"We discovered we had voices": Australian music meets the British Invasion

Edited and expanded from my website's history of I Put A Spell On You.

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Post-British Invasion Atlantics.
[Photo: Bosco Bosanac]

The Atlantics were formed in Sydney in 1961. Their biggest hits were two original surf instrumentals that rank among the world’s best of the era: Bombora (July 1963, #1 Australia, #3 NZ) and The Crusher (November 1963, #7 Australia). Both were written by the band's Peter Hood and Jim Skiathitis.

This was at a time when the surf music craze was at its peak and Australian surf-themed records were on the charts, many of them original Australian compositions.

By 1963, at the peak of their nationwide success, The Atlantics were Theo Penglis (guitar), Bosco Bosonac (bass), Peter Hood (drums) and Jim Skiathitis (guitar). This core instrumental line-up was supplemented at various times by solo vocalists Harvey Foster, Eddie Moses or Kenny Shane, and Johnny Rebb sang with the band from 1966.

As guitarist Skiathitis explains in an interview with Steve Flack [YouTube], the four instrumentalists “didn’t sing much” but they did perform with a succession of “stand alone singers … out the front”, a familiar configuration from Cliff Richard & The Shadows and other pre-Beatlemania bands. After an unsuccessful surf-themed single with their latest vocalist Kenny Shane (October 1963) they apparently reverted to a four-piece instrumental line-up.

The Atlantics’ first hit, Bombora, was still lingering on the charts when their second, The Crusher, entered the charts at the end of November 1963. The Crusher’s chart run overlapped with the Beatles’ domination of the charts from the Australian summer of 1963-64 and into the following months of 1964.

As the popularity of The Beatles and other British artists grew, many Australian bands that had specialised in guitar instrumentals would switch to the guitar-and-vocals approach of the British beat bands. As Peter Hood of The Atlantics remarked of this period, “We thought we still had a good sound and we wanted to develop it further. We were also getting into more vocals ...” (quoted at Milesago). In Jim Skiathitis’s words, “After the Beatles hit … we discovered we had voices.“

When Johnny Rebb sang lead vocals with the band 1966-67 he was already well-known from the pre-Beatles era (see Hey, Sheriff), and The Atlantics had previously backed him on solo singles including his 1963 charting single Ain’t I’m A Dog. His accomplished vocals are heard on The Atlantics' I Put a Spell On You (1966), an Alan Price-inspired version of the Screamin' Jay Hawkins song.

As British artists invaded the Australian charts, the surf music craze faded away and with it went the wave of original Australian songwriting that it had inspired.

The Beatles and their ilk knocked [surf music] for six late last year and if it’s going to come back it’s probably got to be now or never. I can’t see any signs of it coming back with any strength … 

Sydney DJ Bob Rogers, Herald Sun, 27 Sept 1964 

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Sydney pop station 2SM’s chart from 17 January 1964 makes an interesting case study when compared with 20 March, two months later. 

2SM charts 1964	Aussie tracks in Top 40*	Aussie originals in Top 40	Aussie surf tracks  in Top 40	Beatles tracks in Top 10	Beatles places in Top 10
17 Jan	8   (20%)	6 (15%)	7	3   (7.5 %)	#1, 2, 3
20 Mar	2  (5%)	1  (2.5% )	0	11   (27.5%)	# 1, 2, 3,  4, 5, 6

Original Australian surf tracks on 2SM Sydney (Top 40) 17 Jan 64
Little Pattie - He's My Blonde-Headed, Stompie Wompie, Real Gone Surfer Boy #4
The Atlantics -The Crusher #14
Little Pattie - Stompin' At Maroubra #17
The Renegades - Kahuna (Australian instrumental) #20
The Delltones - Hangin' Five #23
Johnny Devlin - Stomp The Tumbarumba #26

Original Australian surf tracks on 2SM Sydney (Top 40) 20 Mar 64
[Nil] 

Of course, this gives us a snapshot of what was being played on one radio station in one city, rather than hard sales figures. 

Up in Brisbane in the same week, for example, 4BC's surf coverage was more restrained, and more persistent.  

By 22 March, the 4BC Top 40 still listed 2 original Australian records, both of them about surf, and Little Pattie had hardly budged since January. The Beatles flourished though, with 5 tracks on the Top 40 in March (12.5%)

Original Australian surf tracks on 4BC Brisbane (Top 40) 19 Jan 64
The Atlantics -The Crusher #3
Johnny Devlin - Stomp The Tumbarumba #16
Little Pattie - He's My Blonde-Headed, Stompie Wompie, Real Gone Surfer Boy #34 

Original Australian surf tracks on 4BC Brisbane (Top 40) 22 March 64
Digger Revell - My Little Rocker's Turned Surfie #17
Little Pattie - He's My Blonde-Headed, Stompie Wompie, Real Gone Surfer Boy #39 

The Atlantics - Bombora (1963, wr. Peter Hood - Jim Skiathitis)

The Atlantics - The Crusher (1963, wr. Peter Hood - Jim Skiathitis)

Little Pattie - He's My Blonde-Headed, Stompie Wompie, Real Gone Surfer Boy (1963, wr. Joe Halford - Jay Justin)

The Delltones - Hangin' Five (1963, wr. Ben Acton - Fred Kirkham)

The Renegades - Kahuna title at YouTube is wrong (1964, wr. Peter Vanevoorde)

Johnny Devlin - Stomp The Tumbarumba (1963, wr. Johnny Devlin)

As many have pointed out, it's a long way from Tumbarumba to the beach. 

