HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN MUSIC FROM 1960 UNTIL 2000: JIM KEAYS

Wednesday 2 October 2013

JIM KEAYS

Jim Keays was an Australian musician, born in Scotland in 1946 who fronted the rock band the Masters Apprentices as singer-songwriter, guitarist and harmonica-player from 1965 to 1972, and subsequently had a solo career. He also wrote for the teen newspaper, Go-Set, as its Adelaide correspondent in 1970 and its London correspondent in 1973.

The Masters Apprentices had Top 20 hits on the Go-Set National Singles Charts with "Undecided", "Living in a Child's Dream", "5:10 Man", "Think about Tomorrow Today", "Turn Up Your Radio" and "Because I Love You". After leaving the Masters Apprentices in early 1972, Keays returned to Australia and completed promotional duties for their just released single, "Love Is", which did not chart. He established a talent brokerage, Rock on Agency. Keays compèred the Meadows Technicolor Fair in Adelaide in January that year. He wrote an article about the festival for Go-Set, which was printed to coincide with its first day. He followed by compèring the Mulwala Festival in April. According to Daily Planet's Dean Moriarty the latter festival's promoters had shown "little respect for artists and audience", Keays and his wife "spent a night ... on the ground in the rain".

From late March 1973 he played the role of "The Lover" in the Australian version of the Who's rock opera, Tommy. The Melbourne performance was broadcast in early April on TV station HSV-7. Also during that year Keays wrote for Go-Set as their London correspondent, providing "News and gossip from within the music industry". In January 1974, Keays compèred the fourth annual Sunbury Pop Festival. He then oversaw the Masters Apprentices' compilation album 'Now That It's Over' (October 1974), drawing on their later career. He designed its cover,] with liner notes written by Howard Lindley, a freelance journalist and film maker. Lindley had been working on a film about the group before he committed suicide in 1972. EMI released a track from the compilation as single by The Masters Apprentices, "Rio de Camero", in August 1974, which garnered radio airplay but it did not chart.

In December 1974, Keays released his debut solo album, 'Boy From The Stars', also on EMI. It was an ambitious concept LP with the science fiction theme of an alien arriving on Earth to warn of the misuse of power sources. For the album, which was produced by Ian Miller, Keays wrote all the lyrics and most of the music. Session musicians included: David Allardice on piano, James Black on guitar, Geoff Bridgeford on drums, Joe Creighton on bass guitar, Mick Elliot on guitar, Dennis Garcia on keyboard, Billy Green on guitar, Marcia Hines on backing vocals and Lobby Loyde on guitar. The Canberra Times' Tony Catterall felt the "main concept ... has been done to death" while musically it showed a "lack of expertise ... while striving for effect succeeds only in producing a sea of mud that obscures Keays's lyrics and drowns the individual instruments in a swirl of uninteresting sound". Whereas Ian McFarlane declared it was "put together with a great deal of skill and attention to detail".

His first single, "Kid's Blues", was also released in December. Some tracks from 'Boy From The Stars' were performed at the final Sunbury Pop Festival in January 1975, by his all-star backing group, Jim Keays Band. They were joined on-stage by Glenn Wheatley, recently returned from the UK, in their last performance together for ten years. As a member of The Masters Apprentices, Keays had endured rip-offs, where promoters had made considerable profits while they had received little payment. At Sunbury 1975 Keays and his band were one of few Australian groups to be paid for appearing—Keays had wisely arranged an outside sponsor—low attendance and the huge $60,000 fee paid to head-lining group, Deep Purple, meant that few of the other Australian acts were paid, and the festival organisers went into liquidation soon after. His second single, "The Boy from the Stars", was released in February.

Keays provided lead vocals for Cybotron's Steve Maxwell Von Braund's debut solo album, 'Monster Planet' (1975). He followed with a single-only release, "Give It Up", an anti-drug song, and subsequently toured with the line-up of Allardice, Bridgeford, Creighton, Elliot and Garcia in his backing band. Late that year he formed Jim Keays' Southern Cross with Elliot and Rick Brewer (ex-Zoot) on drums, Rex Bullen (ex-Bakery) on keyboards, George Cross (ex-Clydehouse) on bass guitar. They reworked, "Undecided" which was issued as a single for CBS Records in December 1975, by then the line-up had changed to Peter Laffy (ex-Fox) on guitar, Ron Robinson on bass guitar and John Swan (ex-Fraternity) on drums.

