26 March 2024

Horrie Dargie – Harmonica Genius – Phantom Dancer

Greg Poppleton's Phantom Dancer swing jazz radio show

Horrie Dargie was an Australian harmonica player and clarinetist, television compère (Personally Yours (1959), BP Super Show (1959–1962) and The Delo and Daly Show (1963–1964)), talent manager, music label founder (Go!! Records) and music arranger. His Horrie Dargie Quintet was awarded the first gold record in Australia for ‘Horrie Dargie Concert’ (1952). Horrie is your Phantom Dancer feature artist this week.

The Phantom Dancer is your weekly non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week.

LISTEN to this week’s Phantom Dancer mix (online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 26 March) and weeks of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

HORRIE

Horace Dargie was given a harmonica by his father and, from the age of ten, he practised the instrument for five hours a day.

A self-taught musician, Horrie Dargie, began his musical career as a diatonica harmonica player. At 16-years-old, in 1933, he joined the Yarraville Mouth Organ Band.

He joined the Victorian Mouth Organ Band conducted by William Ketterer.

In the early 1930s Dargie took up the chromatic harmonica and won a variety competition for professional and amateurs, PandA Parade on local radio station 3KZ in 1937.

The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) hired him as a harmonica player to tour Australia for three months from November 1937.

He started his tour in Tasmania and broadcast from a radio studio, which he preferred to concert halls as his effects are “concentrated in the one volume of sound, and not thinned by the spread of sound in a hall.”

In February 1938 he joined ABC-sponsored Jim Davidson’s Dance Band alongside hill-billy comedian Bobby Dyer on “an extended tour of capital cities and provincial centres.”

In March of that year they performed at Tivoli Theatre, Broken Hill.

Some tour performances were broadcast on local radio stations.

Dargie’s first recording was with Davidson’s orchestra in 1938, issued via Columbia Records.

After the tour Dargie moved to Sydney where he studied clarinet and orchestration, before starting his own harmonica school there.

With Henry “Doc” Bertram on bass harmonica; Alec Lois, Ron Metcalfe and George Williamson on chromatics and Roy Shea on chords he formed a harmonica group, the Rockin’ Reeds.

The group released six recordings by 1941. From early March to late April 1942 Horrie Dargie and His Rockin’ Reeds played a weekly programme on ABC radio.

DARGIE

Dargie enlisted in the Australian Army’s Entertainment Unit on 13 November 1942, where he became a Warrant Officer Class 2. He served in New Guinea (December 1943–September 1944), Darwin (May–July 1945) and in the occupational forces in Japan (March 1946–February 1947). He was discharged in March 1947 and returned to Sydney.

He formed the Horrie Dargie Quintet (also known as the Horrie Dargie Harlequintet) in 1949.

By 1952 the Quintet had risen in popularity and played their farewell concert at the Sydney Town Hall in November 1952 before leaving for England. The line-up of the quintet was Dargie on clarinet, harmonica, vocals; Bertram on bass, harmonica, vocals; Reg Cantwell on piano; Joe Hudson on drums, harmonica, vocals; Vern Moore on guitar, harmonica, vocals.

By chance, a recording was made on a wire recorder using just one microphone – the 10-inch record of the performance, Horrie Dargie Concert (1953) became Australia’s first gold record, selling 75,000 copies.

While in England they appeared several times on BBC television via BBC from 1953.

The quintet’s line-up, in January 1955, was Dargie (harmonica, clarinet, saxophone, vocals), Bertram (bass, harmonica), Cantwell (piano), Hudson (drums, harmonica) and Moore (saxophone, guitar, trombone, harmonica). One of their numbers “The Green Door” (1956) become a hit in its own right.

While performing in London in late 1955 Dargie contracted polio and was hospitalised – apparently he collapsed on stage. The disease affected his diaphragm and legs, at the time he was told he would not be able to play a wind instrument again. He once described the illness as a “bit of a problem” – he was paralysed except for his right arm and he could swallow. With persistence he recovered and returned to his music career by June of the following year.

Upon their return to Australia in 1958 they performed at the Tivoli, Sydney.

The quintet appeared on Stan Freberg Show in June 1959, which was filmed at ATN-7 studios, Epping.[25] Dargie took up positions at the then-affiliated TV stations ATN-7 (Sydney) and GTV-9 (Melbourne), where he was in charge of the talent division – variety was popular at the time – he worked on four or five shows a week. He compèred BP Super Show (1959–1962), Personally Yours (1962) and The Delo and Daly Show (1963–1964) and organised on-air talent and guests. The latter programme was produced by DYT Productions, which had been established by Dargie with Arthur Young and Johnny Tillbrook.

Dargie compèred the first nationwide-edition of The Price Is Right in 1963 on Seven Network, which had previously had rival versions in Melbourne (1958) and Sydney (1957–1958). By 1963 ATN-7 was affiliated with HSV-7 (Melbourne).

DYT Productions also produced The Go!! Show (1964–1967) for ATV-0 (Melbourne).[27] It was a pop music show, which regularly featured solo entertainers Johnny Young, Ian Turpie and Olivia Newton-John. DYT Productions established the related Go!! Records in 1964 to promote artists, which appeared on the show; with distribution by Astor Records. In August 1967, ATV-0 abruptly cancelled The Go!! Show and the loss of its promotional outlet led to the demise of the Go!! label in the following year.

Dargie provided musical arrangements for film Crocodile Dundee and TV series The Leyland Brothers. Under the musical directorship of Sven Libaek, he also participated in the background music in the 1960s TV show Nature Walkabout (hosted by Vincent Serventy). Dargie played background music for TV series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. One of Dargie’s last recordings was for pop music group the Reels’ third studio album, Beautiful (May 1982).