Q: Where were you born and where did you grow up?
A: Born in North Sydney’s Mater Hospital, then spent most of my years up to age 21 at Mt Pritchard.
Q: Was there anyone in particular who played an influential part in shaping your career?
A: Absolutely. Uncle Tom Murray was a pianist. Ours was a very poor family and I’d never seen a piano until I was eight years old, when we visited Uncle Tom’s house and he asked me to pick any three notes on his piano. He then instantly created a tune using my three notes as its central theme. After hours of playing this game I was amazed that anyone could make music like that. I was hooked. Then, when I heard Richard Tauber’s recording of Pedro The Fisherman, I was gone a million on story songs.
Q: Johnny I know it’s a long time since you started in the industry, how long is it since you first got started?
A: I was 13 years old when I sang in a youth concert at the Mount Pritchard ‘Bug Ally’ (Picture Show)
Q: What year did you do your first recording?
A: 1946.
Q: What age were you?
A: Nineteen.
Q: What was it that made you decide to go into the recording industry?
A: It wasn’t my decision. The father of a school friend, who had written a song called When I Waltzed My Matilda Away, needed someone to record that song and he asked me to give it a go.
Q: In total, how many cds / records did you record?
A: This answer may sound ludicrous Joy, but I can’t say exactly. I’ve never collected them all.
Q: Having been in the industry for so long, you have seen a lot of changes, some good, some bad, are there any that stand out to you?
A: In my struggle-street days of bad lighting and bad audiences, who could hardly hear performers because of bad microphones, this was the norm. With the passing of time, venues offered much improved facilities where patrons were more courteous and well behaved. Or did audiences back then just think I had a lousy act?
Q: Little Boy Lost was a huge hit in 1960, what made you write about Steven Walls?
A: Tony Withers, a Sydney DJ, wanted me to collaborate with him to write the Ballad Of Steven Walls. The Ballad Of Davey Crocket had been a recent hit so it was easy to see where Tony was coming from. And as I could only think of one word relating to an unmentionable part of a man’s anatomy that easily rhymed with Walls, I rejected his title out of hand and said the song title should be Little Boy Lost. He protested about the title, because an early 1950’s Bing Crosby movie of the same name was still around. However the title of a movie, or the title of a song for that matter, cannot be copyrighted so we each went our own way with the song. Although I wrote Little Boy Lost in its entirety, Tony had been working on his own song under his own title so both our names rightly appear on my song’s credits. To do otherwise would have meant that I had stolen his idea–and I’m no thief.
Q: Did you have any idea it would be that big?
A: The short answer is no. No one on earth can predict what will or won’t be a hit but it was the biggest Australian hit of 1960. However, my first hit was They’re A Weird Mob in 1958. I had also charted with Moo Cow Boogie Blues, after which my version of Gordon Parsons’ A Pub With No Beer anecdotally sold 110 000 copies on novelty cardboard records. So my name was getting around a bit. When Little Boy Lost first hit the turntables the music critics, without exception, shafted it unmercifully. But when it topped the charts in three almighty leaps and then occupied the Number One position on Top 40 charts longer than A Pub With No Beer and Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport combined, the critics melted away like the dew. Little Boy Lost was awarded both Australia’s and also New Zealand’s first 45 rpm Gold Records. But there is one thing of which I’m very happy. Little Boy Lost, as well as the other twenty-seven fully researched story-songs on our current Here’s To You, Australia! CD set, has never been challenged for its authenticity.
Q: I wasn’t aware that there was a movie about the Little Boy Lost, tell me about that?
A: It was released in 1978. Gay Kayler and I did a special movie version of the song and Gay sang segments of Little Boy Lost for some very emotional scenes. This movie won the Catholic Award For Decency in Germany. After its video release nearly thirty years ago, it’s still available on DVD.
Q: Your most memorable occasion?
A: While doing a 4-night stint in Grafton NSW, I was asked if I would sing to the residents in a nursing home. A completely paralyzed elderly woman caught my attention. She just lay there; her big, blue, intelligent eyes stared directly into mine while I quietly sang Silver Hair And Heart Of Gold. I’ve since seen those eyes in the faces of the forlorn and helpless everywhere. I’ll never forget them.
Q: Your most embarrassing moment
A: We were on tour in the early 1970s at a time when I decided to drop Little Boy Lost from my stage repertoire. I thought audiences might be getting sick of hearing it. We arrived a couple of hours early to prepare for the show at The John Oxley Club at Bourke NSW and found a beautifully dressed elderly woman, sitting alone, waiting for show-time. After the show the audience had all gone, except for that same lady and a young man waiting by the exit. As I approached he said, ‘Hey mate, do you see that lady sitting there?’ I nodded. ‘She’s my grandmother and she lives a long way from town’. Suddenly, this bloke had my undivided attention. I was curious. ‘So she came in yesterday, booked into a motel and had her hair done especially to come to your show tonight for one reason–just to hear you sing Little Boy Lost. And you, you bastard, didn’t sing it!’ An ‘after hours’ performance of the song followed and Little Boy Lost was rock-solid in the show thereafter.
