He could rock. He could roll. He could captivate audiences all around Australia, with his highly popular TV shows. Now, it turns out that Johnny O’Keefe could sing in Greek, too – or, at least, put a decent effort into it.

This was proven in a mystery recording of the Australian rock ‘n’ roll icon, featured in an online exhibition put together by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) to celebrate Johnny O’Keefe’s illustrious career, 80 years after his birthday (he was born 19 January 1935).

Unearthed among a trove of sound clips, photos, scrapbooks, personal items and other exclusive material that shines light onto the artist’s life and the era that he represented, the recording in question is a cover of one of his songs, To Love (the B-side to his 1962 hit Sing).

Renamed N’ agapas, the song, pressed on a small, seven-inch lacquer (or ‘acetate’) record (meant for private use, not for commercial purpose and not mass- produced), starts with the singer introducing it with the phrase “I’ve been practicing pretty hard”, before setting out to sing in broken Greek.

The idea of a popular Australian artist singing in Greek in the ’60s – long before the concept of a ‘multicultural’ Australia – was unheard of.

“It’s an anomaly,” confirms NFSA archivist Tamara Osicka, who is the curator of the Johnny O’Keefe exhibition. “In fact, this is the only occasion in which he has ever been recorded singing in any language other than English,” she says.

She should know; as the curator of the online exhibition, she went through all of the material that was part of the large collection that the singer’s brother, Barry O’Keefe (an judge and lawyer who served as a justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales from 1993 to 2004), donated to the NFSA.

“As an archivist, I have to be impartial, I don’t only deal with material of my particular interests,” she explains.
“My task is to put together the material – after it has been digitised – in a way that helps us understand a certain era.”

On this occasion, the era is the Australia of the 1950s and 1960s, swept along by the rock ‘n’ roll craze.

A ROCKER’S GREEK MYSTERY RECORDING
Hailed as the pioneer of Australian rock ‘n’ roll, Johnny O’Keefe became a star in 1958 with his now classic song The Wild One – covered by many rock artists, not least among them Iggy Pop. Riding the wave of a series of hits – Shout, Sing, She’s My Baby – Johnny O’Keefe managed to land a television show, introducing rock ‘n’ roll to middle class Australia and making it mainstream.

“Until then, rock ‘n’ roll was ‘the new, strange thing’ that Australians were suspicious of, they were afraid it would lead to teenage delinquency,” says Tamara Osicka, explaining the appeal of an exhibition that shines light in the era.

For her, the most fascinating items in the exhibition are the detailed scrapbooks that his mother compiled, that serve as a consistent narration of an illustrious career. But the most mysterious one is the Greek recording.

“Being an archivist often means that you have to do a lot of detective work,” she says. The origin of the lacquered 7” record remains unknown. The only information on the label are the words ‘JOK To Love in Greek’.
“It is obviously a live recording, as we can hear the audience,” says the archivist.

Other than that, she can only make assumptions, as the overall quality is poor – the recording itself stops before the completion of the song. Tamara Osicka believes that the singer was not backed by an actual orchestra, but by a tape-recorded instrumental version of the song, as a ‘click’ can be heard before the song starts, implying the use of a playback device. But of course, she can’t be sure.

“Everything about it is a mystery,” she says. “We’d love to know more about it; who wrote this version of the song; who recorded it; when it was recorded; why is it sung in Greek.”

By all accounts, it was sung at a private function, possibly at a wedding or a celebration, or even at a Hellenic Club event.

AN EXPAT’S LOVE LETTER
The song itself has had quite a history of its own. Based on the popular melody of La Paloma, composed by the Spanish composer Sebastian Yradier in the 1860s, it has been covered many times, with different lyrics – Connie Francis alone has sung it in three languages: Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.

La Paloma is actually one of the most recorded songs in history. Two English versions appeared in 1961; one, named No More, was sung by Elvis Presley in his movie Blue Hawaii. The other, To Love, was sung by Elvis’ sound-alike, Ral Donner. It was the latter version that Johnny O’Keefe covered.

La Paloma was also recorded in Greek, in the 1930s, by Elvira de Hidalgo, a soprano who gained her place in music history as Maria Callas’ teacher. But it was not this version that Johnny O’Keefe sang in the mystery recording. Nor was it a translation of the lyrics of To Love. Instead, the song tells the story of a migrant who leaves his beloved behind, as he goes abroad. This alone suggests that the song was performed for the sake of Greek expatriates. Everything else is left to the imagination.

The Johnny O’Keefe online exhibition can be visited through the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia website: www.nfsa.gov.au/visit-us/exhibitions-presentations/JOK/. The very concept of an online exhibition allows it to be up for much longer than a physical exhibition and to be accessible by anyone from his or her home. The song is featured in the recordings section, free for anyone to listen to it. Should anybody have any information that could be of use, they are encouraged to contact the NFSA at enquiries@nfsa.gov.au as Tamara Osicka is very keen on solving this mystery.