THE MUSIC MAN
by Peter Wilmoth
John McDonald was a good mate of Rick Springfield’s, among many other rock luminaries. This alone is enough to impress me, given that I am an Aussie rock tragic from way back – so far back that I remember Rick Springfield’s work from before Jessie’s Girl and General Hospital. I saw him play with his band, Zoot, on Portsea front beach in about 1972 and was so excited I jumped on a sharp stake of wood that inserted itself into my right foot.
I didn’t care. I’d approached Rick Springfield for a chat just before the stake sliced into my foot, so when I was carried away to hospital bleeding, I was consoled that I had just experienced my first up-close rock-god moment. The thought made the stitches less painful.
But it gets better. Not only does John McDonald know Rick Springfield, he also worked with Ross Wilson, Normie Rowe, Colin Hay, Hans Poulsen, Darryl Cotton, Max Merritt, Buddy Holly, Kevin Borich, Brian Cadd, Tina Arena and the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band. And Johnny Cash, for crying out loud.
We’re in McDonald’s office in St Kilda Road. He shows me a set of scrapbooks that are cultural gold – old top-40 charts, letters from friends such as Cash, photos of him with American duo the Everly Brothers, British pianist Leon Russell and our own Johnny O’Keefe.
McDonald has been in the Australian music industry almost since before there was an industry, owning record shops, record labels and publishing houses. He has recorded some big acts, had some huge hits and spent time with the greatest names in popular music.
Growing up in St Kilda, he loved music and in 1953, aged 18, secured a position at a record label called Planet Records, which recorded Australian artists. He moved to Brisbane, where he worked for several record companies, and then to Sydney, where he worked at Festival Records, which became representatives of A&M Records whose roster included The Carpenters, Carole King, Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass.
In 1964 he returned to Melbourne and opened a small record shop at the entrance to the Tivoli Theatre in Bourke Street called The Disc Shop, which sold music not being released by the major companies such as rhythm and blues, folk and jazz – artists such as Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, the Chicago Blues Band and Muddy Waters. “During that time I became aware of the stuff that people couldn’t buy,” he says.
The little shop became a magnet for all the aspiring young musos in Melbourne. “Dozens of guys would come in and see what the latest records were, because if they waited for the EMIs to release it, they’d grow old,” he says. “Lots became friends – Max Merritt, Ross Wilson.” Normie Rowe came in. And a young Colin Hay worked behind the counter. McDonald ended up owning four shops in Bourke Street.
In 1967, with friend Keith Colias, he created Tempo Records, which distributed music for many recording labels including Fable, an independent label launched by Ron Tudor. Three years later in 1970, with disc jockey Ken Sparkes, McDonald launched his own recording arm, Sparmac Records, which was responsible for three big Aussie acts: Rick Springfield, Healing Force and Daddy Cool, which had a massive hit with Eagle Rock.
In 1970 what became known as the radio record ban hit. The major international record companies decided radio stations should pay a royalty for playing their recordings. Radio stations reacted by refusing to play records from the big international players subject to royalty demands.
This worked in Tempo’s favor, with many labels seeking the company’s distribution network to get their music played on air. McDonald and Colias promoted and distributed the recordings of Brian Cadd, Billy Thorpe, The Mixtures, Jigsaw, Linda George, Bobby & Laurie, The Strangers, Mississippi (which later became Little River Band) and Rick Springfield. In 1972 Tempo had 14 singles in the top-40 charts.
Daddy Cool was huge. McDonald first came to know Ross Wilson when the singer would come in after school and flick though the LPs in his shop. A few years later, in 1971, McDonald was convinced he had to record Wilson’s band after seeing them perform at Melbourne Town Hall.
“They blew me away,” he says. “They came on stage and did Eagle Rock. The place was packed and the noise was thunderous. I said to [business partner] Robbie [Porter], ‘Boy, we’ve gotta sign this band’, which we did.” Porter produced the single Eagle Rock.
Another big act was the young Rick Springfield, who had been in Zoot with Darryl Cotton and Beeb Birtles. Porter and McDonald worked hard to break Springfield in the US, where he had a hit with Speak to the Sky and, later, Jessie’s Girl. He also became a superstar and sex symbol through his role in the television series General Hospital.