Q: In all that you have accomplished you have been awarded some pretty special awards & special recognitions, would you like to tell me about them.
A: Awards are nice to receive but I don’t like to talk about them much. If anyone is interested, they can log onto www.johnnyashcroft.com.au or look me up on Wikipedia.
Q: How long have you and Gay been married?
A: Not long enough. I’d like to have been married to her forever and a day but at last count it’s only been 27 years.
Q: It seems to have been a well suited partnership, having the same interests. I would assume one must have contributed to the other person’s career in some ways?
A: There are many ‘temper-mental’ artists in our business (50% temper and 50% mental) but Gay Kayler isn’t one of them. The only difference between amateurs and professionals, given they have the same talents, is that pros have learned to discipline their emotions under all circumstances. And I know we contributed to each other’s professionalism in many ways, including the art of self discipline. One instance of Gay Kayler’s professionalism is this. When we were both badly injured in a horrific car pile up in 1982, Gay was in dreadful pain from what turned out to be three undiagnosed, upper back, vertebrae fractures. Yet, to keep faith with her audience, one week later she took off her neck brace at the Wandong Country Music Festival in Victoria and bravely walked on stage. Subsequently, as one newspaper put it, ‘Gay Kayler was the only artist on the show to receive a Fosters’ Salute (a standing ovation) from 20 000 people’. But what that audience didn’t know was this. Gay Kayler walked off-stage with her spirit unbeaten, then collapsed in tears. Outside of showbiz, Gay’s computer skills are demonstrated in the unique manner in which she created the masters for our current Here’s ToYou, Australia! release. And Gay’s performances on both CDs are superb. Seven months hard computer work preserved the warmth, ambience and the superior vinyl sound which Gay successfully transferred to this double CD set. In the process, she used no digital or automatic vinyl ‘clean-up system’ at all. Her masters have now been hailed as a world-first. The sound is beautiful, which is something I could never have achieved. My remarkable wife, Gay Kayler, is unquestionably ‘the wind beneath my wings’.
Q: I know you played some part in setting up the Tamworth Festival, or the Awards Ceremony, tell me about your efforts in that regard?
A: John Minson, doyen of Tamworth, is a treasured friend. In the late 1960s–early 1970s he, and many other Tamworth identities including Max Ellis and Kevin Knapp, were pushing it uphill in an attempt to launch Tamworth as Australia’s Country Music Capital. In 1971, EMI was about to present me with three Gold LP records. Such events were usually carried out at some posh city venue with the usual hangers-on. In an attempt to assist the Tamworth mob to bring their plans to fruition, I insisted that those ‘Golds’ be presented on-stage, before a ‘live’ audience, at Tamworth Town Hall. This was an absolute first. During the proceedings, I suggested that the powers that be should consider presenting annual, on-stage awards for the best of country music recordings, etc. That suggestion was taken up in 1973. The dedication of all concerned resulted in the Tamworth Country Music Festival becoming what it is today–one of the ten biggest music festivals in the world.
Q: Tell me about receiving your OAM
A: This award had a bitter aftermath. The recipients have no idea that they have been nominated for such honours until about 24-hours before the award announcements. Therefore, I had no idea that the original award submission to Canberra was to honour our company including Gay Kayler, Bettybo, Shep Davis (our musical director of 12 years) and myself. That year (1989) group submissions were rejected, so our promotions manager/nominator, Charles Whiteside, submitted my name only. Our original educational production, The Imagine That! Australiana Perspectives, which had been seen by over half a million school children between 1979 and 1990, was a key element of that original submission. So this award is in my care on behalf of each member of our company.
Q: FAIHA, tell me about that one as well
A: A famous authority on bushrangers and weaponry, Edgar Penzig, set up the Australian Institute of History and Arts for reasons explained in the following excerpt from my citation.
"Johnny (Ashcroft) has succeeded, by private initiative, in acquiring a greater knowledge of this subject
(the field of Australian History and Performing Arts) than could ever be attained by anyone using the
normal scholarly channels, or established houses of learning"
Since its inception, to become a Fellow of The Australian Institute of History and Arts seems to be a rarity for some reason.
Q: Between you and Gay, you have done a lot for the country music industry as a whole.
A: To the contrary, Joy. Country music has done more for us than we could ever have done for it.
Q: Gay did a really fantastic job of the double CD set “Here’s To You, Australia”! Why is Little Boy Lost the only mono track while the other 27 songs are in stereo?
A: I have recorded four versions of Little Boy Lost but I wanted the original 1960 version to be one of the four bonus tracks on this CD set, which features two complete albums, They All Died Game (CD One) and The Cross Of The Five Silver Stars (CD Two). Stereo sound was not available in 1960 and I didn’t want the clear, clean, original mono sounds of Little Boy Lost to be tampered with by so-called ‘digital enhancing’.
