Still Rockin' It - Cheryl Lee
Still Rockin' It - Cheryl Lee
What has Karin Keays been up to lately? OR Rock and Roll Romance: Love, Loss, and Legacy
Join Cheryl Lee - That Radio Chick on STILL ROCKIN' IT for news, reviews, music and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians.
I sit down with the remarkable Karin Keyes, whose new book "It's Because I Love You" captures the essence of a rock and roll romance that spanned 35 years in the Australian music scene. Karin's life story, filled with love, loss, and a journey through the chaos of rock and roll royalty, is both inspiring and deeply touching.
Karin opens up about the inspiration behind her book, initially centered on her son William, who tragically passed away. The narrative has since evolved, focusing on her enduring love with her late husband, Jim. Karin's authentic storytelling offers profound insights and hints at an exciting sequel, promising to continue exploring themes of love, loss, and music, with intriguing connections to figures like Annette Day.
We also honor the legacy of the great Jim Keyes, celebrating his induction into the SA Music Hall of Fame and his diverse contributions to the music world, including the Brisbane Lions club song.
His heartfelt reunion with his biological mother adds an emotional layer to his story, reflecting his deep impact as both an artist and a person.
This episode serves as a heartfelt homage to Jim's enduring influence in music and family, while also providing a glimpse into future musical releases and a second book.
Connect with Karin's moving journey and celebrate the legacy of a true icon in the Australian music scene.
What has Karin Keays been up to lately? Let's find out!!
Get out when you can, support local music and I'll see you down the front!!
Visit: ThatRadioChick.com.au
That Radio Cheek Cheryl Lee here. Welcome to the Still Rocking Podcast where we'll have music news, reviews and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians and artists. Today we chat with Karin Keyes about her new book. It's Because I Love you is the story of Karin Keyes' real-life rock and roll romance and possibly the first such book to be written from the unique perspective of a woman who has lived and worked for 35 years in the inner sanctum of rock and roll royalty, at times vastly amusing, fascinating, insightful and also deeply tragic. The story of a fairy tale life that goes suddenly and shockingly wrong, turning into a nightmare of maternal loss and grief. Amidst the dizzying highs and devastating lows of life in the Australian music industry, karin's is an inspirational story of healing and redemption, woven through a true love story for all time. To catch up on podcasts from other favourite artists, simply go to that radio chickcomau.
Speaker 1:You're with Cheryl Lee and I'd like to welcome into the Zoom room today Karin Keyes, and she has got an amazing story to tell that I'm sure we're all going to be really interested in. And there's also a previously unreleased album of hubby gyms that we must remember to hear all about before we leave today. But first your new book. I'm halfway through, I've laughed, I've cried. And before we chat about that, how was the launch last Friday? Oh, it was magical.
Speaker 2:It was fabulous. Thanks, Cheryl. It was a beautiful courtyard. It was early evening. I spent most of the time signing books. I didn't get to do a lot of socialising, but perhaps there are friends there that are in the book from early on, For instance, Lisa. You'll read about her in the book. She was looking after our children. When I was in hospital having William, our daughters, she and her husband David were there. It was a wonderful, magical evening.
Speaker 1:So glad it's not a book about being married to a rock star, is it? Although obviously you were married to a rock star, so Jim is in it. But it's about love and loss and fighting for what's right and surviving together and coming through another loss yet again.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly it's about my life. Originally, I started to write about William, our son, after he died. I learned a lot from the coronial process and, you know, just dealing with all the legal aspects of that, you know, I thought I wanted to write about it and share it. It took me a long time and I thought you know what? I can't just write about William without writing about the love that he was created from. So that was how the book started. I started writing like that, but then, when I finally sat down to write it, I wrote it as my love story, or my love story.
