Dave Guard’s known commercial recording in Australia was done at EMI, RCA and Festival Records.  These folk-oriented performances showcased him mostly as an instrumentalist, predominantly on five-string banjo.  Dave arguably did some of his best recorded banjo performances in Australia, as well as some also-rans, but the general style was usually not far removed from that already known to Kingston Trio and Whiskeyhill Singers devotees.

There were a few sessions on which Dave played 12-string or electric guitar and sang vocal harmonies with the principal performer.  On one record he simply hit a tambourine.  Dave appeared typically on two tracks of a standard 12 track LP, although this number did vary up to four, and he did some singles and an EP.  He was responsible for the arrangements on a few of these cuts.

Dave Guard was credited under his own name on three consecutive 1963-64 albums with singer-musician-actor–writer-poet-painter-folk historian Lionel Long, who was then an established folk music celebrity at EMI's Columbia Records label.  Some of Lionel Long’s most seminal work with traditional and contemporary Australian material was done in the recordings he made with Dave Guard.  The albums on which Dave appeared were generally not released outside Australia but one, The Bold Bushrangers, did surface in England. 

Few people know that Dave Guard did most of his side work at Australian recording sessions anonymously or under the pseudonym “Dynamite” Finkelstein.  He was still under contract to Capitol-EMI from his Whiskeyhill Singers days and this probably accounts for him not recording elsewhere under his own name.  Green Hill Singers’ original bassist and Dave’s Place Group member, Chris Bonett, recalls that Dave definitely did not want to be identified on the cuts he did with the ‘Greenies’.  Some sources say that Dave Guard recorded in Australia under several strange names, but Finkelstein was the only one that anyone consulted could remember.

Gretchen Ballard Guard told the writer that a habit of Dave’s was to often use weird names for no particular reason other than to baffle people and to amuse himself.  Another favourite alias (for recording?) was Mutt Blankenship!  He sometimes called his children Fangneedle.  Instead of saying drive safely he said drive wreckless.  When signing a letter or saying goodbye to someone he would say strangle the falcons!  During the 1970s on the US West Coast, Dave dubbed his Australian bass player Chris Bonett with the appellation Mad Dog Shafter.  Whatever the reason, this predilection makes it all the harder to track down Dave’s recorded work from that period.

The known commercially-released recordings which Dave Guard made in Australia are long out of print in their original form, but one or two appear occasionally in second-hand record shops or at used vinyl web sites, surprisingly in the United States and England as well as in Australia.  The writer had the frustrating experience of locating one of these advertised at a store in California, only to be told “we think we still have it but we have moved all of our stock and can’t locate it”.

It is hard to get these records now because their print runs were limited, especially titles by performers who were less well known.  Total pressings for the latter group would be only in the hundreds.  In the past few months the writer has seen all of the Dave Guard LP recordings with Lionel Long and the Twiliters offered for sale at one store/internet venue or another, so with time and patience it is still possible to find them.  In late November 2000, EMI Australia re-issued a CD compilation, Waltzing Matilda, which includes two of Lionel Long’s 1963-64 cuts with Dave.

Dave Guard’s claimed involvement with some 27 different Australian record albums (The Kingston Trio On Record, 1986, p.59) poses a problem for historians for a number of reasons, not least of all because nowhere near that number can be found or remembered.  Australian record companies’ paper session particulars from the mid-1960s have been destroyed or archived among thousands of cards indexed by song title, thus making database searching pointless and card inspection an almost impossible task, even if one were to get access to the vaults of the right record companies and Dave’s name, or a known alias, was written on the cards in the first place.  Then how are the anonymous recordings to be found?  None the less, no one remembers Dave Guard appearing on so many Australian-produced albums, or for that matter believes that this was possible in so short a period. 

Dave Guard had a reputation for personal organization, which suggests that his claim of having “worked with about 27 different albums” would more likely be accurate than not, but it must be remembered that the 1985 interview was conducted at least 20 years after the events and memories, like perceptions, do change.  Compare some of Dave’s 1985 comments about the Whiskeyhill Singers with those in the 1964 Squire Australia interview.  In the 1985 interview, Dave used the same figure of 27 when he said that the Whiskeyhill Singers did 27 folksongs on the soundtrack of How the West Was Won, but the recent extended 2CD release of music from the film lists only seven.  Could so many have been cut out?  Maybe “27” was a figurative expression which simply meant “a lot”.  If no one remembers so many recordings, a logical question is what exactly did “worked with” mean?  Before we write-off two-thirds of Dave Guard’s claimed Australian recording involvement let us consider other possibilities. 

Although Dave used the term “albums” it would have been a mistake to confine the search to albums alone.  Two records he cut anonymously with the Tolmen folk group were a single and an EP.  The Tolmen never made a 12” album.  Similarly, his again anonymous work with the Twiliters folk trio involved an album and a quite separate single title.  One of his album tracks as “Dynamite” Finkelstein with folksinger Tina Date was released as a single months after the LP became available.  If we concentrate on the number of separate Australian tracks that featured Dave Guard playing on the recording itself, the confirmed figure currently stands at 25.

