30-04-2013, 09:16
number 35: JOHHNY O'KEEFE
![[Image: 365889-top-50-voices.jpg]](http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2013/04/01/1226610/365889-top-50-voices.jpg)
John Michael O'Keefe, known as Johnny O'Keefe (19 January 1935 â 6 October 1978) was an Australian rock and roll singer whose career began in the 1950s. Some of his hits include "Wild One" (1958), "Shout!" and "She's My Baby". In his twenty-year career, O'Keefe released over 50 singles, 50 EP's and 100 albums.
Often 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, and the first Australian artist to make the local Top 40 charts, and he remains Australia's most successful chart performer, with twenty-nine Top 40 hits to his credit in Australia between 1959 and 1974.
In September 1956 O'Keefe and his friend Dave Owen (an American-born tenor sax player) formed Australia's first rock'n'roll band, The Dee Jays. The original lineup of the group was John Balkins (baritone sax), Kevin Norton (guitar), Keith Williams (bass) and Johnny 'Catfish' Purser (drums). Norton left soon after the band formed and he was replaced by Indonesian-born guitarist Lou Casch.
Casch was a remarkable figure and his contribution to O'Keefe's sound, both live and on record, was considerable. He was born in Ambon in 1924, grew up in Aceh and Jakarta, began playing guitar at an early age, and became a dedicated jazz musician. He came to Australia under the Colombo Plan in 1952 to study Medicine at the University of Sydney. He was introduced to O'Keefe by Keith Williams, whom he had known from a jazz trio in which they played. At their first meeting O'Keefe played Casch a selection of rock'n'roll records and asked him to imitate the guitar playing, which he was easily able to do. Impressed, O'Keefe offered him the job and handed him a pile of records, saying "Here, learn these. The dance is on Saturday night."[SUP][18][/SUP]
Their first performance was at Stones Cabaret in the beach side suburb of Coogee, and by early 1957 they were playing four dances a week and also performing on Saturdays in the interval between films at the Embassy Theatre, Manly. O'Keefe and the Dee Jays quickly attracted a strong local following, due in large measure to O'Keefe's magnetic personality and his dynamic stage performances.
O'Keefe's 'trademark' was his flamboyant stage attire, which included gold lame jackets and brightly coloured suits trimmed with fake fur. Many of these outfits were made for him by Sydney 'showbiz' costumier Len Taylor, although one famous red suit trimmed with leopard-print velvet cuffs and lapels (now in the collection of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney) was reputedly made by his mother Thelma.[SUP][19][/SUP]
At the time Casch joined the band, they were promoting their own dances at local venues such as the Balmain Workingmen's Institute and Stone's Cabaret. The enterprising O'Keefe was involved in every aspect of the group's career including hiring the halls, placing ads in the local newspapers and putting up posters. "O'Keefe was the promoter, singer, bouncer, door attendant, sold the ice creams, mixed the drinks and cleaned the halls, while working during the days at his father's furniture store."[SUP][20][/SUP]
At the time, rock 'n' roll and its followers in Sydney often found themselves at odds with non-aficionados. According to Lou Casch, on one occasion, while O'Keefe and the Dee Jays played at an upstairs dance venue in Newtown, an "Italian wedding" reception was also taking place downstairs. Some of the dance patrons came to blows with wedding guests in the men's toilets, and within minutes the fight had erupted into a full-scale riot that spilled out into the street, with police eventually calling in the Navy Shore Patrol to help restore order. It was this incident, according to Lou Casch, that inspired O'Keefe's signature tune, "Wild One".[SUP][21][/SUP] While the song is credited officially to Johnny Greenan, Johnny O'Keefe, and Dave Owens, some sources suggest that O'Keefe was not directly involved in the composition.[SUP][22][/SUP] Sydney disc jockey Tony Withers was credited with helping to get radio airplay for the song but writer credits on subsequent versions often omit Withers, who later worked in the United Kingdom on pirate stations Radio Atlanta and, as Tony Windsor, on Radio London.
"Wild One" was revived in 1986 and recorded by Iggy Pop as Real Wild Child. A cover by Christopher Otcasek was used on the soundtrack for the movie "Pretty Woman" starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. It was also recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis, Everlife, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Glamour Camp, Marshall Crenshaw, Brian Setzer, and Wakefield and Jet.
