Young’s pop singing success diminished at the same time his writing successes began. His biggest hit was undoubtedly ‘The Real Thing’ for Russell Morris, as discussed above. His ‘I Thank You’, written for the Aboriginal boxer-turned-singer Lionel Rose, is little more than a ditty, though it did reputedly sell 50,000 copies and led to ‘thousands of teenagers screaming their groovy heads off for their latest idol, Lionel.’142 The Lionel Rose phenomenon deserves wider study as an extraordinary outpouring of affection for an indigenous Australian shortly after a referendum in which Australians voted overwhelmingly to allow the Commonwealth to legislate for all indigenous people: an act which is often seen as an invitation to Aboriginal people to become part of mainstream Australia.
The best Johnny Young composition is a tie between ‘Smiley’, sung by Ronnie Burns and a number one hit in 1970, and ‘The Star’, recorded by Ross D. Wyllie, which had enjoyed chart success a year earlier. Like ‘The Real Thing’, these songs were sugar-coated subversion, though the first may have been accidentally so; Young and others have given varying explanations of the connection between the song ‘The Real Thing’ and the ‘It’s the real thing’ slogan used to promote Coca-Cola in the same year (1969). It has been posited that Young heard the phrase in London and decided to satirise it, and through it capitalism and advertising. Another version has it that the song was offered to Coca Cola as a jingle, that the song was rejected but the phrase taken on by the company worldwide.143 In the 1970 film The Naked Bunyip, an exploration of sexuality in Australia, Morris (a symbol in the film for all teen idols) is seen singing ‘The Real Thing’ in front of a large Coca-Cola banner. Perhaps Young’s parody was co-opted by the company, but in the final analysis it seems most likely that ‘the real thing’ as a phrase was merely a manifestation of the late-60s zeitgeist, just as Morris’s band had called themselves Somebody’s Image. The globally famous New Seekers song – ‘I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing’, from 1971 – began life as a Coke commercial, incidentally.
‘Smiley’, a song about Normie Rowe, was curious for a number of reasons, not least that Colin Peterson – the drummer in the Bee Gees during their early UK years – had played a character called ‘Smiley’ in a film of the same name in the late 1950s. Young also wrote a brilliant song, ‘Hello’, for Rowe to sing – this and Brian Peacock’s ‘Penelope’ were Rowe’s two best tracks of the period, ‘The Star’ was a hit for Wyllie, who had formerly been a member of Brisbane group the Kodiaks144 but, as mentioned earlier, was best known as the host of Uptight. The song was a reflection on the loneliness of the popular performer. Even at a time when the Australian pop press was impressed by almost anything, it was not particularly besotted with Wyllie. Meldrum – admittedly the Australian journalist who was keenest to whip up controversy – wrote in Go-Set that Wyllie ‘walks with a limp, has had numerous flop records, is certainly no Davy Jones.’145 Wyllie’s limp was the result of childhood polio; his doctor had recommended music tuition as therapy.146 Meldrum continues:
He readily admits that he hasn’t the voice of Tom Jones nor the sex appeal of Elvis Presley, but Ross D. Wyllie should be more than happy with the talent he has.’147
Presumably he was. ‘The Star’ was also a top-forty hit in Britain for Herman’s Hermits in late 1969; the group first heard it while touring Australia in the middle of that year.148
Young had teamed up with Kevin Lewis, formerly of Festival Records, to take over David Joseph’s television shows (the Happening series) and produce a new one, Young Talent Time. That his subversiveness had been a mere blip is shown by a ‘Lewis-Young production’ LP released under Young’s name and entitled A Young Man and his Music; here Young presents insipid readings of songs he had written for others that seem to suggest an artist who does not even realise, much less take pleasure in, the quality of his own work (astutely, he did not attempt to sanitise ‘The Real Thing’). Young Talent Time, a show which would bring performers such as Jamie Redfern, Debbie Byrne, Dannii Minogue and Tina Arena to the world, was often grotesque high kitsch. Young chose to avoid any reference to his songwriting past, and indeed since the earliest period of Young Talent Time has been happy to use as his signature tune his 1967 ballad version of the Beatles’ ‘All My Loving’.
