Behind the Rock and Beyond - Leon Isackson

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still on crutches came out of hospital on Saturday, 14 November 1959, and flew straight down to Melbourne where we were booked to do a television show at GTV9. The rest of the band — Peter, Boogie, Jon and I, were to travel down by “pie and ear” bus and meet him and his father, Gordon Richards, at the London Hotel. This was very exciting for me as I had never been outside of NSW. It was great travelling down to Melbourne with guys that were just as enthusiastic as me about music. This was my first week as a “pro” but these guys had “done it all” already. They had a hit record and they had played at the Sydney Stadium with Conway Twitty. My biggest ambition since I was thirteen was to play at the Stadium. With Jimmy, Ray and Ryanny, all we were ever interested in were the three R’s — Records, Rock’n’roll and Rootin’. Being a professional touring band seemed to add another dimension to it all.

      When we arrived in Melbourne, we were given the “Star” treatment and taken straight to the London Hotel for breakfast. In very plush surroundings, I met Dig’s father Gordon, affectionately known as “The Blunderer”, and some executives from GTV9. An hour or so later, we were donning our new bright blue suits with gold buttons while people were running around setting up our gear. Dig wore his brand-new bright maroon Lurex coat with white piping. What a sight! He was still on crutches and trying his best to leap around on one leg like a pirate.

      This was the Bert Newton Show with Frankie Davidson filling in for Bert as compere. Everone was quite helpful and friendly except for the resident band who appeared to be scowling. I couldn’t understand this at the time but it was a promise of things to come. “Bloody rock’n’rollers,” one of them mumbled. We put it down to the fact that they were from Melbourne, although everybody else there seemed quite amiable. We recorded three shows, which fortunately (or unfortunately), Frankie Davidson still has a copy of on 16mm film. One of the shows featured a brand new duo from Perth — The DeKroo Brothers, Leo and Doug — who later came to Sydney with some success. The reception of the band from the Melbourne kids was something new and fantastic. We felt quite embarrassed to be treated like stars.

      As Dig and I sat in the plane watching the lights of Melbourne disappear, we toasted each other with a beer. This was going to be the start of something really exciting. Nothing would ever be quite the same again.

      4 THE BABY DRUMMER

      JON: Evidently we must have done a good job of The Bert Newton Show because we were upgraded to flying home to Sydney instead of travelling in the second-class Pioneer bus. The two major airlines that Australia had then were TAA and ANA and their top planes were Lockhead Electras and Vickers Viscounts, both turbo-prop aircraft. Melbourne was nearly two hours away from Sydney in these aircraft and the fare was eighteen pounds, four shillings, return. We were paid £20 each for these shows. Thank God we didn’t have to pay our own fares!

      We didn’t have time to stay in Melbourne. We had to come home the same night because of an early rehearsal at Channel 7 for Teen Time. This particular Monday the other artist on the show besides Dig was Dale Wayne so we had to rehearse his songs. Rehearsals were always in Studio X, downstairs, and then we would do the show live to air in Studio B. Unfortunately, there were no video tapes kept of Teen Time.

      The next two weeks was a typical and quite busy time for us. On the Wednesday night the R‘Jays had a regular dance at Cabramatta Civic Hall. This was always a good night, always packed and not too far from my home in Strathfield. I still hadn’t got a car yet! The other people on at the dance with us were Kitten Dwyer, a country & western girl singer trying to sing rock’n’roll and a band called Flame & the Fiery Five.

      One night at this dance an incident occurred which showed a side of Dig’s nature not yet seen by anyone. There was a guy, one of our semi-regulars, who every week seemed to have something smart to say either about Dig or the band: “How come youse get all the sheilas? What’s so great about you lot? You’re just a bunch of pooftas, especially that Dig Richards!” We used to let these comments slide because this guy looked a bit too tough; in fact, he was an ex-boxer from Canberra. But the “poofta” bit finally got us pretty mad, especially Dig Richards. At the end of the dance, Dig politely invited the pugilist outside, took him across the road to the park and, to the surprise of everyone, beat the shit out of him!

