A glance at any Big L Fab Forty* reveals that many of the frequently-played records on the offshore stations never became bestsellers and offshore charts bore little resemblance to the UK nationals. It's these lesser-known singles, the ones nobody plays anymore, that always bring back the fondest memories to listeners. Notice how many requests on Radio Two's Sound of the Sixties contain messages reiterating the sentiment that, "This record was played regularly on the pirate stations, but I haven't heard it since".

When Ray Anderson decided to recreate Big L in 1997, he wanted to include as many of the Fab Forty records as possible from the 1967 Summer of Love. The first time I met Ray, in March '67, he told me, "I've found some really great stuff from the Fab Forty. There's one by Johnny Young." "Craise Finton Kirk?" I asked. Ray was astonished that I remembered that record, but it happened to be one I'd searched for without success for many years, .

The Summer of Love broadcast revealed that Johnny Young's single, (full title, Craise Finton Kirk Royal Academy Of Arts) was on many people's 'wanted' list. It proved to be one of the most popular tracks featured on Big L '97, along with the Strawberry Children's Love Years Coming and Johnny Rivers' Poor Side of Town.** So popular did Craise Finton Kirk become, that over the course of four RSLs, that it evolved into a Big L anthem and was rechristened Craise FRINTON Kirk, in honour of the original anchorage of the Radio London ship, Galaxy, three miles off the coast of Frinton-on-Sea. The single proved a favourite once again, when rediscovered by a new audience of Sixties music lovers, during the 2004 Pirate BBC Essex broadcast. The Radio London website probably gets more enquiries about Craise Finton Kirk than any other song!

Each of the Radio London DJs had a weekly 'climber' - a disc picked for imminent chart stardom - which were in some cases assigned to them, in others, self-chosen. We do not know whether or not Willy Walker chose Craise Finton Kirk as his climber for w/c 23/07/67. The single entered the Fab Forty at #31 on 30/07/67, rising the following week to #27, just as the station was forced to close down.

Willy Walker – did he choose the climber, or was the climber chosen for him?

Considering how fondly the record is remembered - having only been heard on the radio for a matter of weeks, over 40 years ago - brings the realisation of what a massive hit it could have been in this country, had all the offshore stations remained to play it.

What nobody appreciated at the time, was that Johnny Young was already a huge star Down Under.

I discovered this only when our good friend and Down Under Anorak Correspondent, John Preston, notified me of the existence of the Australian Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. John did this because one of its inductees is none other than ex-Caroline, Radio England and Britain Radio DJ, Colin Nicol. When I visited the site to view Colin's entry, (a very interesting and worthwhile read) I noticed that another Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee was a Johnny Young. Could this possibly be.....? As soon as I read Johnny's entry and saw mention of his having recorded Craise Finton Kirk, I knew that this was our man!

Born John de Jong in Indonesia in 1945, Johnny Young grew up in Western Australia. His first job was as a trainee DJ on Perth Radio, and he began singing with local band, the Nomads. Johnny's first two singles were issued in 1965. In 1966, he scored huge chart success with the double A-side, Step Back/Cara Lyn (Cara Lyn was an Easybeats' song), which stayed at #1 for several weeks. This was followed by a chart-topping EP, Let It Be Me. He enjoyed several other hits in Oz before travelling to London in 1967, where he recorded Barry Gibb tracks, including Craise Finton Kirk and Every Christian Lionhearted Man Will Show You – both tracks appearing on the Bee Gees' First album. At that time, the Bee Gees' line-up was: Barry Gibb, Maurice Gibb, Robin Gibb, Vince Melouney, and Colin Petersen. Their own reading of the song could scarcely be more different to Johnny Young's, in fact one of the Bee Gees' fan sites describes the track as 'sounding as if it was recorded at the turn of the century' – meaning around 1900, presumably. Polydor did not issue the Bee Gees' recording as a single.

Johnny's version of Craise Finton Kirk may have achieved only offshore chart action in the UK, but a month after the closure of all our sea-based stations with the exception of Caroline, the single hit #14 in Melbourne and #29 in Sydney.

There has been some confusion in the UK over the spelling of Johnny's name, which resulted in him being allocated two separate entries in the Record Collector Rare Record Price Guide, as both Johnny and 'Johnnie' Young. The British-recorded Craise Finton Kirk and its follow-up, Every Christian Lionhearted Man, both had UK release (not surprisingly) on Polydor, the same label as the Bee Gees.

Johnny Young - a star in Oz, unknown in the UK

A clip from the German programme Beat Club shows Dave Lee Travis introducing Johnny Young miming to Craise Finton Kirk . And Johnny is followed immediately by the Bee Gees themselves at number one with Massachusetts! It's likely that nobody at the Beat Club had realised that the Bee Gees sang on both recordings.

