Extract from Briz Babylon
Memoirs of Past Scenes
by the Brisbane Devotee ©

Based on the Author's interview 14/9/2001 and archival material provided by Geoff Walden and Dave Cox. © October 2002

Kicks to the Head
The Times of Tony Worsley

You too might see blue shadows in the night if a career as a Beat star had you remembered only for the ballad – Velvet Waters. Tony Worsley though is still happy with people hearing his strange new love song.

‘When I’m on stage I’m still in the Beat. That’s where I pull from. They (the audience) might have come thinking it’ll be a night of lush mush but I’m wanting to give them steak, my way, rare not raw now’

In 1956, 14 year old Worsley was noticed by British singer Tommy Steele at the Soho 2 Eyes Club talent quest. A Decca record contract was being mooted. His parents decided that Tony would go nowhere singing, so with his five younger brothers and sisters, they emigrated to Brisbane as £10 poms.

‘Dad had been 20 years in the British navy. From his tales I thought we were going to a bamboo hut on the beach to eat fish and coconuts all day. He said the girls were called wahines and my dad would know best.’

Arriving after the 5 week sea voyage in January 1958, the family moved into Redfern Street Wooloongabba. Palm trees were in sight on a distant hill.

‘I’d go to the Gabba Police Boys Club. They taught boxing there for free and on Saturday afternoons there'd be a guest act and a talent quest. One arvo all the widgees are yelling at Lonnie Lee to sing “Little Sister”, the Presley song. The band, “The Leemen” were really hot, they knew their tunes. Lonnie, maybe he’s scared by the bad publicity ‘bout Elvis, so he goes “Can’t; don’t know the lyrics”.

I do and I’m walking on stage to tell Lonnie about it. I’m not thinking whether its suitable for a Police Boys club. All I’m hearing is girls screaming a request and I’m ready and waiting to give it to them.’

Memories are that there were yells for more, but Tony certainly wasn’t the only wannabe recognised talent on the Quest circuit. Billy Thorpe, known then as Little Rock Allen, strummed out his Gibson to Little Richard tunes. The Gibbs, Barry and his twin brothers Maurice and Robin mightn’t wear shoes but were breaking in their harmonies. Even child actor Colin Petersen used some of his “Smiley” movie fees to pay Harry Leibler for drum lessons. All these would twang, warble and thump through talent quests. As is usual in a Brisbane scene, it became more than a bit incestuous.

‘Barry Gibb was my young sister’s first boyfriend. We’d all go out to Cribb Island. There was the Cook sisters (later The Cookies), the Gibbs, Billy, even Ross D. (Wylie) came a few times. We’d set up a stage in this barn, and play and sing to our families. Yeah, there was a bit of “Bet I make it before you do”, (and not just over the girls), but it was fun just mucking around’.

Happy days on the mud flats but Brisbane had all its points including West Side Story too.

‘I started growing my hair early on (61/62), and with my father ex-navy, I got the idea to wear Brisbane’s first bell bottom pants. Well, the girls loved it. The boys go sailor or miaoww ( a cat was slang for homosexual). I’d smack ‘em in the mouth.’

The girl with his lip, a boy with his fist, our Tony was not a stepback bloke when he was young.

‘Terry Mackenroth (now state Deputy Leader) was in the club some time back. He insisted on shaking my hand but not just cos he’s a Beat fan. He wanted to thank me personally for helping to clear three louts off him outside City Hall. I don’t remember. I’ve been kicked in the head quite a few times you know. That’s what I blame for my flashbacks comebacks whatever’.

Suburban hall dances were often being cleared by some galoot bodgie wanting a reputation for going the knuckle, boot, chain or fence paling.

City Hall with a Tuesday night dance attended by thousands as well as the Railway Institute (Upper Edward/Wickham) and Birdland (Albert/Adelaide) were also attracting louts from every suburb trying to sort out his city-wide ranking. Ex boxer-butcher Johnny Bell became the doorman and the arbitrator of who did and didn’t have sufficient social graces. Stafford boy John Andrew Stuart became the most notorious (Whiskey au Go Go) but over 20 others made up Bell’s ‘Barred if not Bash on sight’ list.

