The Beginnings:
The 50s
The
history of Australian Rock is the story
of a war between two distinctly different
schools of popular culture, of the
sweeter sounds of pop competing with the
sweaty bellows of rock. It's the story of
music shaping, and being shaped by, an
emerging cultural identity, the story of
the alternative, and innovative, becoming
mainstream, and the story of leaders -
and followers.
 Rock and Roll in
Australia starts with Bill Halley's "Rock
Around The Clock" and the movie
that popularised it and brought the
concept of the teenager into the public
consciousness, "Blackboard
Jungle". Almost immediatly in
it's wake, local bands sprang up from
seemingly nowhere in vast numbers. The
seeds had been sown years earlier, as
Australians learned to enetertain
visiting GIs bound for the Pacific
Theatre of World War II - Jazz and
Jitterbugging, Crooners, and all the
other hallmarks of then-current US
culture. Immediatly, there seemed to be a
market where none had existed before. But
this was an era of passing fads, and if
the sensibilities of a more straightlaced
community were offended, they were able
to take comfort in the knowledge that
"Rock Music" would vanish like
the others had, in a year or so.
Six men were
directly responsible for the birth of
Australian rock. Stan "The Man"
Rofe, a Melbourne disk jockey; expatriot
American entrepenuer Lee Gordan; The
Jacobson Brothers; and Johnny O'keefe.
Between them, these 5 created the
australian record industry.
Lee Gordon was the
first big promoter in Australia. His
philosophy was simple - what made money
in America would make money here. It
drove him bankrupt several times, but it
also gave him his biggest successes, as
he brought to our shores the artists that
Rofe was making famous. But Gordon was
not interested in anything so lowly as
local music; arranging gigs for the local
acts was the province of the Jacobson
Brothers, amongst others. Colin Jacobson
and his brothers Kevin and Keith began to
act as their own promoters for their
band, Col Joye and the Joye Boys, when
they realised they could do the job just
as well as anyone else - and make money
at it. Taking their cue from the
travelling circuses and rodeos that had
brought entertainment not only to the
cities but to the smaller towns of the
outback, they slowly built up a
travelling rock-and-roll circus that
crisscrossed the country.
But the biggest
star of them all was Johnny O'keefe. A
man whose genius for self-promotion was
often overlooked, O'keefe also managed
himself, and did it superbly. He got a
recording contract by circulating a
rumour that he had already been signed to
Festival Records - which was news to Ken
Taylor, the Artists & Repetoir
manager of the label! But he was
sufficiently intrigued by the audacity of
O"keefe to give him a listen.
Arguably,
O'keefe's biggest coup to date had been
persuading Lee Gordon to put him on the
bill with Bill Halley & The Comets
when they toured here. Being the warm-up
act on the tour was a gig that he
literally had to beg for, and it is known
that when he first went on stage, he
received a chorus of boos from the Sydney
crowd. It was a reception that wouldn't
last - using the same charm and wit that
would come to characterise "four
lads from liverpool" in the next
decade, he won them over.
O'keefe's success
convinced gordon to make local acts a
regular part of his shows, and Gordon's
success convinced the Jacobsons to set up
their own touring agency. Booking local
acts into small venues all over the
country proved a shrewd move. O'keef's
first recordings weren't brilliant
successes, but eventually he got the
formula right. Other bands had followed
him through the doors at Festival,
generally recording cover versions of
material sourced from overseas. But the
radio dj's weren't playing them; While
there was a slow penetration with
individual announcers, the policies of
many radio stations precluded rock music.
To the management, rock was still a
passing fad. At first, they were intent
on playing American - if they played rock
at all. Unusually for the era, TV beat
them to the punch.
By the end of 1959
there were two rock-oriented television
programmes on the air, with two distinct
styles. Col Joye and his gathered band of
artists featuring heavily on "Bandstand",
hosted by a man who would become one of
Australia's most-respected newsreaders,
Brian Henderson, presented a wholesome,
family-friendly style, while O'keefe's "Six
O'clock Rock" was far more
raucus, sweaty, hard-edged, and bluesy.
Col Joye was the King of the pop world,
Johnny O'keefe was the Prince of Darkness.
The former were often lipsynced
performances, to ensure the quality of
the performance - and that the audience
got exactly what the producers had
selected and no surprises. The latter was
live, and O'keefe was everywhere - he
chose the bands, he chose their material,
and if they didn't do it his way, they
were off the show. "Six O'clock Rock"
was aimed directly at the teens, the
first time that the group had been given
a specific marketing focus.
The epitomy of the
Bandstand style, and it's lasting
contributiuon to the world of pop music,
was giving Barry Gibb and his twin
brothers their big break. They might have
started as a novelty act, but they had a
Genius that could not be contained. The
used to perform for pennies between
stiock car races; it was the other pair
of entrepeneuarial brothers, the
Jacobsons, who came to their rescue. They
soon had a recording contract with the
Festival hit factory, but when Rock began
to die, they were released from their
contracts; the Bee Gees left for the UK,
forced to look elsewhere for the musical
growth and support they needed.
It was OKeef's
show that inspired Stan Rofe to start
adding Australian artists to his
playlists. Okeefe, aware of Rofe's
efforts, did everything he could to
support the dj, and he and Rofe formed a
synergy that sent the australian rock
scene into overdrive. Rofe took advantage
of the tyranny of distance... QANTAS
pilots bringing back singles way in
advance of their australian release dates.
These were then handed out to local acts
for cover versions. Quite often, the
original version would not be on the
market before the local cover was in the
charts - to the Australian Public,
overseas acts were doing cover versions
of what they had already heard. Some were
even better than the orginials. There was
little-to-no incentive for local acts to
write their own material.
Eventually,
O'keefe decided to try and crack the big
time overseas, an attempt which failed.
Returning home, he reinvented himself, in
an attempt to lighten his image; rock was
already beginning to wane, and the
pundits were more than ready to pronounce
the last rites. Overseas, artists like
Paul Anka had also begun to work at
softening the harder edges of what had
become somewhat marginalised, and it
looked like the fad was indeed passing.;
it had lasted for 4 years instead of 9
months, but the writing seemed to be on
the wall.
|
