Peter Corris - The Big Score

‘Mick Jagger didn’t play guitar, though I gather he does a bit now.’

Wally would’ve spat into the sawdust in the old days, now he just sneered. ‘That ponce. Big in the bedroom, but I’d like to see him inside the ropes.’

‘The man’s over sixty.’

‘So am I, and I can still go a bit. Better than them two.’ He turned away to watch the cumbersome sparrers and I left him to it.

It was a lead of a sort, and what you always dread in the early stages of an investigation is the absolute dead end. Avoid them for a while and you can start to make progress if you know your business.

I don’t buy many CDs these days after replacing a lot of my seventies vinyls and cassettes. I don’t really keep up much since Cold Chisel and Dire Straits, though I quite like The Whitlams. With country music I mostly preferred the women-Patsy Cline, Lucinda Williams. I’d bought Kasey Chambers’s first album at Hot Music at the Cross and that’s where I went next.

The place is distinguished from many others by having staff who know about the stuff they sell and how to get it if it’s not in stock. The young woman I approached had a fair amount of silverware in her face, a lot of eye makeup and an indoor pallor.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘do you happen to know about a country music band with a leader named Jimmy O’Day?’

‘Would that be James O’Day?’

‘Could be.’

‘Well, sure-they’re called the Currawongs. Want to hear them? They’ve got two albums.’

She put a disc on and gave me the headphones. I’m no great judge of country, but the music sounded tight and professional. The lead singer had a sweet voice, something like Gram Parsons. I listened to a couple of tracks and nodded.

‘I’ll take it.’

I produced the plastic and as she was inspecting the disc and wrapping it, I asked if she knew where the band played.

‘You like it that much, eh? Maybe you want the other album?’

‘This’ll do for a start.’

‘Okay, worth a try. Their webpage is on the line notes. You can probably find out from that. I know they tour a lot, like all those groups. Have to make a living, dude.’

‘Don’t we all, isn’t it a pity?’

I took the disc to my office and inspected it. The album was simply called The Currawongs. The photograph of the band was small and dark and I wasn’t able to identify O’Day from that. Any one of the four-keyboard player, two guitarists and drummer-could have been him, but the notes said that James O’Day was the keyboard man, singer and lyricist. I looked at the photo again but couldn’t match the man at the piano with the kid I’d seen in the boxing ring nearly twenty years back.

As you'd expect, the band's webpage was Currawongs. net. I got it up and learned more. One of the guitarists was Brian O'Day, James's brother, and the drummer, Larry Roberts, was their cousin. The other guitarist was Luke Harvey. The band had evolved from several earlier groups and taken their name a few years back. They'd toured the east coast extensively and played at the Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival. Biographical information was sketchy; no ages were given, there was no mention of Aboriginality or boxing, but the title of one of the songs, 'Blues for Jimmy Sharman', struck the right note. Sharman Senior and Junior were the bosses of the most famous of the old-time touring boxing-tent shows. It was looking good.

As the cluey woman in the music shop had thought, the band’s dates were listed on the website. In two days’ time they were playing at the Bulli Hotel in the Illawarra. Easy drive, pleasant setting. I took the CD home and played it. It didn’t make me want to rush out to buy the other one, but I liked it well enough. The songs had a freshness to them and varied between bluesy laments, standard country stuff and something verging on hard rock. There seemed to me to be a touch of the Stones in country mood, with a bit of Van Morrison, maybe some Paul Kelly, and that note in O’Day’s voice that reminded me of Gram Parsons, especially on the downbeat tracks. I listened closely to ‘Blues for Jimmy Sharman:

You went in much too often

And you got real beat down

When the country boys who took a glove

Weren’t just the usual clowns

But you stayed at it longer

Than they ever thought you might

‘Cos your woman and kids was hungry

And Dad you had to stand and fight.

Sounded as if he knew what he was singing about.

I phoned Clarrie Simpson, one of the journalists who frequented Trueman’s and someone I occasionally had a drink with. We shot the shit for a while. Clarrie was semi-retired and glad to talk.

‘Remember Jimmy O’Day?’ I asked.

‘Yeah-held the Commonwealth Mickey Mouse middleweight title, briefly.’

‘Know anything about his background?’

‘I should. I wrote a piece about him.’

‘His father?’

‘Tent fighter with Sharman Junior.’

Thank you, Clarrie. ‘How old would Jimmy be now?’

Clarrie’s of an age where everyone not as old as him seems to get younger. ‘Not old,’ he said. ‘He started young and he quit right after that Kiwi beat him. Nasty, that was. He got cut badly above both eyes and they didn’t stop it as soon as they should have. I’d say early forties. Anything in this for me?’

‘Could be, not sure.’

‘Typical.’

I rang the Bulli Hotel and found out you could book a table close to the stage for a meal and a ticket to the show for a price that wouldn’t take too much of Kevin’s retainer. Pay by credit card. Why not?

I booked into a Thirroul motel, thinking that I’d probably have a drink or two and wouldn’t want to drive back. A short hop from there to Bulli. Great old pub on the highway, heritage protected for sure. The structure had been preserved and the renovations hadn’t destroyed the charm. A Hyundai people-mover and trailer were parked in the lane beside the pub. The room where the band was to play held about twenty tables and there was plenty of standing room with a bar at the back. I gave my name and was shown to a small table off to one side with a clear view of the stage. I ordered a bottle of Houghton’s white burgundy and the barramundi with chips-what else do you eat on the coast within the sound and smell of the waves?

The wine was cold and the food was good. The room filled up quickly with all the tables being taken and the standing room packed. Evidently the Currawongs had a following. They came on about ten minutes late, which is pretty standard. The MC just spoke the band’s name to raucous applause and went off. Before the lights went down I got a good look at the keyboard man. James was Jimmy all right-the same dark curly hair, olive skin and fluid movement. I couldn’t see the boxing scars but, like me, he had the heavy brows that stretch the skin and lead to cuts. The band tuned up briefly and launched into one of their country rock numbers I hadn’t heard. The crowd had and showed its approval.

They played for forty-five minutes, switching from fast to slower but never slow, and keeping the energy up. James, as I told myself to think of him, was active at the electronic keyboard, standing up when appropriate and giving it some body as well as fingers. All four seemed to be on top of their game with some good slide guitar at times and nice harmonies. They took a ten-minute break and came back with more of the same. James didn’t do the corny stuff of introducing the band, but each member had a couple of solo moments that said more than words. I paced myself with the wine and still had a third of the bottle left when they did their last song and their encore. I was probably one of the oldest people there, but I was on my feet and cheering like the youngest.

‘James will be signing CDs in the bar when he catches his breath and has a drink,’ the MC announced.