Comments on: The Complicatist: Johnny Devlin

By: 'DJ' Ray Tombs

'DJ' Ray Tombs — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 23:32:01 +0000

Oct 2001
Johnny Devlin was a great influence on me.
I’m 66, born in Hamilton NZ and as a fresh teeneage, I was over having to learn and practic clasical piano, yuck.
I longed to own a guitar, but I was still a schoolie and my parents weren’t very financial.
My dear grandmother bought me my first guitar, I think it was about ten pounds new, a half size gawdy looking thing with a wide neck, hard to play.
My dad shouted me a few lessons from some clod who worked for the post office. He was a waste of space, after about three visits to him, I bought a basic book and taught myself rythym chords.
I loved Johgnny Devlin’s sound and his looks and would have traded my life to have been him.
I got into various bands around Hamilton, sang and appeared to have mini groups of semi-admiring girls that would kind of scream a bit! Aaaah ha.
I had the pleasure of meeting Johnny at the Mandalay Ballroom in 1971 and get a photo of us.
I have played a million chords and sang that many songs since I was a kid, still haven’t become a legend, apart from in my own toilet.
However, I now own my own local radio station in Rotorua, have all the toys, record my singing and get them to air without having to crawl, pay money or be great.
The 50′s-60′s era had fantastic music, ie rock ‘n roll, doo wop, groups that dressed and performed with class, sadly it is now simply part of history and my memory.
But it most certainly lives on through my radio station, plenty of Devlin to be heard too.
I’m grateful to have lived in that time, the birth of real rock n roll and I absolutely hate the rap crap that is on these days. I’m beginning to sound like my father when Elvis brought out ‘Hound dog’.
God bless Johnny Devlin and all who made my world.
If you have any of your music you’d like to send me to put on air, email me at tomzy@xtra.co.nz for my postal address.

By: Pietrad

Pietrad — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:43:33 +0000

Oh yeah. Those Rock’nRoll years presented me (at age 19) with the first BIG door into a more joyous,’alternative’ reality, than the conforming 50′s presented. Suddenly, the ‘something else’ I’d had been hankering for ever since I’d started to think, was happening. Up until then I’d enjoyed getting along to the Saturday night dances but getting into Rock’nRoll was something else again. My partner and I were called on to give exhibition ‘performances’ and I recall Johnny Devlin watching and asking to be taught a few moves. That was all good and a great introduction/preparation for the 70′s and the next BIG (for me) change. The whole Hippie,FlowerPower’back-to-the-earth’ movement – fed by some eye-opening acid and weed, rattled off any conservative conditioning that remained. What an amazing,liberating trip it’s been – Yeehaahh….. what’s next …?

By: peasantpete

peasantpete — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:30:28 +0000

i am 67yo. I have a fix on the fifties. Yes it was staid and repressed.

Underneath was a hankering for something exciting.

In fact our parents got up to all sorts of shenanigans, but discreetly, just like their Edwaedian and Victorian forebears.
(Actually I think that is universal of all cultures throughout history. In fact the corny 50′s Hollywood “Rock around the Clock” made that very point, albeit about white very middle class yanks.)

When Devlin started to become known we were already aware of Elvis (and I reckon the stuff Elvis did in the ’50′s was his best), Little Richard was being played from time to time) while us kiwi kids didn’t get all the negro argot we knew we were onto something subversive. Obviously the white male muddle class censors missed the subversive bits as well.

Even better it pissed our parents off!

Some context. Back then most schools had song books, regular assemblies and massed singing. Back then entertainment tended to be LIVE interactivity (not I-pods). We were used to “singing along”.

Back then there “Talent Quests” combined with concerts. Touring performers shared th stage with local “wannabes”, usually at holiday camps in the summer holidays.

It was at one of these events (at Paraparaumu, I think) that I first saw and heard Johnny Devlin. Finally a local performer who did not make me cringe but could match the yankee rockers. Yay. Of course I was jealous. Think of all the girls chasing him.

Now look back at that photo. Smile.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:50:12 +0000

Perhaps, for those of us who weren’t there, we’ve only had the “dull and staid” family snaps to fire our imaginations about what the 1950s were really like. Reminds me of this passage by Kerouac:

“Dean took out other photos. I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered, stabilized-within-the-photo lives… never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives…” (On the Road)