Speaker 1:It absolutely is a love story and I love reading it because the way that you write it's just like you write, it's just like you know. We're sitting down and we're having a conversation and we're we're old friends and you're telling me all about it and I love that. Such a beautiful read so far. Now, jim, he fell in love with you at first sight, didn't he? The very first time he laid eyes on you, he I didn't know it at the time.
Speaker 2:I thought he couldn't stand me because he wouldn't look at me. This is not going to work, because I was a prospective tenant, you know, in his house. I thought, oh, he hates me. So, as it turns out, he told me later he just didn't know where to look because he was policed. So yeah, it was very romantic when he told me, but before that it wasn't.
Speaker 1:We don't want to give the whole thing away, because I absolutely encourage those listening to grab the book and have a read for yourself, but you mentioned a couple of things early on your day out or night out with Annette Day who of course is R Daisy's widow from Support Act, because I'm on the committee.
Speaker 2:I love Support Act. I love Support Act. Support Act will actually feature in the sequel to this book, in the second book. I won't give anything else away.
Speaker 1:Is that a scoop? There's a sequel coming.
Speaker 2:There is there is because you haven't read the end of the book yet.
Speaker 1:No, that's right, how exciting. We love Annette. We have a fundraising luncheon every month here in South Australia.
Speaker 2:I should go to Adelaide more often because there's so many people who I just love out there, such as Annette, and I haven't seen them for ages, for instance, annette and I our lives often very parallel similarities.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:In the best ways and also in the saddest ways and the worst.
Speaker 1:You both lost husbands.
Speaker 2:you know relatively young really yes that's true Since then, because this will come in the second book. I'm actually no, maybe I shouldn't say that, because I don't want to give anything away.
Speaker 1:Watch this space. It's set against the backdrop of the music industry, obviously, and tours and gigs and albums and other rock stars, and you and Jim have two beautiful daughters together, and then the unthinkable happens.
Speaker 2:I was pregnant. Very soon after having Bonnie, I fell pregnant with William. He unfortunately died about six and a half hours after he was born as a result of, in my opinion, being induced artificially.
Speaker 1:Losing a child, which I just cannot imagine, and I think one of your girlfriends summed it up the best when she walked into your hospital room and she just thought how are you still breathing, still breathing. But to lose a child is bad enough, but to think that it possibly could have been avoided somehow must just be hard.
Speaker 2:That's when I cried obviously, yes, you know, to let it be, you know, to just get on with it, and I did try for a while, until I'm not sure where you are in the book, but something happened that made it obvious that I couldn't turn the other way it's very brave of you to follow that through, because anything that anybody can do to avoid this sort of thing happening to another mother, another family, you're so, so brave, thank you brave?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I just feel like it's something I had to do. I almost felt like I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do it. You had to do it for William, yes, and for my daughters, because one day, hopefully, they'll be mums themselves, mothers-to-be, and their friends who are not, love and adore all my children's friends. You know they're like daughters to me as well. How could I, if that ever happened to one of them and I hadn't said or tried my best to make sure that it didn't happen again?
Speaker 1:whatever you can do to pinpoint the errors and stop them from ever happening again, creating change for the better.
Speaker 2:You are listening to still rocking it it, the podcast with Cheryl Lee.
Speaker 1:Let's hear. Turn Up your Radio one of Masters Apprentice's most recognisable songs, a hit for them in 1970, making it to number seven on the Australian charts. And then back to speak some more to Curran Rock and a roll, and you're still doing it now. Just a little bit of history, although I think everybody listening to my podcast would be fully aware of the rockstarmness of your hubby, inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1998, we have actually seen each other before current, ten years ago at the Goodwood Institute here in Adelaide, when Jim was to be inducted into the SA Music Hall of Fame with the Masters Apprentices, but unfortunately you lost him just a few weeks before that event.
Speaker 2:Very sadly. Yes, he did. He succumbed finally to well. It was the cancer treatment taking its toll on his body the cancer slash treatment, and he got a an infection and be turned into pneumonia and he just couldn't fight it off.
