Daddy Cool and the 50th Anniversary of ‘Eagle Rock’
By Ian McFarlane
This article was originally published in Rhythms magazine March-April 2021 (Issue # 304)
The Australian dance classic ‘Eagle Rock’ stirred the nation in 1971. What makes the song still resonate to this day? I get on the good foot to find out.
The Band: Daddy Cool
The Single: ‘Eagle Rock’ / ‘Bom Bom’ (Sparmac Productions SPR008)
The Songwriters: Ross Wilson / R. Wilson-R. Hannaford
The Facts:
Released in May 1971, peaked at national #1 for a staggering nine weeks (10 July to 11 September), 25 weeks in the national Top 40
Released in the US and the UK (Reprise K 14112) in November 1971
Reissued in 1982 on 12-inch EP, reaching the national Top 20
Issued on CD, July 1992, as ‘Eagle Rock (Dance Mix)’
In 2001, the Australian Performing Rights Association (APRA) appointed ‘Eagle Rock’ the Second Best Australian Song of All Time (behind The Easybeats’ ‘Friday On My Mind’)
The Story:
When a song still captures the imagination and holds your attention after 50 years, there’s a reason for such enduring appeal. After multiple airplays on Classic Hits radio, there might be a tendency to try and cancel Daddy Cool’s ‘Eagle Rock’ from the memory banks. There’s a saying that goes ‘familiarity breeds contempt’, and while that holds true for some people why is it that many more want to hear it again and again? What makes the song still resonate with listeners to this day?
First and foremost, ‘Eagle Rock’ is a master class in elation. The youth of the day danced to it with wild abandon. The older generation nodded their heads appreciatively when they heard it. Even baby Australians took it in with their mother’s milk. It’s so ingrained in the collective Australian psyche as to have become almost a folk song. It’s the whole package: the hand clap intro; the signature guitar lick; Ross Wilson’s opening invitation of “Now listen! Oh, we’re steppin’ out”; his charismatic vocal delivery; the rockin’ rollin’ dance beat; the simplicity of the chord structure; Ross Hannaford’s indelible two note lead break; the effortless joie de vivre of the words, “Well, I feel so free, hmm, what you do to me” etc. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Singer-song writer-guitarist Ross Wilson has given more to the institution of Australian rock ’n’ roll than can ever be repaid. He began his career in 1964 with Melbourne-based, teenage R&B band The Pink Finks, going on to form The Party Machine in 1967. In 1969 he travelled to London to front expatriate Aussie psych pop band Procession (at the invitation of bassist Brian Peacock). On his return in 1970, he formed esoteric progressive rock band Sons Of The Vegetal Mother which morphed into the rollicking Daddy Cool in October 1970. When DC had run its course, he had Mighty Kong on the road for a year before reviving DC.
Wilson turned his hand to song publishing and record production, producing Skyhooks’ astonishing run of three classic albums, Living In The 70’s, Ego Is Not A Dirty and Straights In A Gay, Gay World. He then hit the road with Mondo Rock, scoring numerous hits along the way. If there are too many other musical adventures to list here, all you need to know now is that he is still active to this day, recently delivering his Living In The Land of Oz concert at the Melbourne Pavilion on Survival Day 26 January 2021.
Because the flowering of what became Daddy Cool came out of the hotbed of activity that was Sons Of The Vegetal Mother, it’s worth investigating here. The Sons were part of the emergent Melbourne underground scene, a way for Wilson to put some of his latest inspirations into practice: Frank Zappa, Zen and macrobiotic foods.
The band featured a fluid line-up but mostly comprised Wilson, his fellow Pink Finks guitarist Ross Hannaford, the rhythm section of Wayne Duncan (bass; ex-Rondells) and Gary Young (drums; ex-Rondells), Mike Rudd (guitar; ex-Party Machine, concurrently in Spectrum), Trevor Griffin (organ; ex-Procession), Jeremy Noone (aka Jeremy Kellock; tenor sax, piano; from Company Caine), Ian Wallace (alto sax; from Lipp Arthur), Bruce Woodcock (tenor sax; from Lipp Arthur) and Simon Wettenhall (trumpet; from Lipp Arthur). They appeared at such venues as the hallowed T. F. Much Ballroom (Cathedral Hall, Brunswick Street, Fitzroy) playing the likes of the primal rock rants ‘Make It Begin’, ‘Love In An FJ’ and ‘Love Is The Law’ (“Do what you like, love is the law”), seriously heavy freak rock songs that challenged audiences perceptions. Fortunately, audiences of the day were willing to listen.
