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The Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust Magazine Volume 13 Number 4 August/September 1989 DOUG ANTHONY ALLSTARS LEGENDS OF ROCK TOUR that's no way to treat an audience Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, GOOGIE WITHERS Chuck Berry, JOHN McCALLUM Col Joye .. Australian in The Cocktail Hour Tour star struck TRUST NEWS is a publication of THE AUSTRALIAN ELIZABETHAN THEATRE TRUST (incorpora.,d in ,he ACT) I N ~ I 0 ! 137·139 Regent 5, Chippendale N5W 1008 Sydney (02) 698 1688 Also offices in ROCK'N'ROLL LEGENDS Melbourne (03) 612 2777 3 ] erry Lee, Little Richard, Chuck Berry Live in Oz! Brisbane (07) 221 9528 Adelaid e (08) 231 8256 DOUG ANTHONY ALLSTARS Perth (09) 321 4953 6 Prolifically funny and currently ubiquitous ~ PatTon Her Majesty The Queen INTRODUCING FRONT ROW President 8 The entertainment booking service for jet setters Sir Ian Potter Chairman Mr Andrew Briger, A.M. FRONT ROW GUIDE Deputy Chairman 9 Exclusive national entertainment diary Mr Frank M. Hooke Chief Executive Mr Adam Salzer, DAM. AUSTRALIAN ORCHESTRA Directors 33 Tokyo tour for The Trust's 'freelance' Symfonietta Mrs Jessica Danes, Mr David A. Mortimer, Dr Toby Manford Mr Brian Larking, Lady Potter, A.D. Dr Rodney Seaborn, D.B.E., NANCYE HAYES Mr Leonard Teale, 34 The typing pool's loss is theatre's gain Mr Lloyd Waddy, R.W., Q.C., Mr Timothy Yates Finance Director & Corporate Secretary GOOGIE WITHERS and JOHN Mr William Cottam 36 MCCALLUM .... in The Cocktail Hour The Board also acknowledges the generous suPPOrt of LADY POTTERLY'S CHATTER The Australian Government Photos, photos and more photos through the P erfonning Arts and Literature 38 Board of the Australia Council, the Federal Government's Arts Funding and Advisory Body, and the Department of Foreign Affairs ARTS CLUB LAUNCHED State Governments: 40 Exclusive facilities for Trust members now opening New South Wales (through the Ministry for ,he Arts) Western Australia 1- -------------------------------- (through the W.A. Department for [he Am) T R U S T MAN AGE MEN T The following Corporations and Foundations: Adam Salzer, O.A.M. Chief Executive Australian Airlines William Cottam Finance Director BP Australia Wendy Blacklock Australian Content Director II Commonwealth Bank of Australia Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation Les ley AII en Mngr Aust. Business Support for the Arts Holden's Motor Company Warwick Ross Australian Orchestral Enterprises Ian Potter Foundation Carol-Lee Aquiline Theatre Of The Deaf Artistic Director Qantas Airways Ltd Rosalind Richards Theatre Of The Deaf Administrator Royal Antidiluvian Order Of Buffaloes FRONT David Goodwin Elizabethan Symfonietta Adminstrator The Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation COVER: Kim Lofthouse Halftix Manager Sidney Myer Foundation Col Jqye, shown Wayne Kellett Props & Electrics Manager Showtravel Tours here fronting the Michael James Costume Hire Manager Smorgon Family Charitable Foundation Jqyboys, wiU join the Legends Of Anna Mlynek Spe cia I Pro i ec t s Thomas Nationwide Rock tour. Patricia Bennett Accountant Vnilever Australia Ltd Story page 3. Carol Martin Membe rship Secretary Honeyselt Printing Group Michael Harrington Assistant to Chief Executive Triumph-Adler Ga iI·1e Jang NSW Manage r Grace Removals (a division of Brambles) Charmaine Hart Victoria Manager ~ Helen Rayson·Hili Queensland Manager © 1989 Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust Charmaine Moldrich South Australia Manager I PubUshed on behill{ o{Th, Trust by Roughedg, Pt) Lul Penny Sutherland Western Australia Manager 2 Hail, Hail Rock'n'Roll! Chuck Berry. "saw Maybelline in a Coup d'Ville" T'S HARD TO IMAG brows the wrong way in the pres the innocent to follow them down INE AN ART FORM ence of adults was deemed rebel the primrose path to degradation. I JUST THREE AND A lious behaviour, these primal wild Well it seemed like that from HALF DECADES OLD HAV men rocked the established order one side of the fence. ING ITS OWN MYTHOLOGY, with antics and attitude that quite From the other, younger, side, but rock'n'roll is more . ~ teeped in literally terrified an older genera the descent into the maelstrom large legends, half-truths and tion still trying to come to grips was nowhere near as daunting. handed-down anecdotes than your with post-war life. Rock music and culture was more average ancient civilization. They raved and ranted in exciting than words could express, The founding fathers of rock incomprehensible tongues, although screaming brought it a were truly larger than life - in an swiveled their bodies with almost little closer. age when even raising your eye- obscene abandon, and encouraged It was an audacious adrenalin 3 ride. A pure physical surge that made you believe your feet had taken leave of the rest of your body. Reaction was involuntary; it had something to do with deep natural urges that our parents tried to pretend