Speaker 1:Yes, such a sad, sad loss. It was our third essay music hall of fame induction. I'm just reading from some of the reviews of that night. There was an overwhelming air of dignity and respect for the late Jim Keyes, former lead singer of iconic Australian group the Masters Apprentices. He was inducted alongside fellow original band members Brian Thornton, mick Bower, rick Morrison, gavin Webb. Accepting the award for Jimim were his wife, karen, and daughters holly and bonnie, who spoke highly of their late father and were very excited to see the original members reunited for the very first time in almost 50 years. And your beautiful daughters sang that night with the master's apprentices amazing because they do not sing.
Speaker 2:It's not that they can't sing. Often I've found a thing with the children of people who are in the music industry or whatever. They'll either go there, they'll really take after their parents and just run with it, or they'll say, no, not for me, I'm going the other way. I can't even get them to sing at home, but they did that night.
Speaker 1:It was so beautiful. That's actually one of my questions for later. I was going to ask if either of your daughters did follow into the family business the music industry no.
Speaker 2:No, and it's not because they just don't want to. They want to make their own way, and I think Jim would admire that too, because he was very much a man who made his own way in life, an individual, and he did what he wanted to do and was what he wanted to be so they're doing their things, their own individual things, quite successfully in life.
Speaker 2:I'm very proud of the girls and I know Jim would be too. Holly's actually living and working in London at the moment. Lucky duck she is, and she's over there with Tim Wheatley. She's not with him. They're in London and I believe they're going to be meeting up very shortly to get in together. Tim has a daughter and partner and it'll be lovely for them to meet up again. I think the last time we saw Tim all together was in West Hollywood. All these amazing places.
Speaker 1:Tim, of course, is the son of Glenn Wheatley, the bass player in Masters Apprentices, Before becoming a talent manager, tour promoter and radio entrepreneur. Longtime manager of John Farnham, launched the career of Delta Goodrum and helped establish the Little River Band in the US. I was just reading in the book about your and Jim's trip to London your wonderful trip and we went earlier in the years. Your book brought back some wonderful memories for me as well yes, isn't London amazing.
Speaker 2:That was our fifth, and after that we went every year or two until Jim got sick and then he couldn't travel. In fact, he fell sick while we were over there on a trip. I love England, love London.
Speaker 1:Medieval history is my hobby, so it's the right place for me it certainly sounds like you were in your element, which almost surprised you a little bit, didn't it? And what did Jim say? I told you so yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:I know because I was what I always said when I get travel I want to go to Spain. You know, always on fame. He said, no, I've been to Spain, it wasn't, it wasn't that good, I'm going. But yeah, but that was you, I want to go to Spain. I said, let's go to England first. I, okay, look, I'm happy just to be going, really, you know. So let's go to England, you know, because you'll love it. He was right, I love it, it's beautiful. Don't you hate it when they're right? You've got to think. You've got to think.
Speaker 1:Well, actually, that just shows how well he knows me. The SA Music Hall of Fame. It was lovely that all the guys are there again. They've been so supportive and so honoured that Dad touched so many people he did, you know. He was the soundtrack to so many of our lives. He and the masters and Cotton Keyes and Morris. Of course there was a beautiful moment at the end when there was a standing ovation for a remark of respect for one of Australia's greatest entertainers. I loved reading that and remembering that night 10 years ago here. It was a beautiful night.
Speaker 2:And Jim, he would have loved to have been there because he intended to be there.
Speaker 1:The iconic chorus of Do what you Want To Do, Be what you Want To Be was sung by all of us in the crowd in unison. It was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:It is a beautiful thing, isn't it? Yeah, it never fails. It never fails. Jim would sing it. Usually, it was always the encore, even with Cotton Keys and Morris. If it wasn't Because I Love you, it would be the real thing.
