I interviewed Dig on VEW 8 Kalgoorlie when he was promoting the "Digby Richards" album, and I mentioned that I still had a copy of his earlier recording of this song. Next time we met he handed me a copy of his new album "collections" and there it was, Raincoat re recorded.
I THINK IT WAS BAKER ON BASS WITH THE FIRST ELECTRIC HE MADE HIMSELF.- A RARE ROCKER DOING DEGREE AT THE OLD UNI OF TECHNOLOGY AS WAS DEKE DREW- OF THE REBEL ROUSERS 1959 TOO
SAD TO SEE HIM AND HIS HAPPY YOUNG FAMILY----BEST AT CABRA TOWN HALL 1959---NO SAD SONGS ACCOMPANIED BY THE YOUNG RED HAIRED HAYTER ON LEAD GUITAR-----TOOK OVER WHEN HE LEFT BUT NOT THE SAME/AS GOOD.
Ken Lukowiak, really good to hear from you. Enjoyed your excerpt from your book, brought back a lot of old memories. You keep on and finish it. By the way, Dig did have one permanent band member, John Hayton (lead guitar, wore bib and brace overalls onstage) had been with Dig since the original Rjays who were digs backup way back in the late 1950s. Love to keep in touch Ken, friend me on facebook if you want to.Also there is a dig richards page on FB
How are you George? Remember me? Here's something from the book I haven't and probably never will finish. Hope you are well think of my days at VEW8 with fondness. "The first real ‘Star’ to visit Kalgoorlie when I was pushing brightly coloured buttons for a living, and therefore by default Lyn’s Wednesday afternoon Woman’s Show, was none other than the Australian Rock/Country, Singer/Song writer Legend Mr Digby Richards. Heard of him? No? Well, what about ‘New York City Send My Baby Home’ then! Help any? No? Not even “Do the Spunky Monkey”? It didn’t help me either, and when the box of promotional albums arrived, a fortnight or so before Mr Digby did, I for one didn’t know a song on them. I’ll tell you what though, by the time Digby left town, I was the leader of his Kalgoorlie fan base and near enough knew all of his tunes word for word. As with any “Event” that we were promoting, we wrote the ads for Digby, we made the ads for Digby and then come the evening - we played the ads for Digby - and as the stations money for touring artists was nearly always built in as a percentage of ticket sales - did we play the ads for Digby. There would of course be the proper contracted spots that were written into the log and marked off as aired when they were, but on top of that if we had a gap or needed an extra thirty seconds then on came Digby. By the time we finished you couldn’t walk down a street in Kalgoorlie without hearing someone humming a Digby Richards tune. Which I believe today is known as “Job Done”. Or almost, because really the job was done when Digby stepped on stage for his opening night at Kalgoorlie Town Hall and the place was packed. It had sold out way before we stopped bombarding the airwaves with commercials for it. Good old me though, because I worked for TV and more to the point the Station that was promoting the concert, I had a front row seat, didn’t have to queue and could walk in and out as I liked. Which I of course did like, because you see me, in my blue flared trousers and open necked parrot green body shirt (no tie) I’m someone I am. What exactly I’m not too sure - but I’m definitely someone me. As for Digby when he started doing his thing, which was basically singing the songs that he himself had penned (plus a couple of others), I was shot into a place I hadn’t even know existed. Even. He was just so good that all I could do was smile in wide open wonder. And you try smiling with your mouth wide open. Although Digby’s concert topped anything I’d ever seen on stage before (Sorry Mike and Bernie and of course anyone who ever preformed at a JW’s assembly that I attended) the thing that was even more conker busting exciting about having some one like Mr Digby Richards following in the footsteps of Paddy Hannon, was what went on after he’d done his concerts. By about Digby’s second day him and George, as in Kyros, and Dave, as in the husband of Mrs Goldfields TV Lynn, all seemed to have become “Bloody Great mates”. Great mate. And after Digby’s first concert they all ended up (with me quietly minding my own business in tow) back at Dave’s house for an after “Gig” bash. Rock and Roll. And here’s a question I didn’t really need to ask me little self at the time, though nevertheless did; “How come He (as in Mr Rock and Roll star), who hasn’t been in town 2 minutes, and to the best of my knowledge didn’t know anyone here before he arrived here, has now got not one, but two really good looking girls hanging off his arms. Where as me, who’s been here months and works in TELEVSION (Hello!) has got no one?” Like I said, shouldn’t have even wasted the time asking, never mind working my way through to the ‘I need to take up the guitar’. Besides Digby’s arrival with his female