DOWNUNDER UK1503:BARRINGTON DAVIS ORIG1966 OZ GARAGE 7"

	A$		717
	$		475

 Recently a friend passed away - he was a gem of a person, and aside from the obvious sadness involved in all that, he was renowned for having one of the best collections of 60's Garage, Beat, Punk & Psychedelic 7"s, EPs and LPs (especially of Australian artists) - gathered together meticulously and carefully for longer than the 36 year period I'd known him. Some things he'd parted with over the past few years of little work and continuing overheads, and a small section was stolen by someone also well-known here (I suspect her karma will come) - but the bottom line is, he had amazingly good taste, and (like a previous recent collection I was selling here) the gems he had were mostly handpicked for excellence....[with some others gathered to complete (often very obscure) label collections].

::CATALOGUE #:   UK-1503   

::RELEASE DATE:   Sept. 1966 

::ORIGINAL FIRST PRESSING?:   ...Yes, it is!...

::CONDITION (cover/record):  ( - / VG++ ) ...has a few light scuffs/marks only...plays very well...never released in pic sleeve...comes in its original company sleeve...

::LABEL CONDITION:  

'A' side:   M- 

'B' side:   M-       

Here's some info gleened from a Library Museum site outta Hurstville, NSW:

Dear Lady (Nat Kipner-Ossie Byrne)/Complicated Riddle (Kipner-Byrne)

“Three months ago he went to Ossie Byrne’s recording studio in Hurstville to get an audition tape made for television. Ossie and Nat both liked the result, and asked Barry if he’d like to record for the Down Under label.” 
Carol Rodgers, Sunday Telegraph, 9/10/1966, p. 96.

Barrington Davis arrived in Australia with his parents from Blackpool, England in 1957. At his first recording session in Hurstville he was 16 and had left school the year before to sing professionally. He was a regular attraction at Sydney gigs like Surf City. A friend of Barrington’s had already recorded at St. Clair and had recommended it as the place for an audition tape. He’d met The Bee Gees round the traps and said, “ I wanted to sing on TV and seeing The Bee Gees on television inspired me”.

Barrington remembers St. Clair as a “tiny little studio with an even tinier little room, maybe 3ft  by 3ft, that served as the studio’s reception area…there was a glassed-in control booth…when I was there the piano was on the right hand side, the drums were set up and the amps were ready to go.”

He described Ossie Byrne as very quiet, kind-hearted and patient, and Nat as very energetic. Both men, then in their early forties, seemed old to a 16 year-old.

In Barrington’s opinion, St. Clair was better than the Festival Studios – “Festival was more clinical, St. Clair had real oomph, it was a “scene” not a workplace. There was a lovely atmosphere, tea and coffee and biscuits in the studio…”

Barrington’s dad made friends with Hughie Gibb, the Bee Gees’ father. Both men came from near Manchester. Barrington’s father often recalled being in the St. Clair studio while Maurice Gibb was plonking away on a piano riff that wound up as the basis of “Spicks and Specks.” Barrington’s view was that being a British migrant singer in 1966 Australia had considerable advantages – “the English accent was authentic and you knew first-hand about the British beat sound.” In the years when The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were undisputed pop kings, most Australian acts were in some way trying to duplicate at least a part of the English sound.

Barrington’s music career in Australia includes fronting the bands Barrington Davis Powerpact and Mecca in the late 1960s. Both groups included guitarist Dennis Wilson who’d also recorded at St. Clair as a member of Kevin Bible and The Book. Barrington went to the UK in the early 1970s and recorded an LP there.

Here's some label info, taken from the "Milesago" site:

Downunder was one of a few shortlived Australian Sixties labels -- it lasted only five months, from June to October 1966, and released just thirteen singles. It was set up by producer-engineer Ossie Byrne and producer-songwriter-entrepreneur Nat Kipner to release recordings they made at Ossie's St Clair Studios in Hurstville. All thirteen singles were manufactured and distributed by Festival Records.

The label was owned by LKB Productions; it is probably safe to assume that Nat Kipner was the "K" and Ossie Byrne the "B" in this partnership. According to historian Bill Casey, Derek Lee, a Wollongong singer-songwriter who was a friend of Ossie Byrne, recorded demos at St Clair studio. Derek won a talent contest on Johnny O’Keefe’s TV show Sing Sing Sing, the prize being a trip to England and when Byrne and The Bee Gees left Australia on the Fairsky in January 1967, Derek Lee was with them. These associations makes it probable that Derek Lee was the "L" in LKB. In addition, the B-side of the Derek's Accent single was a song written by Lee.

The Downunder singles were either produced solely by Nat Kipner or co-produced by Kipner and Byrne. Both sides of the Barrington Davis single were written by Nat and Ossie, and several other songs --including those on the Bip Addison single -- were written collaboratively by Maurice Gibb and Nat Kipner. Downunder is of considerable interest to Bee Gees aficionados, since it operated during the extraordinarily fertile period when the Bee Gees were working almost round the clock at the St Clair studio and collaborating freely with almost all the other performers who came through the studio.

"June and July (1966) witnessed the Bee Gees virtually living at the St Clair studio, with all night recording sessions involving themselves and other artists for whom they provided songs and musical backing. Production duties were shared around between Nat Kipner, Ossie Byrne and the Bee Gees themselves."

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Thanks for considering this item. Best of luck if you decide to bid...Cheers, Jules.

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