POP AND BUBBLE . . .
Bubblegum, as a form, has been derided widely since its creation. Indeed, the backlash against bubblegum began almost as soon as the term was coined, and came in tandem with resistance to what was seen as its campy and crassly commercial qualities; some listeners undoubtedly felt that bubblegum was overly calculated, almost scientifically catchy. Yet in many instances this scornful dismissal of bubblegum was unfair, especially when contrasted with the ways in which other extremely simple, repetitive and instant forms of popular music, such as heavy rock, have been lionised.
Zoot began in Adelaide in the early 1960s, and were originally named Down the Line, after a Hollies song. One mainstay of the group was Beeb Birtles, born Gerard Birtlekamp, whose family arrived from Holland in 1958, when he was 10.
Like many scenes of the time, the Adelaide live music industry seems to have been run rather like a sport. The ‘opposition’ band to Down the Line was the Mermen, featuring singer Darryl Cotton and guitarist Rick Brewer. Cotton switched sides, or was otherwise transferred to Zoot, in early 1965, and Brewer moved over soon after.149 Their name change to ‘something short and punchy’ was a gift from budding entrepreneur Doc Neeson,150 who would become lead singer of the Angels in the 70s. Paddy McCartney, one of the two singers in the Twilights, alerted EMI to Zoot’s potential, and the group travelled to Melbourne in mid 1968 to be immersed in a marketing plan that would prove to be a short-term success but also bring about their undoing. Birtles later recalled:
There was a guy in Melbourne who was a manager, called Wayne De Gruchy. Wayne came over to see the group and saw a lot of potential in us becoming a very popular young band in Australia. And when they brought us over to Melbourne, he and another guy that owned the Bertie’s disco in Melbourne decided that they needed a gimmick of some sort, to really get the band going. And the image that was decided on was: ‘Think pink, think Zoot’! It was this outrageous thing where the band dressed up in all-pink clothes, which of course . . . all the young girls loved us in these ridiculous outfits and all their boyfriends hated our guts, y’know? And that’s really how the whole thing came about . . . I always felt very very uncomfortable dressing that way, ’cos it wasn’t me. But, at the same time . . .151
Later that year, Zoot appeared at the Melbourne Velodrome alongside the Twilights, the Masters Apprentices, Johnny Young, the Iguana and the Wild Cherries. The event was broadcast on television and radio; this may have been a factor in their success. Within six months, Zoot had switched managers – to Daryl Sambell – and released ‘Monty and Me’, a song written by Hans Poulsen and Bruce Woodley and produced by Ian Meldrum, to considerable success. Signing with Sambell was a strange move for a group who would soon become so sensitive about their perceived sexuality; Cotton told the student press in early 1969 that ‘there are a helluva lot of camps in the business. These blokes can break you if you don’t sleep with them. They could stop any group in Australia.’152 Zoot were immersed in a Think Pink ad campaign: invitations to its launch took the shape of a big pink heart, the group wore pink suits, and Rick Brewer played a pink drum kit.153 Jim Keays claimed two decades later that his group, the Masters Apprentices, had decided at the time that ‘we wouldn’t have what we considered a pansy sort of look, like the Zoot in their pink outfits and stuff.’154 In fact, Keays bought his sexually ambiguous clothing in women’s clothing stores, despite his professed anti-‘pansy’ stance.
Having arrived in a flash, Zoot seemed quickly on the wane, perhaps because of the gimmickry associated with their popularity. The always loud-mouthed and judgmental Stan Rofe commented:
I don’t disadmire the Zoot, nor do I have any personal grudge agin’ them. As predicted by all in the