Johnny O'Keefe
John Michael O'Keefe was an Australian rock and roll singer whose career began in the 1950s. Some of his hits include "Wild One", "Shout!" and "She's My Baby". In his twenty-year career, O'Keefe released over 50 EPs and 100 albums. O'Keefe was a radio and television entertainer and presenterOften referred to by his initials "J. O. K." or by his nickname "The Wild One", O'Keefe was the first Australian rock'n' roll performer to tour the United States, the first Australian artist to make the local Top 40 charts and he had twenty-nine Top 40 hits in Australia between 1958 and 1973. Johnny O'Keefe was the younger brother of Australian jurist Barry O'Keefe, his father, Alderman Ray O'Keefe, was Mayor of Waverley Council in the early 1960s. Through Barry, O'Keefe was the uncle of Australian TV personality Andrew O'Keefe. Johnny O'Keefe died in 1978 from a drug overdose. O'Keefe was born in the eastern Sydney suburb of Bondi Junction on 19 January 1935, he was the second of three children of Thelma Edna Kennedy.
He was raised as a Catholic and attended the local Catholic primary school, followed by secondary schooling at Waverley College in nearby Waverley. Johnny had a solid musical background and listened to the radio constantly at home although he did not sing around the house, his parents were both good singers. His mother was an excellent pianist and his father played in a jazz band. O'Keefe made his stage debut at the age of four when he played the role of'Dopey' in the Waverley College production of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". Being unable to read or memorise the script, the young O'Keefe improvised his part; the young O'Keefe was intelligent and perceptive, with a great sense of humour, although his school grades fluctuated due to his misbehaviour and the fact that he was distracted. During his time at high school Johnny joined the school cadets, where he made good progress learning trumpet, he sang solo in the school choir, he was a keen swimmer and sailor and sailed with the Vaucluse Juniors sailing club.
He matriculated in 1951, gaining an'A' in French and a'B' in English, mathematics and economics. In 1952 he enrolled in a part-time economics degrees course at the University of Sydney, but soon abandoned it and enrolled in a short course at the College of Retailing in Sydney, after which he went to work in his father's furniture store in Pitt Street, Sydney, he had begun performing at dances and'socials' while at high school, but his interest in music blossomed after he left school. A strong early musical influence was the American singer Johnnie Ray, who toured Australia to great acclaim in the 1950s and O'Keefe began his singing career as a Ray impersonator. During this period he met and became good friends with Alan Dale an aspiring singer, employed at the O'Keefe's furniture business. In December 1952 Dale and O'Keefe were called up for National Service. Dale went into the Army and O'Keefe went into the RAAF. Johnny was stationed at Richmond in western Sydney, served his six-month period in two blocks, from December–February 1952 and December–February 1953.
The first turning point in O'Keefe's career was in early 1953, when he began singing with the quintet of jazz accordionist Gus Merzi at charity dances. During these appearances, O'Keefe would sing his specialty, Johnny Ray's "Cry", while wearing a pair of trick glasses which would squirt water over the audience. Radio personality Harry Griffiths, who met O'Keefe at this time, remembered him as "a bad-tempered ratbag" who argued with Merzi, although Merzi commented that they never clashed over music. Recognising Johnny's potential, Merzi began tutoring him on piano, encouraging him to broaden his repertoire and helping him to refine his stagecraft. O'Keefe became a regular singer with the Merzi quintet and performed with them every Sunday at the charity shows they performed at the Bondi Auditorium; the tenacious O'Keefe performed his routine no matter how small the audience, sometimes braving the rotten eggs and fruit thrown at him by local louts. After his second stint of National Service he began singing with Merzi two nights a week, playing at university college dances, 21st birthdays and private parties and Merzi managed to get O'Keefe a regular spot on the 2UW live radio show Saturday Night Dancing.
Up to this point he had performed for free to gain experience, but his first paid engagement as a singer was as a Johnny Ray impersonator, performing on the Bathurst radio station 2BS, for which he was paid £17 plus expenses. Johnny O'Keefe's life changed irrevocably after seeing and hearing Bill Haley singing "Rock Around the Clock" in the film Blackboard Jungle in June 1955, he realised that this was the style of music he wanted to perform, from this point on he dedicated himself single-mindedly to becoming a rock'n' roll singer and a star. By 1960 he had become the most successful singer in Australia and a major TV star. Australian rock historian Ian McFarlane succinctly described O'Keefe's qualities in his article on the singer in the Encyclopedia of Australian Rock & Pop: "J. O'K was the first to admit that he was a limited singer, but he possessed an incredible drive, a fierce ambition to succeed, a tireless facility for self-promotion, a tremendous flair for showmanship and a larrikin spirit, irrepressible."