Keays co-produced an album, 'Riding High' (February 1976), by Melbourne-based hard rock group Freeway, which Catterall opined had "a serious identity problem ... not knowing if it's the Allman Brothers Band, Grinderswitch or Lynard Skynard, it also has tendencies toward sounding like Bad Company and the Doobie Brothers"; while Keays work is criticised as he "does tend to overuse" synthesisers. In July 1977, he teamed up with Phil Manning (ex-Bay City Union, Chain) on guitar to form Manning/Keays Band. The line-up included Peter Cuddily on bass guitar (ex-Space Waltz); John Grant on keyboards (ex-Freeway); Andrew Kay on violin and keyboards; and Robert Ross on drums. The band started recording an album, but Keays left the project, which continued as Manning. Also, that year Keays relocated to the United States' West Coast, where he lived for almost two years.

By 1978 he formed another version of Jim Keays Band with Black, Robinson, and David Rowe on drums. Black was replaced by John Moon (ex-Buster Brown) on guitar and Geoff Spooner on guitar. Renamed as The Keays in 1979, his band was Moon, Peter Marshall on bass guitar, Nigel Rough on drums (ex-Loose Trousers) and Bruce Stewart on guitar (ex-Loose Trousers). This line-up released the single, "Lucifer Street" in 1980. Stewart became seriously ill and the album, 'Red on the Meter', was delayed until October 1983. It was produced by John L Sayers (Radio Birdman, Jimmy Little, Mi-Sex). Keays worked as a radio DJ from 1983 to 1987, and was also a producer of Melbourne music program, Performance which was renamed as Night Life, during 1984 to 1985. Keays and Moon joined as guest musicians with The Incredible Penguins (containing future band mate Wayne Mathews) in 1985, for a cover of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", in a charity project for research on Fairy penguins, which peaked at #10 on the Australian Kent Music Report in December.

In 1987 he signed with Virgin Records in UK and recorded another version of "Undecided" with Andy Scott (Sweet) on guitar and produced by Craig Leon. The single was released in July, followed by a cover of Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction" in October. Keays participated in various reunions of The Masters Apprentices from later 1987. He released his next solo album, 'Pressure Makes Diamonds', co-produced with producer, composer and guitarist, Frank Sablotny (a.k.a. Frank Tayla) in 1993 on Gemstone Records. It included the track, "Waiting for the Big One", co-written by Keays and Sablotny. In 1998, Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) inducted The Masters Apprentices into the Hall of Fame. Keays wrote his memoirs, His Master's Voice: The Masters Apprentices: The Bad Boys of Sixties Rock 'n' Roll, in 1999. Wheatley also published his memoirs, Paper Paradise: Confessions of a Rock 'n' Roll Survivor, later that year.

From 2000, he toured periodically as a member of Cotton Keays & Morris with 1960s artists Darryl Cotton from Adelaide's Zoot and Russell Morris from Melbourne's Somebody's Image.The ABC-TV series, Long Way to the Top, was broadcast in August 2001. Keays featured in "Episode 2: Ten Pound Rocker 1963–1968" where he discussed the UK migrant influence on The Masters Apprentices early work and "Undecided"; and in "Episode 3: Billy Killed the Fish 1968–1973" where he described pioneering pub rock and the band's groupies.

The TV series inspired the Long Way to the Top national concert tour during August–September 2002, which included a range of Australian acts of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The classic line-up of Burgess, Ford, Keays and Wheatley reformed The Masters Apprentices although Wheatley only performed for a couple of the concerts and was substituted on bass guitar by his son, Tim Wheatley. Performances of "Because I Love You" and "Turn Up Your Radio" at the final Sydney concert, as well as an interview with promoter, Amanda Pelman, feature on the associated DVD, Long Way to the Top: Live in Concert released in 2002.

Keays continued with Cotton Keays & Morris tours and reunions of The Masters Apprentices. His next solo album, 'Resonator' was released in 2006 on the Liberation Blue label. In 2007 he reflected on his longevity as a performer "I guess I'm a bit of a Peter Pan ... If you've still got the passion and can still do it. Age is no barrier". His next solo album, 'Dirty, Dirty', appeared in 2012. In May 2014 he performed at Crown Casino in Melbourne. Jim Keays died on 13 June 2014, 3 months short of his 68th birthday. Keays had been working on his next album, Age Against the Machine, prior to his death.