In 1964, late AC/DC frontman Bon Scott formed his first band The Spektors in Perth, Australia. The beat-pop group featured Scott along with co-vocalist and co-drummer John Collins, guitarist Wyn Milsom, rhythm guitarist Murray Gracie, and bassist Brian Gannon, who pulled their name from the then-famed producer Phil Spektor.
The band recorded a series of covers—everything from The Beatles‘ “Yesterday,” Van Morrison‘s “Gloria” and more—and even gained local notoriety by winning the local Hoadley’s Battle of the Sounds competition—before splitting in 1966.
Shortly after the Spektors disbanded, Scott and Milsom formed The Valentines. Scott shared vocals again with former rival band The Winstons’ Vince Lovegrove. While in The Valentines, Scott also started writing songs more and even helped earn the band one of their first charting hits, “Juliette” before joining Fraternity in 1970 and continued to record with the band through 1973.
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By the early ’70s, Scott also connected with Australian pianist, singer, and songwriter Peter Head, and the two worked with his band The Mount Lofty Rangers along with Scott’s solo releases before he joined AC/DC.
[RELATED: 4 AC/DC Classics Written by Bon Scott]
Years before joining his final band, and writing the majority of AC/DC’s early catalog, Scott’s book of songs already had a fair number of entries. Here’s a look at six songs Scott wrote for his previous bands before fronting AC/DC.
1. “Getting Better,” The Valentines (1969)
Written by Bon Scott and Wyn Milsom
The Australian pop band The Valentines had a short lifespan, from 1966 through 1970, but the band bred two successful co-lead vocalists—the late Vince Lovegrove, who went on to manage Divinyls, and Scott.
Along with his former Spektors’ bandmate Wyn Milsom, Scott co-wrote several original songs for the band, including “Getting Better,” released on their second album My Old Man’s A Groovy Old Man in 1969. Released as a B-side to “Nick Nack Paddy Whack,” the song made its way onto the Australian chart at No. 53.
2. “Nick Nack Paddy Whack,” The Valentines (1969)
Written by Bon Scott, Wyn Milsom, Vince Lovegrove, Ted Ward, John Cooksey, Paddy Beach
Also on My Old Man’s A Groovy Old Man, Scott and the band co-wrote the bubblegum pop “Nick Nack Paddy Whack,” which went to No. 53 on the Australian chart with “Getting Better.” The band even landed a spot on the Australian music show Hit Scene on July 12, 1969, where they performed the song.
3. “Juliette,” The Valentines (1970)
Written by Bon Scott, Ted Ward, and Wyn Milsom
Before Scott parted ways with the Valentines in 1970 to join Fraternity, the band released the single “Juliette,” which he co-wrote with Milsom and Ted Ward. The single peaked at No. 28 on the Australian chart.
In 1987, the Valentines’ catalog started getting rereleased, beginning with The Early Years, followed by Peculiar Hole in the Sky in 2003, The Sound of the Valentines in 2016, and 1967-1970 from 2020.
[RELATED: On This Day: AC/DC Lost Frontman Bon Scott in 1980]
Lovegrove and Scott remained friends until Scott’s death in 1980 at 33. Lovegrove was a journalist and managed Divinyls, until his death in a car accident in 2012 at the age of 65, while Milsom went on to become a sound engineer.
4. “Raglan’s Folly,” Fraternity (1971)
Written by Bon Scott and Mick Jurd
In 1970, shortly after Scott moved to Adelaide, he started fronting the band Fraternity, featuring Bruce Howe, Mick Jurd, John Bisset, and John Freeman. On the band’s prog-driven debut album, Livestock, Scott also co-wrote one track “Raglan’s Folly,” which ran six-plus minutes.
Fraternity’s second and final album, Flaming Galah, featured re-recordings from the first album, including a shortened version of “Raglan’s Folly” at under five minutes. Livestock was re-released on CD in 1998 with three bonus tracks and an alternative cover.
5. “Clarissa,” Peter Head and the Mount Lofty Rangers (1974)
Written by Bon Scott
By the early 1970s, while Fraternity was on hiatus, Scott befriended former singer Headband and virtuoso pianist Peter Head, who would become a sort of musical mentor to him.