In September 1956 O'Keefe and his friend Dave Owen formed Australia's first rock'n'roll band, The Dee Jays. The original lineup of the group was.
Sydney
Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Port Jackson and extends about 70 km on its periphery towards the Blue Mountains to the west, Hawkesbury to the north, the Royal National Park to the south and Macarthur to the south-west. Sydney is made up of 40 local government areas and 15 contiguous regions. Residents of the city are known as "Sydneysiders"; as of June 2017, Sydney's estimated metropolitan population was 5,230,330 and is home to 65% of the state's population. Indigenous Australians have inhabited the Sydney area for at least 30,000 years, thousands of engravings remain throughout the region, making it one of the richest in Australia in terms of Aboriginal archaeological sites. During his first Pacific voyage in 1770, Lieutenant James Cook and his crew became the first Europeans to chart the eastern coast of Australia, making landfall at Botany Bay and inspiring British interest in the area.
In 1788, the First Fleet of convicts, led by Arthur Phillip, founded Sydney as a British penal colony, the first European settlement in Australia. Phillip named the city Sydney in recognition of 1st Viscount Sydney. Penal transportation to New South Wales ended soon after Sydney was incorporated as a city in 1842. A gold rush occurred in the colony in 1851, over the next century, Sydney transformed from a colonial outpost into a major global cultural and economic centre. After World War II, it experienced mass migration and became one of the most multicultural cities in the world. At the time of the 2011 census, more than 250 different languages were spoken in Sydney. In the 2016 Census, about 35.8% of residents spoke a language other than English at home. Furthermore, 45.4% of the population reported having been born overseas, making Sydney the 3rd largest foreign born population of any city in the world after London and New York City, respectively. Despite being one of the most expensive cities in the world, the 2018 Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranks Sydney tenth in the world in terms of quality of living, making it one of the most livable cities.
It is classified as an Alpha+ World City by Globalization and World Cities Research Network, indicating its influence in the region and throughout the world. Ranked eleventh in the world for economic opportunity, Sydney has an advanced market economy with strengths in finance and tourism. There is a significant concentration of foreign banks and multinational corporations in Sydney and the city is promoted as Australia's financial capital and one of Asia Pacific's leading financial hubs. Established in 1850, the University of Sydney is Australia's first university and is regarded as one of the world's leading universities. Sydney is home to the oldest library in Australia, State Library of New South Wales, opened in 1826. Sydney has hosted major international sporting events such as the 2000 Summer Olympics; the city is among the top fifteen most-visited cities in the world, with millions of tourists coming each year to see the city's landmarks. Boasting over 1,000,000 ha of nature reserves and parks, its notable natural features include Sydney Harbour, the Royal National Park, Royal Botanic Garden and Hyde Park, the oldest parkland in the country.
Built attractions such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the World Heritage-listed Sydney Opera House are well known to international visitors. The main passenger airport serving the metropolitan area is Kingsford-Smith Airport, one of the world's oldest continually operating airports. Established in 1906, Central station, the largest and busiest railway station in the state, is the main hub of the city's rail network; the first people to inhabit the area now known as Sydney were indigenous Australians having migrated from northern Australia and before that from southeast Asia. Radiocarbon dating suggests human activity first started to occur in the Sydney area from around 30,735 years ago. However, numerous Aboriginal stone tools were found in Western Sydney's gravel sediments that were dated from 45,000 to 50,000 years BP, which would indicate that there was human settlement in Sydney earlier than thought; the first meeting between the native people and the British occurred on 29 April 1770 when Lieutenant James Cook landed at Botany Bay on the Kurnell Peninsula and encountered the Gweagal clan.