      Dig became the idol of all the Cabramatta bikies who were watching this debacle. Nobody ever dared to suggest bashing up the band from then on.

      There was the usual bunch of girls who used to follow us to every show in Sydney. Two I remember very well — Beverly Boberidge, our fan club president, and her girlfriend, Rhonda V. Moore. The “V” was for virgin because no matter how we tried, Rhonda guarded her virginity! She later married Col Loughnan from The Crescents and lived happily ever after. Bev’s place at Leichhardt became one of our favourite after work “crash pads”.

      I’ll mention the money we got. In those times, the singer always got more money than the band members but the money we made was pretty good when you consider that when I left Gowings I was making £5 a week! My father, who was the manager of a company, was only making £35 per week. For Teen Time we made six guineas (£6/6/-) each and for Cabramatta dances we made six pounds, five shillings (£6/5/-). Many times our earnings would depend on the success or failure of the dance. Still, I’d only done about five hours playing and I was ahead of Gowings already. Some weeks we could net well over £100, which was a lot more than your average clod in the late fifties. Mind you, in those days money meant nothing to us. We were in it for the glory, mate! I spent it like it was nothing. I’ve no idea where it went and I don’t care. Anyhow back to those busy two weeks in November 1959.

      Thursday night: Newcastle Stadium! Now that’s enough to scare the crap out of you, isn’t it? Well it was for Peter. He was so nervous he’d gone green! I had to push him out on stage. Also on the show were The Toppers, Johnny Byrell, Danny Shaw (a very fine impressionist — “Mr. Cooper, d’ya know what we do to horse thieves in Californy?” a la Walter Brennan), The Allen Brothers, Peter Allen and Chris Bell with their “stage father”, Mr. Bell — “That’s lovely boys!”, Lonnie Lee, who at the time had one of the best voices and could always sing up a storm and Warren (Wokka) Williams, one of the nicest guys in the business.

      There was also Johnny Devlin & the New Devils, who were not quite as good as the original Devils. They had some really good musos in that band: Ron Martin for instance, an excellent bass player and crazy person, who played with us on Noeleen Batley’s Barefoot Boy. Incidentally, I was in love with Noeleen, but she only had eyes for that degenerate Dave Bridge! Dave was the guitarist in the other band for the show Col Joye & the Joy Boys. For this huge venture we were paid £20 but it was one of our first really exciting experiences, especially for Leon. Here are his impressions of that night.

      LEON: This was my first live show with Dig since I joined the band and I wasn’t sure what to expect. When Dig was announced he came on stage still wearing his crutches. The roar from the crowd was deafening. It was quite an emotional experience as everybody stood up and cheered for about ten minutes. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I had expected a good reaction but nothing like this! Our apprehension about Dig’s first show since the Harbour Bridge accident was all for nothing. He absolutely slaughtered them! There were well-meaning hands reaching out to touch him and if they had got hold of him they would have pulled him off the stage in the heat of the moment. They had gone utterly berserk and we could do no wrong. We stole the show completely! Back at the Carlton Hotel after the show, Dig and Col played guitar and sang to a select audience of about twenty party girls while Jon and Dave Bridge sang a few dirty ditties. Dave’s rendition of The Bishop From Birmingham brought the house down.

      BACK TO JON: Well that was our extended tour of Newcastle. Now it was back to Sydney for two nights’ dances at Brookvale Theatre. These old theatres were definitely not set up for bands. The stage was only deep enough for the drums and that’s all. You had to step precariously round the drums if you were silly enough to set up on the other side of the stage. It was also a very high stage which was bad for falling off but good for keeping away the “BAND VULTURES”, Peter’s affectionate name for groupies, band molls, fans etc., who hovered, talons bared, around the

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