[Google Maps: Tumbarumba to Bateman's Bay]

Obscure Originators (42) Vandyke And The Bambis

The latest from my website's front page series about lesser known artists who performed the original versions of Australian or NZ records. 

See also: the full collection of over 40 Obscure Originators features. 

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Daily Mirror 16 April 1964

Doin' The Mod was released by Melbourne band The Flies in June 1965 (#23 Melbourne) with soon-to-be-famous Ronnie Burns on guitar and vocals. 

In the last months of 1964 an earlier version of Doin' The Mod by Sydney band The Echoes had already been played on local radio (#67 on 2SM's survey), and New Zealand's Ray Columbus & The Invaders had topped the Australian charts with She's A Mod.

Both of these mod-themed songs originated in Britain. This was an era of competing teenage subcultures, when bad feeling between crowds of mods and rockers could turn violent. The British papers were full of stories like this one from May 1964: Holiday 'spoilt for thousands' by 'Mods' and 'Rockers' - SEAFRONT GANGS FIGHT WITH DECKCHAIRS.

In that context, Vandyke And The Bambis' original version of Doin' The Mod (April 1964) is about more than just a trendy dance. As its lyrics go, Who's that man in that leather jacket down there? Man, he's so bad. He must be a rocker. Get him out of here!

Norwich Evening News 19 May 1964 [enhanced]

Vandyke was Les Vandyke, the composer of Doin' The Mod, and it might not be strictly accurate to call him an obscurity. Anyone who looked at the songwriter credits on record labels would have seen his name, although it was often reduced to (Vandyke) or (Van Dyke), perhaps inviting confusion with US singer Leroy Van Dyke who had a UK hit with Walk On By early in 1962.

Les Vandyke's compositions included:
• Adam Faith's What Do You Want? (#1 UK) and Poor Me (#1)
• Eden Kane's Well I Ask You (#1) and Forget Me Not (#3)
• Applejack (#4 co-wr.Bridget De Mare) by ex-Shadows Jet Harris & Tony Meehan.

Sadly though, songwriters often went unnoticed except for some prominent artists who wrote their own material (The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Bobbie Gentry) and a select few whose names became better known (Jimmy Webb, Bacharach & David, Holland-Dozier-Holland). 

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1962 #8 UK

Many British pop fans would have also heard Les Vandyke singing, as Johnny Worth, on soundalike versions of current hits on the budget Embassy label. Sold only in Woolworths stores, Embassy's sales figures were off the grid as far as the charts were concerned, but they probably sold more than one might assume, possibly in the 100,000s. In a delicious twist, they included Johnny Worth covering his own compositions including What Do You Want? and Poor Me. 

Vandyke sings Vandyke, or Worth sings Worth, on Embassy

I'm guessing that The Bambis were a studio group employed by Les Vandyke. For a photo session they wore hats and false joke-shop beards, and newspaper profiles of the day decline to name them.

When I wrote about them at the website, Les's son Dave emailed with a correction and the nice detail that the name of The Bambis came from his own childhood nickname.

For more about the song and Vandyke And The Bambis, see The Flies - Doin' The Mod

Coleshill Herald 24 April 1964 [enhanced]

The Flies - Doin' The Mod (Australia 1965)

Vandyke And The Bambis - Doin' The Mod (UK 1964)

Adam Faith - What Do You Want (1959, wr. Les Vandyke)

Johnny Worth (= Les Vandyke) - What Do You Want (1959, budget cover version by the composer on Embassy)

Bonus Jimmy Justice - Ain't That Funny (1962, wr. Les Vandyke)

Introducing the N.Z. Hit Parade! (March 1966)

From 25 March 1966 New Zealand Listener magazine published a national Top 20 that is sometimes cited as the first “official” NZ chart. 

It was probably no more official than the "official Top 40" of Melbourne radio station 3UZ. However, it was a well-organised chart in a respected publication, and in spite of its flaws it seems to have become the de facto chart for New Zealand at the time.

The Listener chart was compiled using coupons mailed in by readers who had filled them out with their five current favourite songs.