He noted in his journal that they were somewhat hostile towards the foreign visitors. Cook was not commissioned to start a settlement, he spent a short time collecting food and conducting scientific observations before continuing further north along the east coast of Australia and claiming the new land he had discovered for Britain. Prior to the arrival of the British there were 4,000 to 8,000 native people in Sydney from as many as 29 different clans; the earliest British settlers called the natives Eora people. "Eora" is the term the indigenous population used to explain their origins upon first contact with the British. Its literal meaning is "from this place". Sydney Cove from Port Jackson to Petersham was inhabited by the Cadigal clan; the principal language groups were Darug and Dharawal. The earliest Europeans to visit the area noted that the indigenous people were conducting activities such as camping and fishing, using trees for bark and food, collecting shells, cooking fish. Britain—before that, England—and Ireland had for a long time been sending their convicts across the Atlantic to the American colonies.
That trade was ended with the Declaration of Independence by the United States in 1776. Britain decided in 1786 to found a new penal outpost in the territory discovered by Cook some 16 years ear
Charles Chauvel (filmmaker)
Charles Edward Chauvel OBE was an Australian filmmaker and screenwriter and nephew of Australian army General Sir Harry Chauvel. He is noted for making the films Forty Thousand Horsemen in 1940 and Jedda in 1955. Charles Edward Chauvel was born on 7 October 1897 in Warwick, the son of James Allan Chauvel and his wife Susan Isabella, pioneer farmers in the Mutdapilly area, he was the nephew of General Sir Harry Chauvel, Commander of the Australian Light Horse and the Desert Mounted Corps in Palestine during World War I. His father, a grazier, at 53 enlisted to serve in Palestine and Sinai in World War I; the Chauvels were descended from a French Huguenot family who fled France for England in 1685, soon established a tradition of serving in the British army. The Australian Chauvels descended from a Charles Chauvel who retired from the Indian Army to New South Wales in 1839 and was a pioneer in the New England region. Chauvel was educated at the Normanby State School, The Southport School and Ipswich Grammar School in Queensland.
After leaving school, he worked on Queensland properties, on his family property when his father was at war, before studying commercial art and taking drama classes in Sydney. He was fascinated by films and pestered a friend, showman Reginald "Snowy" Baker, to give him work as a production assistant. Chauvel worked on The Jackeroo of Coolabong with Baker. Chauvel followed Baker to Hollywood in 1922, at his own expense, spent some time as a jack of all trades including working as an extra, a lighting technician, a publicist, a stunt double and so on; the films he worked on included Strangers of the Night. Back in Australia after about a year, Chauvel obtained finance from Queensland businessmen and friends to make his first film The Moth of Moonbi, it was a romantic melodramas exploring a theme of the decadent city vs the authentic country. The Moth of Moonbi is a country girl who flutters to the city lights, loses her fortune, but returns home and finds love with her father's trusty stockman.
The film was profitable enough for Chauvel to raise funds for a second film. In Greenhide a city girl struggles to cope on a cattle station and finds love with her polar opposite, an taciturn bushman. Like Moonbi the film was made in Harrisville near Brisbane, enlisting the locals as extras and using locations around his family property "Summerlands", near the edge of town. While making Greenhide he met Elsa May Wilcox, an actress, whom he married on 1927. After their marriage she assisted him on all his films. Both these silent films were reasonably successful in Australia. Chauvel could not arrange for the release of his silent movies in Hollywood because of the transition to sound. Chauvel worked as a cinema manager during the Depression. In 1933 he made his first talkie: In the Wake of the Bounty starring Errol Flynn as Fletcher Christian before Flynn went on to Hollywood; the film mixed re-enactments with documentary, focused not so much on the mutiny itself as on its consequences. To provide a long postscript to the story of the mutiny, the Chauvels went to Pitcairn Island and shot interesting footage of the Bounty descendants, spending three months on the island.
He included footage of bare-breasted Tahitian dancers which caused a temporary problem with the censors. The documentary parts were edited out and used as promotional material for the 1935 Hollywood film about the mutiny. In 1935, Chauvel won a Commonwealth Government competition for Heritage which gave a panoramic view of Australian history, it begins with a character from the earliest days of white settlement, following his struggles, his loves and his marriage skips to the modern generation, where a romance between descendants of the original characters completes a circle. The modern hero is struggling to run an outback cattle station, the modern heroine is an expert aviator. In 1936 he made a "jungle story" filmed in Cape York. Aimed at the U. S. market, it is the story of an upper class'girl-reporter' investigating the white leader of an aboriginal tribe. That year saw the release of Rangle River, based on a script by Charles and Elsa Chauvel; the outbreak of war meant that Chauvel turned to war-themed films, making Forty Thousand Horsemen, a tribute to the Australian Light Horse Brigade in Palestine in World War I, in the Cronulla sand dunes.