It wasn’t all heavy vibes; the Sons also played ‘Brown Rice’ (“Brown rice is better than white rice, chomp chomp chomp”) and a proto-type version of ‘Eagle Rock’ which got audiences dancing. As he was also into vintage rock ’n’ roll and doo wop, Wilson sensed an even greater opportunity to entertain audiences. Quickly realising that some of his fellow band members were ready and willing to roll with it, Wilson coalesced with Hannaford, Duncan and Young as Daddy Cool. As soon as the band took off they were able to sideline the Sons.
‘Daddy Cool’ was the title of a 1957 hit by American doo wop group The Rays, although Wilson has commented that he named the band before he’d heard the song. Still, as a rock ’n’ roll revival outfit, DC was just a way of having fun on stage, a humorous and entertaining diversion from the serious business of advancing the horizons of rock music, a chance to wear amusing costumes, leap about, making a visual impact as well as impressing with the music.
DC’s first booking was actually interstate at the Aquarius festival, Glenelg Town Hall (SA), on 12 October 1970. Two weeks later they played on the bill at the T.F. Much with Spectrum, Chain, King Harvest, Sons Of The Vegetal Mother and Lipp Arthur, playing a benefit for Melbourne drug rehabilitation clinic Buoyancy Foundation.
Regular gigs followed and in January 1971, DC took off on outdoor stages with their appearances at the Odyssey Festival, Wallacia (NSW) and Myponga Festival (SA). When ‘Eagle Rock’ exploded on to the Australian charts in May 1971, they became the biggest band in the land with the rock press falling over themselves to cover their every move.
A Defining Song
When I interviewed Wilson on the occasion of the song’s 30th anniversary, he had this to say about ‘Eagle Rock’.
“For me, ‘Eagle Rock’ was a defining song. Quite often first songs are like that; they define what you’re about. It’s the distillation of everybody’s consciousness or whatever. ‘Eagle Rock’ does say a lot about my influences, what I was listening to at the time.
“The song came about while I was in England playing with Procession. I was trying to improve my guitar skills, which are still pretty limited. I came up with this riff. Actually, there was a song we used to play in Party Machine called ‘Woman Of The World’ which was the first time I’d used that kind of finger picking style. I’d developed this finger picking style, like a rural blues style. I was trying to copy some of those players from the 1930s, but I never got passed just using my thumb and one finger. I could never get the other fingers working (laughs). With the ‘Eagle Rock’ riff, people work out these funny, complicated ways to play it, but it’s just a basic ‘A’ chord and open ‘E’ on the top. I had this riff, but because I was so deficient in being able to move my fingers around on the fretboard, I just wanted a chord where I didn’t have to move around too much, just move one finger. Just work on the syncopation.
“Most guitar players will play a more complicated version but the way I play it, you get the droning thing going. So I was doing that and I came up with this riff. There was this article in The Sunday Times and it had a picture of people dancing in a Juke Joint, and the caption said they were ‘Doing the Eagle Rock and cutting the Pigeon Wing’. This is the way songwriting works; I’d got the title and that was the key to unlocking what was in my subconscious. The title just seemed to connect with the riff I was playing.
“I got back to Australia and I finished off the chorus. I’d play it to people and say, ‘Do you like this riff?’. ‘Have you heard it somewhere before?’. It seemed so good, I was thinking, ‘Gee I hope I haven’t pinched that from somewhere’. After a while I figured I must have come up with it myself. I’ve read similar stories like with Paul McCartney when he wrote ‘Yesterday’, or Keith Richards with ‘Satisfaction’. Those are quintessential songs. It’s something that’s there inside you. With ‘Eagle Rock’ it formed the foundation for everything I’ve done since. It summed up a philosophy I had, just have fun with this music, you know.
