“Tonight I sing my songs again, I’ll
play the game and pretend,
But all my words come back to me, in
shades of mediocrity,
Like emptiness in harmony, I need someone
to comfort me,
Homeward bound”
- Homeward Bound, Paul Simon.
LEON: When the US Navy offered to renew our contract
for another four months at twice the money, we declined. We had all had enough
and wanted to come home. God knows we didn’t get into this business for the
money. Mostly we missed our families. We had been away from home, almost five
months, with one week in between. It was time to go home to our loved ones.
Yes, I did end up marrying Lonnie Lee’s sister, Liz on February 2, 1963. And yes,
I suppose that’s another story. When we were married we adopted Lonnie’s
two-year-old son, David,
from Lonnie’s first failed marriage in 1960. Now I had missed my own daughter Cherylee’s second birthday. I missed the
whole family and it was time to go home and settle down like a normal person.
Lizzie always knew that I had sold my soul to rock’n’roll just like her
brother. If possible, 1966 was going to be my year of being a more responsible
husband and father. I couldn’t wait to see them again.
Sitting
next to the navigator in the cockpit of the Hercules, No. 10, I saw the first
glimpse of the Australian mainland come up on the radar and my heart almost
skipped a beat. I felt as though we had been away for three years and with all
our tours I suppose we had. It was like coming home to the real world for, we
had always been where the action was, and that was what always felt like the
real world to us. One Vietnam veteran told me later that coming back home felt
more like the unreal world, full of people and friends going about their
business and not always understanding where he had been and what he had been
through.
A
curious wave of relief came over us when we landed back in Australia. There was
a tension in the back of our minds that we hadn’t been aware of. The first time
we heard a backfire from a car, we instinctively hit the deck. When we realised
how stupid we must have looked to the unsuspecting taxi driver, Michael popped
up and said, “Hey, haven’t you noticed? Nobody’s trying to shoot us anymore.”
For
one brief moment, we were welcomed as heroes by Sir William Yeo and the press
at Anzac House. As the subject of Australian soldiers helping Vietnamese people
wasn’t much of a news story, Stuart Wagstaff asked me about the morale of the
troops. I told him truthfully that it could have been a lot better as they felt
that they had been forgotten back home. Any good work that they did wasn’t
always reported and it was hard enough to live in Vietnam, let alone
fight a war there. This caused a few dark looks, as we weren’t supposed to
comment on morale. I was only echoing the thoughts of most of the soldiers we
had talked to. I finished by saying, “They could do with some more Aussie beer.
The American stuff is terrible.” They kept the last bit and, of course, the
first bit was censored.
In
regard to the unresolved story of our car crash in October 1963 (Opening The
Can), the case of Lawler and Isackson vs. Hayton eventually came to court
on June 29, 1966. Just as Michael and I were about to receive thousands of
dollars for being the unfortunate passengers of maniac driver Jon Hayton, a
startling confession was made in the dock by George the cellarman from the Manly
Pacific Hotel. “It was my fault your honour,” cried George, “If I hadn’t have
cut them off while I was overtaking, they never would have hit that telegraph
pole.”
Our
expensive barrister jumped out of his chair. “This is contrary to every police
statement you have ever made!” George bowed his head in shame and the judge
gave him a piercing look. “And when did you decide to tell the truth about this
matter?” said the barrister indignantly. George lowered his head even further.
“Well, your worship, it was on the way here this morning, on the Manly Ferry.”
The
judge raised his eyebrows and leaned forward. “What did he say, Council?” “He
said he finally decided to tell the truth on the way here on the Manly Ferry,
your honour.” “Oh,” came the reply from the judge, “No doubt the sight of Fort
Denison changed his mind!”
George
nodded mournfully while the rest of the courtroom filled with stifled chuckles
and a couple of loud guffaws. Consequently, Jon was exonerated and Michael and
I were awarded the trifling sum of about $600, which only just covered the
medical and legal fees. The one great thing that did emerge from the accident
was the premature birth of my daughter, Cherylee. Lizzie was so worried about
us being kept in hospital overnight that she gave birth the next morning on
October 20, 1963.
For
Jon and I the early years of rock’n’roll were over in 1966. The world was
changing and so were we. Even the Australian currency was changing from pounds
to dollars. The attitude to the war in Vietnam was changing. We were about to
enter a new world of ‘Peace, Love, Dope and Flower Power’. Music was also
changing but music would still be our life. When Bill Watson got the Australian
Forces Overseas Fund (AFOF) established, it opened the door for many other
Australian artists to go over and entertain the troops. Only then, they were
short government-sponsored trips. The days of long tours were over. The last
trip I made was in 1968 with Eden Kane, during the Tet Offensive, only to see
the situation deteriorating even further. It was a strange feeling to stand on
the top of the Meyerkord, watching air strikes pulverise Cholon where we played
so many times in 1965. Surely the Vietnamese people deserved better treatment
than that.