It was both a popular and critical success and was credited with boosting morale. It launched the career of actor Chips Rafferty. Chauvel focused on making a series of propaganda shorts for the Australian war effort including Soldiers Without Uniform. Chauvel attempt to repeat his Horseman success with The Rats of Tobruk in 1944, it was not as successful. After the war he made a film about a pioneer family in Queensland, Sons of Matthew, drawing on his own family history In 1955 Chauvel made his best known film, Jedda. Jedda is a story of an Aboriginal baby girl raised by a white station owner and kept in ignorance of traditional ways, the Aboriginal man who carries her off though this is a forbidden "wrong way" marriage, brings tragedy to both of them. Both Jedda and Matthew involved travel to remote areas and difficult conditions for filming, are considered Chauvel's best works. Jedda was the first Aust
Jimmy Little
James Oswald Little, AO was an Australian Aboriginal musician and teacher from the Yorta Yorta people and was raised on the Cummeragunja Mission, New South Wales. From 1951 he had a career as a guitarist, which spanned six decades. For many years he was the main Aboriginal star on the Australian music scene, his music was influenced by Nat King Cole and American country music artist Jim Reeves. His gospel song "Royal Telephone" sold over 75,000 copies and his most popular album, peaked at No. 26 in 1999 on the ARIA Albums Chart. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1999 Little was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and won an ARIA Award for Best Adult Contemporary Album. On Australia Day 2004, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia with the citation, "For service to the entertainment industry as a singer, recording artist and songwriter and to the community through reconciliation and as an ambassador for Indigenous culture"; as an actor, he appeared in the films Shadow of the Boomerang and Until the end of the World, in the theatre production Black Cockatoos and in the opera Black River.
As a teacher, from 1985, he worked at the Eora Centre in Redfern and from 2000 was a guest lecturer at the University of Sydney's Koori Centre. In 1958 Little married Marjorie Rose Peters and they had a daughter, Frances Claire Peters-Little. Little was a diabetic with a heart condition and, in 2004, had a kidney transplant. After his transplant he established the Jimmy Little Foundation to promote indigenous health and diet. Marjorie died in July 2011. On 2 April 2012, Little died at his home in Dubbo, aged 75 years. James Oswald Little was born on 1 March 1937, a member of the Yorta Yorta people with his mother, Frances, a Yorta Yorta woman and his father, James Little Sr, from the Yuin people. Little's totem is the long-necked turtle. Jimmy Little Sr. was a tap dancer, comedian and singer who led his own vaudeville troupe along the Murray River during the 1930s and 1940s. His mother was a yodeller who had joined Jimmy Sr.'s troupe. Little grew up, the eldest of seven children, on the Cummeragunja Mission on the Murray River in New South Wales about 30-km from Echuca in Victoria.
Little recalled his upbringing, " taught me well about the value of life, love, all those basic things that we need. As Vaudevillians, I loved them, it was part of my dream to follow in the footsteps of Dad. And I'm so proud that I was able to do that", he became a devout non-denominational Christian. He is an uncle of writer and composer Deborah Cheetham and older brother of the late Aboriginal author and singer-songwriter Betty Little. In February 1939, about 200 to 300 members of the mission participated in the Cummeragunja walk-off – in protest at the low standard living conditions; the Little family moved to his father's tribal land and lived for some years on the New South Wales south coast at Nowra and Moruya. Not long after moving, Frances died from a tetanus infection after cutting her finger on an oyster shell. At the age of 13 Little was given a guitar and within a year he was playing at local concerts; when 16 years old he travelled to Sydney to perform on a radio programme, Australia's Amateur Hour.
In 1955 Little left home to live in Sydney and pursue a career in country music, he was influenced by Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis and Jim Reeves. His mellow style earned him the nicknames of "the Balladeer", "Gentleman Jim" and "the Honey Voice". In 1956, Little signed with Regal Zonophone Records and released his first single, "Mysteries of Life"/"Heartbreak Waltz". In 1958, Little married Marjorie Rose Peters. By late 1959, Little was living in Granville with his wife and their daughter Frances Claire – he released the single, "Frances Claire", when she was 18 months-old, it was issued on EMI's Columbia label and was soon followed by "Give the Coloured Boy a Chance", written by his father – the first song released in Australia referring to indigenous issues and first both written and recorded by indigenous musicians. He worked at a towelling factory and supplemented his income with performances at concerts and dances, TV appearances on Bandstand. Little signed with Festival Records and in September 1959, he had his first charting single, "Danny Boy", from the extended play, Jimmy Little Sings Ballads with a Beat, which peaked at No. 9 in Sydney.
