On Thursday October 8, 1959, we saw the headlines: ROCK STAR SMASHED UP ON HARBOUR BRIDGE. It was Digby!
Everybody was shocked by the news. Dig had become incredibly popular by that time with the releases of his first record I Wanna Love You. Johnny Devlin & the Devils were booked to replace Dig on the Stadium show. Trouble was, some of the original Devils had left Devlin so they pinched our piano player Jimmy Taylor — the bastards! Poaching musicians from other bands was quite commonplace at the time, due to the paucity of good rock players.
The Off beats had to quickly get a replacement. We found a piano player who called himself Jade Hurley. Jade figured that he needed a gimmick to cover up for his rude piano playing so he wore bright jade green gloves with the fingers cut out. They didn’t help much! We sacked him two weeks later. A more polished Jade reappeared about a year later as a guest artist, supporting Dig Richards & the R’Jays, only this time he was singing as well as playing piano. His enthusiasm seemed to pervade the audience at the Rockdale Town Hall and they loved him.
I first met Dig Richards at the Parramatta School of Arts where Ryanny and I used to go, back in 1957. It was on August 9, 1959, which was the week before Ray Hoff & the Off Beats won the band competition at Surryville. We were booked to do a spot at the R’Jays’ dance and we still didn’t have a bass player.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “We’ll tell them that our bass player didn’t turn up and we’ll get the R’Jays’ bass player Peter Baker to play with us. He’s probably the best electric bass player in town!”
We all drove to the Parramatta School of Arts in Ryanny’s 1934 Dodge, which he had just bought for £34. This was a pretty scary adventure in itself. Ryanny took his mother to the shop the day before and, as he pulled up, the front wheel came off and rolled into the butcher shop. Needless to say, Mrs. Ryan refused to ever get in the car again. She wasn’t as brave as we were, or as stupid. We went everywhere in that old Dodge. It was our window to the world.
Dig & the R’Jays turned out to be pretty nice guys, and they seemed to be very impressed with our band. It was a couple of months later on October 28, 1959, when I received a call from Peter Baker that would change things dramatically.
“We want you to join the R’Jays!” he said in a very official voice.
I was stunned! There were only five big rock’n’roll bands at the time and Dig Richards & the R’Jays were one of them. According to the Australian Rock & Pop magazine, the bands known as The BIG FIVE were Johnny O’Keefe & the Dee Jays, Col Joye & the Joy Boys, Dig Richards & the R’Jays, Johnny Devlin & the Devils and Johnny Rebb & the Rebels. After the initial shock, I replied, “But I can’t. Ray Hoff & the Off Beats are just starting to get off the ground.” I thought at the time that the Off Beats had the potential to be as good, or better, than all of them. We were hoping to make it The BIG SIX.
Peter wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Look, we’ve already sacked Barry Lewis and while Dig is in hospital we have to keep all the dances and the TV show going. Can you at least do Teen Time with us on Monday and we’ll talk about it?”
The following Monday, November 2, 1959, there I was at ATN Channel 7, Epping, in Studio B, the very same place where I had applied for a job in 1957. This was Teen Time compered by Keith Walshe and Carol Finlayson. I was greeted by the Commissionaire as I carted in my sparkling blue Premier drums. He probably thought I was somebody important. Anyone who appeared more than once on TV in the late 1950s was considered to be almost a movie star! Peter and Jon seemed relieved to see me and Boogie attempted a crooked smile through his wired up jaw (from Dig’s Harbour Bridge accident).
After a very short rehearsal, the show went live to air. If there were any mistakes (and there were usually quite a few), there was no stopping. It was quite exciting with a live audience and dancing. The rock’n’roll dancing was supervised by the resident dancing instructor, Bob Malcolm, who gave regular jive exhibitions. I was happy to see my old buddy Warren Williams, was the guest star for the day along with two effeminate looking characters, The Allen Brothers. They sang the Everly Brothers’ tune Till I Kissed You, with Peter Woolnough (later better known as Peter Allen) on piano and Chris Bell on guitar.
The rest of the night was taken up with Peter Baker and the band extolling the virtues of me joining the R’Jays. The following day, Digby rang from his hospital bed with the same story. “We really need you to join the band, Leon. A lot depends on it!” The pressure for me to leave the Off Beats was mounting. I explained to Dig that I would make a decision after I spoke to John Collins, Ray Hoff & the Off Beats management, the next day.
DON’T GIVE UP YOUR DAY JOB!
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1959: I walked into John Collins’ office at Teen Records, 81 York Street Sydney, and was greeted with “We want you to join the Devils!”
“Oh no!” I groaned, “What’s happening?” John Collins explained that he wasn’t going to use the Off Beats anymore. From now on Ray Hoff, as well as Johnny Devlin, would be singing with the new Devils, consisting of Jimmy Taylor on piano, Flooby Fred on bass, Neville Chamberlain on guitar, Warren T. Smith on sax and me on drums. “I’d like to introduce you to Warren Smith,” he went on. “He’s going to be playing sax and managing the band.” Warren launched into a rave about how great the band was going to be and why I should join.
I wasn’t convinced. I thought the old Devils were pretty hard to top. Ray Hoff hadn’t been told yet. He wasn’t allowed to hear all of this intrigue. Ray was out the back happily pinching records! It would seem that they didn’t want Ray to have a better band than their star attraction Johnny Devlin. “Not only that,” Warren continued enthusiastically, “we can guarantee you a minimum of twenty five pounds a week!”
“But Peter Baker just offered me a minimum of fifty pounds a week to join the R’Jays,” I said. My reply went down like a lead balloon. The enthusiasm drained out of Warren’s face. “Dig will never be as big as Devlin,” John Collins interrupted. George Hilder nodded soberly as he peered through his Coke bottle glasses. If I was having trouble making up my mind, I was certainly convinced now. If there weren’t going to be any more Off Beats, I was going to join the R’Jays.
As I was walking back to my day job at APRA (Australasian Performing Rights Association), I was wondering what they would say when I gave in my notice. I had been working at APRA for the last eighteen months and was now earning the grand sum of eight pounds, thirteen shillings and four pence per week. It would have been hard for me to imagine that a couple of weeks later I would earn one hundred and twenty seven pounds, ten shillings in one week!
“You’ve got a big future here, Leon,” Mr. Goodman said sternly, looking up from the top of his glasses. “Rock’n’roll will never last. It’s only a passing fad. Look at all those files. They contain the titles of all the wonderful music that has ever been written. There’s not much rock’n’roll in there.” Then came the famous punch line, “Whatever you do, Leon, don’t give up your day job!”
With those wondrous words of wisdom still ringing in my ears, that night at one of the many R’Jays’ dances at Cabramatta Civic Hall, I decided to cast my fate to the wind and officially join Dig Richards & the R’Jays. This meant that I was now a fully professional musician with no other means of support or credibility for a bank loan. Even worse, I was going to be a “Rock Star”!
Lonnie Lee was filling in with the band while Dig was still recovering in hospital. He was one of the few singers of the day who consistently sang in tune (offside free kick!). Lonnie gave me a reassuring nod that I had made the right decision. Surely rock’n’roll would last another three months at least!
I had first met Lonnie Lee or Laurie Rix as he was previously known, a few months earlier when he was singing at Col Joye’s big dance at Bankstown on July 11, 1959. I was playing that night in the support band, the Stoneagers, and wishing that I had a Canadian Jacket like Darby. Lonnie, bass player “Flooby” Fred and