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Source: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/entertainment/8454433/friends-pays-tribute-to-men-at-work-star
Men at Work frontman Colin Hay has paid tribute to band mate Greg Ham, who died in mysterious circumstance at his Melbourne home yesterday.
Homicide detectives are investigating after friends found the 58-year-old dead in his Carlton home yesterday morning.
Hay told the Herald Sun his friend was "a beautiful man".
"I love him very much," he was quoted.
The singer said he and Ham had "conquered the world together" after he met the teen with rosy cheeks at a friend's house.
"I met Greg Ham 40 years ago at (comedian) Kim Gyngell's house in 1972. Last year of high school," Hay said.
The pair became friends instantly and went on to form Men of Work who achieved international success in the 1980s, but it was a copyright controversy over the distinctive flute riff that had Men at Work back in the headlines in recent years.
The decision left Ham shattered.
"It has destroyed so much of my song," he told Fairfax at the time.
"It will be the way the song is remembered and I hate that.
"I'm terribly disappointed that that's the way I'm going to be remembered - for copying something."
Men at Work's recording company, EMI Songs Australia, and Down Under songwriters Colin Hay and Ron Strykert were ordered to pay five percent of royalties earned from the song since 2002 and from its future earnings.
Music historian Glenn A Baker said the decision took some of the lustre off the band, but he didn't believe it would forever taint Ham's legacy as the flute player behind it.
"I don't think for a moment that it takes away from the integrity or reputation of Colin Hay or Greg Ham," he told AAP.
"It was generally acknowledged that this was just an odd accident. And if it was plagiarism, it was unconscious plagiarism."
After the copyright ruling, Ham said he'd never see another cent out of the song again and he'd end up having to sell his house.
He sold his historic North Carlton home, a three-storey residence that he had owned once before, in 2011 but stayed in the suburb.
A friend went to check on Ham, who lived alone, on Thursday morning after not hearing from him for a week.
He left when no one answered the door but later returned with another friend and they found the body in the front of the house.
The homicide squad was called in because of what Detective Senior Sergeant Shane O'Connell described as a number of unexplained aspects.
"At this point in time, because of the early stages of our investigation, we're not prepared to go into the exact details of what has occurred," he told reporters.
Police say it has not been established whether or not the death was suspicious.
There were no obvious signs of injury and it's believed he could have been dead for some time before the body was found.
Authorities also haven't ruled out a drug overdose or heart attack as a potential cause of death.
Fairfax reports Ham's friends believed he had been using drugs and abusing alcohol after the band lost its high profile copyright case.
