JONNIE BE GOOD

JON: As I begin to write this story, I get flashes, little pictures, of incidents long past. Browsing through Leon’s personal diary, nicknamed the “Crazy Book”; I see towns, halls, pubs and clubs. I see cars, aircraft, apartments and yes, GIRLS! “And I can see you too! Ready Mister Music?” (For those of you who remember Romper Room and the Magic Mirror).

Names leap out at me from the pages of the diary: Bandstand, 6 O’Clock Rock, Festival Records, Sydney Stadium, Melbourne Town Hall and the memorable mouldy Marlene! Names and faces of many musicians, singers, promoters, screaming fans. All the fascinating people from the wonderful, fickle, rewarding, heartbreaking but always interesting Music Business. Never a dull moment. Being dragged out of a rock’n’roll dance by two burly coppers; now, that was a good one! Keith Walshe and the Teen Time clan. Many tours of sunny Queensland. Tours of friendly Western Australia. The antics of friends like Johnny O’Keefe and many others, clawing their way through a unique time in the birth of Australian rock’n’roll.

I remember too the uneasy transition from one band to another, the music of a new era such as The Beatles, The Twist, Surf Music and the general sights and sounds of the early sixties. The name Vung Tau Airbase. Mortar fire. The battle of Dang Dung. Spending all night on the toilet in Saigon! These memories keep flooding back.

Later on in life, long after this story ends, I can recall walking down the darkened corridors of Royal North Shore hospital on my way to visit my old friend Digby, knowing in my heart that I would never see his smiling face again.

But I should start from the beginning.

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The cool green waters of Sydney Harbour slid beneath the ferry as it nosed into Kurraba Point wharf. It was one of those great, sunny, winter days. Not too hot, not too cold but just right. Everything was right with the world. I was fifteen and it was 1957. Rock’n’roll came to Australia at the beginning of that year in the form of Bill Haley & the Comets at the Sydney Stadium. My mother and I were on our way to my godmother’s mansion at Kurraba Point.

Her name was Lorna Crowle and a more gracious lady you could not wish to meet. Her home was an amazing place, a three story oval-fronted house right at the wharf. Inside, there was the most elegant collection of objets d’art you could ever hope to see. One showcase had a bracelet rumoured to have once belonged to Queen Victoria. There were also some very interesting musical instruments: a full-sized Wurlitzer organ, a nine-foot, Steinway grand piano and a very expensive Italian piano accordion. But the least expensive and most interesting item to me was an old beat-up acoustic Hawaiian steel guitar, which I used to “pose off” with, pretending to be Bill Haley or Elvis or Eddie Cochran.

It was during one of these posing off sessions that my godmother said: “My God Gwen (my mother, Gwendoline Hayton, nee Woods) doesn’t he look a natural with that thing? I think I’ll buy him one. Would you like one, dear?” Is the Pope a duck and can a Catholic swim? So saying, my dear godmother, whom I remember very fondly, bought me my first guitar.

It was a Levin round-hole acoustic which cost £19, purchased from J. Stanley Johnston’s which was then the hang out for all budding musos in their lunch-hours. Also, I signed up for a series of lessons from Fred Butler (the guy who sold me the axe, man!). He lived and gave lessons at Taylor Square, right above Kinselas. Fred taught me the basics of the guitar – how to read chords and dots. I was never really good at dots but who really needed it for rock’n’roll? I am very thankful though for some of the things that Fred taught me and still use them today.

Fred wanted me to play classical guitar, which he played beautifully, but my first love was rock’n’roll and pop music in general. One night I came for my lesson with a Chuck Berry record (Schoolday) and asked Fred to teach it to me. He said: “You don’t want to play that rock’n’roll shit, boy! Learn those classics, play those Combo Orchestra arrangements, learn to read, tote that barge, lift that bale, blah, blah, yacketty-yack!!!”

Well that was when Fred and I parted company and I began to learn my beloved rock’n’roll songs by ear from records.

I was nearly discouraged from playing the guitar altogether by looking at all those silly little dots. Tom and Ted Le Garde once asked the great country and western guitarist Grady Martin if he could read music and his reply was: “Yair… but it don’t help my playin' none.” Fortunately, 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 Nicholsons’ record bar. I thought that this 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 Johnstons 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 Johnstons 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 on drums, Roger Paulfreeman on tea-chest bass, Kenny Konyard on rhythm guitar, Peter Marris on sax and clarinet, Jonnie Hayton on lead guitar and Dig Richards on vocals. The dance was hosted by popular top radio DJ, John Laws, who at that time was vying for first place with Bob Rogers and Tony Withers.