Read a full biography of Johnny Young and other Australian FF artists LynneRandell and Normie Rowe on milesago.com, 'The #1 website for Australasian music and popular culture 1964-1975'.

Chart info at poparchives.com.au

The compilation CD Step Back With Johnny Young and Kompany contains all Johnny's singles, including his earlier Fab 40 climber from January 67, Step Back.

* Big L Fab Forties may be viewed here.

** A nice bit of Anorak trivia: On Dec 12th 1966, while Johnny occupied #1 in Oz with Step Back, the US #1 was Johnny Rivers' Poor Side of Town.

My name is Sean Keppie and I live in Australia. I think yours is a great site to relive radio days.

I grew up in the late 1970's early 1980's and have been on air here. I still love the sound of the big AM stations that play around South East Queensland. The old songs and the big beat of AM will never be replaced.

I ran an oldies show of 50's & 60's songs for some time on FM and one of our most requested songs was Craise Frinton Kirk. (I only finished on the show 16 months ago). I was surprised when I saw your site today with the song being a real sizzler on the Big L. On my show we never used the computer and I played the original 45's on some occasions, so naturally when Craise Frinton Kirk was requested out came the real record. The listeners love the crackle and the pops on these songs!

In Queensland we get to hear Graham Webb every day on the 88fm frequencies that he broadcasts on. When I started in radio in 1983 the big station (before FM) was Stereo 10. It was an AM Stereo Station on 1008 khz that covered a huge area of South East Queensland. You could drive from Byron Bay to Gympie, a distance of about 300km, and never lose the signal. The station was originally called 4IP, Now it is called 4TAB, a racing station. Due to a format change from hot top 40 to 'lite and easy', everybody stopped listening and eventually the FMers took the lead, thus now they run the races. Everybody who was a teenager from 1960s to 1989 remembers Stereo 10.

One of the successes of the sound was the PAMS jingles. Its sister stations 2SM & 3XY had similar jingles. If you would like to hear them go to www.radioatwork.com.au (sadly this site was no longer there as of April 2006) then click onto the jingle shrine page and you will see the whole list of Australian Radio Stations old PAMS jingles that you can listen to.

Thanks for a great site. Regards, Sean Keppie

Interesting to read Sean's feedback and his comments on Stereo 10. Well, that was the station I started on back in the eighties when I came here from the UK! The jingles were great, and I enjoyed them almost as much as the music, because it reminded me of Big L! They used a number of PAMS packages and it made the station sound very good. A shame they had to go, the top station on FM now sounds a lot like Stereo 10 used to sound.

Hello from New Zealand!
Whilst roaming around the Net, I came upon your feature about Craise Finton Kirk, much to my pleasure. At the time of its release, I was selling records in my birthplace, Tasmania. Johnny Young and his manager Carol Westaway had done an in-store promotion at our record bar in 1966 when he was touring to promote Step back/Cara-Lyn. The latter, a Feldman, Gotterher, Goldstein original from The Strangeloves if I remember correctly. Johnny's releases were on Martin Clark's CLARION label in Australia, distributed through Festival Records. I have always been under the impression that the Bee Gees sang backup on his UK material. I felt too that Robert Stigwood had a hands-on role in production. I hope you don't mind me interloping but even after all these years the music and the sixties still get me going much to my Pauline's chagrin.
Regards, Russ Tattersall.

There's no such thing as 'interloping' on the Radio London site, Russ. Everyone is welcome – that's the Big L Family!

It seems pretty certain that the Bee Gees did sing backing on Craise Frinton Kirk. It certainly sounds like their distinctive harmonies accompanying Johnny.

The Strangeloves' own version of Cara-Lin, on the Bang record label (Bang 508) was #39 in the US charts in Oct 1965. The cover versions spelt 'Lin' differently, for some reason.

In a 3-part BBC Radio Two documentary about the Bee Gees, (2000) nothing was mentioned of the Johnny Young collaboration.

Update, February 03:
In the February issue of online newsletter, The Radio Wave (Issue #14) editor Ian MacRae wrote about the sad loss felt in Australia following the untimely death of Maurice Gibb in January 03, and told how a local council has set up a website (sadly the site is no longer there as of April 2006) to document the Gibb brothers' early recording career which centered around the St Claire recording studio, a former butcher's shop storeroom in Hurstville.

Tony Allen from Sydney:

Following the sad death of Maurice Gibb, Johnny Young was one of his friends interviewed on Australian TV. He described how the Bee Gees looked after him during his time in London. One of the high points was when Maurice introduced him to John Lennon, describing Johnny as one of Australia's top performers. John responded with a single grunt of acknowledgement.... Oh well, at least Johnny got to see John Lennon.