entourage, I have two - like they happened last night - memories of the party that night. The first was when I got to have a chat with one of Digby’s backing band, who I today remember as looking exactly like the bass player in the film Spinal Tap, and therefore think of every time I see the film. Although this memory is I think based more on the jacket he wore than on his facial features. Digby didn’t have a full time band and so would put one together when ever he went on the road or recorded his albums. The member of the band that I got to talk with said that he was known in ‘The Business’ as a ‘Session Musician’, which were new words to me (so sponge em up), and that as well as backing Digby anytime he toured, he had also backed a long list of other famous acts on their tours of God’s own Land. So go on then. “Who’ve you played with?” Or to put it more honestly “Who’ve you met who’s famous?” “I played backing guitar with the Osmond’s when they toured the last time”. The Osmond’s! Well, I was more than impressed with that one, because before I hated Donny Osmond even more than I did David Cassidy, I had wanted to be Donny. Ok, I didn’t even know his name at the time, and much preferred the bear that use to ask for the cookies, but he was about the same age as me and when he would sing solo on the Andy Williams show, I would be in front of the mirror, hairbrush for microphone, pretending I was him. Eight years old - and already I needed to get a life. Although in truth, even when I matured, and came to think Donny, think pain, it wasn’t so much him personally or even his “Muzac” for that matter. I mean really; who amongst us could fail not to me moved by “Puppy Love”? Which apparently is what they call it. It was just that every girl that I ever wanted to get something from (and I’m talking ‘Top’ here) was crazy for him and every school disco was ruined, because all the girls ever wanted on was either Donny or David, where as us boys, who were far more serious about our recording artists, and so longed for the works of proper musicians, like Shawaddywaddy (which I can’t find in the spell check so that might not be right) and Mud and of course the brooding, and yet at the same time sparkling, Mr Alvin Stardust. So, if I meet someone who has actually been around Donny Osmond, and I’ve got one of them standing right in front of me now thank you, then come on mate. Dish the dirt. In fact, let’s get straight to the point here, because I’ll tell you want I know about Donny and his family - they’re all Mormons. Right? And unlike the Millions of Girls (and I know the figures terribly sad but nevertheless very true) who had never heard the word Mormon before Donny and siblings came along, never mind knew it was a religion, I did. And if you had asked me, if what George had told me was true, then they were even more extreme, as in strict, as in don’t do this and don’t do that, than the Jehovah’s were. For one; no caffeine allowed at all - could you even imagine? “Did you ever see Donny have a cup of coffee then?” “No”. “Tea?” “No.” “What about coke?” “No, that lot would never touch drugs”. “No, not drugs. Coke - the soft drink. Did you ever see Donny have one?” But alas, no matter what probing questions, on my specialised subject of Religious Hypocrisy, that I could come up with, the answers all came back in the negative, and whereas I had learned from the conversations of Jehovah’s Witnesses, with no room left for doubt at all, that the Osmond’s were fake, and were only in it for Satan’s money, it turns out that they really were all love and gleaming white teeth. “What about that Jimmy though? He’s just got to be one of Satan’s little helpers?”. The Jackson Five were Jehovah’s Witness’s. Did you know? A.B.C. Crazy Horses. With my view of the world once more slightly stirred (but don’t worry I was over it in 5 seconds) I took myself off to the kitchen where I found standing around the table Digby plus girls, talking to Dave and George. And do you know what they were doing in the kitchen at this party? Besides talking? Smoking they were and, not that I noticed it straight away, not a normal cigarette either. So hey, lets just look cool and behave like standing around smoking whatever it is, is what we do every night. And that was ok. It would have worked. Until the “Reefer” was passed around the way they are (they are?), which was when I woke up to what it might be, and much like standing at the Two Up, wondering and wanting for the pennies to fall Heads, I wondered and wanted for the Joint to get passed on to me. When it actually did, get passed onto me, it was sort of like all of my dreams and fears hitting the runway at once. Yes, I wanted to have a smoke of the “Drugs” and be all adult and fit in with everyone and everything, but at same time I really was worried. And it wasn’t that most