McDonald recalls taking Springfield to the US in 1972. “We were on a jumbo, a 747, just out of Hawaii … we’d been flying for about an hour and Rick looked out the window and said, ‘Is that Diamond Head down there?’ I said, ‘Yeah it is’. He said, ‘We’ve just been flying in circles. There’s something wrong with the plane. God, here’s my big chance, I’m going to America and the plane’s gonna crash’. I said, ‘Hey, settle down’. He was very young and it spooked him. Spooked me too.”
In the late 1970s McDonald acquired a controlling interest in Fable Records which as was soon to have a massive, and perhaps unlikely, hit on its hands. It was a song that started life as a TV ad sung by local ad man Mike Brady. It was called Up There Cazaly.
“This thing’s a bloody hit, man,” Ron Tudor told McDonald after hearing the song. “We’re gonna get this thing out.” “Everybody was on about it,” recalls McDonald. Every time it came on the TV people called, ‘Wow’. It went through the roof. Sold more than 250,000 copies. There’s a Guinness Book of Records plaque up there for it on the wall for the highest-selling Australian single.”
McDonald also spent a lot of time working with acts in Nashville. He developed a friendship with country music icon Johnny Cash, whose publishing company called The House of Cash was represented by Tempo for Australia and New Zealand. “Lovely guy. I thought he was a real gentleman.”
And the names just keep on rolling out. McDonald worked with Sammy Davis Jr, Louis Armstrong, Mel Tormé and Danny Kaye and Tempo represented British piano player Leon Russell and J.J. Cale.
He was mates with Brian Cadd. “Brian and I go way back, before [Australian supergroup] Axiom. He’d come in the shop a lot. Spent a lot of time with Brian when he lived in LA. We’d go over to his house and hang out, night after night.” And Russell Morris has been a good friend for years. McDonald also worked on just about every record of Johnny O’Keefe’s and Col Joye’s.
In 1982 McDonald was in France when Nashville publisher Bob Montgomery played him a demo of a newly acquired song, Wind Beneath My Wings. “What do you think of it, would you like it?” McDonald liked it a lot and on his return played it to Colleen Hewett, who had a hit with it long before Bette Midler.
There were more hits, including with an outfit called the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band. “They were crazy guys, they really were. We had a huge hit with them with Wangaratta Wahine.”
Fable released Hans Poulsen’s hits including Boom Sha La La Lo and There’s a Light Across the Valley, and helped Tina Arena achieve her first gold record with I Need Your Body. “It got her into the big league.”
He shares a story about Colin Hay when he was working in one of McDonald’s record shops. One day Hay came to him with a cassette of material he and his band were performing and asked if McDonald would be interested. “At that time I had many balls in the air and couldn’t focus on it,” McDonald says. “We had hits galore and I said, ‘Leave it here, I’ll listen to it later’. Well, I never got to hear it and he asked me a few times.
“He said, ‘People from CBS were interested and they’re coming to the pub in Richmond to see us’. I said, ‘Hey, go for it’. The rest is history. Men At Work and Down Under just exploded worldwide.”
McDonald says Hay never let him forget it. “I was in a nightclub in Los Angeles one night where Colin was performing as a solo artist when he spotted me in the audience. I tried not to be conspicuous but he jokingly said, ‘There’s a guy here who turned us down’.
“[It was] the one that got away. But I was always glad that they were so successful worldwide.”
In about 2000 McDonald realised that because of iTunes and downloads – illegal or otherwise – the recorded music industry was in trouble with sales dropping dramatically. “I went to a lecture and somebody said, ‘In five years’ time the record industry as we know it will be finished’, which was quite confronting to hear after my whole life had been invested in it. I thought, ‘Jesus, I don’t want to know about this’.”
His business now is based around an operation he started in 1986 – the Image Music Library, selling music rights for use in films and other broadcasts.
McDonald is in his late 70s and has been married to Pat for 13 years. He has two children by a previous marriage: Lee, who works with him at Fable, and Jay, a police sergeant. He says he’s had a great life in the entertainment business. “I loved it. And when you love what you’re doing you really haven’t worked a day in your life.”
He still works full-time at Fable and wouldn’t have it any other way. Retirement? “I can’t retire. To me retirement is some sort of death wish.”