Dave’s connection with particular recordings might have been in a non-performing capacity, such as arranging a song, auditioning or giving advice.  The approach by the Seekers in their formation years, which was mentioned above, is an example.  Dave was regarded as having the industry contacts and the clout to get things done in areas where lesser-known people may not have been as influential. Some Australian performers recorded songs they first heard from Dave Guard.  One of the things that Dave brought with him from the US and expanded after his arrival was a large collection of folk music records, including a test pressing of the Whiskeyhill Singers’ unreleased second album featuring the Life Magazine “railroad track” picture (with the addition of an approaching train) on the cover.  There was obviously a lot of new material to choose from.  Rehearsals for the 1965 Dave’s Place TV show were held at Dave’s house and this provided many opportunities for performers to hear songs from his private record collection. 

Doug Ashdown (http://home.iprimus.com.au/dougashdown) recorded He's All These Things on his third album, Source (CBS BP/SBP233516) in 1968.  He later re-recorded the song on Doug Ashdown Live (Sweet Peach SBP 501) in 1971.  The Dave’s Place Group sang the song in the 1965 TV show and Doug was a guest on that particular episode (Episode 10), which is where he first heard it.  Doug recalls, “I recorded He's All These Things.  That is credited to Dave on my album but I feel it's a Staple Singers’ song as I think he had it in his collection.  Maybe CBS put his name there because I mentioned it or maybe he did write it.  I have not been able to trace the song.  Dave did not have any input in the recording but I picked up some guitar hints at his house.  I was in awe at all the Martin guitars hanging on the wall or in a showcase.  It was so long ago.”  He’s All These Things appeared in 1964 on an album called Let's Break Bread Together by American gospel group the Caravans (VeeJay VJLP-5070).  Assuming that this is the same song it is likely that it was heard from, rather than written by, Dave Guard. Doug also credits Dave with introducing him to Ain’t That News, which he subsequently recorded on another of his many albums, The Real Thing (CBS BP/SBP233317).

Surviving member of the Twiliters folk group, Jim Maguire, traces his trio’s decision to record Great Day and Come On, Sundown (RCA Camden CAM/S 127) to the time they first heard the songs sung by the Dave’s Place Group.  There is a liner note on The Voice of Patsy Biscoe (CBS BP233287) saying that she learned the English West-Country song The Oggie Man at Dave Guard's house.  Patsy sang the same song on the Dave’s Place TV show. 

More recording may have been done under Dave’s “Dynamite” Finkelstein persona or some other thus far unidentified alias.  Finkelstein was a name reported by one or two sources to have appeared on a number of local mid-1960s record jacket liner notes, although just how often was not established.  The writer has been able to find only one album bearing that name and it is likely, as many prominent Australian musicians of the mid-1960s have no memory of it, there were few others, if any.

The anonymous Dave Guard recordings could be viewed in the same way, but would understandably be the hardest to find because only a select few would have known that he was on the record.  At least with an alias it is possible to search collections for a name, but the anonymous appearance is known purely by word of mouth.  This would have been the case even at the time these records were released.  Several decades later, the problem is exacerbated because many who were present at the recording session can remember no more than that there were “some other musicians” in the studio.

Various Australian companies made a lot of folk recordings in the 1960s and local folk historian Malcolm Turnbull, who provided valuable assistance to this project, has just completed a book that includes a discography of these, but he has run into some of the same dead ends that the current author encountered.  Dave Guard could easily have performed anonymously on any number of these many recordings, or even within a different musical genre, and it is likely that there was never any official notation that he was even in the studio or that he was paid for this work, which seemed often done as a favour to friends and acquaintances in his Sydney circle rather than as a commercial venture.

A search such as this should not fail to take account of local cultural differences and how they might narrow the parameters.  The 1960s folk scene in Australia was focussed on the two largest State capital cities – Sydney and Melbourne – where there were some major differences in attitudes to the music.  Melbourne was the centre of “purism” where any form of commercialism or “adulteration” by background musicians was likely to be frowned-upon, even by the trenchant media critics of the time who were often among the most savage defenders of the art.  Sydney, on the other hand, was much more likely to accept the liberal folk music trends of the day.  This would reduce the possibility that Dave Guard recorded at any company based outside the Sydney area.  Dave did spend some time in Melbourne on occasions, so the possibility is still there even if the probability is not.

Then there is the potential for unreleased recordings.  Les Miller remembers that one of Dave’s last Australian recording sessions was not released but he cannot recall any detail on it.  Some enthusiasts have documented the chronological record releases of various studios over several decades and one of these that refers to RCA Australia says that a lot of planned releases were abandoned by the company at the last moment.

It might be concluded from the above that, if much of Dave Guard’s recording involvement was as extensive as he claimed, it would have been indirect andhoc /or some of his appearances on records must have been of a minor nature.  His ad desultory tambourine playing on the were Twiliters’ Creamsleeves single mentioned in Part 4 is an example of the latter, but there others like this?  If the opposite were the case and Dave made “around 27” significant recorded appearances, industry people and collectors of the time should recall, or even have in their possession, much more of his work.  Producer of most of Dave Guard’s known Australian recordings at EMI and RCA, Ron Wills, oversaw the making of numerous records of all genres during his career and said that he had many dealings with Dave but has no memory of his involvement in any recordings other than those listed in Parts 3 and 4 of this article, and even he could not recall after 35 years who the banjo player was on some of these outings.

