the drums with Dig Richards & the R’Jays was a fantastic new experience. Suddenly I was thrust into a dizzy world of concerts, dances and TV shows, with an ever-present entourage of screaming girls. Concerts were always very exciting and different. We were usually hidden away from the crowd before we went on and hidden away again when we came off. I often wondered what would happen if those mobs of screaming girls ever caught up with you. I almost found out! After a Saturday afternoon charity concert at Waverly, a group of screaming girls were waiting out the front. I ignored the warnings from the rest of the band and ventured out the front door. It looked pretty safe to me.
“They don’t want me,” I thought. “They’re all waiting for Dig.” As my innocent face appeared, the squeals went up an octave. I panicked. These girls didn’t care who they chased. It must have been quite a sight as I ran down the main street of Waverly followed by a screaming horde of about twenty girls. Luckily I escaped by running into the bar of the nearest hotel. It was just like a scene out of a western movie. The hotel bar went deathly quiet as the drinkers all turned their eyes toward this stranger. I stopped puffing, composed myself and casually walked into the bar like a regular drinker. It must have worked because somebody bought me a beer and the bar immediately resumed its normal buzz. When the coast was clear, I quietly snuck out the side door. It was only then that I realised I still had my blue band suit on. How embarrassing!
The following week at a concert in Newcastle I did find out what happens when screaming girls catch you. I lost all the gold buttons off my coat, a watch, two pairs of sticks, a pair of shoelaces and the collar off my shirt.
The dances, unlike the concerts, were a lot more informal. They were just like big meetings of the Dig & the R’Jays’ Fan Club. The kids would surround the bandstand and we were all happy to mix in and become part of the crowd. The prime requisite for a “rock star” at the end of 1959 was a pair of sunglasses, pegged pants and, most important, an FJ Holden. With my new fame and fortune I settled for a cream and green 1948 FX Holden for £335 and spent Xmas holidays at Nelsons Bay where Lonnie Lee had procured a couple of gigs at the local hall. At this time I still wasn’t old enough to drive, so Lonnie took the wheel. The following night he took the car! He drove some chicks home to Maitland and managed to blow the piston up. This was before I’d even had a chance to drive it! So much for my very first car!
Meanwhile, at Nelsons Bay there had been a blackout on our way home to the beach house and we were all led to the front door by our blind pianist Claude Papesch. This was a nice change for Claude who was used to being led around by everyone else!
Lonnie’s band at Nelsons Bay was a mixture of R’Jays and Old Devils members on holidays. Jonnie Hayton and me (guitar and drums) and Claude Papesch and Ron Martin (piano/sax and bass). There weren’t too many people there but it was a pleasant break after a pretty hectic month of gigs and recording sessions at Festival Records. Lonnie had just released his first record Ain’t It So, backed by the Dee Jays with Peter Bazley on guitar. The record was produced by Johnny O’Keefe under the pseudonym of “Eddie Cash Jnr.”, a name inspired by JO’K’s warped sense of humour, to confuse people.
Lonnie was desperately trying to form his own band at this time, a subject that we often discussed, whilst lying on the beach and counting the number of airplays for Ain’t It So. One Sunday at Parsley Beach, we counted seven. This was the beginning of Lonnie’s recording career. If you didn’t have a good rock’n’roll band you were doomed to be a guest singer and a supporting artist forever. Having a band gave you the power to create and star in your own shows and have your own support artists, who of course were backed by your band. JO’K and Col Joye made good use of this arrangement, whereby they could encourage and support up-and-coming singers while still remaining the stars of the show. The star always came on last and sounded the best. After all, it was his band. JO’K would never sing with the Joy Boys and, conversely, Col would never sing with the Dee Jays, hence the intense rivalry that existed between them. It was the POWER OF THE BAND.
The break up of the Devils and Off Beats proved to be fortunate for Lonnie as there were now enough players floating about to start a new band. We came up with Peter Bazley and Claude Papesch (ex-Devils), Darby Wilson and Johnny Ryan (ex-Off Beats). This sounded like a great line-up for Lonnie’s band, which we called The Leemen. I had to include Ryanny. After all, I was responsible for getting him into this crazy business in the first place. I agreed to play drums until they got the band into shape provided it did not clash with any R’Jays’ dates. I saw quite a lot of Lonnie during this period mostly because I was in love with his young sister Liz. But that’s another story.
Lonnie was about to release a new song called Starlight, Starbright, which he played for me on the old piano at his house at Greenacre. We laughed about the fact that Johnny O’Keefe, Lonnie and I all had one thing in common. The three of us played piano exactly the same — really crook but honest! With JO’K’s help the new record was a great follow up for Ain’t It So. It was a pity that Dig didn’t have JO’K producing the R’Jays’ long-awaited new release instead of leaving it the hands of the Festival Philistines.
It took about six months to finally get The Leemen together. One memorable gig with Lonnie was on February 6, 1960, at Bathurst Trocadero. We picked up Lonnie, Peter Bazley and support singer, Ian Crawford, from 6 O’Clock Rock at Channel 2. My brother Van was driving and Lonnie said he knew a short cut to Bathurst. Sure enough, we got lost. The gig started at 8 o’clock and we eventually arrived at 11.30pm only to find Claude and poor old Darby Wilson singing Bobby Darin’s Queen Of The Hop for the tenth time. Undeterred, we set up and played the first number to a painfully patient audience who had been waiting nearly four hours. After the first number, the promoter ran up to the stage and said, “That’s it! It’s time to play God Save The Queen; it’s twelve o’clock.”
I should point out that, at this time, for some reason it was considered bad form for anyone besides the singer in the band to sing. If anyone in the band could sing, they just didn’t! Even the vocal backing was taken care of by the specialists in that field i.e. The Delltones, The Crescents, The Graduates. When Dig & the R’Jays played the same gig at Bathurst Trocadero, March 11, 1960, Jon Hayton got bored playing instrumentals and decided to sing a few songs. He was soundly castigated by Dig’s manager — “Dig’s the singer, you just play guitar!”
The Leemen finally got going in May 1960 when Bob Malcolm started a Sunday night dance at the Ironworker’s Hall in George Street with two regular support singers Ian Crawford and Little Sammy Gaha. Little Sammy was one of the all round crazy people of the day. His brother Tony Gaha played drums in a Latin American band up at Kings Cross. Lonnie wanted me to stay with The Leemen but there was no way I could continue playing happily in both bands forever. Besides, Dig & the R’Jays had a couple of tours coming up, so I had to get Lonnie a permanent drummer. A Leeman rehearsal was called at Little Sammy’s place on July 27 so I could teach his brother Tony how to play rock’n’roll. Tony’s cowbell was confiscated and with Lonnie’s promises of fame and fortune, the line-up of The Leemen was now complete.
Lonnie was pushing JO’K to have the Leemen back him on record but JO’K didn’t want to spoil a successful formula. This proved to be the right move as Lonnie’s next release I Found A New Love, written by Nat Kipner, was perhaps his most successful record. JO’K did make one concession and agreed to put The Leemen on record playing an instrumental Johnny Guitar but they would have to wait until JO’K and Lonnie returned from the ill-fated JO’K tour in June. The near fatal JO’K car accident at Kempsey on June 27, 1960 is pretty well documented except for the fact that it was Lonnie in the following car who quickly confiscated the bag of grass concealed in the left-hand side hub cap of JO’K’s car before the police arrived. This was the first hint of drugs in the rock’n’roll scene but it certainly wasn’t widespread. It had probably been going on for years amongst a small group of older jazz musicians, who liked to get stoned and listen to cool records. “Far out and groovy, man!”
CRASH
