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Saturday 24 January 2015

Post 554 - Johnny Dick – The Warrior – She Was My Babe

Have had a few requests for this single over the years and finally I snapped up a copy off EBay just before Christmas. Born in the Welsh town of Llanfairfechan but before he grew old enough to have to pronounce it his parents moved to New Zealand.  Drumming since the age of 12 Johnny Dick has played with the cream of Aussie music such as Max Merritt, The Aztecs, In Focus, Fanny Adams, The Wild Cherries, La De Das, Stevie Wright Band and John Paul Young’s All Stars Band. In an interview I once heard with Johnny he said when he first came to Australia playing in Max Merritt’s band at the Rex Hotel, the place was packed with musicians, one of them being Billy Thorpe. After the show Billy walked up to him and said he wanted him in his band. He asked Billy who else was in the band and Billy told him he would put the band around him so Johnny said could he bring the bass player Teddy Toi and Billy agreed then asked who was the lovely lady standing over there, which was Max’s girlfriend Jackie Holmes it was a sad night for Max he lost his bass player drummer and girl all in the one night. Here to download is Johnny’s one and only single “The Warrior” b/w “She Was My Babe” (AP-10949) for Albert Productions and produced by Vanda & Young in 1975. JD was with the JPY All Stars Band when this record single was released, so I would imagine they would have backed him, maybe someone out there knows for sure.    mp3 


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Oz

Nice share, did not know this single existed.


Regards


Rhod

OzRockAfficionado said...

Thanks heaps for this!

First heard about it over at Purepop blog, but only A-side and very hissy.

Love the bassline on the B-side.

Btw. The Warrior was remastered and released on CD as a part of Albert's 50th anniversary compilation Good Times.

Thanks again for this post!

Rockandrollhighvoltage said...

Is johnny dick the one armed drummer ?

Ozzie Music Man said...

Hi Scott Johnny Dick still has two arms :)

Morgan has paws said...

Def Leppards drummer has one arm but you'd never guess if you heard him live