‘He’d tell you once and then he’d punch. He was a scary fighter but a totally lovely bloke. Have a laugh, pull a prank. No worries. But when it was his door, no argues if he didn’t want you there’.

Tony Worsley had moved beyond questing to guest artist status. From relatives in England he received early Beatles tapes and was performing their songs before local release. Most early Beatles songs were cover versions from the 50’s anyway (Money, Mr Postman, etc etc).

‘I did cover songs but I made sure not to do what any other singer in town was doing. I did Clyde McPhatter, Gene McDaniels, Sam Cooke, B-sides of the Top 40. With the hair and the bell bottoms, I wasn’t going to go as far as the Gibbs. You know even back then they’d talk every day in high pitch voices training their falsetto. Still I think I use my voice as an instrument too.

The other singers, they’d do the songs the audience could sing along with because frankly they weren't confident they had talent. Personally I hate an audience to croak along during my songs. Hey nitwits you’re wrecking my job and at least I know the words.

I also like the band to keep strict tempo. I’ll go off singing at a tangent and come back, the other muso’s well they can wait for the instrumental break to crack out their flurry. When I’m singing, it’s my job to do the sell, the others are just back up.’

In 1964, there was another who wanted to organise the back up and sell of Tony Worsley.

Ivan ‘Daisy’ Dayman, retired at 40, Adelaide gravel pit owner, was gouging enough shillings out of his Cloudland Ballroom lease to dream of a national circuit of Swingers clubs from Cairns to Broome. In conjunction with ex Gold Coast Real Estate Salesman, Nat Kipner, also being organised was the Sunshine record label. Worsley was taken on the roll.

‘Dayman offered me £35 a week (10 times Tony’s sailmaker’s wage) with limo’s, hotels, the whole bit thrown in if I’d front Melbourne band ‘The Blue Jays’. I was 21 and didn’t want to put a deposit on a block of land, you know. Sounded like good times to me so I was off whooska right in sweet.’

The Blue Jays had been playing and even making records since 1959. They were a touring band that went through many personnel changes but always maintained a flamboyant stage act and professional sound.

Ronnie Williams was in the studio audience when the Blue Jays appeared on the local TV show ‘Teen Beat’ before Worsley joined them. He recalls -

‘They were talented and really put on a show. Crash rolls with one hand, flailing the stratocasters, saxophone wailing, they’se all in blue lamé coats. They were fantastic and I (at 14) thought wow they must make lots of money to be so good and be on TV and everything.

When they finished playing and took off their guitars, I saw that the straps had worn threadbare the shoulders on their coats. It wasn’t til years later that I realised the muso lifestyle wasn’t so good that you could go buy new when the other wore out.’

Ivan Dayman undoubtedly uttered his favourite phrase ‘No worries Father’ and ordered new coats for the band as Tony left for Melbourne. In order to counter the buzz of the Beatles 64 June arrival, Brisbane was postered in Black and Orange ‘The Blue Jays are Coming’. As the months passed, the restless natives graffitied this to the sparrows, galahs and dickheads but anticipation was generated enough for the obligatory airport riot. Dayman had taken the Saturday nights lease of Festival Hall, renamed it Mersey City and on May 2 1964 opened it with Tony and the Fabulous Blue Jays. Over 4500 teenagers attended

‘That was 500 more than saw the Beatles’ proudly proclaims Tony.

As is the way, facts such as the Beatles played 2 days of three shows a night are forgotten.

Still, Brisbane now had a top line band to promote in the new era. Dayman used them to open several SE Qld venues in Bundaberg, Toowoomba, Ipswich, Inala, Surfers Paradise and city spots. He also had a major band to launch his Sunshine label, so was soon sending Tony and the Fabulous Blue Jays south to avoid his Brisbane headline act going stale.

In Melbourne, Tony was invited to see Ivan’s new protégé. He describes it this way -

‘We [the band] were already in Sydney when the Beatles came through. There was me, Billy [Thorpe] and Ray [Brown]. When I get to Melbourne, I’m told I’ve got to see this guy Normie Rowe. So I go out to the suburbs and see a band playing with, off on the side, three gooses clapping along waiting their turn to sing. I turn to Ivan and say “When’s this Normie due on?” Turns out he’s the goose in the middle.’

