In 1958 Johnny O'Keefe released 'The Wild One' and Australian Rock
& Roll was born. In 2008 we celebrate 50 years of Australian Rock
& Roll by releasing a landmark Australian album, '50 Years Of
Australian Rock & Roll' featuring 66 classic Australian rock songs
packaged in a 3CD deluxe set on Australia Day, 2008.
Rock'n'roll was supposed to last for five minutes, not for fifty
years. It was the serious kid in glasses down the block practicing
piano or violin for three hours every afternoon who was looking forward
to a "career in music", not the misfits who emitted rude,
anti-social noises that upset parents and the social order; the young
rock rebels considered themselves lucky if they got to make a record,
or maybe two. It never occurred to them that they might be making
history.
Rock'n'roll transformed western civilisation. It assaulted sensibilities
and terrified parents with its menacing energy, its air of rebellion
and its exhilarating immediacy. It was young, irreverent and undeniably
addictive, with endless possibilities, absolute accessibility and
unprecedented charisma.
Whatever civilisation to which we westerners out on the far flung
rim could lay claim we were willing to abandon in order to embrace
this wild'n'woolly beast that seemed so aligned with our self image.
Although rock'n'roll exploded in Australia in 1955 with 'Rock Around
The Clock', our artists didn't really begin recording rock for a couple
of years. The sound found a foothold in the suburban halls and clubs
that played host to teeming, colourful and almost always violent dances.
When it finally made its way into recording studios it was tentative,
exploratory and ambitious. It was very much a case of making it up
as you went along. Here at the bottom of the world you couldn't even
get hold of guitars and amps.
He may not have been the first local artist to cut a rock single
but Johnny O'Keefe was the first to grab Australia by the throat and
demand attention. From the first moment he set foot on a professional
stage, he was a primal wildman. He screamed, howled, cavorted and
contorted in a manner that astonished even the international stars
who shared the revolving stage with him at the 'old tin shed', Sydney
Stadium. His signature tune, the locally-composed 'The Wild One' (or
'Real Wild Child'), early in 1958, set a template for that which would
follow.
Though J.O'K stood at the head of a community of quality rockers
it wasn't until the mid-60s that young Australian musicians began
to seriously write their own songs, develop an original sound and
take a crack at the lucrative international market. It was an era
in which it was not uncommon for 15,000 near-hysterical fans to descend
upon an airport to catch a glimpse of a home-grown rock group or solo
sensation; when theatres, television stations and hire cars were reduced
to rubble in the wake of kamikaze fans willing to risk any injury
in pursuit of their idols.
Singles reigned supreme but a decade on we found, in Skyhook Greg
Macainsh's pithy, smartarse lyrics, an element that had eluded domestic
rock - observations of the contemporary Australian experience, tales
of adolescent lust and confusion from the Melbourne suburbs. With
similar offerings from Dragon and Chisel a mirror had been turned
on ourselves and massive album sales showed that we liked what we
heard.
As countless brick-thick 'dynasty saga' novels remind us, it is the
kids who grow up tough in harsh neighbourhoods who become titans of
industry and founders of great empires. It's the clawing out of the
slag, the single-minded tenacity that separates the men from the boys
(and the women from the girls). For Oz Rock the same refining process
has long applied. Plying a vast, under-populated land, travelling
a thousand kilometres between major cities, playing night after night
in suburban concrete beer barns to spoilt audiences who'd just as
readily stone a band with cans as applaud it, writing songs and working
out arrangements in hotel rooms or on buses. From out of this harsh
school came rock performers who could hold their own on any stage
anywhere in the world. Performers rendering often tempestuous and
sometimes quirky music of considerable imagination, integrity and
texture.
"Australian bands are much more intense" Jimmy Barnes once
observed. "Most of them cut their teeth live and not in a studio,
which is very healthy." And as John Farnham pointed out: "We
have a population the same as Southern California and we're a bloody
long way away. So to keep what we do interesting we have to give it
that little bit extra. I'm not sure just what that is but it has something
to do with the fact that we've always had to compete in our own market
with the best from Britain and America and we've learned how to glean
what we wanted from both and then add something that says who we are."
There is no question that it is who we are which determines how we
sound. The much-touted 'Australian Sound' may well be nothing more
than an honest, rangy, good-humoured, open-ended approach to making
music. On the inside looking out it's hard to come to grips with just
how fresh, vital and imaginative Australian music can sound to urban
inmates of New York, London and Berlin. Certainly we learned toward
the end of the 70s, and particularly by the mid 80s, that what we
have, the world wants.
