DOWNUNDER UK1400:KEVIN BIBLE&BOOK ORIG1966 OZ GARAGE 7"

	A$		126
	$		84

 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-1400   

::RELEASE DATE:   July 1966 

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

::CONDITION (cover/record):  ( - / VG ) ...big loud sound (and very loud cut too) hides the few crackles on the 'A side...you can hear a few more on the 'B'...never released in pic sleeve...comes in its original company sleeve...

::LABEL CONDITION:  

'A' side:   EX  'B' side:   EX-   ...has small bit of writing 'whited' out...on white background only - no text affected (see pic) 

Here's some band info, taken from a Library Museum site, based in Hurstville, NSW:

Rockin’ Pneumonia (Smith-Vincent)/I Found a New Love (Lonnie Lee-Nat Kipner)  

PERSONNEL: Kevin Bible - vocals, Dennis Wilson - guitar, Russell Barnsley - drums, Mike Cutrupi - guitar, John Jones - bass. All aged between 16 and 18.

The Book often featured as a session band at the St. Clair studio – they backed, among others, April Byron on her Down Under single. 

“Rockin’ Pneumonia” is a spirited cover of Huey “Piano” Smith and the Clowns’ New Orleans classic. “I Found a New Love” had been a 1960 Australian hit for Lonnie Lee. Lee and Nat Kipner were the writers.

At the time of its release, the Sydney Sun wrote, “Kevin Bible and the Book are a group which fortunately shows more talent in its playing than in its picking of a name. Their first record, on Down Under, is a savage “Rockin’ Pneumonia” backed with a catchy version of “I Found A New Love.” (Sun 7/71966, p. 32)

The Book’s line-up was drawn from a local Sydney high-school band, The Riddles, with Kevin Bible replacing John Murray as vocalist. For whatever reason, Nat Kipner and Ossie Byrne thought the band needed a singer other than Murray. With some misgivings the group went along with that assessment. Murray and The Riddles had recorded their entire repertoire at St. Clair, about 16 songs in all. These included “Louise”, “Beautiful Delilah” and “Gloria” by, respectively, The Yardbirds, Chuck Berry and Them. The backing tapes were eventually used for other singers on the TV show Saturday Date.

Drummer Russell Barnsley says, “Even though Kevin was a nice bloke and a fair enough singer, John Murray had been a mate of all of us. It was the wrong thing to do. I never saw him after he left the band, not once, and it’s something I really regret. I’ve hoped one day to catch up with him and tell him, but so far it hasn’t happened.”

Russell’s drumming is on The Bee Gees’ hit “Spicks and Specks / I Am The World” – it was his one and only Bee Gees session at the St. Clair Studio. The Bee Gees were impressed enough with his percussion work to ask him to go to England with them. He declined as he was finishing his butcher’s apprenticeship at the time. 

From this band came Dennis D. Wilson, singer, songwriter and one of Australia’s finest rock guitarists. After playing in The Book, Dennis joined another St. Clair performer, Barrington Davis, in two bands: The Barrington Davis Powerpact and Mecca. Dennis then helped form Kahvas Jute. Their 1971 Wide Open LP is one of the classics of its era.     

Downunder was one 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." (1)

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

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