R.I.P.: Easybeats Frontman Stevie Wright Has Died at 68

Stevie Wright - 2013

One of Australia's best loved rock stars and the lead singer of The Easybeats, Stevie Wright, has died aged 68, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

He had fallen ill on Saturday and died in Moruya Hospital on the NSW south coast on Sunday night.

Wright was in Leeds, England in 1948 and moved to Australia with his family when he was nine years old, living in Melbourne first and then Sydney.

He formed The Easybeats in 1964 at the age of just 16 with a group of other young migrant teenagers - Harry Vanda, George Young, Dick Diamonde and Snowy Fleet. Within a few years the band had become one of Australia's most popular musical groups, inspiring their own brand of Beatles-style fandom, dubbed 'Easyfever'.

Their best known song, Friday On My Mind, reached the number one spot on the music chart in Australia in 1966, and later went on to become a top ten single in the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy and a top 20 hit in the United States.