Our mastery of rib crushing, blood curdling, brain damaging, skin
blistering, no bullshit rock'n'roll has never been in doubt but by
the 90s it was plainly apparent that our finest could also move across
genres with ease - from classic and charismatic dark-edged pop to
surging dance to compelling 'world music' polyrhythms to frantic funk
to 'unplugged' acoustic to dervish diva to ....well, anything you
can think of. They could call upon the sounds of ambient atmospherics
and jazz, country and folk flourishes, reggae and islander tonings,
bits of bubblegum, dollops of disco, bursts of the blues, and rare
riffs cooked up in their back room. The cross-pollination was just
exhilarating. It still is.
So here 'tis, from The Wild One to Eskimo Joe - a half a century
of music that is real and true, music that defines us, music that
we've lived with, loved with, screamed at, danced to, roared to the
rafters on nights we'll never forget; music we've absorbed into our
own consciousness. Try and imagine having grown up without it - the
thought fair sends a shiver through you.
GLENN A. BAKER
'50 YEARS OF AUSTRALIAN ROCK & ROLL' TRACKLISTING:
DISC 1
1) Johnny O'Keefe & the Dee Jays - The Wild One (Real Wild Child)
2) Johnny Rebb & the Rebels - Rebel Rock
3) The Delltones - Gee
4) The Atlantics - Bombora
5) Normie Rowe & the Playboys - Shakin' All Over
6) The Loved Ones - The Loved One
7) The Easybeats - Friday On My Mind
8) The Id (with Jeff St. John) - Big Time Operator
9) Max Merritt & the Meteors - Western Union Man
10) Doug Parkinson In Focus - Without You
11) Russell Morris - The Real Thing
12) Master's Apprentices - Turn Up Your Radio
13) Zoot - Eleanor Rigby
14) La De Das - Gonna See My Baby Tonight
15) Spectrum - I'll Be Gone
16) Blackfeather - Seasons Of Change
17) Daddy Cool - Eagle Rock
18) Hush - Get Rocked!
19) Skyhooks - Horror Movie
20) Ted Mulry Gang - Jump In My Car
21) Sherbet - Howzat
22) Ol' 55 - On The Prowl
23) Flash & The Pan - Hey St. Peter
DISC 2
1) Richard Clapton - Girls On The Avenue
2) Dragon - April Sun In Cuba
3) The Sports - Who Listens To The Radio?
4) The Saints - (I'm) Stranded
5) Radio Birdman - Aloha Steve & Danno
6) Rose Tattoo - Bad Boy For Love
7) The Angels - Take A Long Line
8) Cold Chisel - Khe Sanh
9) Jo Jo Zep & the Falcons - Hit And Run
10) Mental As Anything - The Nips Are Getting Bigger
11) Split Enz - I Got You
12) Men At Work - Who Can It Be Now?
13) Moving Pictures - What About Me?
14) Hunters & Collectors - Talking To A Stranger
15) Midnight Oil - Don't Wanna Be The One
16) Icehouse - Great Southern Land
17) Goanna - Solid Rock
18) GANGgajang - Sounds Of Then (This Is Australia)
19) Jimmy Barnes - Working Class Man
20) Paul Kelly & the Coloured Girls - Before Too Long
21) Models - Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight
DISC 3
1) John Farnham - Pressure Down
2) The Cockroaches - She's The One
3) Choirboys - Run To Paradise
4) Noiseworks - Take Me Back
5) Hoodoo Gurus - What's My Scene
6) Ratcat - That Ain't Bad
7) Jenny Morris - You I Know
8) Divinyls - I Touch Myself
9) Screaming Jets - Better
10) Yothu Yindi - Treaty
11) The Cruel Sea - The Honeymoon Is Over
12) The Badloves - Green Limousine
13) Silverchair - Tomorrow
14) You Am I - Berlin Chair
15) Grinspoon - Just Ace
16) The Living End - Second Solution
17) Jet - Are You Gonna Be My Girl
18) The Vines - Get Free
19) Spiderbait - On My Way
20) Thirsty Merc - Someday, Someday
21) Wolfmother - Woman
22) Eskimo Joe - Black Fingernails, Red Wine
'50 Years Of Australian Rock & Roll' is out now.
