and he had a New Year's Eve telethon, and they asked for auditions for young players, [so] my mother leapt into the fray to volunteer me again," Cadd recalled.

"Two weeks later, Channel Seven rang my mother and said, 'We decided that was a good idea, so we're going to keep the band together and put them on once a week on children's television."

As a very accomplished singer and songwriter, Cadd said he "absolutely" recalled the moment he first penned a song.

"Myself and a guy called Ronnie Charles had just joined a band in Melbourne called The Groop, and they poached us from another band. I was 20, and so they already had a recording contract," the 77-year-old said.

The label asked the band to write some songs, and even though the drummer, Richard Wright, and Cadd hadn't written anything before, they were encouraged to put ideas to paper.

"We went to the rehearsal place and we were sitting around thinking, 'Now what do we do?' and Richard just started this groove on hi-hat. I was fooling around on the keyboard. We finished it, and we played the song and the label said, 'that's the single'," Cadd recalled.

"The song was called 'Woman you're breaking me', and it was about as reaffirming as a year on television at 12. I thought, 'Now, I know what I want to do'."

Among Cadd's authored pieces are Ginger Man, The Masters Apprentices' Elevator Driver, Robin Jolley's Marshall's Portable Music Machine, John Farnham's Don't You Know It's Magic, and Axiom's A Little Ray Of Sunshine.

He said much of what he'd written had been done subconsciously, noting how the phrasing "Ginger Man" was somewhat inspired by Irish author JP Donleavy.

While "Don't You Know It's Magic" came from a phone call with a friend's secretary who had seen Richard Clapton perform the night before and described him as magic, the band as magic, the songs as magic.

Even one of Cadd's most well-known pieces had modest origins.

"Close friends had a very stormy relationship and their little girl was born and then they broke up.

"I was sitting at the piano and thought, poor little girl, she's absolutely fabulous but it seems to all be about the parents," Cadd said.

"It's probably the most recognisable song that I've written, 'A Little Ray of Sunshine', with my basic tools, a cassette recorder, yellow pad, a pencil and a piano."