1971: I’ll Never Smile Again.

British music journalist David Hepworth considered 1971 the most significant in rock music, calling it ' ... the most febrile and creative time in the entire history of popular music'. Puffery, of course, but that was the publisher’s jacket copy. (By comparison, Andrew Grant Jackson’s 1973: Rock at the Crossroads could be read both as an alternative ‘greatest year’ or as confirmation of pop music’s decline.)

Either way, 1971: Never a Dull Moment exhumed a year awash with towering names producing so much great music the charts literally couldn't accommodate it all: The Doors' LA Woman, Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey, The Faces' Every Picture Tells a Story; albums by T-Rex, Black Sabbath, The Who, George Harrison, Pink Floyd, Isaac Hayes, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Marvin Gaye, Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell and more, obviously. A teenager forging a dark and ragged pathway through life guided by such musical signposts could not help but be perplexed by, disappointed with, and even seriously dismayed at, what filled the charts a few short years after 1971’s death and burial. I was. I was 14.

Amidst all this musical genius, Australian university revue act Daddy Cool released a middle-of-the-road pop hit called Eagle Rock. It screamed to number one in Melbourne and stayed there for seventeen weeks, fending off chart challenges from the Rolling Stones, John Lennon, Three Dog Night, Deep Purple, Cat Stevens and others, and heavily outselling a much better local single, Healing Force’s Golden Miles. 

So how did a doo-wop revival act whose members wore propeller caps on stage trump some of the biggest names in purportedly the best year in rock music? No-one knows, but Daddy Cool’s management evidently forgot that Melbourne musical tastes straddled two ends of a spectrum. At the novelty end, The Mixtures’ terrible cover of Mungo Jerry’s In the Summertime had achieved similar success earlier in the year while singles such as Ernie, Ranger’s Waltz, Joy, Popcorn, The Pushbike Song, etc, all seemed to sell in the tens of thousands. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the inner urban campuses, alternative music shops and jazz clubs made Melbourne the progressive music capital of Australia. But Daddy Cool’s managers had stars and dollar signs in their eyes. With one novelty hit they saw enduring credibility and fame. Months later, they were literally prodding the band, like unwilling sheep, onto the stage at Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles. They had even spruiked Daddy Cool to music industry executives in attendance as the soon-to-be 'greatest band in the world'. (The subtitle of Craig Horne's 2018 hagiographic history of the band Daddy Who? makes a more modest claim: The Inside Story of the Rise and Demise of Australia's Greatest Rock Band.) 

What on earth could go wrong? Everything. Dismissed as a novelty act in Los Angeles, the band slunk back to Australia and recorded an album entitled, somewhat petulantly, Sex, Dope, Rock'n Roll: Teenage Heaven. Provincial fame turned to infamy as outraged parents heard tracks like Baby Let Me Bang Your Box seeping from under teenage bedroom doors. But that was just band founder Ross Wilson mining his doo-wop roots. Daddy Cool confounded critics again a few months later by releasing I’ll Never Smile Again, a 1939 standard originally recorded by Tommy Dorsey, which at last showcased Wilson’s extraordinary vocal range.

Wilson still records. His latest EP, released last year, was entitled She’s Stuck on Facebook all the Time. 

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1971: Never a Dull Moment. David Hepworth, 2016. Black Swan, London 

1973: Rock at the Crossroads. Andrew Grant Jackson, 2019. Thomas Dunne Books, New York.

Daddy Who? The Inside Story of the Rise and Demise of Australia's Greatest Rock Band. Craig Horne, 2009. Melbourne Books, Melbourne.