of my knowledge of drugs had come from the Awake! Magazine, which not surprisingly had time and time again rammed home the evils and risks, the fact that the Awake! said they were so bad was what made them appear so good. No, what I was worried about more than anything was that as I had never even been in a room with drugs before, never mind smoked them. What if I freaked out and started to behave like the kid I was? Which is actually the whole idea - but then I didn’t know that did I. When I finally did put the smoke to my lips and have a couple of puffs, as in two, exactly like I would have puffed on a cigarette, I passed it on to someone else. Cool or what? The effect of my two little puffs on my one little brain was absolute Zilch. Didn’t feel a thing and I just as well might not have bothered. There again this wasn’t really about wanting to get “High” I just wanted to look like I did. Which of course I now did. My moment of conquest was broken when Digby, the man himself, for some mysterious reason asked me if I’d ever smoked Marijuana before. (Oh, so that’s what it was) “Lots of times. Use to smoke it near enough every day back in England”. Ohhhh, pants on fire. The night of Digby’s last concert in town, which incidentally was even more brilliant than the first, and he really did know his trade, another after gig party was held, which started in a function room at the Palace Hotel and was to finish once again back at Dave’s place. I say was to, and in fact it did, but I didn’t get beyond the Palace Hotel bit because as we left to drive off to Dave’s, George pulled me to one side on the pavement and told me I couldn’t go. It wasn’t his fault he said but Digby’s. Who for some reason was concerned that I was only 16, and so he didn’t really want me around when he partied. And just like that, from being one of the happiest boys in the whole of Australia, I was totally levelled. So hard was I trying not to cry - I couldn’t even plead. I liked to believe that I didn’t show my disappointment and that the “Oh, I don’t mind” that I eventually managed to come out with was at least slightly convincing. But it wasn’t, and George could see my sadness, which I know, because he took out his wallet, and gave me $5 . He told me to go and get myself something to eat. “Don’t worry about it” George said. “It doesn’t matter”. So I took the money (always take the money) and headed off for the burger bar on the corner just up from Radio 6KG.
Fell in love with this guy the first time I heard him! Gorgeous smile! I'm 70 now, So nice to find this clip.
Great song, totally underated artist. R.I.P
Just discovered this so so good love it
I interviewed Dig on VEW 8 Kalgoorlie when he was promoting the "Digby Richards" album, and I mentioned that I still had a copy of his earlier recording of this song. Next time we met he handed me a copy of his new album "collections" and there it was, Raincoat re recorded.
I THINK IT WAS BAKER ON BASS WITH THE FIRST ELECTRIC HE MADE HIMSELF.- A RARE ROCKER DOING DEGREE AT THE OLD UNI OF TECHNOLOGY AS WAS DEKE DREW- OF THE REBEL ROUSERS 1959 TOO
Beautiful voice. It was a crying shame that this and his other masterwork "A little piece of peace" were not mega.
Thanks so much for posting HanksterOZ. This version is so much better than Digby's earlier one.
SAD TO SEE HIM AND HIS HAPPY YOUNG FAMILY----BEST AT CABRA TOWN HALL 1959---NO SAD SONGS ACCOMPANIED BY THE YOUNG RED HAIRED HAYTER ON LEAD GUITAR-----TOOK OVER WHEN HE LEFT BUT NOT THE SAME/AS GOOD.
Ken Lukowiak, really good to hear from you. Enjoyed your excerpt from your book, brought back a lot of old memories. You keep on and finish it.
By the way, Dig did have one permanent band member, John Hayton (lead guitar, wore bib and brace overalls onstage) had been with Dig since the original Rjays who were digs backup way back in the late 1950s.
Love to keep in touch Ken, friend me on facebook if you want to.Also there is a dig richards page on FB
Lot better than the older version!!!
How are you George? Remember me? Here's something from the book I haven't and probably never will finish. Hope you are well think of my days at VEW8 with fondness.
"The first real ‘Star’ to visit Kalgoorlie when I was pushing brightly coloured buttons for a living, and therefore by default Lyn’s Wednesday afternoon Woman’s Show, was none other than the Australian Rock/Country, Singer/Song writer Legend Mr Digby Richards. Heard of him? No? Well, what about ‘New York City Send My Baby Home’ then! Help any? No?
Not even “Do the Spunky Monkey”?
It didn’t help me either, and when the box of promotional albums arrived, a fortnight or so before Mr Digby did, I for one didn’t know a song on them. I’ll tell you what though, by the time Digby left town, I was the leader of his Kalgoorlie fan base and near enough knew all of his tunes word for word.