Neither were the Blue Jays too flash with their position of ‘and the’. Despite Dayman’s insistence they were Fabulous, something more concrete was required when it came to recording.

It was a Blue Jays (no Tony) single that was first issued October 64 by Sunshine. Recorded at local radio station 4BC’s 2 track studios ‘Jaywalker/Pathfinder’ were original instrumentals. In Nov 64 Tony Worsley and the Fabulous Blue Jays issued their combined single ‘I sure know a lot about Love/Me you gotta teach.’ The B side was an original written by Blue Jays Royce Nicholls and Mal Clarke. This alternation of singles solely and then with Tony continued even to a self titled LP - one side ‘and the’, the other ‘just the’:- Fabulous.

Ivan Dayman was at least providing them with exposure. Joining the January 65 Kinks, Manfred Mann, Honeycombs combined package tour, they were generating screams that some thought they had no right to. Manfred Mann (a non singer with a band named after him) sneered at Tony about ‘not needing long hair and a sun tan to get where I am’. Yeah but Paul Jones helped a lot, Mr Do Wah Diddy. The March 65 release of ‘Just a Little Bit’ delivered in a style much appreciated by back seat wheedlers was swamped by that goose Normie’s coffee shop philosophy first single ‘(It) Ain’t Necessarily So’ (April 65).

Unconcerned by the implications of Tony’s exhortation of birth control methods, Catholic radio 2SM in Sydney banned Normie’s liables to read in the bibles, thus ensuring a rocket to success. Touring in the 65 Sunshine Shows, Tony was to learn what had bugged the Blue Jays about being fabulous but only getting second billing.

‘Top Billing was supposed to alternate. I think it did until it was our turn. What Normie wanted, Normie got, with Ivan. OK, thinks I, you want to go on after me. Here’s a problem.

Me and the Blue Jays, we were a really wild act. We’re playing straight into the scream. I’m following management advice that to be a success, always be a character on stage.

I didn’t have my suits purpose made to rip. No, double stitch it, I insist, make ‘em (the fans) work at it, don’t make it easy for them, and you get to enjoy it longer. I caused the riots, I had my collar bone broken and Normie Rowe, he came on last.’

Perhaps this inspired Normie’s next hits ‘I who have nothing’ and ‘Que Sera’? At least he got on the programme with ‘Shakin’ All Over’ (flip side of the upbeated Doris Day ‘Que Sera’). Normie was selling records though, with these three singles simultaneously Top 40. He wasn’t beyond some self promotion to do it either.

‘I’d be up in the hotel suite with a bottle of champagne and the girl of the hour, kicked back fine. Normie, he’s ringing reception to get himself paged every half hour through the foyer and bars. Promote the name, that was pure Ivan.’

In Sept 65, Tony Worsley’s only major hit was released. Billy Thorpe had gone to No 1 with ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ the previous December. Normie showed that ‘I who have nothing’ can still have cash registers ringing. So in total disregard of character and persona built up, Tony Worsley puts out ‘Velvet Waters’.

‘It was a 50’s radio show theme instrumental from America. The lyrics were put to it by Dorothy Dodd in Australia. (Ms Dodd became President of APRA). It was a sinker in 1960 when Bruce Gillespie put it out. Jimmy Cerezo (guitarist) had found it when he was with (Brisbane Band) Johnny Gray and the G Men. We’re about to leave the studio, Jimmy says how about this, ten minutes later it’s done.’

The first single released labelled just Tony Worsley, was as good as it was to get record wise. The follow up ‘Missing You’ was much too saccharine for his live audience to contemplate. The LP ‘Velvet Waters and other great songs’ contained many Nichols/Clarke originals. Tony claims it was voted ‘Worst Album of 1965’ but admits it sells ‘for heaps’ now on the Internet.

Tony parted company with the Fabulous Blue Jays in March 66 but continued touring with the Sunshine Label roster of Acts as well as the Easybeats. It wasn’t just screaming girls out there wanting a piece of him though -

‘We did a show at the Grafton Civic Centre maybe 1500 people there. Marty Rhone comes off stage, he’s got a fractured cheek bone, face is all blood, sweat and tears. I knew what’d happened. When you put yer hand out touching girls fingers, there was always some prick up at the front getting a jossling from the chicks and wanting some more jollies by grabbin your hand to pull yer down for a smack in the head.

