music teachers now take a more tolerant attitude towards different kinds of music and many a budding muso won’t be discouraged to learn just because they can’t tell you the name of Beethoven’s aunt!
I also had a rather unpleasant piano teacher when I was about seven, who had a habit of hitting me on the knuckles when I played a wrong note. His name eludes me now and it’s just as well forgotten. My mother provided the best encouragement by teaching me some tunes on the piano from about age four. Our favourite key was Eb, which is not the easiest key to play in by any means.
After my split with Fred and his “Combo Orchs.” which were full arrangements of big band swing era tunes and some acceptable but usually very schmaltzy pop songs, I started learning a lot of rock songs and guitar solos note for note. In those days you didn’t have to write all your own material. Very few did. There were songwriters and there were singers. And of course let’s not forget about a big hand for the band!
Consequently we used to learn all the American hits. It was taboo to play another Aussie band’s hit. I mean they wouldn’t play yours, would they? The rivalry was deadly, especially between our R&R leaders, Col Joye and Johnny O’Keefe.
While I was at school, my dearest friend was a guy named Grant Fleming. Grant and I knew every note, every bar and every beat of all our favourite songs, which were mainly Bill Haley, Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Freddie Bell, Chuck Berry and some jazz artists such as Buddy Rich, Louis Bellson, Karl Kress, Tony Mottola, Gene Krupa and Harry Dart. I always thought that Grant should have been a drummer, the way he used to bang rhythms out on a table or whatever was handy. Still, I guess he’s happy being an engineer or whatever he is now.
I TAKE THEE, ROCK’N’ROLL
Even at this age, I felt totally committed to rock’n’roll. It belonged to me. It was the music of my generation.
“I take thee rock’n’roll to be my lawless wedded wife.
To have and to hold, from this day forth,
for richer or for poorer, in time or out.
To live happily together from this day forth,
till death do us part.”
— I TAKE THEE by Jon Hayton.
While I was learning all this sinful rock’n’roll, I was still at school — Trinity Grammar primary school at Strathfield and secondary school at Summer Hill. Most of them were stuffed shirts and snobs. The happiest day of my life at school was when I jumped up on the desk during Tech Drawing class, holding a T-square for a guitar. The kids in the class loved it but the teacher decided that the T-square would be better used on my backside.
When I left school, my father, Noel Hayton, found me a job at Gowings (“Walk thru’, no one asked to buy”) and I spent my lunch-hours at the aforementioned J. Stanley Johnston’s and also at Nicholson’s, Palings and the Nock & Kirby’s record bar. It was one lunch-hour at Nock & Kirby’s that I met BARRY LEWIS who was busy shoving records under his coat. Barry told me he was a drummer and he had a band of sorts called the RED JEANS. He asked me would I like to come and have a “jam” with them as they wanted to get rid of the guy they already had, ‘cause he “loved himself too much”!
Well, the band consisted of lots of people holding guitars, a guy playing tea-chest bass (tea-chest, stick and rope), a guy on saxophone and clarinet and Barry on drums. After much rehearsal we got rid of some “guitar holders” and played our very first gig at Castle Hill Golf Club. The band consisted of Kenny Konyard and Gary Eyre on guitar, Roger Paulfreeman on tea-chest bass, Barry Lewis on drums, Peter Marris on sax and clarinet and yours truly on guitar! I don’t remember too much about this job like if we were paid and, if so, how much but the next performance was much more memorable.
It was Desmond Tester’s Channel 9 Pins on which Gary sang the Johnny O’Keefe song Wild One. I played rhythm guitar and we were paid the princely sum of ten shillings and a bottle of coke. Not quite award rates for TV but we were very happy to be doing our second gig on the box so money was our last concern. Desmond was very patronising and smarmy. “Here’s a little combo who tell me they play this new rock’n’roll, I really don’t know what it’s all about but take it away, the Red jeans.”
So endeth the only gigs ever done by the Red jeans.
I continued to hang around the Castlecrag area with Barry and the other guys although I was still a “westie” from Strathfield. I eventually got the sack from Gowings (“Walk thru’, no one asked to work”) and started a new job at Nicholson’s’ record bar. I thought that would be great but I was very wrong. They stuck me out the back in the record packing department and I never sold a record the whole time I was there, which wasn’t very long! Barry was still at the CBC bank and we spent our lunch-hours at J. Stanley Johnston’s trying out new guitars and drums.
It was during one of these lunchtimes that we met the guy who would change our lives forever.
DIG THAT CRAZY BEAT
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