“‘Eagle Rock’ certainly still means something to me because it’s such a groove to play it, you know? It’s the kind of song you don’t wanna mess with. There are other songs I’ve written where I mess with the arrangements, but that particular song was so defined by the time we came to record it that there’s no point in changing it, I usually play it the same way. Depends who I’m playing it with, certain guys can nail it each time, certain guys can’t.
“With the original Daddy Cool guys, it was the perfect combination of players. It was absolutely the right group of guys to play that song, and they just latched on to it straight away. It was that combination that made the impact.”
Drummer Gary Young explained the rhythm section’s modus operandi:
“The main feel, the thing that made Daddy Cool sound like Daddy Cool was the shuffle beat. The shuffle is almost identical to what was called swing in the 1930s. It originates from this little tish-ta-tish-ta-tish rhythm on the hi-hat, sorta like a jazz thing. It would swing. When blues musicians moved from the Mississippi Delta up to Chicago in the ’40s and started to shuffle the blues, drummers would play the shuffle all together, hi-hats and snare. The good thing with the shuffle, if you use that technique and put a bit of rocking to it, it picks up.
“If you slow down a jazz swing shuffle, using the cymbal and the snare, you get the beat and rhythm for ‘Come Back Again’. Then if you attack it with a bit more aggro and just use the hi-hat and the snare you get the definitive shuffle on the one that sold the most records for Daddy Cool, ‘Doin’ the Eagle Rock’. Wayne plays a throbbing bass, I do the shuffle, ‘Now listen! We’re steppin’ out’. That major shuffle is the most typically Daddy Cool feel and it was right for ‘Eagle Rock’.”
A Watershed Year
The year 1971 certainly seems to have been the watershed year in the development of Australian music. The multifarious and radical social changes brought on by the 1960s were being felt. Anti-Vietnam War sentiments were on the rise, with 100,000 people having marched in the streets for the 1970 Vietnam Moratorium in Melbourne. Various sections of Australian society were fed up with over 20 years of continuous Liberal-Country Coalition government; the election of Gough Whitlam’s Labor was just around the corner in 1972.
Musicians were coming out of the 1960s engendered with a sense of their own self worth and a willingness to take their music to new heights. The heavyweight, underground bands of the day like Tully, Tamam Shud, Aztecs, Chain, Spectrum, Blackfeather, Company Caine and Carson were forging their own identities, the pub scene was beginning to burgeon and the festival / concert circuit was well under way.
In addition to ‘Eagle Rock’ hitting national #1, Spectrum had done the same with ‘I’ll Be Gone’ while Chain had gone to #1 in Melbourne (Top 10 nationally) with ‘Black And Blue’. The impact of ‘Eagle Rock’ was immediate because it worked on so many different levels.
There was a number of other astonishing Australian singles released in 1971. I can think of Healing Force’s rhapsodic ‘Golden Miles’, Blackfeather’s mystical ‘Seasons Of Change’, King Harvest’s enthralling version of Jimmy Webb’s ‘Wichita Lineman’, the Master’s Apprentices’ evocative ‘Because I Love You’, the La De Das’ funky rocker ‘Gonna See My Baby Tonight’ and Ted Mulry’s sunshine pop classic ‘Falling In Love Again’.
Then there were the albums of the day: Spectrum’s Part One, Chain’s Toward the Blues, Daddy Cool’s Daddy Who? Daddy Cool!, Blackfeather’s At The Mountains Of Madness, the Masters’ Choice Cuts, the Aztecs’ Live, Company Caine’s A Product Of A Broken Reality, Kahvas Jute’s Wide Open, Lobby Loyde’s Plays With George Guitar, even Russell Morris’ Bloodstone and Hans Poulsen’s Natural High. All remarkable works in their own right.
Essentially ‘Black And Blue’, ‘I’ll Be Gone’ and ‘Eagle Rock’ have come to represent a significant development in the annals of Australian rock ’n’ roll. It was the first time that previously underground acts featured on the mainstream charts. ‘Black And Blue’ was the first blues single ever to lodge itself in the Top 10, let alone make #1 on any chart. And by applying a commercial outlook to the prevailing underground trends of the day Wilson came up with a winning formula. And it was just a hell of a lot of fun!
