A tribute to Australian music legend Johnny Young, whose songs, television career and eye for young talent helped shape generations of performers, writes Jenny LeComte.
AUSTRALIAN POP STAR Johnny Young was a quadruple threat.
A consummate pop star in the 1960s, he parlayed his later talents and became a successful music producer, composer and talent spotter.
Born Johnny Benjamin de Jong on 12 March 1947 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, he was conceived as the result of an affair between his mother and a musician. His mother was in a choir and encouraged his early interest in music. When he was one and a half years old, the family emigrated to Perth in Western Australia. In 1959, Johnny and his brothers Ferdinand and Fokke were naturalised as Australian citizens.
Young’s mother took him to radio shows for children and after leaving school, he began working as a disc jockey. When he was 18, Young was host of TVW-7 and started to release pop hits. He eventually palled up with a 1960s Australian band called the Easybeats and, in 1966, released a song called ‘Step Back’ that was penned by Stevie Wright and George Young — no relation.
The B-side, ‘Cara-Lyn’, a cover of a song by the Strangeloves, went ballistic.
Meanwhile, Young was networking and forming lifelong friendships with people like Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, who provided Young with an airfare to Sydney for a television spot during which he performed his signature song, a slow version of the Beatles hit ‘All My Loving’.
While in Melbourne, Young met a kindred spirit called Ian “Molly” Meldrum, a bored law student who was crazy about rock music and ran a groovy magazine called Go-Set.
In 1969, Young wrote a brilliant song called ‘The Real Thing’ that was performed by fledgling pop star Russell Morris. Initially, Meldrum wanted it to be performed by his friend Ronnie Burns and went to Young’s home with a tape recorder. The psychedelic hit that followed was pure dead brilliant.
In later years, Johnny Young hosted a wonderful show called Young Talent Time that launched the careers of Jamie Redfern, Debra Byrne, Dannii Minogue and Tina Arena. His trademark song at the end of each show was ‘All My Loving’.
Dannii Minogue, who first appeared on Young Talent Time on her eighth birthday in 1979, said she was heartbroken at the news of his passing.
Minogue wrote on Instagram:
Johnny Young holds a place in so many hearts and today my heart is broken.
He has so many achievements from his music and TV career, pop writing and releases and family entertainment on our televisions. For me, this is where my career started and generations of Aussies hold “Young Talent Time” and the song “All My Loving” so fondly in their memories.
Another tribute came from Tina Arena, whose career Young launched on Young Talent Time, on which she made her debut at the tender age of seven.
Tina Arena said:
“The thing that has happened overnight and is very raw for me is the passing of Johnny Young... which is someone who started my career. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be sitting here today.”
Arena continued:
“He was the one. It was his show — he made all the creative decisions and chose the kids and we had a really wonderful relationship. He’s like my second Dad and his passing... pretty tough. I hope he’s looking down on us and I’m sure he is.”
Jenny LeComte is a freelance journalist currently based in Port Lincoln, South Australia.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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