Tell me where Marty and on I go, I’m belting out “Somethings got a hold on me, yeh it must be love" and I’m over there. I find the maggot, he’s pulling me down, I go with it but I still keep a grip on the mike stand, don’t I? The girls are ripping my clothes, the band keeps playing, I finish the song in my undies. Just a day at the office.’

This in the period when Tony gets a completely unjustified reputation for unreliability!

‘Anything he could swill, swallow or smoke. Poke for that matter. Out of control was Woozle’ remembers Ross D Wylie. ‘I’m designated Bus Driver due for the 5 hours drive to the next upcountry gig. 9am start we’re delayed. Worsley’s’ wrecked the toilet again, the tour manager’s’ arguing with the publican about if only gold plating will replace it. Worsley he’s got a hot slab and his usual back row seat. We’re driving. Woozle starts up wanting to use his nozzle. Pit stop Tony must be shy, starts thrashing his way out of sight up through this banana plantation. Next thing, this brumbie horse charges out pursued by Tony. “Must be a mare” says Marcie (Jones & The Cookies). Antics like that, catch up with you. That’s unreliability’.

Still on ‘no worries father’ Ivan Dayman’s payroll, something has to be done with Tony. He’s put on the tent show circuit, four month trips Brisbane, Maryborough, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns, Camooweal, Longreach, Mt Isa, Winton, may as well do Darwin. Southern musicologists like Glenn A Baker think Johnny O’Keefe doing the tents at the Sydney Easter Show was a humiliation. They just can’t understand how there’s more to Australia than Sydney and maybe Melbourne.

‘The only way to sell records in the country was by appearing there. They had to see you, to remember. There’s no TV, they’re not reading Go Set or seeing your picture in a magazine. They only appreciate you when yer name’s on the banner at their town’s Ekka you know.

Yeah, you’re not being paid per show, so they have you singing two songs twenty times a day. A hundred thousand people see you that way. That’s in the City.

In the country, like at Charleville, it’s only 5 times a day. At night yes they might expect you to sleep in a horse stall. But ya gotta remember back then, out there ya average equestrian, they’re millionaire graziers’ daughters. You’ve gotta understand, we ain’t talking the slops, ya know, when we’re talking the country shows.’

Big time, small time as long as it was a good time, Tony found himself off the Dayman books 1969.

‘It had reached the point when the drummer in the backing band (Hands Down Jamie Dunn) wanted to tell me how it was going to be. I was 27 and I’d been singing since I was 14. In my mind ya know I was still 16, 18 maybe. I’m off. Oh Yeah, I end up with hand made leather boots. I’m wearing them when I’m stealing milk money from outside people’s houses.

Singers today play to thousands. They get money. Play in front of just a hundred, call it Art, get a grant. Me I didn’t do it for money or for art. I did it for luurrvv.’

Epilogue
At an early 90’s Rock n Roll reunion, I met Glenyis. She was older than me but we were both past 40 so what did it matter? She was telling me about her days as a Stafford widgee when Tony Worsley started singing. It was half way through ‘Me you gotta Teach’ that I thought I’d get in on the aging lothario game.

‘Was that last line in the song- If you keep playing up, I wont go down’ I quip. ‘Sshh’ hissed Glenyis ‘This is Tony and my song. Look he’s winking at me. He remembers.’

Maybe it was my untrained eye but Tony seemed to be blinking all over the room. I waited for the break. I knew it had come when I heard Glenyis sigh.

‘We spent a week together once. Ohhhh. Women they grow, they change, doing that they leave the men behind. Take me, born Labor, turned commo and now I sometimes even vote Liberal. I went from widgee to protest to earth mother. Jumped up and down for womens rights and ended up dancing with disco queens.

Look at Tony still singing the Beat. Waiting for girls to come screaming’ and she clicked her fingers. I knew I was out of the game and why Tony was to blame.

Kicks to the Head.