was a contract with Teen Records, owned by John Collins and George Hilder, who were Johnny Devlin’s management. George Hilder peered at us through his “Coke bottle” glasses and nodded his approval. He lined up a few paying gigs for us at Surryville, Phyllis Bates and other venues. We were quite happy with that. At least we finally had the band together. Things were really starting to move.
The following week, August 27, 1959, I got a phone call. “Hi Leon, it’s Johnny O’Keefe. We want to put Ray Hoff on 6 O’Clock Rock.”
“Wow, that’s great! What about the Off Beats?” I answered.
“No, we can’t use the band. He’ll have to sing with the Dee Jays like everybody else.” A discussion then followed about suitable numbers that Ray could do and we settled on Freddie Cannon’s Tallahassie Lassie.
But we don’t do it exactly like Freddie Cannon.” I explained, “We go up a semitone and ...”
“Don’t worry,” JO’K interrupted. “You guys can come to rehearsal at the old church opposite the ABC at King’s Cross. See you Saturday morning”.
Ray’s mother made him a purple suit with leopard skin lapels (what else?). Ray really looked the part and the number went great. The exposure on television would be good for the dance we were arranging the following week at the Lidcombe Paradance. We booked the hall and my brother Van printed the posters.
The dance roll-up was more than we ever hoped for. Two of the girls in the crowd had “Ray Hoff & the Off Beats” painted on the back of their leather jackets. The band sounded fantastic. Even Darby took off his Canadian jacket! This was also my first chance to wear my 13 inch pegged black pants with the silver threads and, of course my green luminous socks. After paying for the hall and other expenses, we all ended up with more than £10 each. It seemed like we were finally on our way to rock’n’roll success.
Our plans to make this a permanent weekly dance were soon dashed by the police. The Paradance refused to hire the hall to us again because the cops had complaints about the huge crowd and noise outside the place. To add insult to injury, Ryanny was also arrested for gluing a Ray Hoff poster on a funeral parlour. Such is life for a budding rock star!
3 I WANNA LOVE YOU
“I wanna love you each night,
Oh, let me say I might,
Love you each night and day”
— I Wanna Love You, Doug Richards
JON: Dig Richards & the R’Jays had become the first band to ever play live on Brian Henderson’s Bandstand and soon after in August, 1959, we started our own show, Teen Time at Channel 7, which was on at 5.30pm on Monday nights. We eventually ended up doing this show two nights a week for two years. It was our main source of income. The show was hosted by Keith Walshe, who dubbed me “the red headed terror”. The hostess was Carol Finlayson — a top sort! Teen Time was a great experience and features in greater detail later on.
We were still using the same old gear so Barry and I decided to update. Seeing as I was working at Nicholsons, I got a 10% discount so I bought a Hofner electric guitar with a very thin solid body that I later fitted with the first whammy bar in Australia. A whammy bar was a tremolo arm used for changing the pitch of the strings as you pulled it up and down. Barry bought a new Premier drum kit. Almost immediately after that I got the sack from Nicholsons. I think the lady, appropriately named Miss Wolfe, who was in charge of the record bar, didn’t like me. Maybe I was a smart-arse or something. Anyhow, I went to work in the hat department of Robert Reids, a wholesaler. God it was boring! Until I met a nice girl there called Patty. We had a bit of a fling; she came to a few shows and then disappeared.
The first place we used the new gear was at a dance at The Entrance. This was an important night for me. Finally I cracked it! I scored! Amazing Rumpo! We had a little after-show party back at the holiday flats where we were staying. This was the first of many after-show parties and we all got very pissed. Barry Lewis then put his fist through a door and the party started getting rough. I found this delightful young girl (I was only 16 myself!) who was a couple of years younger than me. Her name was Mellie and I took her into the flat next door. We stayed there all night and most of the next day. It was a wonderful experience and I never saw her again. This happens a lot — never seeing them again, that is. I don’t know what it was that made my luck change. Maybe it was the new guitar!
Also it was decided that a change of band personnel would not go astray so Barry and I went to a dance at the Lane Cove Town Hall where Deke Drew & the Rebel Rousers were playing. I think they called themselves that because it was the only song they knew! They must have played it ten times. It was a Duane Eddy hit. Anyway, we thought the guitarist would be good if he learned bass, which he agreed to do, and we pinched the piano player as well. The guitarist-cum-bass player was PETER BAKER and the pianist was JAY BOOGIE famous for his left hand ‘nunga-nunga’ boogie runs.
Peter made himself a copy of the American Fender bass and called it the “Off-Fender”. It must have been one of the first electric basses around. You see, at this time you could not get any American equipment in Australia. Now, with electric bass and piano, the band started to sound pretty good.
Our sax player, Peter Marris left us at this time. His girlfriend didn’t want him to play in a rock’n’roll band because — too much competition from female fans I suspect! Marris was later replaced by Laurie Goodfellow and what a good fellow he was.
We rehearsed in the little storeroom that belonged to the CBC Bank at North Sydney where Barry’s father was the manager. We learned a new song, an original, written by Dig’s younger brother Doug, called I Wanna Love You. Doug was a miniscule “nerd” at the time and no one realised the talent that this boy had. Dig signed a contract with the A&R (Artists & Repertoire) man of Festival Records, Mr. Ken Taylor, and with a simple little guitar riff, (Da Dah — Da Da Da Dum Splang!) which I discovered on the 12th fret, WE WERE ON OUR WAY!
HARRIS STREET ‘59
Number 223-229 Harris Street, Pyrmont was the address of Festival Records, the leading record label in Australia in 1959. Our first encounter with this establishment in June, 1959 was the recording of Dig’s first songs: I Wanna Love You and its flip-side or B side I’m Through, both of which were written by Dig’s little brother Doug. We carried our gear into the studio, with mixed feelings of excitement, apprehension, wonderment and a certain fear of the unknown, through the main office with a few giggles and a lot of looks from the more junior members of the female staff.
Our intrepid band of travelling minstrels was greeted in the studio by the following personnel, who were to become our recording colleagues for about eighteen months. They were Mr. Ken Taylor — A & R (Artists & Repertoire) man, loosely translated as GOD; Mr. Hal Saunders — Musical Director, actually remembered quite fondly as a kind of “uncle” to us; and Mr. Robert Iredale — Engineer, a bespectacled rather studious person with a very cutting (and splicing!) sense of humour.
We set up our gear where we were told to and we tuned up. Robert set up the microphones to pick up the guitar, bass and piano but none for the drums. They were too loud anyway!
“Okay, let’s have a run through,” bellowed Robert through the talk-back. So saying, we all burst into I Wanna Love You.
“Not with the vocal you nincompoops! That goes on later!” Whoops! Does this mean we have to play the song without Dig singing? How are we going to know where we are?