As with any “Event” that we were promoting, we wrote the ads for Digby, we made the ads for Digby and then come the evening - we played the ads for Digby - and as the stations money for touring artists was nearly always built in as a percentage of ticket sales - did we play the ads for Digby. There would of course be the proper contracted spots that were written into the log and marked off as aired when they were, but on top of that if we had a gap or needed an extra thirty seconds then on came Digby. By the time we finished you couldn’t walk down a street in Kalgoorlie without hearing someone humming a Digby Richards tune. Which I believe today is known as “Job Done”. Or almost, because really the job was done when Digby stepped on stage for his opening night at Kalgoorlie Town Hall and the place was packed. It had sold out way before we stopped bombarding the airwaves with commercials for it. Good old me though, because I worked for TV and more to the point the Station that was promoting the concert, I had a front row seat, didn’t have to queue and could walk in and out as I liked. Which I of course did like, because you see me, in my blue flared trousers and open necked parrot green body shirt (no tie) I’m someone I am. What exactly I’m not too sure - but I’m definitely someone me. As for Digby when he started doing his thing, which was basically singing the songs that he himself had penned (plus a couple of others), I was shot into a place I hadn’t even know existed. Even. He was just so good that all I could do was smile in wide open wonder.
And you try smiling with your mouth wide open.
Although Digby’s concert topped anything I’d ever seen on stage before (Sorry Mike and Bernie and of course anyone who ever preformed at a JW’s assembly that I attended) the thing that was even more conker busting exciting about having some one like Mr Digby Richards following in the footsteps of Paddy Hannon, was what went on after he’d done his concerts.
By about Digby’s second day him and George, as in Kyros, and Dave, as in the husband of Mrs Goldfields TV Lynn, all seemed to have become “Bloody Great mates”. Great mate. And after Digby’s first concert they all ended up (with me quietly minding my own business in tow) back at Dave’s house for an after “Gig” bash.
Rock and Roll.
And here’s a question I didn’t really need to ask me little self at the time, though nevertheless did; “How come He (as in Mr Rock and Roll star), who hasn’t been in town 2 minutes, and to the best of my knowledge didn’t know anyone here before he arrived here, has now got not one, but two really good looking girls hanging off his arms. Where as me, who’s been here months and works in TELEVSION (Hello!) has got no one?” Like I said, shouldn’t have even wasted the time asking, never mind working my way through to the ‘I need to take up the guitar’.
Besides Digby’s arrival with his female entourage, I have two - like they happened last night - memories of the party that night. The first was when I got to have a chat with one of Digby’s backing band, who I today remember as looking exactly like the bass player in the film Spinal Tap, and therefore think of every time I see the film. Although this memory is I think based more on the jacket he wore than on his facial features. Digby didn’t have a full time band and so would put one together when ever he went on the road or recorded his albums. The member of the band that I got to talk with said that he was known in ‘The Business’ as a ‘Session Musician’, which were new words to me (so sponge em up), and that as well as backing Digby anytime he toured, he had also backed a long list of other famous acts on their tours of God’s own Land.
So go on then.
“Who’ve you played with?” Or to put it more honestly “Who’ve you met who’s famous?”
“I played backing guitar with the Osmond’s when they toured the last time”.
The Osmond’s! Well, I was more than impressed with that one, because before I hated Donny Osmond even more than I did David Cassidy, I had wanted to be Donny. Ok, I didn’t even know his name at the time, and much preferred the bear that use to ask for the cookies, but he was about the same age as me and when he would sing solo on the Andy Williams show, I would be in front of the mirror, hairbrush for microphone, pretending I was him.
Eight years old - and already I needed to get a life.
Although in truth, even when I matured, and came to think Donny, think pain, it wasn’t so much him personally or even his “Muzac” for that matter. I mean really; who amongst us could fail not to me moved by “Puppy Love”? Which apparently is what they call it. It was just that every girl that I ever wanted to get something from (and I’m talking ‘Top’ here) was crazy for him and every school disco was ruined, because all the girls ever wanted on was either Donny or David, where as us boys, who were far more serious about our recording artists, and so longed for the works of proper musicians, like Shawaddywaddy (which I can’t find in the spell check so that might not be right) and Mud and of course the brooding, and yet at the same time sparkling, Mr Alvin Stardust.
So, if I meet someone who has actually been around Donny Osmond, and I’ve got one of them standing right in front of me now thank you, then come on mate. Dish the dirt. In fact, let’s get straight to the point here, because I’ll tell you want I know about Donny and his family - they’re all Mormons. Right? And unlike the Millions of Girls (and I know the figures terribly sad but nevertheless very true) who had never heard the word Mormon before Donny and siblings came along, never mind knew it was a religion, I did. And if you had asked me, if what George had told me was true, then they were even more extreme, as in strict, as in don’t do this and don’t do that, than the Jehovah’s were. For one; no caffeine allowed at all - could you even imagine?