In February 1960, his next single was "El Paso". Little made his acting debut in the Billy Graham evangelical feature film Shadow of the Boomerang the same year. Little had the role of Johnny, a devout stockman on a cattle station where his American employer's son Bob refers to him as "that nigger". After Johnny dies, while saving Bob's life, from being gored by a wild boar, Bob has a religious conversion to Graham's cause. Little issued the title song as a single backed by "Little by Little". In September 1961, he appeared on the radio program, Col Joye Show, with fellow Bandstand regulars, Patsy Ann Noble and Judy Stone. By 1962, Little joined a touring stage production, All Coloured Show produced by Ted Quigg, gained wider public exposure. In July 1963, he toured north west New South Wales with Rob E. G. Noleen Batley and Lonnie Lee and was booked out till November. In October 1963, after 17 singles, Little issued his biggest hit with the gospel song, "Royal Telephone", based upon the Burl Ives' version.
In November it peaked at No. 1 in No. 3 in Melbourne. The following month Australian Women's Weekly's music writer, Bob Rogers described it as "a sincere ballad with a religious feeling" and that "n only three weeks the record was rising to the top all over Australia, one of the fastes
Johnny Young
Johnny Young is a Dutch Australian singer, record producer, disc jockey, television producer and host. From Rotterdam, his family settled in Perth, Western Australia in the early 1950s. Young had a career in the 1960s as a pop singer and had a number one hit with the double-A-side, "Step Back" and "Cara-lyn" in 1966, his profile was enhanced by a concurrent stint as host of the TV pop program The Go!! Show; as a composer, he penned number one hits, "The Real Thing" and "The Girl That I Love" for Russell Morris, "The Star" for Ross D. Wyllie and "I Thank You" for Lionel Rose and the hit single "Smiley" for Ronnie Burns. After his pop career ended he returned to TV where he presented and produced the popular television show, Young Talent Time, which screened on Network Ten from 1971 to 1988 – it launched the careers of numerous teen pop stars Jamie Redfern, Debra Byrne, Dannii Minogue and Tina Arena, as well as Jane Scali, Sally Boyden and Karen Knowles – each episode closed with a sing-along rendition of The Beatles song "All My Loving".
On 9 March 1990, Young was inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards' Hall of Fame. On 27 October 2010, he was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association Hall of Fame by Arena who performed his song, "The Star", he is the first person to be inducted into both halls. Johnny Young was born as Johnny Benjamin de Jong on 12 March 1947 in the Netherlands, he was conceived as a result of an affair between Anna W. and a musician, Johannes. He was raised as the youngest son of Anna and her husband Fokke Jan de Jong, in the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army and served in Indonesia after World War II, his half-siblings are Cornellia and Ferdinand. Their father was still in Indonesia from December 1946 until September 1948 when Young was one-and-a-half years old; the family migrated to Western Australia, Fokke arrived in July 1953, they settled in the Perth Hills suburb of Kalamunda, in the 1950s. Fokke worked as a welder on industrial projects including the Kwinana Oil Refinery, his mother inspired his early interest in music.
On 25 August 1959 Johnny and Fokke were naturalised as Australian citizens. Young's mother took him to Saturday morning radio shows for children and he would sing along, he performed solo songs wearing a specially made jacket. After leaving school, he started singing at local dances. From the age of 14, for 18 months he was lead vocalist of the Nomads known as the Strangers, which consisted of Young, John Eddy, Warwick Findlay, Don Prior and Tony Summers. At eighteen-years-old, Young was host of TVW-7 Perth television pop music show Club Seventeen in early 1965; as Johnny Young & the Strangers he released two singles, "Club Seventeen"/"Oh Johnny, No" and "No Other Love"/"Heigh Ho", both on the 7-Teen label. Young signed with Clarion Records, a Perth-based label run by Martin Clarke. In an interview Clarke said "We just got together and he said he wanted to make a national hit and branch out, he was ambitious." Clarke, armed with his recordings of Young, went to Sydney and secured a deal with Festival Records to have the Clarion label manufactured and distributed throughout Australia.
