Born in North Carolina in March of 1929 (or 1931) Betty Johnson made her professional debut as a member of a group that included her parents and siblings. The Johnson Family Singers was signed up to sing on a local radio station and by 1948 Betty had obtained her own programme, in which she performed as a solo artist.
Betty’s early career as a recording artist was not a particularly successful one although she did get to work with Eddy Arnold, who was on his way to becoming one of America’s most prolific country singers. This association led to Betty being signed to RCA Victor Records, which meant that she had to relocate to Chicago.
It was while she was in Chicago that Betty released what was to become her biggest single, “I Dreamed”. “I Dreamed” was released on Bally Records, a small label. The single entered Billboard’s pop chart in late November of 1956 and reached its apex at No.9.
A cover of “Little White Lies” achieved only moderate success for her in 1957. This might have been due to the fact that the song had already been atop the hit parade in 1930 and had subsequently performed almost as admirably for Dick Haymes in 1948. Then again, listeners might not have appreciated this popular tune being sung in the style of rock.
In 1958 Betty’s last release of any significance was her recording of the novelty number, “The Little Blue Man”. While it barely entered the Top 20, the recording developed something of a cult following and remained on the chart for four months.
As a child, I loved “The Little Blue” at the time of its release and could not understand why my mother did not share my zeal. Perhaps forty years passed before I was to hear it again and had to admit to myself that it was one recording for which my adoration had all but evaporated. Another thing that struck me was just how much Betty Johnson sounded like the infinitely more popular Doris Day.
Many of Sydney’s public school teachers are on strike, again, today. Announcer, Bob Rogers, was sacked by radio station, 2GB, today for having allowed a four-letter word, uttered by John Singleton, to go to air on his show. Mr. Singleton is highly regarded within the field of advertising.
I joked with a workmate that the Vietnamese refugees, who landed at Wyndham, in Western Australia, the other day, must have felt like turning around and heading back. Having visited Wyndham, in 1972, I know what is (or should I say isn’t?) there!
Would you believe that my visit there was a part of a tour around Australia, by bus, that had a duration of sixty-three days? If the tour had not received an injection of new faces, in Alice Springs, I truly believe that those primal instincts that are affiliated to violence would have come to the fore. Mind you, even with the new members on board, these remained fairly close to the surface. Needless to say bus tours of nine weeks ceased to operate not long afterwards. Our coach (we weren’t allowed to refer to it as a bus) captain (driver) did not help when he would insert a tape and play, every single morning without fail, Bert Kaempfert’s “Swinging Safari”.
The coach broke down twice. Firstly, we were stranded five miles to the west of Croydon in North Queensland after the company’s visiting liaison officer, who wasn’t authorised to drive during the tour, had swerved the vehicle to avoid contact with a wild pig at four o’clock in the morning. That action damaged one of the coach’s springs and we were subsequently stranded in the heat and dust for twelve hours before makeshift repairs allowed for the vehicle to be driven, albeit in a crab-like fashion, to Normanton where a replacement spring was fitted.
In Onslow, Western Australia, we had to spend two unscheduled nights as this time a new spring had to be flown up from Perth. This delay meant that we were subjected to being driven throughout a night or two in order to make up for the time the tour had lost.
The most unexpected situation in which we found ourselves was shortly after we had passed the landmark of Pyramid Hill in Western Australia. Suddenly, the coach chugged to a stop and it was then that the coach captain announced that the vehicle had run out of petrol. He proclaimed that we were low on drinking water too! A fact that aroused a measure of panic from within some of the passengers, as it was, indeed, a desolate and isolated landscape.
Fortunately for all of us another vehicle arrived within minutes and the coach captain departed with it, having stated that he would be returning in a taxi along with the much-needed fuel from the town of Roebourne some thirty-two miles distant. In the two and a half hours that passed not one other vehicle was sighted.
When talk of us all dying of thirst had begun to arise, I distanced myself from the stranded vehicle and those congregated about it and passed the time, as best I could, by throwing the odd stone and trying to occupy my mind with other thoughts.
Here are just some of my photographs taken during those nine weeks:
“Flashez” is followed by “Last Of The Wild” which, this evening, is about the birds of the Arctic. Bob Rogers appeared to be upset over today’s events when he was interviewed during the news on Channel Seven, at half past six. During “Willesee” Paul Makin tells the former prime minister, Gough Whitlam, that he looks like foreman material in his new clothes.
“Good Times” is followed by the second half of “Charlie’s Angels”, from eight o’clock, on Channel Nine. “Alfred The Great”, a motion picture that bears the copyright of 1969, follows. David Hemmings, Michael York and Prunella Ransome are among its cast.
Although it remained fine, a bitterly cold wind blew.
This afternoon, I priced a Slumberland ‘Gold Seal’ mattress and base ( five feet by six feet eight inches) at four hundred and fifty-nine dollars, in Bob Pollard Discounts, in Caringbah.
The ‘Sahara Desert’ edition of “Last Of The Wild” airs on Channel Two. At seven o’clock, Michael Willesee interviews the Australian authoress, Colleen McCullough, about her highly successful book, “The Thorn Birds”, which has just earned her five million dollars.
“Lucille Ball’s 25th Anniversary In Showbiz” followed, however, we departed from it, at eight o’clock, showing a preference for “Peach’s Australia”, in which Bill Peach visits the Gulf of Carpentaria and the towns of Burketown, Normanton and Croydon. He is seen experiencing the wild ride aboard the train which travels between the latter two.
The documentary, “The Fight Against Slavery”, is also shown on Channel Two, from half past eight. After that we returned to Channel Seven, from 9.30, to watch the motion picture, “The Blob”, which was produced in 1958, and traces the efforts of a community in its attempts to rid itself of a jelly-like mass. It stars Steve “Wanted Dead Or Alive” McQueen, in his first major role.