didn't exist ... did we want to go blind?! Well we didn't. And neither did those hugely charismatic rock icons who helped us cast off the inhibitions of our parents. Some of them, like Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran, Johnny Burnette, Gene Vincent, Bill Haley and Ritchie Valens gave their lives to the cause, while the rambunctious likes ofUttle Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Bo Didley, Fats Domino and Carl Perkins have kept the fame alive into the late '80s. Rock'n'Roll is not a cloak that can be worn at will. It is a total lifestyle that alters forever those who assume it. Everly Brothers • ". • • only trouble is • • • gee whiz • • • " Rock heroes are never meek, and rarely completely sane. They embody the raw rebelliousness of the music they purvey. Around them, an aura of marvellous mythology builds, which is so entertaining that it doesn't always have to be true. There are tantalising tales that will live for ever, like some perverse book of Grimms or Aesop. All of them, inevitably, centre around rampant egos. And easily the best concerns the billing of Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis on an early Alan Freed rock'n'roll extravaganza at the Brooklyn Paramount. Both stars had current hits and both wanted to close the show. In the end, the nod went to Chuck, and Jerry Lee was far from impressed. During his set, he pulled out all stops, hurling his piano stool across the stage, stalking across the keys and emitting a series of blood-curdling roars. During the final song he poured lighter fluid Uttle Richard· "a wop bop a.lu.bop, a lop bam boom" over the piano, tossed a match on 4 it, and stormed off into the wings, Rachlin: "The Everly Brothers Stadium, Madison Square Garden muttering loudly: "I'd like to see sang about love, always love, and and Toronto Stadium (these some sunnufabitch follow that!" always with ingenuous passion and events became feature films). Nobody ever found it easy to conviction. Now, as men in their late fifties follow Jerry Lee. "They never hungered after sex and early sixties, they accept only Biographer Jim Miller described and never sought revenge. Instead major showcase engagements. his voice as "The very incarnation they were dreamers, seeking not One such occasion is the of nonchalant lust. the ideal woman but the ideal September Once More With "On stage he was a picture of relationship. And it was in their Feeling tour of Australia. piety dissolved, pounding the wonderful harmonies, which glis This once-in-a-lifetime event piano, scrambling over the instru tened with such delicacy and will be the first and last time that ment's lid - there, commanding moved with such buoyancy, that Australians will be able to witness the summit like King Kong with they found the perfect metaphor such an extraordinary array of leg curly locks, assaulting culture and for that relationship." endary rock talent. mocking the well-coiffured mane It was in the early '70s that the As to who closes the show? ... of a Southern aristocrat. kings of rock'n'roll began coming Well ... We'll just have to wait "Hauteur incarnate, Jerry Lee together for huge revival concerts. and see. was a talented Puck who knew he These giants, and others deceased, by Glenn A. Baker was talented. And his flamboyant pitted themselves against each antics conveyed a class resent other on stage at Wembley Photographs from The Glenn A. Baker Archives ment that any self-avowed out sider could grasp immediately." Jerry Lee Lewis - "Too much love drives a man insane" Jerry Lee's only serious rival in the primal passion stakes was Little Richard, the Georgia Peach, bedecked in a baggy suit with ele phant trousers, with his hair combed into a monstrous foun tain-like plume. Observer N ik Cohn once wrote: "He'd scream and scream. He had a freak voice - tireless, hysterical, completely indestruc tible. And he never in his life, sang lower than an enraged bull like roar. Every phrase he'd embroider with squeals, rasps, and siren whoops. His stamina and drive were limitless." By comparison, Chuck Berry - the grandaddy of rock'n'roll - was restrained and tasteful. He was rock poet laureate, turning out amazing machine gun lyrics which so perfectly captured the essence of life in the '50s, and touched a nerve with everyone who grew up in the years before the Beatles. He provided a vivid articula tion of 'goin' to school, hangin' out, cruising about an<;l generally goofing off'. Indeed, his music was supreme ly evocative, as was that of rock's original innocent romantics, The Everly Brothers. In the words of Rolling Stone magazine writer Kit 5 That's no way to treat an audience. · · the Doug Anthony AIlstar in control ack before the Individually known as Paul Entertainment Centre McDermott, Richard Fidler and Bloomed large on Tim Ferguson, the Doug Anthony Sydney's skyline, Hollywood star Allstars (DAAS) are simply tak Jerry Lewis came and performed ing advantage of human nature - stand-up comedy.