Q: This album certainly brings a lot of Australia’s Heritage together, a lot of well chosen tracks.
A: When ex-pat Englishman, Andrew Ogilvie (ABC Bega, NSW) heard Here’s To You, Australia! he emailed us to say that he had learned more about Australia from listening to this CD set than he had in 37 years of living here. Ollie Klufinski Kirby, on WYN FM Victoria, went to air and said, ‘Here’s To You, Australia! should be in every public library and in every school throughout Australia’. Comments such as these, and there are plenty of them, including John Minson’s Capital News write-up available on our website, give us the heart to continue plugging this ‘no-use-by-date’ CD set. We can only hope that others, including newcomers to our land who may enjoy listening to fully researched, true Australiana songs, share our feelings.
Q: I have placed the titles of the tracks below, and you may add a comment to any or all of them if you wish. It would be hard to get a more “Traditional” album than this one.
A: It’s certainly traditionally based but the arrangements are still up to date and as modern as tomorrow. Again, some ‘track grabs’ and additional facts that extend the story behind every story-song on this CD set can be found on our website.
Q: Are you still singing and doing appearances or have you retired from “life on the road” now?
A: No Joy…Gay and I retired when we felt we were still working at our best. We didn’t want to join the ever growing list of artists working long past their use-by dates. Under such circumstances, egos can sully reputations that have been nurtured through many decades of hard work. And I must say this…those roses smell better every day!
Johnny Ashcroft, Here’s To You, Australia! CD One
1) I Am Australian – Johnny Ashcroft & Gay Kayler (Gondwanaland’s Charlie McMahon–didge)
2) The Night Before I Die (with an ABC Orchestra)
3) Moondyne Joe (with Bryce Rohde–piano & Ken Kitching–dobro)
4) The Ballad of Matt Brady
5) And He Used To Be A Preacher Man
6) Sixteen Summers
7) Thunderbolt’s Lament (Yellilong I Love You) (with Ken Kitching–pedal steel guitar)
8) The Twilight Bar In ‘Frisco
9) Run Cesor, Run
10) Who’ll Light A Candle In The Morning?– (with Ken Kitching–pedal steel guitar)
11) Bailing Up The Mail (with Al Tomkins–five string banjo)
12) Donahoe’s Lullaby (with Ken Kitching–pedal steel guitar)
13) On The Fifth Of May
14) We’ll All Die Game
Johnny Ashcroft, Here’s To You, Australia! CD Two
1) Little Boy Lost (original 1960 hit version)—Johnny Ashcroft
On 5 February 1960, 4-year-old bush kid, Steven Walls, became separated from his father while tending sheep and was lost in snake infested and dingo (wild dog) inhabited country at Tubbumurra, near Guyra, NSW. The 4-day, 3-night search stopped Australia. Seven aircraft, an Aboriginal tracker–William Stanley from Moree, NSW and 5000 people combed the wild New England Ranges looking for this one small boy. On 8 February, 1960, Steven was found alive by PMG linesman, Bill Scrivener. His first words were, ‘Where’s my daddy, where’s my daddy?’ When searchers asked why he wanted his daddy the boy replied, ‘Because he’s lost–and I’ve been looking for him!’ These dramatic words made strong men turn and weep. Here in the 21st century, this epic event still remains the biggest land and air search in Australia’s history. Johnny Ashcroft’s 3:30-minute song is a living tribute to all who participated in that historic event.
2) Here’s To You, Australia!–Johnny Ashcroft, Gay Kayler & Bettybo
3) The Explorers’ Waltz–Johnny Ashcroft & Gay Kayler
4) Reliving The Years–Johnny Ashcroft (with Gay Kayler & Bettybo)
5) The Cross Of The Five Silver Stars (march version)–Johnny Ashcroft
6) A Dog That No Man Can Own–Johnny Ashcroft
8) Boomanulla’s Bay–Johnny Ashcroft (with Shep Davis–Flute and Kirk L’Orange–guitar)
9) Matthew–Gay Kayler
10) What A Shame You Sold It, Mr Cobb!–Johnny Ashcroft, Gay Kayler, Bettybo & Kevin Reiman
11) Big Green Apples–Bettybo (with Gay Kayler–harmonies)
12) The Cross Of The Five Silver Stars (original version)–Johnny Ashcroft
13) Mrs. Swaggy Joe–Gay Kayler
14) Waltzing Matilda/Along The Road To Gundagai–Johnny Ashcroft (live)
Johnny Ashcroft, Here’s To You, Australia...Rajon CD Set CDR 1066
A unique, 28-track double CD set of historical importance
Available from: The Country Music Store....St Mary’s Sound Centre
....Sanity (currently a Sanity recommended CD with bonus points). Direct links to these outlets are on: www.johnnyashcroft.com.au
For postage-free phone orders anywhere in Australia telephone....Songland....(02) 6293 4677
or contact your local record retailer |
