A Kiss by Lake Catani by Johnny Wade and his Hawaiians

We were lucky to come across this recording by Johnny Wade and his Hawaiians of A Kiss by Lake Catani. I already had the sheet music - the song was written by Reg Hudson - read about him and see the lyrics, here - but this is even more exciting!    We have made a digital recording of the record, you can access it by clicking on this link, here.

         

So what do we know about Johnny Wade? Not a lot, but I came across this book The Strat in the Attic 2: more thrilling stories of guitar archaeology by Deke Dickerson (Voyage Press 2014) There is a chapter on the book written by Steve Lees, The first Australian Startocaster, about the first Fender Stratocaster guitar in Australia, which was owned by Johnny Wade.  Johnny Wade was a cousin of Steve's dad, who was also a guitar player. Steve tracked down Johnny (real name Charlie Wade) who still had the guitar which he got in about 1956 from an American friend. (Fenders were not imported into Australia until the early 1960s), which eventually Steve bought from him. Amongst other things Steve also had this information about Johnny Wade - a major Hawaiian music star in Australia in the 1950s with over 70 albums to his name....in the late 1950s or early 1960s Johnny Wade played guitar at  the Brighton Hotel where he had  a residency. 

I put his name into Trove to see what I could find out about him - he started getting noticed in 1939, where a paper described him as a 'Sydney singer.' The Cumberland Argus of May 24, 1939 described him as a young vocalist whose voice is said to bear a remarkable resemblance to Bing Crosby. The first mention I can find of  Johnny Wade and his Hawaiians is in December 1947 - in this advertisement from the Melbourne Herald where the band is listed as recording for Regal Zonophone along with three other Hawaiian bands including the Hawaiian Club Quartet. See the original advertisement here.

 The  Darwin newspaper, The Northern Standard, of  February 3 1955 has this short biography of Johnny -

Although he likes to specialise in Hawaiian music, Johnny Wade is well-known as a straight singer. He has sung in many A.B.C. shows - he made his radio debut at the age of 9 as a boy soprano in the A.B.C. Children's Session-and sang and played in the band at the Prince Edward Theatre, Sydney, for many years. 

With various groups, he has recorded numerous Hawaiian numbers. His present group was formed six months ago specially for a new series of recordings and for these broadcasts. Members are Django Kahn and Neville Kahn (steel guitars), Johnny Wade (Spanish guitar), Noel Gilmore (vibraphone) and Wally Wickham (bass) 

The Kahn brothers and Johnny Wade have been associated with Hawaiian music for many years they met at Sydney's Hawaiian Club which Johnny joined to learn the guitar after his voice broke.

In 1949, Johnny visited the home of Hawaiian music-Honolulu-on his way to America. He sang at the famous Royal Hawaiian Hotel with Bill Akamohou's orchestra, and at Don the Beachcomber's, a Waikiki night club. He intends to send some of his new recordings, to be released here in February, to the hotel and hopes to get an engagement for his group.

There is a  photo of the band on the National Film and Sound Archive website of  Johnny and the band  and they list the band  members as Eric Kahn, bass; Norm Scott, ukulele; Neville Kahn, steel guitar; Johnny Wade, Spanish guitar and vocals. The band is labelled as the Hawaiian Club Quartet - even though as we have seen in the advertisement from 1947, above, this was a separate band to Johnny Wade and his Hawaiians - so is the photo incorrectly labelled? or  did Johnny have two bands? I don't know.

Left to right Eric Kahn, Norm Scott,  Neville Kahn  and Johnny Wade. They have the photo dated as 1939,  I don't believe this date is correct, photo looks later than that, either way - click on this link here https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/hawaiian-music-australia# and you can hear the band play Aloha Oe.

I don't have any information about when and if Johnny Wade was married or when or where he died.

This is the record cover, I believe the record was recorded in 1949, as it is advertised as a 'latest popular song hit' in the October, see ad here, however we know that it was written in at least 1947.  Listen to the digital recording we had made of this record, here.

I have created a list of newspaper articles on Johnny Wade on Trove, you can access them here.

Acknowledgements: Thank you to Issac Hermann for getting the digital recording of this record and Paul Caine for finding the photo of the band on the NFSA.