"She's My Baby" had been recorded in Los Angeles with producer Snuff Garrett during O'Keefe's first visit to the United States in October 1959. It was recorded at Goldstar recording studios in Hollywood on November 5, 1959. His decision to try his luck in the USA was strongly opposed by his friend and mentor Lee Gordon but the ever-ambitious O'Keefe had already set his sights on breaking into the American market, and in L.A. he met with record executive Mickey Shaw who introduced him to executives of Liberty Records.
In February 1960 O'Keefe returned to the U.S. for a promotional tour, where he was promoted as "The Boomerang Boy", and much to his chagrin, O'Keefe was obliged to give boomerang throwing exhibitions. According to Ian McFarlane, Liberty offered to pay $5 to anyone who could throw further than the singer, but they had to pay out many times at one exhibition when O'Keefe turned up drunk.[SUP][30][/SUP]
O'Keefe undertook a gruelling tour that visited 35 states, but he made little impact, although "She's My Baby" reputedly sold more than 100,000 copies in the USA, and the flipside, "It's Too Late" briefly reached #1 in New Orleans. However the tour eventually fizzled out in late November, as O'Keefe had behaved badly which did not endear him to Liberty Records which had spent over $17,000 promoting him. He returned to the US in March 1960 to complete his contract, but after one final session at Goldstar on the 17th of that month which produced 'Don't You Know' and 'Take My Hand', Liberty did not renew his contract and he returned to Australia.
On his return to Australia, "It's Too Late" became his eleventh Australian hit, but O'Keefe was totally broke and deeply depressed. To cover his US failure he bought a bright red imported 1959 Plymouth Belvedere on hire purchase and began touring relentlessly up and down the east coast of Australia to pay off the car and replenish his finances, returning to Sydney every Saturday to present Six O'Clock Rock. JOK at one stage employed low pressure in the car tyres as this made them squeal when turning corners.
Johnny O'Keefe insisted on driving himself and this almost cost him his life. In the early hours of 27 June 1960, O'Keefe, Johnny Greenan and Greenan's pregnant wife were driving back to Sydney from the Queensland Gold Coast. About 20 kilometres north of Kempsey O'Keefe fell asleep at the wheel of the Plymouth and ploughed into a gravel truck. While the front of the large car bore the brunt of the very severe impact, all three were seriously injured. O'Keefe's face smashed into the steering wheel and he was thrown out of the car, landing six metres away in a paddock; Greenan's wife subsequently suffered a miscarriage. O'Keefe suffered multiple lacerations, concussion and fractures to his head and face; he lost four teeth, and his hands were also badly lacerated.[SUP][31][/SUP]
O'Keefe was air-lifted back to Sydney for treatment, but about six weeks later, and against doctors' orders, he returned to work on Six O'Clock Rock. He subsequently had to undergo many gruelling operations[SUP][citation needed][/SUP] to reconstruct his face, which left his appearance permanently changed. Despite his ordeal, he continued recording and scored another #1 hit in August 1960 with "Don't You Know / Come On And Take My Hand" and the next single, "Ready For You" / "Save The Last Dance For Me" reached #4 in November, although many believe he never fully recovered from the accident and that it was the catalyst for his subsequent mental health problems.
In January 1961 O'Keefe attempted another tour of the United States, but it too was unsuccessful. By this time O'Keefe was reaching the limits of his physical and mental endurance, and in all probability he was suffering from the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. After the second US tour collapsed, on impulse he flew to London, but he blacked out at the Park Lane Hotel and woke up three days later in St George's Hospital, London, where he had been admitted, suffering from "nervous collapse". By chance he was able to make contact with Lee Gordon, who happened to be in London at the time, and with Gordon's help (and that of O'Keefe's wife and his parents) he was released from hospital and returned to Australia.
His run of Australian hits continued in spite of his mounting personal problems "I'm Counting On You" became his second #1 hit in August 1961, followed by a third chart-topper, "Sing (And Tell The Blues So Long)" in March 1962 and "I Thank You", which reached #22 in December.
During the late Sixties and into the Seventies O'Keefe's personal life became increasingly fraught. His drug and alcohol use escalated, he suffered a series of highly-publicised breakdowns, and he was involved in driving offences and a charge of possession of marijuana ca. 1970. One of the biggest personal blows O'Keefe suffered albeit one for which he was primarily responsible was the breakdown of his marriage and the bitter 1966 divorce from his long-suffering wife Marianne, whom he had married in 1958, which resulted in him being denied access to their three children.