There
were also changes while we were away. Lonnie Lee had become an agent and had
lined up one of our first gigs after we arrived home, The Scene Discotheque at
Darling Point, complete with go-go girls and managed by Jack Gibson before he
became a famous football coach. Jack had the distinction of being the only
person in the world that was able to get Jon to turn his guitar down. “Turn it
down, Jon, or I’ll break your arm!” Johnny O’Keefe had successfully recovered
from his last breakdown and we ended up doing a lot of shows with him right throughout
1966-67. You can’t keep a good man down. Not for long anyway.
Many
years later, one of those silly 3am JO’K phone calls came right out of the blue
in 1978, when I was producing an album for the comeback of the Delltones. I
hadn’t heard from Jok in years. “Leon, we’ve got to get the guys back together
again!” I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Where’s Jon? Where’s Michael?
Where’s Nosmo? What ever happened to the Board of Directors?” “Don’t be silly
John. That was ten years ago.”
About
a week later on October 6, 1978 we lost Jok and the whole of Australia mourned
the passing of the Father of Australian Rock’n’roll. We were proud to call him
our friend. Hate him or love him, there was never anyone else like him.
Jon,
Michael and I carried on successfully in one way or another for another ten
years and a long time after with individual projects. We’ve been survivors
because we were adaptable and always accepted the challenge of change with
enthusiasm. We love what we do and there have been plenty of good stories since
then. Whatever happened in those years between 1956 and 1966, we all agree that
it was damn good fun and we wouldn’t want to trade the experience for a million
dollars.
The
last time we played together as the R’Jays, or Rajahs, was at a benefit at
Revesby Workers for our best buddy, Digby Richards, just before he tragically
died of cancer in 1983. Dig always said, “No matter how hard it gets, don’t
give up.” If it wasn’t for Dig, maybe none of this book would’ve ever happened.
It certainly wouldn’t have happened without Jon.
“We are stardust, we are golden,
And we’ve got to get ourselves back
to the garden”
Woodstock Joni Mitchell.
JON: This book finishes with the end of the ‘age of
innocence’ of happy music, dance music, “nothing too deep”, just good fun. We
are now entering the Age of Aquarius, if you like, the age of Flower Power,
Love-ins, Be-ins, Sit-ins; of long flowing hair, paisley, psychedelia and dope!
This new age also heralded in a New Enlightenment, with thoughts of
conservation, the ‘spring cleaning’ of our planet. Words of new songs were
becoming more deep and meaningful. People were listening to the enlightened
words of Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and John Lennon. Even the Beatles
had become deep and meaningful! Technology and recording techniques helped but
musicians were also playing better.
By
the time we’d reached 1969-70, the Woodstock period, hippies and the
counter-culture were firmly entrenched. People, advocating love and peace, were
being encouraged to dropout and form alternate societies. Many brains were in
the process of being fried from Timothy Leary’s dreaded LSD. These were the
“casualties” of the sixties.
Apart from a general musical refinement, the doldrums of the seventies did not produce anything startlingly new in music or the world stage, except maybe the fall of Saigon, renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Yes, what ever happened to our Asian friends, the Vietnamese? They were out of the frying pan into the fir, a bright red fire. The Vietnamese had a very quaint name for the Russians, “Americans without dollars!” The poverty and mud grovelling still goes on. Their country is still crying.
The
years 1973-4 saw Digby Richards at his finest. It was during this period that
he wrote some of his most beautiful songs, A Little Piece Of Peace, If I
Could Write A Love Song, New York City and the wistful People Call Me
Country (But I Don’t Mind). I went back to playing the guitar with Digby in
the seventies. He was the one who started me writing songs, set up a recording
deal for me under the pseudonym of Farmer John, tried to make me a
‘star’. But I’m not a ‘star’, never will be. I prefer to be slightly ‘stage
left’, just out of the spotlight, helping the ‘star’ do his job. I’m a muso!
Digby and I worked together on and off until about six months before he died.
I
married my “Rabbit” on September 4, 1967. We are still together and have three
more children, Rachel Anne, Rebecca Jane and Daniel John.
As Leon has told you, he and I played together for a long while after,
until the pain from the arthritis in my hands started to take its toll. We
played in many other bands, some rock’n’roll, some not, but whatever it was, we
always had a good time. Boredom is and was not part of our lives.
And as we look back on our adventures, we do not regret one minute of our days
BEHIND THE ROCK.
Jon Hayton 1990
The End Part 2
(to be continued)
Continue to Part 3 (unpublished)
1933w