Speaker 1:Still off in the podcast with that radio chick, cheryl Lee. Back to speak to Karen shortly, but here it is now the song that was often the encore during Cotton Keys and Morris shows Because I Love you. Interestingly, last week John Bywaters from the Twilights, who was the very first inductee into the SA Music Hall of Fame, inducted our 153rd inductee, guy Sebastian, and we were there on the red carpet to interview him last week and it's just a lovely thing to go in and see the artists and their memorabilia at the display. I'm just so glad that Jim is a part of it. He comes from fabulous, strong Scottish stock, doesn't he?
Speaker 2:He does, he certainly does. Keyes is his adoptive name. The Keyes came from sort of down the river Clyde Clyde Bank, I think they call it and when Jim was very young, they emigrated to Adelaide and Jim was about six months old when his mother, his single mother, unmarried mother, gave him up for adoption. Jim and Jessie Keys had passed away in the 70s, when he was about 40, his natural mother had been looking for him ever since she gave him up and she found him. It really was amazing. I mean, it was just before I met Jim, not too long a year or so before I met Jim, maybe a year or two. So yeah, it was an incredible time. It was a happy, sad story because she said she would never have another child until she found her boy.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and in those apparently what they used to do, they would fudge the trail, so it wasn't made easy to find him.
Speaker 1:So glad that they found each other. That's just another part of the whole fabric of this amazing story, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It is, it is. And I gained wonderful parents-in-law Well, you'll read my father-in-law, to whom I was very nice, and Nancy, she was amazing. She passed away early in the millennium. I should stop there, because you wouldn't be up to that yet.
Speaker 1:No, no spoilers Everyone else. You'll have to grab the book and read it, like me. A little bit more about you, karen. You live in Melbourne and the Gold Coast you lucky bugger.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know, I know, um, quite by accident, I was born and raised on the Gold Coast. I'm a Gold Coast girl. Right now I'm at my parents house on the Gold Coast. I moved to Melbourne. Well, when I met Chip, got married, raised a family there all of that I never thought I'd come back to the coast either. By the way, I thought if I was going to move anywhere it would be to England. But yes, I did A couple of years ago.
Speaker 2:It was, after all, the chaos of those three years, and what I found at some points in time there is I'd be in Melbourne, locked down, and both of my ageing parents were in hospital at the same time and I couldn't get to them. I were in hospital at the same time and I couldn't get to them. I couldn't even cross the border. And even if I did cross the border, I wasn't allowed into the hospital. After the three weeks hotel quarantine, I still wouldn't have been allowed into the hospital. I thought so Bonnie moved out a couple of years ago and I thought oh, okay, what am I going to do? I could be anywhere I want. So I thought well, I don't ever want to be separated from my parents again, if the government pulls anything like that again, I don't want to be apart from them. I want to be Queenslander again. So technically I'm a Queenslander, but I do spend a lot of time in Melbourne. You are listening to Still Rocking it, the podcast with Cheryl Lee.
Speaker 1:Here's an interesting one I found for you Jim Keyes' Southern Cross Band, their version of Undecided and back to speak again to Karin Keyes shortly In your book we learn that you and Jim were both fabulous AFL supporters. Do you still get along to?
Speaker 2:the footy? I don't. I haven't been yet, mainly because I can't work out where I am at any given time. Should I be a Melbourne member or should I be any? But so, yes, I was actually originally a Brisbane Bear, one of six, paid up, fully paid up, melbourne members of the Bears. Then they merged with Fitzroy and that's because I was known at the club, because there was only six of us. So the club gave me a call and said do you think Jim would help us with the lyrics to the new club song? I've gone, yes, yes, so there we are. Jim wrote the lyrics to the Brisbane Lions club song and he went in, produced it, recorded the first one. It's been re-recorded since, but the lyrics are all Jim's. There's another feather in his cap.