When ‘Eagle Rock’ was reissued in 1982 and became a hit again, it produced an unlikely new dance craze. Dubbed ‘Eagle Drop’, it involved guys in bars, when the song came on the juke box, spontaneously dropping their pants and dancing around with their nuts out. As soon as the song finished, bar etiquette ensured that daks were returned to their rightful position.
“Doin’ the Eagle Rock”
It’s time to dig deeper into the hidden meanings of the words ‘Eagle Rock’. Clearly, as he has outlined, Wilson didn’t invent the phrase. Eagle Rock was a 1920s Afro-American dance performed with the arms outstretched and the body rocking from side to side. In a further cultural context, extending the arms in the shape of an eagle’s wing was a gesture by friends urging a slave to fly from the master’s whip.
“Doin’ the Eagle Rock” is also a metaphor for sexual intercourse (as was essentially “Rock ’n’ Roll”). Wilson has said that, at the time of writing the song, he had no knowledge of the connection and it was only years later the penny dropped.
The first mention of ‘Eagle Rock’ in a song was the 1913 ragtime and jazz standard ‘Ballin’ The Jack’, written by Jim Burns with music by Chris Smith. “Then you do the Eagle Rock with style and grace / Swing your foot way ’round then bring it back / Now that’s what I call Ballin’ the Jack”. The song was recorded numerous times, by the likes of Danny Kaye, Fats Domino, Rosemary Clooney etc.
Wilson’s use of the opening invitation “Now listen! Oh, we’re steppin’ out” also references the 19th century Anglo-Irish folk ballad tradition which often incorporated a “Come all ye...” refrain as a way of catching the listener’s ear. The Australian bush ballad ‘Ned Kelly Was Their Captain’ even opened with “Come all you wild colonial boys”.
By extension, Irving Berlin knew the value of a good opening announcement as his 1911 song ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ so eloquently put it: “Come on and hear / Come on and hear Alexander’s Ragtime Band”. In the 1940s jump blues group The Treniers announced “Rockin’ is our business / Rockin’ is what we do oh yeah / Come on everybody we want you to rock with us too” (‘Rockin’ Is Our Bizness’).
Various rock musicians had similar ideas. For example, in 1959 Eddie Cochran declared “Oh well, c’mon everybody and let’s get together tonight” (‘C’mon Everybody’). Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad knew how to get an audience going with “Are you ready? / You can trust me all the way” (‘Are You Ready’, 1969). English ska pop legends Madness opened their second single ‘One Step Beyond’ (1979) with the reverb heavy statement “Hey you! / Don’t watch that, watch this!”. I’m sure you can think of many other examples.
‘Eagle Rock’ was promoted by one of the first Australian rock film clips, directed by Chris Löfvén who had also done Spectrum’s similarly styled film clip for ‘I’ll Be Gone’. The black and white footage features Wilson and two girls dancing in the Aussie Burgers malt shop as ‘Eagle Rock’ plays on the juke box. Hanna, Duncan and Young are seen smiling and miming to the music. This is intercut with footage of the band’s boisterous performances at the Myponga festival and the T.F Much, showing people dancing madly. Also – rather helpfully, so that we make the connection – there are wedge tailed eagles strutting their stuff and flapping their wings. The final frames show the guys leaping into their FJ Holden and tearing off up The Esplanade (Luna Park just out of shot).
Elton John is said to have heard ‘Eagle Rock’, and maybe even seen the film clip, during his October 1971 Australian tour. Legend has it that it inspired him and his lyricist, Bernie Taupin, to write their own version which became his #1 hit ‘Crocodile Rock’. Heavily nostalgic, ‘Crocodile Rock’ definitely wears its influences on its sleeve.
There’s also the story of Wilson’s encounter with UK glam rock hero Marc Bolan. He’d likewise heard ‘Eagle Rock’, and while on his November 1973 Australian tour with T. Rex Bolan insisted on meeting Wilson. He wouldn’t perform until Wilson had been summoned. As Wilson came face to face with the diminutive rocker, Bolan pointed his finger and declared “Oh, so it was you that ripped off ‘Ride A White Swan’!”. If there might be some correlation with the hand clapping / three chord simplicity of each song, Bolan knew a kindred spirit when he met one, laughing it off by declaring Wilson to be a “superstar”.