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The Songwriter
"Oscar Davis - 1959 - recognized as the box office Baron - one of America's most successful Managers, Entrepreneurs & Promoters of Rock and Country Music stars - the man who claimed to be the real discoverer of Elvis Presley/ Hank Williams - said on ABC TV - I have discovered the most prolific songwriter since Hank Williams - I'm going to take him to USA to write for Presley".
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Young Stan James, Jamesy, who later became Rocky Martin, Rock Martin and finally Martin St. James was 5 years old when he strode onto the floor of the makeshift boxing ring not to fight but to sing, accompanied by the Italian immigrants - victims of their circus being in the outback mining town - when war was declared on Japan he sang "Santa Lucia - with guitar, bass and accordion accompaniment . Martin's appreciation of music was born.
Once hearing the applause, the smell of liniment, he was hooked. All he could dream of was being an entertainer or sportsman. Throughout the memorable adventurous, almost wasted school years - the war raging throughout the Pacific - Japanese bombing Darwin - the small temporary mining town residents were evacuated from the North of West Australia to the South East to a town population of 3000 called Norseman. A rough, tough, old mining company owned town where men were men and so were most of the women - the men exceeded the women by 20 to 1.
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Jamesy, as he was known, only just scraped through his school years. Daydreaming of one day being a singing cowboy like the ones he had seen at the "pictures", when he was able to sneak past the ticket collector – the smell of the liniment would not disappear and he still craved to also be a sportsman.
He was small and wiry – the football ground was not the lush green ovals of cities, they were virtually gravel which caused many a budding footballer to retire after many broken fingers and gravel rashes. His football career finished at 13 with a torn cartilage in his knee. A two week hospital stint – six weeks of a leg in plaster, the cartilage repaired – he never returned to school.
Twelve months prior to this, cycling became the craze with prize money for winning. The borrowed bike with money earned from a newspaper round, helped pay off his first guitar from a next door neighbour, a tough miner who was involved in boxing. Rocky Burns was the young Jamesy's mentor. He wanted to be big and strong like Rocky Burns. After working at every menial task - saving for a year, he was now buying a second hand guitar. Jamesy then discovered there was no one in those days in the whole 2 or 3000 square miles of desert that could teach him.
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The job as a telegraph messenger fitted perfectly for cycle racing - riding the heavy Post Office bike all day not only strengthening his cartilage in the knee, it was extremely good training for him to win many bike races. Rocky Burns was able to show him three chords on the guitar - this led to Jamesy practicing day and night, learn a bit here and there, driving his stepfather crazy, he was only allowed to practice his yodeling and singing by going into the scrub adjacent to the house. Only one radio station was able to be tuned into his home town which beamed from Kalgoorlie, 120 miles north - songs were hard to come by.
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Tex Morton - Australia's top country singer would often be heard, as was the recordings of Hank Williams - necessity is the mother of invention - young Jamesy tired of singing the old folk songs in his repertoire and influenced by the great Hank Williams and Tex Morton - he decided to try and write his own compositions which churned out of his fertile mind at an incredible rate. He had his first crack at producing, directing and writing his material for a one hour radio presentation - 6KG Kalgoorlie. He was only 15 and had written no less than 50 songs. Continue Story...
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