The following year, 1966, he formed Johnny Young & Kompany, As lead vocalist he was backed by Eddy, Findlay and Jim Griffiths. After performing as supporting act to the Easybeats in early 1966, Young recorded "Step Back", co-written by the Easybeats' members Stevie Wright and George Young; the single was released in May 1966 as a double-A-side with his cover version of "Cara-Lyn" by the Strangeloves. The release peaked at number one on the Go-Set National Top 40 in November, it was one of the biggest-selling Australian singles of the 1960s, behind Normie Rowe's "Que Sera Sera"/"Shakin' All Over". In October, his EP Let It Be Me went to number four on Go-Set National Top 40. Johnny Young & Kompany moved to Melbourne in mid-1966. Mick Wade joined on organ. Young was interviewed by Ian "Molly" Meldrum for their 13 July issue; that year Young compered the short-lived television pop show Too Much and in 1967 he hosted The Go!! Show, following the resignation of Ian Turpie. In January the band released covers of the Everly Brothers' hits "When Will I Be Loved?" /"Kiss Me Now" as another double-A-sided single which peaked at number three.
He disbanded Kompany to go solo and supported Roy Orbison, The Walker Brothers, The Mixtures and The Yardbirds at the Festival Hall, Melbourne on Australia Day. While touring in Brisbane he met Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees and provided Gibb with airfare to Sydney for a television spot. Another hit for Young was his slower version of the Beatles' song "All My Loving" which reached number four nationally in May. Young won a Logie for "Best Teenage Personality" in 1967 for his work on The Go!! Show. On 9 August Go-Set published its annual pop poll and Young was voted third "Most Popular Male" behind Ronnie Burns and Rowe. However, the show was axed by mid-year and he relocated to London where he shared a flat with Gibb. In July, he released "Lady", written by Gibb for him, which reached the Top 40. "Craise Finton Kirk", written by Barry and Robin Gibb, was released in August and peaked at number 14. It was followed by "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You", written by Barry
Pop music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid-1950s. The terms "popular music" and "pop music" are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music, popular and includes many diverse styles. "Pop" and "rock" were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they became differentiated from each other. Although much of the music that appears on record charts is seen as pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Pop music is eclectic, borrows elements from other styles such as urban, rock and country. Identifying factors include short to medium-length songs written in a basic format, as well as common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes, hooks. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as "a body of music, distinguishable from popular and folk musics". According to Pete Seeger, pop music is "professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music". Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music.
The music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz and novelty songs. As a genre, pop music is seen to develop separately. Therefore, the term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults". Pop music continuously evolves along with the term's definition. According to music writer Bill Lamb, popular music is defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s, most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class." The term "pop song" was first used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal". Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country and hillbilly music. According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced".
The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience since the late 1950s, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc." Grove Music Online states that " in the early 1960s,'pop music' competed terminologically with beat music, while in the US its coverage overlapped with that of'rock and roll'". From about 1967, the term “pop music” was used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms. While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music, pop was more commercial and accessible. According to British musicologist Simon Frith, pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward and, in musical terms, it is conservative".
It is, "provided from on high rather than being made from below... Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged". According to Frith, characteristics of pop music include an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology, an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities. Music scholar Timothy Warner said it has an emphasis on recording and technology, rather than live performance; the main medium of pop music is the song between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure. Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form, with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks, a chorus that contrasts melodically and harmonically with the verse; the beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment. The lyrics of modern pop songs focus on simple themes – love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions.