During 1969 O'Keefe toured Vietnam to entertain Australian troops stationed there. On the business front, he signed a new contract with Festival at the end of 1969 and continued to record and release singles, but it was not until July 1972 that he finally scored another hit with a re-recorded version of 1958 hit "So Tough", which reached #7 in September that year.[SUP][35][/SUP]
In January 1973 O'Keefe performed at the second Sunbury Pop Festival. MC Paul Hogan introduced him as a "newcomer" and urged the crowd to "give him a go", and although he was at first greeted with some jeering and booing, by the end of his set he had completely won over the crowd.[SUP][35][/SUP]
In early 1974 he scored his last big hit with a version of the old Inez and Charlie Foxx hit "Mockingbird", recorded as a duet with vocalist Margaret McLaren. It became his 29th Australian hit, reaching #8 nationally in April 1974.[SUP][35][/SUP] It fared well against stiff competition from the better-known James Taylor-Carly Simon version, which was rush-released in Australia to compete with it, but many of O'Keefe's supporters claim that O'Keefe's version was deliberately ignored by some commercial radio stations, in favour of its US rival.
In August 1974 O'Keefe put together a package tour called "The Good Old Days of Rock'n'Roll" which featured many of his old friends including Johnny Devlin, Lonnie Lee, Jade Hurley, Barry Stanton, Tony Brady and Laurel Lea. It premiered at St George Leagues Club in Sydney and continued successfully for the next four years. O'Keefe continued to issue singles, including a cover of the Harry Vanda-George Young song "Saturday Night", originally recorded by The Easybeats.
On 14 February 1975 (St Valentine's Day) at the Masonic Hall, Waverley, O'Keefe married for the second time to Maureen Joan Maricic, a 29-year-old fashion consultant. They opened a boutique, J. O'K Creations, at Paddington in 1978.
By the late 1970s O'Keefe had become a heavy consumer of a wide range of drugs, and he reportedly carried a briefcase containing a large quantity of many types of prescription medications. These drugs were treatment for his bipolar disorder. It was also reported that he was deeply depressed by the death of his idol Elvis Presley in August 1977, and that he had repeatedly remarked to friends "I'll be next".
O'Keefe's last public appearance was on Seven Network's Sounds program, taped on 30 September 1978.[SUP][7][/SUP]
Johnny O'Keefe died six days later, on 6 October 1978, from a heart attack induced by an accidental overdose of prescribed drugs.
[video=youtube;iNZ4E73SS_g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNZ4E73SS_g[/video]
John Michael O'Keefe, known as Johnny O'Keefe (19 January 1935 â 6 October 1978) was an Australian rock and roll singer whose career began in the 1950s. Some of his hits include "Wild One" (1958), "Shout!" and "She's My Baby". In his twenty-year career, O'Keefe released over 50 singles, 50 EP's and 100 albums.
Often 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, and the first Australian artist to make the local Top 40 charts, and he remains Australia's most successful chart performer, with twenty-nine Top 40 hits to his credit in Australia between 1959 and 1974.
In September 1956 O'Keefe and his friend Dave Owen (an American-born tenor sax player) formed Australia's first rock'n'roll band, The Dee Jays. The original lineup of the group was John Balkins (baritone sax), Kevin Norton (guitar), Keith Williams (bass) and Johnny 'Catfish' Purser (drums). Norton left soon after the band formed and he was replaced by Indonesian-born guitarist Lou Casch.
Casch was a remarkable figure and his contribution to O'Keefe's sound, both live and on record, was considerable. He was born in Ambon in 1924, grew up in Aceh and Jakarta, began playing guitar at an early age, and became a dedicated jazz musician. He came to Australia under the Colombo Plan in 1952 to study Medicine at the University of Sydney. He was introduced to O'Keefe by Keith Williams, whom he had known from a jazz trio in which they played. At their first meeting O'Keefe played Casch a selection of rock'n'roll records and asked him to imitate the guitar playing, which he was easily able to do. Impressed, O'Keefe offered him the job and handed him a pile of records, saying "Here, learn these. The dance is on Saturday night."[SUP][18][/SUP]
Their first performance was at Stones Cabaret in the beach side suburb of Coogee, and by early 1957 they were playing four dances a week and also performing on Saturdays in the interval between films at the Embassy Theatre, Manly. O'Keefe and the Dee Jays quickly attracted a strong local following, due in large measure to O'Keefe's magnetic personality and his dynamic stage performances.
