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A Man Walks Into A BarFollowing is the Foreword to Dave Prior’s memoir (one of the 2019 projects)… Appropriately titled A Man Walks into a Bar, the subtitle reads, “The memoirs of a man who never became famous and is still having a fantastic time not getting there”… +++
I have never actually met Tom Jones. At the tender age of fifty, I chucked in my job and became a full-time entertainer. I do comedy but I’m not a stand-up comedian. Stand up is a bit scary. I’m more a sit-down comedian who tells jokes, yarns and sings funny songs. After a semi-misspent youth fronting a band in bars, nightclubs and on cruise ships I found a career in radio that led to radio station management in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. My trusty guitar was never far from my side.
I have shared a stage with many well-known acts from comedian Kevin Bloody Wilson to cricketer Doug Walters to country singer Adam Harvey. This book is the story of my journey, the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met and the things I probably should regret doing but don’t. I have recorded a Merle Haggard tribute album, Silver Wings & Haggard Things, and three original music albums, Wind in the Wire, Barbed Wire Fences and Sand & Sea. There have also been four comedy albums – Big Fat Bastards Like Me, The Soup’s Too Hot, Have I Missed Anyone and The Functioning Drunk. For seven of those albums I enlisted the talents of Ian Heydon as my co-scribbler, as I did for this book. Ian and I are both 1954 vintages and, like fine wines, are aging nicely and benefit from a good lie down. Our book is about the entertainment industry… it is about how Australia has changed over six decades… and it is about the size of a book. |
Tom Jones once told me, “Never be afraid to drop a famous name if it will help you flog a book.” So, famous people I have met who get a mention in the following chapters include Merle Haggard, Adam Harvey, Ian Turpie, Bryan Davies, Kevin Bloody Wilson, Dr Hook, Stuart Wagstaff, Doug Walters, Len Pascoe, Tommy Emmanuel, Johnny Cash, Joe Cocker and Her Majesty the Queen.
I also sing serious songs, mostly country. I have performed at various festivals around Australia as well as in far-flung places like New Zealand, Bali, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, France, the UK and Nashville.
