Читать книгу Behind the Rock and Beyond - Leon Isackson - Страница 8

Barry Lewis and I walked into J. Stanley Johnston’s for our usual jam session one day and as I opened the door to the guitar booth there was another guy in there trying out one of the guitars and singing “Ooob scoobly doobly-lena go gal go”. Now the right words without the L’s, were “Oob scooby dooby-lena” from a song by Ronnie Self called Bopalena. Anyhow, this guy didn’t sound too bad. Barry and I said “Hello” and he said, “G’day” in a very friendly country-sounding voice.

“What’s your name?” said Barry.

“Dig,” he replied.

“Dig?” we both chorused, looking at each other.

“That’s right, it’s short for Digby,” he said.

“Where do you come from?” I asked him.

“Narooma, originally,” he replied, “but now I live in Sydney. I work at Waltons at Town Hall.”

Well Barry and I thought that Dig was a very cool name for a singer of R&R songs. He was pretty good-looking and sang okay as well. What more could we ask? So we asked him if he would like to sing with our band and he said he would give it a try. Much to Barry’s father’s disgust we started rehearsals at Barry’s place with the Red Jeans. Even more “guitar holders” dropped in for the rehearsal. They were Johnny Highfield, Terry King and Lance, whose last name I forget.

We knew a lady at Castlecrag named Connie Gibbs who said she would like to manage us and would arrange a dance for us at the Castlecrag Community hall. She also had a very beautiful daughter called Wendy who was the first girl I was ever really serious about. I don’t know if Wendy was ever that serious about me. I think I only got to kiss her once or twice!

We decided at this time to change the name of the band. I mean it was just possible that red jeans could go out of fashion. We kept the initials ‘R.J.’ and made it DIG RICHARDS & THE R’ JAYS.

Our first dance was held at the Castlecrag hall on August 8, 1958. We had to get rid of a few “guitar holders” — I think we had six! We also had to put up some posters to advertise the dance. This was no fun. I remember putting my foot in a bucket of glue and ruining a new pair of black suede ripple-sole brothel creepers. Anyway, the dance was a roaring success. The line up for the band was: Barry Lewis on drums, Roger Paulfreeman on tea-chest bass, Kenny Konyard on rhythm guitar, Peter Marris on sax and clarinet, Jonnie Hayton on lead guitar and Dig Richards on vocals. The dance was hosted by popular top radio DJ, John Laws, who at that time was vying for first place with Bob Rogers and Tony Withers.

Our equipment for the dance was as follows — sound system: One hired AWA 20 watt amplifier plus two grey painted speaker-boxes with 12” speakers and one Ronette crystal microphone. Kenny had a Framus guitar. I had a new Levin F-hole guitar with a sliding Moody pick-up and a four (count them!) four watt Moody amp. Barry had a Dandy drum kit — “Dandy” was the brand name, not the sound! Roger had a tea-chest, stick, rope and sore fingers. Not quite your quadruple four-way sound system with pyrotechnics, but it did the job and the kids at the dance had as good a time as they would have at a top venue with a major band of today. All with no booze — and certainly with no drugs.

Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll were merely seeds in the mind of the 1958 teenagers. There were no drugs or booze at dances. The rock’n’roll was beginning to gain a toehold but après dance sex was very hard to accomplish, especially with the ironclad step-ins that some of the girls wore. I was still a virgin at this stage but definitely in there trying to change that! We started up dances at Northbridge, Chatswood, Fairfield, Cabramatta and the Sky Lounge and Phyllis Bates Ballroom, both in the city. This was hard for me as I didn’t have a car (most kids my age didn’t) but fortunately Barry bought an ancient Fordson van and he would ferry most of us and the gear to all the dances. A lot of times though, I had to get a train or a bus. We also had a dance at the old Brookvale Theatre where I used to take my latest girl, Sylvia Reeves. She was the TOTAL girl in the petrol ad. It’s great to see your girl up on a sign selling petrol when you don’t even have a car to take her home in! I was in love again but still no “amazing rumpo” — not for want of trying, mind you. The dance at “Brookie” Theatre and Sylvia’s home at Seaforth, were both a long way from Strathfield and a long haul for me on bus and train, carrying a guitar and amp.

We were still wearing the red jeans and black and white striped Ivy League shirts and shoestring ties. After a while, my mother made us some light blue drape-shape coats with black lapels, which we wore with the ever-popular black pants. Dig had a horrendous leopard skin pyjama-type suit with moccasins to match.

Most of the dances are a bit of a blur to me but there are a few other shows we did that stand out in my mind. One was Australia’s Amateur Hour, recorded at Lane Cove Town Hall. We won! But the most memorable part of the night for me was autographing the inside of a girl’s thigh.

We also did a series of Coca Cola beach shows at a lot of Sydney beaches. They were good fun and we met a few other bands as well. Johnny O’Keefe was on the Manly show with us at the old pavilion. By this time JOHNNY O’KEEFE & THE DEE JAYS were more established than us. His band had been going since 1956. On another show we met Alan Hurst & the Wildcats. They had a guy playing the first pedal steel guitar I’d ever seen — and playing damn good rock’n’roll on it too. His name was Kenny Kitching and he became one of Australia’s best pedal steel players.

Another rather interesting show was at the Manly Embassy Theatre. They had a movie for one half of the program and bands for the other half. Johnny O’Keefe was on the bill and so was COL JOYE & THE JOY BOYS. We were all pelted with dog bones, light globes and anything else the audience could lay their hands on!

After playing on Howard Craven’s Rumpus Room on radio, we thought it was time to move to TV. We knew a few people at Channel 9 because we hung around the general area, Willoughby. Brian Henderson had a show called Accent On Youth, which was later to become Bandstand. Somehow we got on and really went well. Like most TV shows then, they had a live audience with kids dancing and general pandemonium so you could gauge the reaction to your performance. Dig got into much trouble from the soundman for lifting the mike stand up high and almost ruining an expensive Philips microphone. He also nearly wiped out some of the lighting as well.

Barry had the absolute gall — thank heavens — to put a huge sign in front of Brian’s rostrum saying: “DIG RICHARDS & THE R’JAYS — FOR BOOKINGS PLEASE RING (his home number)”. Believe it or not, we actually got quite a few bookings from that dreaded sign. After all, we were now television stars!