BLUESWALKIN’ by SHERBET. Story by Stephen Andrew.

St Kilda Foreshore, 10 February 2022 (and many other gigs).

My first reaction was a shudder. When I saw his photograph on a news site in late June, I defaulted to an assumption that he’d died. He hasn’t: He has merely retired from live performance due to throat problems. He is 77 years old.

Relief and sadness were followed by thoughts that, of course he’s getting old, indeed, he is old, and, I’m getting old too.

When he was a younger man and singing wasn’t so effortful for him, I was a young man too. Actually, I was a teenager. I’m watching him, in retrospect, on the adolescent stage in my mind and marvelling at what he and his band can do. How he can transport me away from my dark childhood to a place of sweetness, joy, and abandon.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I saw Daryl Braithwaite and Sherbet perform live. But I have an inner mental scrapbook, yellowed and dog-eared, that captured flickering memories and sound bites of performances that amazed me.

I can recall the very last time I saw him perform live, witnessing my first post-Covid show at the St Kilda Festival in 2022. He sang songs from his days as the lead singer of Sherbet and from his unexpected second life as a solo artist. He needed a little help to handle some of the very high notes, but I was impressed by his unique, powerful voice still being in such great form. As he wandered the stage (cradling his trademark split microphone stand) he reminded me that he had always loved performing.

As a serious fan, I love the deep cuts, the album tracks that were not hit singles and on this day he played a somewhat uncharacteristic Sherbet song, an LP track called Blueswalkin. More rhythm and blues than pop, it has a slinky, organ-based arrangement to it. It took me back to the huge Howzat album and tour.

This song then triggers other memories:

…Of seeing Sherbet at the Myer Music Bowl in 1975 and I’m immersed in a deep sea of girls, wet with cheap perfume and excitement, screaming “Daryl”, “Tony”, “Alan”, “Clive” and “Gaaaarth” at the top of their tiny lungs.

…Of spending the night on the cold, hard footpath outside Festival Hall in Melbourne in 1978, desperate for early morning front row tickets for an upcoming show.

…Of seeing them at the Prospect Hill Hotel in Kew when they came back to Australia as fallen heroes after an unsuccessful attempt at world pop domination. Out of favour everywhere, they changed their name to The Sherbs and they were sharp and funky and playing as if their lives depended on it inside a tiny, smoke-filled pub.

…Of their first gig as the reformed Sherbet in 2006 at the Shoppingtown Hotel in suburban Doncaster, where I saw their unexpected nerves turn to warm relief after they nailed their opening song.

Every time I saw them live they cooked.

I wish I had witnessed that imagined moment in 1986 when Daryl was working as a council road worker for the Bulla Shire Council. Sherbet had disbanded and so with no band now and no solo musical career yet he’d exchanged his microphone stand for a spinning Stop and Go sign.

In my mind I can hear one of his fellow co-workers saying…

“Hey, anyone ever told ya that you look a lot like that guy outta that band, Sherbet?”

“Well, actually, they have because I am… I was that guy out of Sherbet”.

“No way! Oh man, you were great. What are you doing here?

“I’m Blueswalkin’’. (This dialogue has now become my own interior mini-series, so forgive the corny overdramatisation).

“You still singin’, mate?”

“Nah, mate, not interested anymore. I belt out of tune or two in the shower, but that’s about it”.

[Shouting] “Hey, fellas! This is the guy that sang that ‘Summer Love’ song”.

“Yeah? Fair dinkum? Hey, Daryl, give us tune, mate…”

[A team of road workers burst into a spontaneous, tuneless melody]  “How-how-how- howzat / You messed about, I caught you out, howzat”

And that was about it until the itch to sing and record returned again to the former triple-crowned King of Pop, leading to the single, As the Days Go By and the number 1 album, Edge.

This morning I’m feeling my age. I’m not 77. Daryl has 13 years on me. I’m working through this ridiculous inner fallacy that I know I’m not alone in carrying: It’s that sweet and seductive myth that great things just go on forever. As Springsteen says: “Well, I guess everything dies, baby, that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies someday comes back”. Somethings, sometimes, maybe. Daryl’s retirement also retires a part of my youth. While I didn’t even know it then, I can now feel time passing.

Stereo Story 893

This is Stephen’s 45th Stereo Story. Among the other 44 you’ll find a story about Summer Love by Sherbet.

See also Tracy Peacock’s Sherbet story