Johnny O’Keefe – Australia’s King of Rock ‘n’ Roll

Music was changing around the world in the mid 1950’s when Johnny O’Keefe first came to the attention of Australians.

He was regarded as an average singer who was so full of energy that he was loved by the masses and his band The Dee Jays were perhaps the best band in Australia at the time.

After being a success performing at dances and socials in Sydney, he charted in 1958 with the song ‘Over the Mountain’ after his first three singles did not chart in 1957.

His cover of the Isley Brothers song ‘Shout (Parts 1 & 2)’ is perhaps his best known song and this song peaked at No.2 in 1959.

On January 1 2000, it was placed No. 48 on Channel 7’s ‘Australia’s Ultimate Songs’ and viewers got to see one of Johnny’s famous high energy performances complete with screaming teenage fans almost drowning out the recording.

Johnny had 11 A-Side singles chart between 1958 and 1960 with two No.1’s and another two peaking in the Top Ten, he also had 7 B-Side singles with two additional No.1’s and another Top Ten.

Television came calling in 1959 as Johnny O’Keefe & The Dee Jays were named the resident band of the ABC show ‘Six O’Clock Rock’ with the show hosted by Ricki Merriman but the arrangement didn’t last long as Johnny replaced Ricki as host after six episodes.

Six O’Clock Rock was billed as Australia’s first national teenage program and unfortunately only a few kinescopes remain of the show as shows were either taped over or thrown out after usage but you can see the survivng footage on YouTube.

Johnny tried his luck in the United States in 1960 with a thirty-five state tour, The single ‘She’s My Baby/It’s Too Late’ had some success with 100,000 copies sold and ‘It’s Too Late’ had briefly topped the charts in the city of New Orleans.

He survived a car crash in 1960 with injuries to his face, head and hands and while his success continued that year, health problems were starting to cause both physical and mental pain.

Johnny left Six O’Clock Rock in 1961 and he had on moved to ATN-7 to do the ‘Johnny O’Keefe Show’ which was considered to be a bigger production than Six O’Clock Rock.

Johnny had two Side-A and two Side-B’s songs that reached No.1 between 1961 and 1965 with an additional two from each making it into the Top 10.

The Johnny O’Keefe Show was later called Sing, Sing, Sing to cover for Johnny whenever illness forced him to be away and the show ended in 1965 but it did not slow his success as he had two songs get into the Top 100 in 1966.

After a fruitless 1967 in which there were no charting singles out of the three released that year, no singles were released in 1968 and 1969 making them the first years since 1956 that he didn’t have any releases.

A re-recording of ‘She’s My Baby’ peaked at No. 12 in 1969 and Confessions of a Lonely Man peaked at No. 46 in 1970 but his next two singles did not chart in 1971.

A re-recording of ‘So Tough’ peaked at No. 7 and this started a run of charting songs that lasted until 1975, the re-recording of ‘So Tough’ was actually more successful than the 1958 recording as it had peaked at No. 16.

1973 saw Johnny take to the stage at the Sunbury Music Festival, his arrival on stage was greeted by boos but Johnny got to work and the crowd was far more receptive by the time he was finished.

‘Mockingbird’ was released that year and gave Johnny his second and last Top Ten single of the 1970’s, this song was recorded with Margaret McLaren, the woman you can hear singing with him in the Sunbury ’73 performance.

His last charting single was ‘One of Those Nights’ in 1977 and it had peaked at No.92, it was his thirty-second charting A-Side single and his forty-eighth overall if you include his sixteen B-Side hits.

Johnny O’Keefe died on October 6 1978, just one week after taping an appearance on Channel 7’s ‘Sounds’, his death was a shock to Australians as he was viewed as our Elvis and he was perhaps Australia’s hardest working performer at the time.

He was posthumously inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1988 as one of the first six inductees to receive the honour and as written earlier his rendition of ‘Shout (Parts 1 & 2)’ was No. 48 on Australia’s Ultimate Songs in 2000.

Iggy Pop released ‘Real Wild Child (Wild One)’ in 1988 and that version is heard in the intro of ‘Rage’ and Johnny is seen in the video itself, millions of Australians have seen that rage intro when they tuned in to ABC to watch music videos in the early hours of Saturday or Sunday morning.

The collector’s edition of Johnny O’Keefe: The Wild One was released in 2008 and features fifty songs spread across two CD’s, these songs were taken directly from the original recordings.

Australian band Jet teamed up with Iggy Pop to record a new version of ‘Real Wild Child (Wild Child)’ which was also released in 2008, thirty years after Johnny’s death.

Johnny O’Keefe will never be forgotten, his music is available online and on CD, Vinyl and Cassette, his videos are on YouTube, his famous performing outfit is in a museum, he’s in the ARIA Hall of Fame and there are dozens of stories of him being a generous man to people wherever he went.

He’ll always be Australia’s King of Rock n Roll.