I’m going to make my first 2015 post a positive one. It’s the new year and I wanna start it off on the right foot. The LEFT foot can follow later… I have just been nominated to be inducted into The South Australian Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Feb 9. Some of you in other parts of the world are probably thinking ‘WTF is that?’, but for me it is a great honour and I’m to share that honour with some musicians whom I’ve admired ever since I was a kid, way before taking up playing guitar, with the artists who’s records I heard on the radio that helped form my career choice. If it weren’t for them I probably would have become a doctor or something and made a lot of money by now… lol All of this is thanks to Enrico Mick Morena. Previous inductees are: John Bywaters (Twilights), Glenn Shorrock (Little River Band, Twilights), (Jim Keays / Peter Tilbrook / Rick Morrison / Brian Vaughton / Mick Bower / Gavin Webb (Master’s Apprentices), Rockin’ Rob Riley (Rose Tattoo), John Schumann (Redgum), Barrie McAskill (Levi Smith’s Clefs), Bruce Howe (Jimmy Barnes, Fraternity, Mickey Finn), Ray O’Connor (Penny Rockets), Rick Brewster / John Brewster (The Angels), John Swan, Doug Ashdown, Bob Francis, Mark Meyer (Moving Pictures), John Freeman (Some Dream, Mickey Finn, Levi Smith’s Clefs), Maurie Berg (Mickey Finn, Fraternity), Orianthi (Alice Cooper, Michael Jackson, Richie Sambora), my friend and mentor Chris Finnen and many others. I regard it as an honour to be added to that list, especially not having achieved the commercial success that most of these musos have had but I guess I’m being recognised for doing the hard yakka! A little new years day South Oz reading for those who can be bothered: In 1965 my parents and I left our home in Wales and moved to Adelaide, South Australia, as ‘ten-Pound Poms’. Along with hundreds of other immigrants, we had temporary housing in the Glenelg Hostel which was more like a POW camp, or shanty town, with its galvanised-iron walls and roof with no insulation with temperatures of 45º Celcius. A shock for us lily-white Poms just coming over from the snow and ice of the harsh motherland month of February! Little did I know that some of the other immigrants right at that time, or just before, were musicians and the Adelaide scene was underway as The Beatles had just hit town (with Adelaide ranking up their biggest-ever welcoming committee of 300,000 people hitting the streets to greet them). But at five years of age I was too young to know about such stuff and I was too busy going to school and doing all of that kid stuff. After moving between Adelaide and Perth numerous times, we settled in Whyalla, South Australia and in 1972 I first picked up a guitar. A friend of mine brought around a 45 to play on my record player. I couldn’t believe the sounds that came out. I said ‘Who is THAT?’ The Master’s Apprentices ‘Turn Up Your Radio’ just blew my mind and I was hooked on rock and roll. Already a late Beatlemaniac, this 12 year-old was now into Oz Rock in a big way and it started with the Adelaide sound: The Masters, The Zoot, The Twilights, then later on Fraternity (with Bon Scott), Cold Chisel (proudly all Adelaide bands) and the interstate sounds of AC/DC, Billy Thorpe, Lobby Lloyd, Chain and anything on ABC TV’s GTK. Adelaide was the musical breeding ground for a huge proportion of the Australian rock and roll, blues and jazz scenes and I’m so fortunate to have grown up and spent my formative years there, a bit later than others but nevertheless it’s the place I call home. It was in Adelaide that AC/DC met Adelaide singer Bon Scott, from local bands Fraternity and The Valentines, back when it was a hotbed of some of the greatest talent in the country. Of course everyone needed the record labels and moved to the ‘big smoke’ of Melbourne and Sydney, but in those early days Adelaide more than well held their own in the rock and roll stakes. Later I moved to Sydney played stints with John Swan and then Easybeats frontman Stevie Wright, then in Melbourne I played and recorded with The Master himself, Jim Keays, and finally Mick Pealing from Adelaide band, Stars before relocating myself back to the UK in 1996 and I’ve been working hard in Europe ever since, trying to take a little bit of the Adelaide sprit to the other side of the world. samusichalloffame
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 18:21:30 +0000
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