Behind the Rock and Beyond. Leon Isackson

fate as Johnny Restivo, except this time at the hands of Col Joye & the Joy Boys. It was hard to understand how most of the American acts seemed to have little experience at communicating with big crowds. We all thought that they would be as good as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis but this was not the case. Most of them had very low-key acts and relied solely on record sales and TV appearances. JO’K, Col Joye and Dig had all been through the hard school of trying to win over audiences and, although they weren’t the best singers in the world, they could always be relied upon to stir up a good reaction from the crowd. In earlier times this was even more difficult as Australian audiences usually considered Aussie acts as being second rate. This reaction became known as “The Cultural Cringe”.

      Jon and I thought Ricky Nelson and his band were great, especially the guitarist, James Burton, but after Col Joye had “killed ‘em”; the audience was too excited for anyone as conservative as Rick who stood rigidly behind his guitar looking quite terrified. “How could someone so famous be so nervous?” I thought, as he acknowledged me with a slightly forced smile before going on to face the crowd. We were just bumbling amateurs compared to Rick. After all, this guy had been in show business all his life.

      As Ricky came off the stage surrounded by police, a fan prostrated herself in front of him screaming, “I love you, Ricky.” to which he replied, “Fuck off!” as he stepped over her and ran to the refuge of the dressing room. Maybe being famous is not all it’s cracked up to be. I remember thinking, “I think I’ll stick to the safety and anonymity of being in a band!”

      BUBBY’S FIRST BASH AT FESTIVAL

      Dig Richards & the R’Jays had to have a new single for the start of the year, 1960, and Festival’s general manager, Ken Taylor, had it all worked out for us. He came up with the grotesque idea of a rock’n’roll version of Annie Laurie, which we dutifully recorded. My first recording session at Festival Records in December 1959 was a rather rude awakening to the latest recording techniques. The R’Jays were called into the studio to rehearse the songs for our new single. While we were there, we were also required to record three tracks for Rob E.G. (Robbie Porter) who was there with his ‘stage father’, Maurie Porter, auditioning for Ken Taylor and Hal Saunders.

      I couldn’t believe the trouble they had recording drums. I assumed it must have been my inexperience in the studio that was causing the problem. The only way they could record a reasonable drum sound was if I threw a blanket or something similar over the drums. Worse still, they didn’t seem to be able to record the bass drum at all. Every time I played it, all the speakers broke up and made such a dreadful farting sound that we had to leave the bass drum out altogether. I solved the snare drum problem by putting a handkerchief on the skin (a la Jerry Lee Lewis). With Hal Saunders conducting, eyes closed and being completely ignored, we put down Rob’s first record Your Cheating Heart, closely followed by a rock song he wrote called Seven Foot Two. During the third song Pretty, Pretty Baby, I was even more astonished when the engineer, Robert Iredale, brought in a phone book for me to play on! As I thumped away on the phone book everybody in the control booth smiled and thought how wonderful it sounded. I was speechless. Did this mean I had been practising drums all these years only to end up doing my first recording session on a bloody phone book?

      “Catfish Purser from the Dee Jays played on a phone book for Lonnie’s first record,” Robert consoled. “Not only that!” said Ken Taylor, smiling proudly. “We got John Bogie from the Joy Boys to play a TYPEWRITER on Col Joye’s latest record (Oh Yeah, Uh Huh).”

      To add insult to injury, Robert then appeared with some skulls he wanted to try out. I shuddered at the thought of what they had in store for me to play on Dig’s new single. I ignored Robert’s skulls and continued to play the snare drum as we rehearsed Annie Laurie and South Of The Border. The recording of these tracks for Dig Richards & the R’Jays were completed on December 17 and 18, 1959. It’s in the “Crazy Book”!

      PART ONE PHOTOGRAPHS