“Did you ever see Donny have a cup of coffee then?”
“No”.
“Tea?”
“No.”
“What about coke?”
“No, that lot would never touch drugs”.
“No, not drugs. Coke - the soft drink. Did you ever see Donny have one?”
But alas, no matter what probing questions, on my specialised subject of Religious Hypocrisy, that I could come up with, the answers all came back in the negative, and whereas I had learned from the conversations of Jehovah’s Witnesses, with no room left for doubt at all, that the Osmond’s were fake, and were only in it for Satan’s money, it turns out that they really were all love and gleaming white teeth.
“What about that Jimmy though? He’s just got to be one of Satan’s little helpers?”.
The Jackson Five were Jehovah’s Witness’s. Did you know?
A.B.C.
Crazy Horses.
With my view of the world once more slightly stirred (but don’t worry I was over it in 5 seconds) I took myself off to the kitchen where I found standing around the table Digby plus girls, talking to Dave and George. And do you know what they were doing in the kitchen at this party? Besides talking? Smoking they were and, not that I noticed it straight away, not a normal cigarette either. So hey, lets just look cool and behave like standing around smoking whatever it is, is what we do every night.
And that was ok. It would have worked. Until the “Reefer” was passed around the way they are (they are?), which was when I woke up to what it might be, and much like standing at the Two Up, wondering and wanting for the pennies to fall Heads, I wondered and wanted for the Joint to get passed on to me.
When it actually did, get passed onto me, it was sort of like all of my dreams and fears hitting the runway at once. Yes, I wanted to have a smoke of the “Drugs” and be all adult and fit in with everyone and everything, but at same time I really was worried. And it wasn’t that most of my knowledge of drugs had come from the Awake! Magazine, which not surprisingly had time and time again rammed home the evils and risks, the fact that the Awake! said they were so bad was what made them appear so good. No, what I was worried about more than anything was that as I had never even been in a room with drugs before, never mind smoked them. What if I freaked out and started to behave like the kid I was? Which is actually the whole idea - but then I didn’t know that did I. When I finally did put the smoke to my lips and have a couple of puffs, as in two, exactly like I would have puffed on a cigarette, I passed it on to someone else. Cool or what? The effect of my two little puffs on my one little brain was absolute Zilch. Didn’t feel a thing and I just as well might not have bothered. There again this wasn’t really about wanting to get “High” I just wanted to look like I did. Which of course I now did.
My moment of conquest was broken when Digby, the man himself, for some mysterious reason asked me if I’d ever smoked Marijuana before. (Oh, so that’s what it was)
“Lots of times. Use to smoke it near enough every day back in England”.
Ohhhh, pants on fire.
The night of Digby’s last concert in town, which incidentally was even more brilliant than the first, and he really did know his trade, another after gig party was held, which started in a function room at the Palace Hotel and was to finish once again back at Dave’s place. I say was to, and in fact it did, but I didn’t get beyond the Palace Hotel bit because as we left to drive off to Dave’s, George pulled me to one side on the pavement and told me I couldn’t go. It wasn’t his fault he said but Digby’s. Who for some reason was concerned that I was only 16, and so he didn’t really want me around when he partied.
And just like that, from being one of the happiest boys in the whole of Australia, I was totally levelled. So hard was I trying not to cry - I couldn’t even plead. I liked to believe that I didn’t show my disappointment and that the “Oh, I don’t mind” that I eventually managed to come out with was at least slightly convincing. But it wasn’t, and George could see my sadness, which I know, because he took out his wallet, and gave me $5 . He told me to go and get myself something to eat.
“Don’t worry about it” George said. “It doesn’t matter”.
So I took the money (always take the money) and headed off for the burger bar on the corner just up from Radio 6KG.
Great story DJ. Exquisite literary value. I believe Digby Richards was Australia's own Kristofferson...
As a Digby nut, they both have so much to offer. Seek out the original by Sammy Turner Hank
Um doug richards wrote this song for his brother digby. It is an original.
Hi John, I'm sorry I have no idea. I know less than nothing about blogs and how they work. Regards, Hank
Pleasant, but doesn't have the same verve as his great 1962 interpretation