O'Keefe's 'trademark' was his flamboyant stage attire, which included gold lame jackets and brightly coloured suits trimmed with fake fur. Many of these outfits were made for him by Sydney 'showbiz' costumier Len Taylor, although one famous red suit trimmed with leopard-print velvet cuffs and lapels (now in the collection of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney) was reputedly made by his mother Thelma.[SUP][19][/SUP]
At the time Casch joined the band, they were promoting their own dances at local venues such as the Balmain Workingmen's Institute and Stone's Cabaret. The enterprising O'Keefe was involved in every aspect of the group's career including hiring the halls, placing ads in the local newspapers and putting up posters. "O'Keefe was the promoter, singer, bouncer, door attendant, sold the ice creams, mixed the drinks and cleaned the halls, while working during the days at his father's furniture store."[SUP][20][/SUP]
At the time, rock 'n' roll and its followers in Sydney often found themselves at odds with non-aficionados. According to Lou Casch, on one occasion, while O'Keefe and the Dee Jays played at an upstairs dance venue in Newtown, an "Italian wedding" reception was also taking place downstairs. Some of the dance patrons came to blows with wedding guests in the men's toilets, and within minutes the fight had erupted into a full-scale riot that spilled out into the street, with police eventually calling in the Navy Shore Patrol to help restore order. It was this incident, according to Lou Casch, that inspired O'Keefe's signature tune, "Wild One".[SUP][21][/SUP] While the song is credited officially to Johnny Greenan, Johnny O'Keefe, and Dave Owens, some sources suggest that O'Keefe was not directly involved in the composition.[SUP][22][/SUP] Sydney disc jockey Tony Withers was credited with helping to get radio airplay for the song but writer credits on subsequent versions often omit Withers, who later worked in the United Kingdom on pirate stations Radio Atlanta and, as Tony Windsor, on Radio London.
"Wild One" was revived in 1986 and recorded by Iggy Pop as Real Wild Child. A cover by Christopher Otcasek was used on the soundtrack for the movie "Pretty Woman" starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. It was also recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis, Everlife, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Glamour Camp, Marshall Crenshaw, Brian Setzer, and Wakefield and Jet.
"She's My Baby" had been recorded in Los Angeles with producer Snuff Garrett during O'Keefe's first visit to the United States in October 1959. It was recorded at Goldstar recording studios in Hollywood on November 5, 1959. His decision to try his luck in the USA was strongly opposed by his friend and mentor Lee Gordon but the ever-ambitious O'Keefe had already set his sights on breaking into the American market, and in L.A. he met with record executive Mickey Shaw who introduced him to executives of Liberty Records.
In February 1960 O'Keefe returned to the U.S. for a promotional tour, where he was promoted as "The Boomerang Boy", and much to his chagrin, O'Keefe was obliged to give boomerang throwing exhibitions. According to Ian McFarlane, Liberty offered to pay $5 to anyone who could throw further than the singer, but they had to pay out many times at one exhibition when O'Keefe turned up drunk.[SUP][30][/SUP]
O'Keefe undertook a gruelling tour that visited 35 states, but he made little impact, although "She's My Baby" reputedly sold more than 100,000 copies in the USA, and the flipside, "It's Too Late" briefly reached #1 in New Orleans. However the tour eventually fizzled out in late November, as O'Keefe had behaved badly which did not endear him to Liberty Records which had spent over $17,000 promoting him. He returned to the US in March 1960 to complete his contract, but after one final session at Goldstar on the 17th of that month which produced 'Don't You Know' and 'Take My Hand', Liberty did not renew his contract and he returned to Australia.
On his return to Australia, "It's Too Late" became his eleventh Australian hit, but O'Keefe was totally broke and deeply depressed. To cover his US failure he bought a bright red imported 1959 Plymouth Belvedere on hire purchase and began touring relentlessly up and down the east coast of Australia to pay off the car and replenish his finances, returning to Sydney every Saturday to present Six O'Clock Rock. JOK at one stage employed low pressure in the car tyres as this made them squeal when turning corners.
