WHAT COMES TO MIND … DON WALKER, KING OF CLUBS
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Here we have the next instalment in What Comes To Mind, an alternative series in the Wind Back Wednesday space, based on the work of the brilliant photographer Stuart Spence.
Each time, he will dig out a photo from his archives going back almost 50 years and challenge me to respond with what comes to mind when I look at that image. It might be serious or ridiculous, personal or historical but it will be inspired by a photo I’ve not seen before, and maybe even unseen by anyone beyond Stuart himself.
This week, Don Walker – who, incidentally, has a new album on the way – in clubland.
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THIS PHOTO HAD ME staring for quite some time, nagging me with a memory, a name, a history.
Yes, Don Walker looks like Dave Vanian with some quality time in the sun and a flashier wardrobe, but that wasn’t it. The cigar and upmarket smoking jacket said money, the face said “well, what’s it to ya?”, and there was just a hint of Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous, though Walker would have given Robin Leach the most deadly of quiet putdowns as he shut the door firmly in the face of that groupie-to-the-arrivistes. So, no, it still wasn’t right.
Then it finally struck me: Lovelace Watkins. Yes, that was the name.
You're probably feeling it as a vague itch at the edge of your memory: was it a Midday show when you were (for once) genuinely sick and allowed to stay home from school?; a Don Lane show when you were staying up late so you could see if Bert did something silly?; a double entendre Ugly Dave Gray slipped in during Blankety Blanks that went right over your head, like when Graham Kennedy camped up “Cyril says”? Or maybe that’s just me.
The name’s real – he was born Lovelace Allen Watkins in 1933 the interwebs tell me, a name that might easily and productively have been given to a West Indian fast bowler or Haystacks Colhoun-fighting wrestler – and it was attached to a cabaret star, when cabaret stars were genuine stars, the glorious 1970s. A time when velvet coats and smoking jackets, big cigars and bigger flares, roamed the earth looking for their moment.
International, like Watkins and Chelsea Brown, or local, like Digger Revell and Jade Hurley, cabaret stars didn’t just fill the clubs like Souths Juniors (home away from home to Mr Lane I believe) or the growing pokie palaces in the outer ‘burbs, they had TV variety show appearances on the regular, game show appearances in between, and they were dependable performers when telethons were on, asking us to call now to save some little kid in a hospital, and who knows maybe Delvene Delaney or Norman Yemm would be answering the phone.
While you waited to get through (or, more realistically, since no one was going to trust you with money or the phone, while you waited for your parents to get through on the lines – which were open RIGHT NOW!) you could see the tally grow on the big thermostat thingy and you’d be begging Mum and Dad to let you stay up a bit longer to see how much would be raised. Telethons were high-end entertainment when you were under 10, and telethons were always on. Or maybe that’s just me.
Before too many hairy-chested (and these days bald-headed so you can see them coming) Chisel fans come at me, aggrieved at even the possibility of comparing The Don to any ruffle-shirted, “you’re a wonderful audience, how good’s the gaming room eh?, I love Noeline Brown too” type - not that there’s anything wrong with Noeline, who was/is hilarious, politically astute and pretty cool – I will say that at any Cold Chisel show, half-hidden to the side of the stage, mostly-obscured by the prowling, crouching, belting man up front, or the curly-haired softer-voiced bloke alongside him, no one ever mistook Walker for a man about to recommend you try the veal. Though I bet you he cooks a decent osso bucco.
But Walker does have a Watkins connection, and it is fashion-related. A song first recorded by Chisel and then re-recorded on one of his solo albums, Yakuza Girls, namechecks the old smoothie. The song’s protagonist finds himself at “the fag end of the wrong bar, at the bad end of the wrong side of a dog town, on a one-way road that takes you down from a shit creek and back again". Not a place to wear a glossy smoking jacket, I hear you say, and you’re right. But wait.
Our rumpled humanity of a man watches the other patrons high on the performing ladies “fishnets all the way to Hawaii/Playing karaoke and singing along” and low into their next drink, and thinks to himself “I never seen this much potential romance since Lovelace Watkins split his pants”. Yeah baby. Take that PJ Proby.
When I spoke with Walker about this and other songs 20 years ago he was still enjoying the very specific pleasures of Lovelace Watkins, telling me with a happy sigh "Ah, there's a name to conjure with. I can't remember seeing Lovelace posters since the mid to late '70s. Mind you those posters were spectacular, I'd like to get my hands on one now."
He never did see the man perform live, though "we used to play in one of those vast hotels up in Whyalla in 1974/75 and his posters used to be up there”, and it was already too late in 2006 as Mr Watkins had booked his final show in some celestial establishment. But looking at this photo now, admiring the cut of his jib and his hair, it’s not unreasonable to think that if someone’s got a telethon happening soon – I think they still do them in Perth don’t they? – someone should consider giving Don Walker a call.
Tell your friends, I believe he’s here all week.
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