When I was researching stories for ‘Sunshine Secrets’, information about Adelaide singer/musician/actor Tony Shepp were difficult to find and there was confusion about his recordings. I contacted Bobby Bright (of Bobby & Laurie fame), who also comes from Adelaide and asked him if he knew what happened to Tony Shepp. He commented,
“I can’t help you there. That’s one of the great mysteries of the sixties. He just seemed to have disappeared. A few people have tried to find out with no success. I remember him quite well, he had good energy.” (Bobby Bright, June 17th, 2018)
Tony Shepp was an exceptionally talented musician. By the age of 13 he was already an accomplished drummer and saxophone player and he appeared regularly on Adelaide television. He made a promising start to his career moving from Adelaide to Melbourne in the mid-‘60s, but unfortunately, his career as a pop performer was plagued with setbacks and he did not achieve the success he deserved.
Born Howard Anthony Shipp in Adelaide in December 1946, Tony grew up in the Western Adelaide suburb of Richmond. He suffered from polio at an early age and was always in and out of hospital as a result of this illness. His father bought him a set of drums to help strengthen his legs and also gave him a saxophone.
Tony was the middle child of three boys and all three brothers had musical talent. During their teens the three siblings attended the Adelaide College of Music. Older brother Alex played piano accordion and played it well, younger brother Kerry played drums, but Tony could play any musical instrument. He was particularly good at playing a lap-steel guitar but later gave more attention to playing the saxophone.
The Shipp family owned a towing business in Adelaide called Shipp Brothers Transport which was started by Tony’s grandfather. The company split into two parts in the 1950s, Tony’s father Syd opened a tractor dealership and ran a service station and his brother Harold continued with the towing and crash repairs side of the business. Syd owned a Tiger Moth plane which he used to deliver tractor parts to remote areas around the South Australia. In 1954 the adventurous Syd entered the Redex Aircraft Trial which was a challenging around Australia air race. Captain Tommy Buckley won the race and Syd finished a creditable second.
Tony was 13 when he started appearing on the Adelaide TV show ‘Music Man’. The program was a children’s show sponsored by Tip Top Bakery and Tony appeared every night. In 1963 when he was 16 years old Tony joined an early line-up of the Vibrants playing saxophone with Geoff Skewes on keyboards and Kenny Richards on drums. The group backed various singers including Bobby James and Bobby Bright playing at Warradale Institute and the BJ Club. The next group Tony played with were the Keytones who performed regularly at the KT Club.
The following year Shipp joined Hayden Burford & the Beaumen and the young sax player really started to get noticed. The group became known as Adelaide’s Beatles and consisted of Hayden Burford (vocals), Doug Anderson (guitar), Tony McNichols (bass), Dean Burbeck (drums) and Tony Shipp (sax). During his time with the Beaumen, Tony tried his hand at song writing. The band recorded an instrumental Tony had written titled 403.1 mph in tribute to Donald Campbell’s land speed record on Lake Eyre in July 1964. The record was promoted for release on the Young Modern label and listed as a prediction on 5AD’s Top 40, but the record never appeared. The tapes were sent to EMI’s pressing plant in Sydney but due to the high demands placed on the plant by the popularity of the Beatles, the disc was not pressed. By the end of the year the Beaumen had broken up and Tony joined popular Adelaide dance band the Clefs.
The Clefs were formed in 1961 by pianist Tweed Harris and the band played many venues around Adelaide including residencies at the Princeton Club, the Thornton Club and the Miami Club and were also the resident backing band for a weekly pop TV show called ‘Seventeeners’. Pat Aulton who later became an important part of the Dayman Organisation and record producer for Sunshine and Festival Records was the original lead singer. Following the Beatles 1964 Australian Tour the Clefs underwent a major restructure. Inspired by Sounds Incorporated who were the support act for the tour their line-up was altered, and Tony was one of three saxophone players added to the band. Tony played on four instrumentals the band recorded at Decca’s studio in North Adelaide in February 1965. Two of the tracks, Last Night and March Of The Siamese Children were released as a single on EMI. The single made it into the lower portion of the 5DN Big 60.