Johnny O'Keefe insisted on driving himself and this almost cost him his life. In the early hours of 27 June 1960, O'Keefe, Johnny Greenan and Greenan's pregnant wife were driving back to Sydney from the Queensland Gold Coast. About 20 kilometres north of Kempsey O'Keefe fell asleep at the wheel of the Plymouth and ploughed into a gravel truck. While the front of the large car bore the brunt of the very severe impact, all three were seriously injured. O'Keefe's face smashed into the steering wheel and he was thrown out of the car, landing six metres away in a paddock; Greenan's wife subsequently suffered a miscarriage. O'Keefe suffered multiple lacerations, concussion and fractures to his head and face; he lost four teeth, and his hands were also badly lacerated.[SUP][31][/SUP]
O'Keefe was air-lifted back to Sydney for treatment, but about six weeks later, and against doctors' orders, he returned to work on Six O'Clock Rock. He subsequently had to undergo many gruelling operations[SUP][citation needed][/SUP] to reconstruct his face, which left his appearance permanently changed. Despite his ordeal, he continued recording and scored another #1 hit in August 1960 with "Don't You Know / Come On And Take My Hand" and the next single, "Ready For You" / "Save The Last Dance For Me" reached #4 in November, although many believe he never fully recovered from the accident and that it was the catalyst for his subsequent mental health problems.
In January 1961 O'Keefe attempted another tour of the United States, but it too was unsuccessful. By this time O'Keefe was reaching the limits of his physical and mental endurance, and in all probability he was suffering from the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. After the second US tour collapsed, on impulse he flew to London, but he blacked out at the Park Lane Hotel and woke up three days later in St George's Hospital, London, where he had been admitted, suffering from "nervous collapse". By chance he was able to make contact with Lee Gordon, who happened to be in London at the time, and with Gordon's help (and that of O'Keefe's wife and his parents) he was released from hospital and returned to Australia.
His run of Australian hits continued in spite of his mounting personal problems "I'm Counting On You" became his second #1 hit in August 1961, followed by a third chart-topper, "Sing (And Tell The Blues So Long)" in March 1962 and "I Thank You", which reached #22 in December.
During the late Sixties and into the Seventies O'Keefe's personal life became increasingly fraught. His drug and alcohol use escalated, he suffered a series of highly-publicised breakdowns, and he was involved in driving offences and a charge of possession of marijuana ca. 1970. One of the biggest personal blows O'Keefe suffered albeit one for which he was primarily responsible was the breakdown of his marriage and the bitter 1966 divorce from his long-suffering wife Marianne, whom he had married in 1958, which resulted in him being denied access to their three children.
During 1969 O'Keefe toured Vietnam to entertain Australian troops stationed there. On the business front, he signed a new contract with Festival at the end of 1969 and continued to record and release singles, but it was not until July 1972 that he finally scored another hit with a re-recorded version of 1958 hit "So Tough", which reached #7 in September that year.[SUP][35][/SUP]
In January 1973 O'Keefe performed at the second Sunbury Pop Festival. MC Paul Hogan introduced him as a "newcomer" and urged the crowd to "give him a go", and although he was at first greeted with some jeering and booing, by the end of his set he had completely won over the crowd.[SUP][35][/SUP]
In early 1974 he scored his last big hit with a version of the old Inez and Charlie Foxx hit "Mockingbird", recorded as a duet with vocalist Margaret McLaren. It became his 29th Australian hit, reaching #8 nationally in April 1974.[SUP][35][/SUP] It fared well against stiff competition from the better-known James Taylor-Carly Simon version, which was rush-released in Australia to compete with it, but many of O'Keefe's supporters claim that O'Keefe's version was deliberately ignored by some commercial radio stations, in favour of its US rival.
In August 1974 O'Keefe put together a package tour called "The Good Old Days of Rock'n'Roll" which featured many of his old friends including Johnny Devlin, Lonnie Lee, Jade Hurley, Barry Stanton, Tony Brady and Laurel Lea. It premiered at St George Leagues Club in Sydney and continued successfully for the next four years. O'Keefe continued to issue singles, including a cover of the Harry Vanda-George Young song "Saturday Night", originally recorded by The Easybeats.
On 14 February 1975 (St Valentine's Day) at the Masonic Hall, Waverley, O'Keefe married for the second time to Maureen Joan Maricic, a 29-year-old fashion consultant. They opened a boutique, J. O'K Creations, at Paddington in 1978.
By the late 1970s O'Keefe had become a heavy consumer of a wide range of drugs, and he reportedly carried a briefcase containing a large quantity of many types of prescription medications. These drugs were treatment for his bipolar disorder. It was also reported that he was deeply depressed by the death of his idol Elvis Presley in August 1977, and that he had repeatedly remarked to friends "I'll be next".
O'Keefe's last public appearance was on Seven Network's Sounds program, taped on 30 September 1978.[SUP][7][/SUP]
Johnny O'Keefe died six days later, on 6 October 1978, from a heart attack induced by an accidental overdose of prescribed drugs.
[video=youtube;iNZ4E73SS_g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNZ4E73SS_g[/video]
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.