Col Joye — born Colin Frederick Jacobsen in Sydney on 13 April 1936 — was the man who put Australian rock and roll on the map. In 1959, when the local music scene was dominated by overseas artists, Joye and his band the Joy Boys released "Oh Yeah Uh Huh" and held it at number one on the national charts for four weeks: the first time any Australian pop performer had ever achieved that feat. In an industry that had always looked abroad for its heroes, Col Joye was Australia's own.

He left school at fourteen to work as a jewellery salesman in Sydney, a job that taught him to read a room and charm a customer — skills that would serve him well on stage. Encouraged by colleague Dave Bridge to pick up the guitar, Joye joined his brothers Kevin and Keith in what began as the KJ Quintet. After a fateful booking at the Jazzorama in Manly they renamed themselves Col Joye and the Joy Boys, and their debut performances at venues like Bankstown Sports Club and Bronte Surf Club drew crowds that would have been unimaginable for a homegrown act just years earlier. Three consecutive appearances on the television program Bandstand transformed them into national stars.

His third single, "Bye Bye Baby" (1959), reached number three on the national charts, and "Oh Yeah Uh Huh" gave Australia its first home-grown rock and roll number one. He and brother Kevin co-founded a management and publishing empire — including ATA Studios and Jacobsen Entertainment — that shaped the Australian music business for decades. Most famously, they discovered a young brothers' act from Brisbane in 1961 and signed them: The Bee Gees. After the upheaval of Beatlemania silenced many domestic acts, Joye staged a remarkable comeback with "Heaven Is My Woman's Love" in 1973, which again topped the charts.

He was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1988 — the inaugural class alongside AC/DC, Slim Dusty and Joan Sutherland — and appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1981 for his services to entertainment and philanthropy. His signature hit "Bye Bye Baby" was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia register in 2010. Australia Post celebrated his legacy with a commemorative stamp. He died in Sydney on 5 August 2025, aged 89, after a career spanning almost seven decades.