The Clefs still held the residency at the Princeton Club in 1965, which was Adelaide’s most popular dance. Tony had taken over as vocalist for the band and one night visiting Melbourne DJ Grantley Dee heard him sing and was impressed. Dee took some tapes back to Melbourne and as a result Tony was offered a six-month contract on Channel O’s Go!! Show. This was the break Tony had been waiting for and he left Adelaide for Melbourne in July 1965. When he arrived, the producers suggested he change his name. After considering a number of options they decided on the simple change from Shipp to Shepp. Tony made his Go!! Show debut on September 6th, 1965 and was a regular guest appearing every second or third show.
Tony performed as a solo artist when he appeared on television, but he formed his own band called Bitter And Sweet to back him when he sang and played at dances. The line-up included Ray Moon (organ), Andrew Swann (drums) and Hayden (drums), with Tony on sax and vocals. The band held a long residency at the Fabulous 45 venue in St Kilda which had previously been a successful jazz venue in the late ‘50s/early ‘60s. Other venues Tony performed at were Storyville, Mod and Surfrider discos.
Tony signed to Ivan Dayman’s Sunshine Organisation and recorded two songs Oh, What A Big Deal and Your Guaranteed Unbreakable Heart. The two tracks were intended as a single release on the Dayman owned Kommotion label but it was not issued. A second single Come On Over To My Place/Don’t Ask Me Why was recorded in March 1966, and was scheduled for release on Sunshine, Dayman’s other label. But for some unknown reason this disc was also not issued. Tony’s recording career was not going well. A month later Come To Your Window backed with Pretty Dull was released on the Kommotion label.
“ ‘Come To Your Window’, written by Bob Lind of ‘Elusive Butterfly’ fame and produced by Pat Aulton has Byrds and Dylan-like qualities on which Shepp gives a solid vocal performance. ’Pretty Dull’ on the other hand sees him doing his best impression of Herman’s Hermits English music hall style.” (Peter Millen)
A planned compilation LP, ‘Kommotion ‘66’ was another recording featuring Shepp but unfortunately it was scrapped. The album was to be another in the 4 x 4 series that contain four tracks each by four artists, similar to LPs issued on Sunshine (‘The Big Four’ Oct ’65) and Spin (Spinnin’ High’ Dec ‘66). The Kommotion album was to feature the Vince Maloney Sect, Graham Chapman, Mike Furber and Tony Shepp. What a great collector’s item this album would be today if it had been issued. Some test pressings survive today.
In what must have been the highlight of Tony’s career he performed at ‘The Go!! Show’ live concert in front of 85,000 screaming teenagers at the Myer Music Bowl as part of the 1966 Moomba celebrations. Other artists on the show included Yvonne Barrett, Buddy England, Merv Benton, MPD Ltd and the Easybeats. Tony Healy reported in the March 23rd edition of Go-Set,
“In teeming rain, the audience danced and screamed through each particular act. Soon after the stage was littered with streamers and trinkets that were thrown to the singers. Police lined the front of the stage to stop girls from rushing the artists during each act.” (Go-Set March 23rd, 1966)
When Tony embarked on an interstate tour to promote his single, his backing band Bitter And Sweet stayed in Melbourne and worked with another singer Jill Richards. The band never worked with Tony again. The tour started in Brisbane and the strain of his busy work schedule soon started to take its toll. After driving home following a performance, Tony suffered a collapse resulting in a stomach ulcer and he spent the next week recovering on the Gold Coast. When he recovered, he worked in Brisbane performing at local discos, did some promotional work at department stores and appeared on TVQ’s ‘Countdown’. After this he travelled to Sydney and appeared on three TV shows, then returned to Melbourne for one week before embarking on a tour of South Australia and Tasmania.
