However, this bored the crap out of him, and he returned to the good old city. Not long after returning John Markou (ex the Monarchs) asked Johnny to join the new band he was in, called the Saxons and Johnny became their lead singer. They were the resident band at Thursday night's Canterbury Ballroom, Saturday night's Preston Town Hall and Sunday nights at the Preston Circle. Their manager was Bruce Stewart from 3DB. They also did guest gigs at a lot of other venues on Friday nights including Heidelberg West Community Hall. As well as the suburban gigs they also did major country centres.
Around 1964 they toured Australia with the Billy J Kramer Tour which had different support acts during that time, they did the whole tour. They were also booked to do the second Go!! Show and the band did a fabulous rock version of the "Can Can" and they backed Johnny doing a cover of Roy Orbison’s ''Love Hurts''. (Johnny regrets not having recorded this). Not long after the B J Kramer tour Johnny was dissatisfied with his management and not happy about the musical direction he was continuing. Brian De-Coucey approached Johnny to be his manager and he accepted and left the band to go solo.
Johnny continued to do the Go!! Show and Brian booked him on Kommotion several times, Johnny Chester’s Teen Time, Bandstand and Ten On The Town in Sydney. Brian also gained a recording contract with W&G for Johnny; his first single was ''Farmer John / Donna'' backed by the Strangers. Except for 3DB all the DJ’s pushed ''Farmer John'' and it made the top 40. Johnny’s next recording session was on one days' notice, and he wasn’t prepared at all, he had at the time been in Sydney (doing the Sound Lounge) so he did a couple of Little Richard covers, Fat’s Domino’s ''I’m Gonna Be A Wheel Someday'' and two Noel Watsons originals.
As bad luck would have it, Johnny had sinus and the flu at the time of recording, and he was far from happy with the results. The outcome was that the records only made a minor dent in the charts. Johnny continued to do TV and Dance Hall gigs which included all the major venues such as Preston Town Hall, Tenth Ave, Easter Myer Music Bowl, Mentone Dance, Springvale Town Hall, Noble Park Town Hall and many more too numerous to mention. Johnny Chester booked Johnny to do a tour of NSW and Victoria with Running Jumping Standing Still and they toured for two weeks.
Sometime after this Johnny realised that not having his own band and with little or no rehearsals limited him to a less than average song list and he was suffering in popularity because of the crap he was singing. It was also becoming very clear that Brian didn’t care; his main efforts were in promoting Merv Benton, who earlier Johnny had eclipsed. Brian and Johnny parted company around the same time a few others parted, including Colin Cook. Johnny agreed to have Brian Blackmore manage him on the understanding he could get him out of his recording contract with W&G and gain one with EMI. Due to his handling of it Johnny lost his contract with W&G in such way that no other label wanted to take him on. Given this turn of events he was then relegated to support act for MPD and given their popularity they travelled extensively, and Johnny was doing a lot of gigs around the major country centres and Tasmania.
Johnny was married during this time and as his singing career was sliding, he decided not to pursue it or give it any more time than necessary. It was a toss-up who gave who up first, the industry or Johnny. Guess it was a dead heat. Since music, Johnny had been in Sales and Marketing with several international companies and during this time made a brief comeback doing some hotel floor shows, which included Deer Park Hotel (backed by the Blue Echoes) and country Hotels in Warrnambool and Ballarat. His sales and marketing career and family commitments meant he had to forego his singing and he later moved to the beautiful NSW Central Coast where he and his family lived for 17 years. Johnny and his wife separated, and he has moved back to good old Mother Melbourne. Since returning he has caught up with a lot of his old musician friends and they have introduced him to a very healthy rock scene there and encouraged him to take up singing again.
SINGLES
''Farmer John (#61) / Donna'' 1965 In Records''She's Got It / I Get To Wondering'' 1965 In Records
''Lonely Blue Boy / I Gotta Go'' 1966 In Records
''I'm Gonna Be A Wheel Someday / Is It Love'' 1966 W&G
References
http://web.archive.org/web/20110819021755/http://johnnycooper.com.au/Bio.html
http://top100singles.blogspot.com.au/
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