“Bon would go to Peter’s home after a day of (literally) shoveling s–t, and show him musical ideas he had had during his day’s work,” said Lovegrove in a 2008 interview. “Bon’s knowledge of the guitar was limited, so Peter began teaching him how to bridge chords and construct a song. One of the songs from these sessions was a ballad called ‘Clarissa,’ about a local Adelaide girl. Another was the country-tinged ‘Bin Up in the Hills Too Long,’ [‘I’ve Been Up in the Hills Too Long’], which for me was a sign of things to come with Bon’s lyrics—simple, clever, sardonic, tongue-in-cheek.”
During their sessions, Scott wrote a handful of songs for Head’s new band Peter Head and the Mount Lofty Rangers, which also featured Fraternity’s Howe and Lovegrove, Glenn Shorrock, Robyn Archer. On May 3, 1974, Scott left a rehearsal with Head and the band in a rage after getting into an argument with Howe, and crashed a bottle of Jack Daniels to the floor before racing off on his Suzuki 550 motorbike. “We tried to stop him,” remembered Head in 2022. “I remember saying, ‘Bon, don’t go off, you’re too drunk, you can’t drive,’ but because he was pissed he didn’t listen to any of us. This,” he sighs, “was nothing unusual.”
While driving, Scott collided with a car and nearly lost his life.
[RELATED: Brian Johnson’s Favorite Bon Scott-Era AC/DC Song: “I Wish We Did It”]
“Three hours later, I received a phone call from his [Scott’s] wife, Irene, at Queen Elizabeth Hospital,” recalled Lovegrove. “Bon was in a coma, near death, after a disastrous collision with a car. I drove to the hospital, and there was Bon as I had never seen him; limp, smashed to smithereens, his jaw wired, most of his teeth knocked out, a broken collar bone, several cracked and broken ribs, deep cuts across his throat.”
Scott remained in a coma for three days and in the hospital for 18, according to Lovegrove. “This happened before Bon was to find fame with AC/DC,” said Lovegrove. “Irene tells me that, before Bon went into the coma that night, the nurse sarcastically said to her ‘He says he’s a singer.'”
6. “Carey Gully,” Bon Scott, Featuring Peter Head (Recorded in 1974; released in 1996)
Written by Bon Scott
Shortly before joining AC/DC in 1974, Scott recorded a debut solo EP Round and Round and Round, another collaboration with Head, who penned the title track for Scott. The slightly harder heartland-dipped track showcased the beginnings of Scott’s signature raspy AC/DC cadence and put him at the forefront as a vocalist.
The EP also featured a cover of Stevie Wonder and Syreeta Wright’s To Know You Is To Love You,” along with the more orchestral Scott-penned “Carey Gully.”
In a little tin shed on the hill side
Where we sit and drinkourpeppermint tea
And the candlelight flickers inside
Cos we haven’t got electricity
But I know that I’ve found peace in Carey Gully
And I’ve never known that state of mind before
And I sing, as I walk down in the valley
Cos those city things don’t bother me no more
Oh it’s taken a long time to get there
And we’ve travelled such a long and winding road
But now I sit in my old rocking chair
And my darlin’ I never will go
“The tracks were recorded for $40 which was all the studio time we could afford then” Head told Inpress Magazine in Australia in 1996, on recording Round and Round and Round in 1974. “Bon and I used to help each other out. I’d write music and he’d sing lyrics of my songs. Those were pioneering days. They were recorded at the first 8-track studio in Adelaide.”
In 1996, Head revisited the old tracks he recorded with Scott and released Round and Round and Round. “I’d been carting the tapes around for 20 years and then I met Ted Yanni at Round Midnight,” recalled Head, “and we started talking about new technology and what you could do with older material like this.”
In an interview with New Zealand magazine Rip It Up in 1996, Head added, “They were just rough demos and a few weeks later Bon went off to join AC/DC and that seemed to be it. The fun of finishing off something first started 22 years ago really appealed to me.”
Scott adn Head remained friends after their collaborations. A year later, Scott had already moved on again and released his debut album with AC/DC High Voltage in 1975, which went to No. 14 on the charts in Australia.
Main Photo: Fin Costello/Redferns