In December 1966, Go-Set reported that Tony might be quitting the pop industry altogether due decreasing fees and the competiveness of the music scene for solo artists. Shortly afterwards, although he continued performing around Melbourne, he accepted a job in an advertising agency. 1967 did not start well for Tony as this report in Go-Set describes:
“Pop star Tony Shepp has been beaten up. In what turned out to be a brutal back-alley bashing, Tony and pretty fiancé, Jackie Rowson, were the targets for six hooligans. The fracas broke out about 3.30 am last Sunday when Tony and Jackie were leaving a party for a staff member of a Melbourne television magazine. Jackie left the party about 20 seconds before Tony. She was walking to Tony’s Studebaker. Six boys walked up to Jackie. One asked her to go home with him, another used less tact. Jackie kept walking to Tony’s car, ignoring the boys as best she could. She didn’t make it. In a second, the boys turned on her and pulled her to the ground. Right then, Tony left the flat, to see Jackie being bashed by a gang of hooligans…. Tony charged into the pack of louts. Four of them ran away, two stayed and turned on Tony. They threw him to the ground, kicked him in the face, the neck and the back, then left….” (Go-Set, February 22, 1967)
Tony managed to drive himself and his fiancée to hospital for treatment and they were allowed to leave after a few hours. It is not surprising that shortly after this incident Shepp decided to quit the pop industry altogether. He turned to acting and appeared in episodes of Division 4 and ‘Hunter’ in 1967 and later landed a recurring support role as Constable Tony Grice in ‘Division 4’ between 1969 to 1972. He also appeared in another police drama, ‘Long Arm’ and appeared twice on the TV variety show ‘The Penthouse Club’. During the time Tony had the role of a policeman in ‘Division 4’ his cousin Dennis used to stay with him and Jackie at their unit on the Mornington Peninsula. Each trip must have been an interesting experience as Dennis explains,
“I used to go over to Melbourne to stay at his place. He used to live down on the Mornington Peninsula with Jackie and he used to drive to work wearing his police uniform. He’d be driving down the freeway going into Melbourne and taking me to North Melbourne. But he’d be driving down the freeway having a shave and eating breakfast. It was hilarious. When I was there for a month, he went every second day for two months.”
Tony began selling insurance policies as a sideline to a number of actors he worked with. He then moved into the finance business which proved to be a bad move. A 1974 loan deal went terribly wrong and resulted in him leaving Melbourne and returning to Adelaide. Shepp worked at a number of jobs in Adelaide, but he struggled to get back on his feet and his life went from bad to worse.
Tony died tragically in a fire in a furniture warehouse in Norwood an inner suburb of Adelaide on October 23rd, 1988. He was 42 years old. He is survived by his second wife with whom he had two children and a further two from his first marriage.
“Tony was a fabulous showman, a brilliant saxophone player, an accomplished actor and an all-round lovely fellow.” (Susie Gambill, The Ian Turpie Go Show page, 2019)
Discography:
With the Beaumen
403.1 mph not issued 06/64
With the Clefs
Last Night/March Of The Siamese Children Columbia DO-4580 05/65
Oh What A Big Deal/Your Guaranteed Unbreakable Heart
Kommotion KK-1315 1966 Not issued
Come On Over To My Place/ Don’t Ask Me Why
Sunshine QK-1382 06/66 Not issued
Come To Your Window/Pretty Dull Kommotion KK-4134 07/66
Sources:
Graeme Brown – Sunshine Secrets, Moonlight, 2019
Susie Gambill – The Ian Turpie Go Show page, 2019
Go-Set – March 23rd, 1966
Mcaskill.com.au – The Clefs History – Barry & Jan McAskill
Paul McHenry,Zbig Nowara & Chris Spencer – Aust Bands Of The 60s, Moonlight, Feb 2000
Peter Millen - Rockin’ In The City Of Churches, Brolga Publishing 2020
Peter Millen – Information via email, May 29th, 2024
Zbig Nowara - information via email
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