Harmony and chord progressions in pop music are "that of classical European tonality, only more simple-minded." Clichés include the barbershop quartet-style blues scale-influenced harmony. There was a lessening of the influence of traditional views of the circle of fifths between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, including less predominance for the dominant function. Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music, rhythmic elements from hip-hop music, spoken passages from rap. In the 1960s, the majority of mainstream pop music fell in two categories: guitar and bass groups or singers
Billy Thorpe
William Richard Thorpe, AM known as Billy Thorpe, was an English-born Australian pop / rock singer-songwriter, producer,and musician. As lead singer of his band Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, he had success in the 1960s with "Blue Day", "Poison Ivy", "Over the Rainbow", "Sick and Tired", "Baby, Hold Me Close" and "Mashed Potato". Featuring in concerts at Sunbury Pop Festivals and Myer Music Bowl in the early 1970s, the Aztecs developed the pub rock scene and were one of the loudest groups in Australia. Thorpe performed as a solo artist, he worked with ex-Aztec Tony Barber to form a soft toy company in 1987 and co-wrote stories for The Puggle Tales and Tales from the Lost Forests. Thorpe worked as a producer and composed music scores for TV series including War of the Worlds, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Eight Is Enough and Hard Time on Planet Earth. Thorpe returned to Australia in 1996 and continued as a performer and producer, additionally he wrote two autobiographies and Thugs and Rock'n' Roll and Most People I Know.
According to Australian rock music historian Ian McFarlane, "Thorpie evolved from child star, beat pop sensation and cuddly pop crooner to emerge as the country's wildest and heaviest blues rocker Thorpie was the unassailable monarch of Australian rock music". Thorpe was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association Hall of Fame in 1991, he died of a heart attack in February 2007 and was posthumously appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in June for his contribution to music as a musician and producer. In 2009 as part of the Q150 celebrations, Billy Thorpe was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for his role as "Influential Artists". Billy Thorpe was born in 1946 in Manchester England, his parents and Mabel Thorpe and he emigrated to Australia in 1955, arriving in Melbourne and settling in Brisbane, Queensland. He performed as a ten-year-old under the pseudonym Little Rock Allen. Six months after he was heard singing and playing guitar by a television producer, Thorpe made regular musical appearances on Queensland television, brandishing his trademark stock whip.
He toured regional venues with Reg Lindsay in 1961, national venues with Johnny O'Keefe and with Col Joye. By 1963, as an experienced singer and musician, he decided to relocate to Sydney. In 1963, Thorpe moved to Sydney and auditioned for a regular gig at Surf City, a popular beat music venue in the city's Kings Cross area. In 1996, Thorpe wrote his first autobiography and thugs and rock'n' roll: a year in Kings Cross 1963–1964, on his early experiences there, his backing band was an accomplished Sydney surf instrumental group called The Aztecs, comprising Colin Baigent, Val Jones, future Bee Gees guitarist Vince Melouney, John "Bluey" Watson. Before Thorpe joined, The Aztecs had released "Smoke and Stack", a surf instrumental. UK-born Tony Barber soon replaced Jones and they were known as the Aztecs. In 1964, the band released their second single, "Blue Day", written by guitarist Barber, which contains the first known recording of Thorpe. US songwriters Leiber and Stoller wrote "Poison Ivy" for R&B vocal group The Coasters, but Thorpe preferred the cover version by The Rolling Stones.
They decided to cover it themselves. It became; the band was signed by Ted Albert to his newly established Albert Productions, a local record label devoted to recording Australian pop artists. Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs had national chart success, their record sales and concert attendances rivalling those of The Beatles, with hits like "Mashed Potato", "Sick and Tired" and Wizard of Oz tune "Over the Rainbow" in the top ten of the record charts in most state capitals. Thorpe once said that "Mashed Potato" was inspired by a chance meeting with a schoolteacher at the Rex Hotel in Kings Cross, so drunk he could only mumble the words, "Mashed Potato." The original Aztecs lineup split from Thorpe at the beginning of 1965 over a financial dispute, so he created another set, with Johnny Dick, Mike Downes, Colin Risbey, Jimmy Taylor, Teddy Toi, Tony Buchanan and Rocky Thomas. This lineup achieved further success with pop ballads such as "I Told the Brook", "Twilight Time" and "Love Letters". On 27 March 1966, Sydney TV station ATN-7 debuted a music show, It's All Happening!, hosted by Thorpe with the Aztecs as the house band.
Each one-hour episode featured both international musical guests. Despite the TV exposure singles did not chart and when the show ended its run in early 1967, the Aztecs broke up. Thorpe undertook a brief solo career, he released "Dream Baby", in October 1967 but it had no chart success. During 1968 he modified his image to display moustache and a fringed jacket. By August and Liber had left, Thorpe relocated to Melbourne. In August 1968 Thorpe had moved to Melbourne with Paul Wheeler and Jimmy Thompson, Thorpe took up lead guitar as well as lead vocals; as a trio they became the n
