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 stage. Band vultures could do some damage if they got hold of you.
Some of the kids used to sneak over to Fiorelli’s Wine Bar or Brookie pub and get some “responsible” adult to buy some grog for them. So towards the end of the night, a few fights would erupt. Fortunately we had some good bouncers.
For a lot of these dances, during Leon’s first week, we had to use other singers instead of Dig as he was still recovering from the accident and only did the most important shows. For instance, at Brookvale we used Lonnie Lee one night and Ray Hoff the next. The Brookie dances were worth six quid (£6) each.
Sunday night: Phyllis Bates Ballroom in Pitt Street, City. This was one of our regular dances and this night we used Lonnie Lee instead of Dig. Six quid (£6). (Reminds me of a joke about a ‘sick squid’.)
Monday night: Teen Time, Dale Wayne as support act again this week. Six guineas (£6/6/-).
Tuesday afternoon: Band practice at Northbridge Masonic Hall, then at night, Marrickville Kings Theatre with Dig. I’ve gone blank on this gig. I have no recollection of it at all. But if it’s in Leon’s “Crazy Book”, we did it! Ten quid (£10)!
Wednesday night: Cabramatta Civic Hall, with Dig, Kitten Dwyer and Mark Rebel & the Vampires. Six pounds, five shillings (£6/5/-).
Thursday arvo: Practice at Northbridge again and then Chatswood Dispensary Hall at night. The R’Jays and Lee Rivers. Seven pounds, ten shillings (£7/10/-).
Friday night: Lithgow Showground Hall with Dig. Drawn a blank on this one too. Strange, Lithgow’s such a memorable town! Twenty-one pounds (£21)!
Saturday night: Back to Brookie for another dance, this time with Ray Hoff filling in for Dig. Six quid (£6).
Sunday night: Phyllis Bates with Lonnie Lee filling in. Another sick squid (£6).
At this time Lonnie had a hit record in the charts called Ain’t It So. He also had a beautiful sister, Liz who was sort of going out with Warren Williams at the time. I desperately wanted to “sort of” go out with her too but I never succeeded because she was stolen away by our newly-found drummer Leon ... you grasscutter!
Monday: Well folks, that’s the end of two weeks with Dig & the R’Jays and the “Baby Drummer” as Leon was called.