The ad in the Listener on 18 March 1966 went like this:

INTRODUCING
THE N.Z. HIT PARADE
Based on a Nationwide Voting Poll
YOU CHOOSE THE HITS!
Complete the coupon below and you take part in choosing
New Zealand’s Top Twenty. 

That teaser included an unnumbered list of "leading discs of the moment" for inspiration, but the next edition on 25 March published the actual N.Z. Hit Parade. A Must To Avoid by Herman's Hermits topped the Top 20, leading a list of exclusively British and American records. (True, The Seekers at #3 were Australians but they recorded The Carnival Is Over in Britain, produced by its British composer Tom Springfield.) 

Seven weeks later, in the 13 May issue, The La De Das' How Is The Air Up There became the first New Zealand record on the Listener chart, entering at #13 and going on to peak at #4.

UK record, NZ issue, NZ hit (discogs.com)

I-cannot-say-whether the readers' poll was the only source for the Listener chart or whether there were any adjustments before publication. Whatever the truth, NZ chart compiler Dean Scapolo believes that it was “not a good indicator” of what was actually selling. From April 1970 the Listener did use sales figures, but its charts were retired with the coming of official music industry charts in May 1975.

Warwick Freeman, another compiler, outlines the NZ chart scene before March 1966 when the Listener chart appeared:
[New Zealanders] relied on local radio stations, television, record stores and other sources who compiled their own charts. A few of these charts were published, and in many cases lost, but others were simply written down in scrapbooks by keen listeners as the countdown was played on the radio or TV. [source]

Another often-cited chart from before March 1966 was the Lever Hit Parade, a Top 8 that was sponsored by a detergent company, compiled by an advertising agency, and used by NZ’s state-owned commercial radio stations. Although its methods are not known it was not based on sales figures and may have used some kind of polling. There was also a genuinely sales-based chart published in Playdate magazine but only for a couple of months in 1960.

All of these sources have been used in compiling books of historical New Zealand chart data. Dean Scapolo’s Complete New Zealand Music Charts 1966 to 1996 begins with the Listener charts in March 1966, and Warwick Freeman has ingeniously used a variety of sources from before March 1966 to compile retrospective charts for the whole decade in his New Zealand Top 20 Singles of the Sixties. 

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Sources: 1. Flavour of New Zealand’s feature on NZ charts 2. Scapolo’s and Freeman’s chart books. 3. Listener archives at Papers Past (National Library of NZ).

Related: My post about retrospective Australian charts Toppermost of the poppermost: the charts.

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Bigger in Oz (25): Oliver Cool - Oliver Cool (1960)

Bigger in Oz: tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin.

See also: Only in Melbourne.

Oliver Cool - Oliver Cool
(Paul Vance - Lee Pockriss)
Roulette single (USA) #R-4292 September 1960
London single (Australia) #R-4292 November 1960

US charts: did not chart
Australian charts: #15 Sydney #24 Melbourne #24 Brisbane #16 Perth | #17 Australia

Co-charting Australian cover version:
Rock Martin - Oliver Cool
Rex single (Australia) RS-042 November 1960
Australian charts: #16 Perth

We are deep into novelty record territory here. 

Who's the most swingingest boy in school?
You are!
And what's my name?
Oliver Cool!
That's right!

To me and my circle as 10-year-olds this was hilarious. 

Australians had a soft spot for jokey, gimmicky records, and Lee Pockriss often appeared in the writer credits.  He and Bob Hilliard wrote Jo Ann Campbell's A Kookie Little Paradise (1960), with its Tarzan calls and ice cream loaded with bananas in the jungle. Another well-known Pockriss-Hilliard composition is Paul Evans's whimsical Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat (1959, also a hit in the UK by The Avons). 

Pockriss and his Oliver Cool co-writer Paul Vance wrote Bryan Hyland's Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini. (The 16-syllable title is the gimmick - pretty much the main event - just as it would be three years later in the 14 syllables of Little Pattie's He’s My Blonde-Headed Stompie-Wompie Real Gone Surfer Boy which I suspect it inspired.)

Unsurprisingly, Oliver Cool is a name adopted for the performance. You can find strong views online about whether this was dancer-choreographor-actor-director Tony Mordente (1935-2024) or singer and skater Lawrence Sarapochiello (1933-2024). It appears that each used the pseudonym Larry Ellis at some stage in their career, which could explain why there is confusion, but I don't feel confident in calling it either way.

I was surprised to discover an Australian cover version of Oliver Cool that co-charted in Perth with the original. Not only that, but there is no doubt that the artist, Rock Martin, was the famous West Australian-born stage hypnotist Martin St James (1924-2015) who had an early career as a cowboy singer in a circus. 

Chart positions for this post:
Australian capital cities: Gavin Ryan's chart books. 
Australia: Grant Dawe's Top 100 Singles site.

Oliver Cool - Oliver Cool (1960)

Rock Martin - Oliver Cool (1960)