Speaker 1:He has many. That's right and part of the whole fabric of the story. The launch of your first book coincides with the release of new music by Jim. Don't give it all away. The album is called Caledonia. How did that stay hidden for 23 years?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's amazing. It's amazing. I'm going to backtrack right to the start because I haven't written this part in the book. When we first became engaged, roy Orbison who Jim loved and I loved too, by the way had just released an album Mystery Girl, I think it was called Mystery Girl and he died just as it was released, very sadly, and it went number one all around the world. It was, you know, immense and Jim said that's the way to do it. You know he said always have one in the can for when I die. Those were his words back in 88.
Speaker 2:He various albums and and then he recorded caledonia and it did sit there because I was heavily pregnant with bonnie. I had her in september. This was recorded in middle of the year. In 2001 he was busy with colton keys and morris and then leading into the long way to the top tour, which masters apprentices, the stadium tour, was on. That was huge. After that there was the uh, the, the regional tour for a long way to the top, and then I was pregnant with William and then William was born and passed away and it just sat there. There wasn't the right time to release it and he did write a few songs from it in 2006 that he re-recorded and put on Resonator the acoustic album.
Speaker 2:But the whole album just sat there. A lot of people forgot about it, didn didn't know about it. I always knew it was there and it just was still waiting for the right time.
Speaker 1:And this is the time it certainly is, and it does hark back a little bit to Jim's Scottish heritage.
Speaker 2:Totally. The name Caledonia means Scotland. It's an ancient Roman name for Scotland. I wanted to call Bonnie Bonnie Caledonia.
Speaker 1:Jim said you can't call the child that you said no, I'm going to call my album that good name for the album.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like giving birth. Absolutely I'm creating. It's like writing a book, it's it's it's like giving birth to something, so not quite child, but you know, yeah. So it was actually a really good name for it because a lot of the songs i'm'm looking down at it here. It's a very deeply personal album for Jim. When you listen to the lyrics it's deeply personal, beautiful, beautiful album. I hesitate to say my favourite because they're all my favourites, like All your Children, but it really is a beautiful album. It sounds like it was recorded yesterday. It doesn't sound dated, it's classic. It doesn't sound dated, no, it's classic, it's timeless.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, it's so beautiful and it's just being tucked away there ready for the right time, and clearly, with the release of your book, now is the time.
Speaker 2:Now is the time. We're working in partnership with Ambition Music. They have released a DVD of Turn Up your Video, which we produced around about the same time years ago. It's been sitting there doing nothing, so that's out again, and there's more to come. We're going to be releasing all of Jim's back catalogue.
Speaker 1:Remastered Fantastic. Yeah, there's a lot to look forward to. Yeah, there's another scoop for you listeners. You listeners start saving your jb hi-fi vouchers for christmas. Good luck with the album caledonia and the masters apprentice documentary. Turn up your video. I'm excited to see that as well. Funnily enough, karen the masters apprentices or the current version of which still has Brian and Mick in it, played this weekend just gone in Adelaide here.
Speaker 1:Awesome, we're very spoiled here in Adelaide we still get the opportunity to hear all those fabulous songs and walk down memory lane and remember Jim and remember the hits. It's a great opportunity for us to have that little nostalgia hit. Yes, congratulations. As I say, it is so far, so good. It's a wonderful, wonderful read and, you know, if you want to have a little sneak peek at a little bit of what it's like to be married to an Australian rock legend, get out and buy Karen Key's book. Stay tuned for the second version. Thank you so much, karen, for spending some of your time with us in our Zoom room today. We really appreciate it. All the best. With everything going forward, I think you're amazing and I would love to meet you in person one day.
Speaker 2:I hope we can. Oh, I hope so very soon. And thank you, cheryl, my pleasure chatting with you, thank you.
Speaker 1:Still Rocking it podcast with that radio chick, cheryl Lee. Let's go out, shall we? With one of the songs from Caledonia, waiting for the Big One, you're with Cheryl Lee, that radio chick. Thank you so much for joining me on the Still Rocking it podcast. Hope to catch you again next time. Get out when you can support Aussie music and I'll see you down the front.