Dig said to Ken Taylor and Hal that the band was a little soft (to say the least!) and a compromise was worked out. The band level came up to a dull mumble. This was the first of many battles to be fought for the honour of rock’n’roll with Festival over the next year or so as we would very soon become the staff recording band, backing all the artists on Festival and Rex labels.
The only other record we were to make before Leon joined the group was Dig’s first album. This was a very successful record and had the famous “lightning flash” jumper that Dig wore at the Conway Twitty Stadium Show, on the cover. Unfortunately, about the only good rock’n’roll songs on it were Johnny B. Goode, Carol and Jive After Five. The rest of the album consisted mostly of soppy songs picked out by ACME Productions. These songs were loosely referred to by Peter as ‘commercial trash’. After this first album, Leon joined and we became a very professional recording band. We were now “session musos” but not stars!
AMERICA Vs. AUSTRALIA
Being now the proud possessors of a hit record, we scored a support band slot on the Conway Twitty Show at the Stadium and toured the country. Also on the show were Lloyd Price (Personality), The Kalin Twins (When), Linda Laurie (Ambrose) and Col Joye & the Joy Boys. Lee Gordon called this show “The Battle Of The Big Beat” and it was on July 25, 1959. It was designed to be a battle between the Yanks and us. Technically I think they won! With experience, equipment and worldwide fame they had a head start but a patriotic feeling for our own bands was starting to emerge.
Consequently, two months later, this show was a great boost to the record sales of everyone on the show. The Top Forty for September 1959 shows:
No. 1... Col Joye — (Rock’n’Rollin’) Clementine
No. 2... Conway Twitty — Mona Lisa
No. 3... Lloyd Price — Personality
No. 7... Dig Richards & the R’Jays — I Wanna Love You
Col’s Bye Bye Baby was also No. 15 and going down after having been No. 1 and in the charts for twenty weeks.
Conway Twitty’s band had us completely amazed. We had never seen Americans before, let alone actually spoken to them on equal terms. They were southerners. Blackie, the bass player, could fill the Stadium with his double bass. Boy, could he slap that mother! The lead guitarist was Joe E. Lewis who just knocked my socks off. He played things for me in the dressing room that I couldn’t believe. Hoe down guitar pickin’ like my favourites, Joe Maphis, Merle Travis and ilk. I guess, although they were playing rock’n’roll, they were really country boys at heart. Conway and Joe both had the small solid body Gretsch guitars, like a Gibson Les Paul. Joe’s had a Bigsby whammy bar, which a lot of Gretsches and Gibsons had fitted. It was from looking at Joe’s whammy bar that I got the design to get someone to build one for me. That person was Jim Snelling who had a little guitar factory down at The Rocks. The handle on my first whammy bar was a piece of steel out of my mother’s corsets!
I had asked Robert Reids for time off to do the Conway Twitty tour and they declined, so I declined to work there anymore and that’s the last day job I’ve ever had in my life.
A SMASH HIT FOR DIG!
A little while later on October 8, 1959, Barry and I went to see The Champs (Tequila) at the Stadium. It was an afternoon show and on the way to our dance at Chatswood that evening we were very irate that some mug had had a smash on the Harbour Bridge and was holding us up. We drove straight past the smash and on to the Chatswood dance.
By nine o’clock, Dig, Peter and Boogie still hadn’t shown up. We started to worry. Then someone came and told us that Dig had smashed his Morris Minor underneath the back of a tabletop truck on the Harbour Bridge. We had driven right past and not even recognised the car! Dig had a dislocated hip and very bad facial injuries. Peter had some lacerations and a little shock. Boogie had a broken jaw. We went to the Mater Hospital to see them but the nurses wouldn’t let us in. We stood outside the window listening to Dig, who was delirious and yelling out at the poor nuns who were trying to relocate his hip: “Go away, you fucking angels! I’m not dead yet! Leave me alone!”
As soon as Peter and Boogie had recovered enough to work, we persevered playing without Dig for a while. The band was starting to get very professional in its attitude but unfortunately Barry wasn’t. Peter had given him the name of “Limp Beat Lewis” or “The Lewisician.”
We had just been to Melbourne before Dig’s accident and Barry had done a rather naughty thing that got us into big trouble with GVT9 in Melbourne and with Ken Taylor back at Festival in Sydney. We were working for GVT9 on Bert Newton’s Swallows Juniors and staying at the George Hotel. Anyhow, Col Joye & the Joy Boys were also staying there. We were into playing tricks on other bands, so we played some harmless little tricks like setting up guitarist, Dave Bridge’s bed so that it would fall down as soon as any weight went on it, hanging their guitars from the light fittings and short sheeting Col’s bed. Then we waited for them to go into their suite. After they went inside, we stood a huge “private” sign outside the door with a bucket of water on it, leaning against the door. Then we knocked and yelled out to John Bogie, their drummer, “Come out here Bogie!” As Bogie opened the door he kicked the bucket and got a little wet, to say the least. He then chased Barry and I back to our room, where unbeknownst to me, Barry had stashed one of the fire extinguishers that he had pulled off the wall. As Bogie burst in the door, he was confronted with the sight of Barry with the fire extinguisher turned upside down, ready to go! Bogie ran, but he wasn’t quick enough. The foam caught him right up the arse before he got to his door. It also painted the rest of the hallway because we couldn’t turn it off. It eventually ate away all the carpet.
The George Hotel was at that time owned by GVT9. Need I say anymore? We were in deep shit! After GVT9 contacted Ken Taylor, he gave us a long lecture, especially “Barry the Beast”!
We were playing a show in Grafton when Peter and I decided that we would have to sack “the Beast” and get this guy that we saw playing with Ray Hoff & the Off Beats, namely LEON ISACKSON. On our arrival back in Sydney we were playing at Phyllis Bates Ballroom when Peter turned to Barry and said “Lewis, you’re sacked!” Lewis was so surprised and disbelieving he simply said “Jon, you’re sacked too!” It was a shame that this had to happen to the guy, that along with me, had started Dig & the R’Jays but the thing about this business is being the best, isn’t it? Or is it?
WHAT ABOUT THE OFF BEATS?
LEON: After Ray Hoff & the Off Beats won the band competition at Surryville, our promised recording contract with Teen records only ever resulted in a job for Ray sorting records at John Collins’ office while we waited patiently for a chance to cut our first record. As well as taking over the dance at Surryville, Devlin’s management were still booking us all over the place and the Off Beats were occasionally required to back Johnny Devlin himself. They also gave us a sax player, Dave Cross. With our new saxophone player, we finally got to play the famed Leichhardt Police Boys’ Club and the Sydney Town Hall. We were up there with the “biggies”. During the Town Hall show, Ray was dragged off the stage by screaming teenagers, much to Johnny Devlin’s disgust, and the band was mobbed at the end of the show. I remember we also backed Frank Ifield on the same night but he was just a cowboy singer at the time. He would later go on to England and cut the classic record, I Remember You. I’m sure he probably wouldn’t remember us!