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A TRIBUTE TO

Johnny Ashcroft

1927–2021

By Gay Kayler

Johnny Ashcroft was an innovator, a humanitarian, and a loving man who lived his life with integrity.

In the world of showbusiness, he was a real pro – an entertainer, gag-man, musician, hit-song writer, recording artist, scriptwriter and producer, with an impressive list of firsts to his name.

Towards the end of the Vaudeville era, Johnny (pictured above in 2002) joined Australia’s biggest travelling production, the Great Levante Show. The Great Levante, the master performer, taught Johnny stagecraft and the principles of showbusiness. These, with his innate talents, enabled Johnny to successfully build a broad career lasting for more than fifty years.

Levante taught Johnny that all entertainers have a duty to pass on their knowledge to any aspiring act who asks for advice, and Gay Kayler was one of many grateful recipients of those principles.

In 1944, Johnny came second singing his first factual composition, Lonesome Pal, on national radio’s Australia’s Amateur Hour.

Two years later, he came first, singing the Overlander Trail. (Pictured at right, age 19.)

In 1948, during his first overseas tour, he became the first C&W artist to have a programme on New Zealand’s national classical radio network.  The 8-programme series was re-broadcast for three years.

Around 1953, he wrote and performed in Songs of the Homestead, an ABC Radio show.

Johnny’s first commercial recordings were on Rodeo Records, in 1954.

He performed in Australia’s first experimental, in-house, pre-TV test.

Johnny toured throughout 1955 with Slim Dusty’s first national tour.

During that year, he wrote Australia’s first trucking song Highway 31.

In 1956, Highway 31 featured on the first Australian vinyl micro-groove C&W album, Johnny’s Songs of the Western Trail.

Also in 1956, Johnny was the first C&W artist on Australian television – on ABC2, Sydney.

Photo Joy McKean, Slim Dusty, Mervyn Sclater (Radio 3TR announcer), Barry Thornton, Johnny Ashcroft, 1955.

In 1958, he recorded his first Dixieland record, Dig That Dixie, with the legendary Graeme Bell. Also in 1958, he recorded his first hit song, They’re a Weird Mob, in skiffle style.

In 1960, he wrote and recorded Little Boy Lost, Australia’s first 45rpm Gold Record, which he asked EMI to present to Steven Walls.  This Gold Record is now in the Steven Walls-Little Boy Lost display in the Guyra Historical Museum.

Johnny’s recording also became New Zealand’s first Gold Record. It sparked a movie, in 1978, with a fresh version of the song, recorded with Gay Kayler.

Photo: Nick Erby, Johnny Ashcroft, Gay Kayler, Max Ellis, John Minson, Ann Minson at the Little Boy Lost movie premiere in Armidale, NSW, 16-11-1978.

The Sir Sidney Nolan painting, Little Boy Lost, hangs in the Broken Hill Art Gallery.
  
In 1964, Johnny and his family were the first non-Indigenes accepted into Sydney’s Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs. When Johnny realised how colonisation had engulfed First Australians, he became an entertainer-activist, fighting for Indigenous rights and social justice.

In January 1973, Gay Kayler, a Queensland television identity, was booked for a NSW tour with the Johnny Ashcroft Show. When they discovered their voices blended and their creative minds complemented each other, they formed a successful partnership.  They married in 1981 and retired in 1998.

Notable events in the 1970s were:

• 2TM’s 36th anniversary, when Johnny received three Gold LP Records before a live audience in Tamworth – an industry first. During the show, he suggested Tamworth should hold an annual Awards night.
• Johnny starred with Gay Kayler in the first all-Australian country music show in the Sydney Opera House, and they headed up the Australian Variety Show in that venue two months later.
• He wrote the first Australian female trucking song, My Home-coming Trucker’s Coming Home, for Gay Kayler to record, and wrote and recorded the Salvation Army’s Red Shield Appeal song, Holy Joe, the Salvo, which resulted in the ‘Sallys’ becoming the ‘Salvos’.
• Johnny Ashcroft became the Inaugural President of the Tamworth Songwriters Association, and was imprinted in the inaugural Australasian Country Music Hands of Fame.
• After being elected the Inaugural Vice-President and Secretary of the Professional Country Music Association of Australia (PCMAA), Johnny and Gay were successful in having country music accepted as a separate entity in the Australian Variety Artists Mo Awards.
• Johnny and Gay researched, wrote and produced their Imagine That! Australiana Show series. These highly acclaimed productions ran for eleven years, showing to adults, and to over 750,000 children in modified programmes accredited by the NSW Education Department. Barbara Flick, a Gamilaraay Nation elder and Centennial Medal holder, said these performances were ‘ground-breaking’ in Australia, in their presentation of Australia’s First Nations people, both traditional and present day. (In 2004, Barbara Flick adopted Johnny and Gay into her Gamilaraay family.)

Photo above: Johnny Ashcroft, Frank Ifield, Gay Kayler, 13-2-1980, with the first Country Male Entertainer Mo statuette, which Frank Ifield presented to Johnny after they performed in the Salute to Country Music segment.

In the 1980s, Johnny received:

• The first Australian Variety Artists Mo Award for Male Country Entertainer.
• A twin Queensland Country Music National Award with Gay for Service to Australia’s Country Music Industry.
• Elevated to the Australasian Country Music Roll of Renown.  

Johnny is the only Australian to hold Gold Records in the Folk, Country-Rock and Pop-Country categories.

In 1990, Johnny was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia.

In 1995, he was appointed a Fellow of the Australian Institute of History and Arts, in recognition of his work “…which has greatly enriched the archives of our country.”

Photo: Johnny Ashcroft OAM, NSW Governor Rear Admiral Peter Sinclair, Mrs Sinclair, and Johnny’s wife and showbiz partner, Gay Kayler Ashcroft, 26-1-1991.