Our equipment for the dance was as follows – sound system: One hired AWA 20 watt amplifier plus two grey painted speaker-boxes with 12” speakers and one Ronette crystal microphone. Kenny had a Framus guitar. I had a new Levin F-hole guitar with a sliding Moody pick-up and a four (count them!) four watt Moody amp. Barry had a Dandy drum kit – “Dandy” was the brand name, not the sound! Roger had a tea-chest, stick, rope and sore fingers. Not quite your quadruple four-way sound system with pyrotechnics, but it did the job and the kids at the dance had as good a time as they would have at a top venue with a major band of today. All with no booze – and certainly with no drugs.

Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll were merely seeds in the mind of the 1958 teenagers. There were no drugs or booze at dances. The Rock’n’Roll was beginning to gain a toehold but après dance sex was very hard to accomplish, especially with the ironclad step-ins that some of the girls wore. I was still a virgin at this stage but definitely in there trying to change that! We started up dances at Northbridge, Chatswood, Fairfield, Cabramatta and the Sky Lounge and Phyllis Bates Ballroom, both in the city. This was hard for me as I didn’t have a car (most kids my age didn’t) but fortunately Barry bought an ancient Fordson van and he would ferry most of us and the gear to all the dances. A lot of times though, I had to get a train or a bus. We also had a dance at the old Brookvale Theatre where I used to take my latest girl, Sylvia Reeves. She was the TOTAL girl in the petrol ad. It’s great to see your girl up on a sign selling petrol when you don’t even have a car to take her home in! I was in love again but still no “amazing rumpo” – not for want of trying, mind you. The dance at “Brookie” Theatre and Sylvia’s home at Seaforth, were both a long way from Strathfield and a long haul for me on bus and train, carrying a guitar and amp.

We were still wearing the red jeans and black and white striped Ivy League shirts and shoestring ties. After a while, my mother made us some light blue drape-shape coats with black lapels, which we wore with the ever-popular black pants. Dig had a horrendous leopard skin pyjama-type suit with moccasins to match.

Most of the dances are a bit of a blur to me but there are a few other shows we did that stand out in my mind. One was Australia’s Amateur Hour, recorded at Lane Cove Town Hall. We won! But the most memorable part of the night for me was autographing the inside of a girl’s thigh. Sex was raising its ugly head and I can still see it now. (Down you savage beast!)

We also did a series of Coca Cola beach shows at a lot of Sydney beaches. They were good fun and we met a few other bands as well. Johnny O’Keefe was on the Manly show with us at the old pavilion. By this time JOHNNY O’KEEFE & THE DEE JAYS were more established than us. His band had been going since 1956. On another show we met Alan Hurst & the Wildcats. They had a guy playing the first pedal steel guitar I’d ever seen – and playing damn good rock’n’roll on it too. His name was Kenny Kitching and he became one of Australia’s best pedal steel players.

Another rather interesting show was at the Manly Embassy Theatre. They had a movie for one half of the program and bands for the other half. O’Keefe was on the bill and so was COL JOYE & THE JOY BOYS. We were all pelted with dog bones, light globes and anything else the audience could lay their hands on!

After playing on Howard Craven’s Rumpus Room on radio, we thought it was time to move to TV. We knew a few people at Channel 9 because we hung around the general area, Willoughby. Brian Henderson had a show called Accent On Youth, which was later to become Bandstand. Somehow we got on and really went well. Like most TV shows then, they had a live audience with kids dancing and general pandemonium so you could gauge the reaction to your performance. Dig got into much trouble from the soundman for lifting the mike stand up high and almost ruining an expensive Philips microphone. He also nearly wiped out some of the lighting as well.

Barry had the absolute gall – thank heavens – to put a huge sign in front of Brian’s rostrum saying: “DIG RICHARDS & THE R’JAYS – FOR BOOKINGS PLEASE RING (his home number)”. Believe it or not, we actually got quite a few bookings from that dreaded sign. After all, we were now television stars!

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To Chapter 2 The Beat Of The Drums

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