Up to now we have been thinking almost exclusively about released commercial recordings, but Dave was involved in another type of session work which raises yet another possibility.  In addition to the music recorded specifically for media commercials, Dave and Les Miller put down some other instrumental backings at the same sessions.  These may have amounted to between 10 and 20 tracks in a two-year period prior to 1965 and the purpose for which these recordings were made was never specified.  They would go into a studio such as AWA (Amalgamated Wireless Australia), be advised on what was needed and work up an arrangement using an organ to approximate the human voice. The resulting tracks were often no more than a few bars long and could have been used for later commercials, movies, TV shows, canned music, radio station breaks or even as backings for commercially released recordings, and not necessarily in Australia. Maybe Dave included them among his intangible 27. As an example of one of these, Les recalled doing a track with Dave for The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy using two 12-string guitars and a Ray Charles-style arrangement similar to Hit the Road Jack, but he does not know what happened to it.  Dave’s tongue-in-cheek comment at the time was “Now, the Rooftop Singers never sounded like that!”  Banjo breaks on Australian radio shows are still heard occasionally today and, who knows, they might actually be some of Dave Guard’s work from four decades ago. 

1963 saw the beginning of a “boom” period in Australian recording in which EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA and other smaller companies began to promote Australian musical talent to an extent that had never been seen previously. Many performers appeared who were never heard from again and there were those who are still household names in Australia, or even internationally. It was against this backdrop that Dave Guard recorded in Australia.

Dave’s known anonymous or “alias” appearances on Australian recordings were done with emerging folk performers who had already achieved success on the coffee shop circuit, in live concerts or on television.  He might have met them previously on a television program, at one of their live shows or in some other capacity.  Alternatively, someone from the production side of the studio who knew Dave might have invited him to come in to enhance some of the recordings.  When these performers made their first records he offered to provide them with some instrumental backing on a couple of tracks, but insisted that he was not to be named on the record.  His work on the cuts was occasionally relegated more to the background than on the “official” EMI releases but in most cases it still amounted to a creative, easily recognised and substantive instrumental contribution, unlike much of Dave’s side work on American records after his return to the United States.  It is likely that any still-elusive tracks, when located, will prove to be another dose of the same.  It remains a challenge to find these recordings, but in the context of charting Dave Guard’s musical career in Australia it is hardly an imperative.

The Dave Guard sessions with Lionel Long were different.  Dave was under contract to Capitol-EMI so it is no surprise that the organization first utilised him on its most prestigious album of 1963.  The news that Dave Guard was to record in Australia created popular media interest as well as excitement among his aficionados and the release of the double LP was awaited eagerly, although no one was quite sure what Dave’s recording role was to be.

Dave’s four instrumental backing The EMI recordings, starting with tracks on set him behind a popular established The Bold Bushrangers, performer and significantly and prominently highlighted his skill with the fiverecord took five months to make and -string banjo.  The first was released in December   With a splendidly simple 1963.backing and a celebrated historical painting on its jacket, it was considered one of the most ambitious of all locally produced albums.  the day, it was awarded In keeping with the “ratings” culture of Record of the Yearstation 2GB and declared by popular Sydney radio by critics to be a classic in Australian recording. 

The next album, Songs of the Sea, had the added attraction of Dave’s distinctive, but now a little huskier, vocal style on two of his three featured tracks and this work consequently sounded much like the Dave Guard of old.  The third outing, Songs of a Sunburnt Country, saw Dave’s attention shift to the big Gibson J200 12-string guitar that featured heavily in his later Dave’s Place TV show.  Dave Guard prized this guitar and was still using it in the 1980s although, in this writer’s opinion, he never achieved the same mastery over the instrument that he did with the banjo. The two banjo tracks were Dave’s best contributions to his final EMI album.

There has been some pressure on EMI to have The Bold Bushrangers and Songs of a Sunburnt Country re-issued on CD because of their significant Australian historical and musical content, but nothing is planned.  Maybe those who are interested in these records should write to EMI Australia at PO BOX 311CREMORNE NSW 2090 AUSTRALIA or use its web site message facility (http://www.emimusic.com.au/feedback.asp) to add weight for their re-release.

There are just nine original Australian recordings on which Dave Guard’s presence has been identified. One of these was produced as a double album but it was later repackaged and sold as two separate albums, bringing the technical total to ten, but the list is still way short of the magic figure of 27 mentioned by Dave in his 1985 interview. Not all of these were 12” LPs.  If an album track was released also as a single it was not counted again here as a separate disc. The longer that this project continues and the more key people of the day who are found and consulted, the greater the confidence becomes that these recordings are all there ever were. But the writer has too frequently seen how memories of the day have faded over the intervening decades and then, when you least expect it, another lost gem pops out from Finkelstein’s ethereal banjo case.