Ivan Howard Dayman (20 July 19201 October 1989) was an Australian music promoter, record producer, label owner and talent manager of the 1960s and 1970s, based first in
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
, then
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
,
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...
and
Perth
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...
. Although his career was brief – ca. 1964 to 1968 – he is significant in the history of Australian popular music as the first person to establish an integrated entertainment group that included artist management, a booking agency, a chain of venues in major cities, and a recording label. He is also notable for the many successful artists he managed, including his flagship act, Australia's 1960s ''
TV Week
''TV Week'' is a weekly Australian magazine that provides television program listings information and highlights, as well as television-related news.
Content ranges from previews for upcoming storylines of popular television programs, particu ...
'' "King of Pop",
Normie Rowe
Norman John Rowe (born 1 February 1947) is an Australian singer and songwriter of pop music and an actor of theatre and soap opera for which he remains best known as Douglas Fletcher in 1980s serial '' Sons and Daughters''. As a singer he was ...
, whom he managed from 1965 onwards.
Early life
Ivan Howard Dayman was born on 20 July 1920 to Howard Herbert Dayman and Gwendoline Vivienne née Starr of
Walkerville.
He grew up with two younger siblings.
In April 1940, during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, he enlisted in the
Royal Australian Air Force
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
, colours =
, colours_label =
, march =
, mascot =
, anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...
and was discharged under the rank of
corporal
Corporal is a military rank in use in some form by many militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. The word is derived from the medieval Italian phrase ("head of a body"). The rank is usually the lowest ranking non ...
in October 1945 from the Control and Reporting Unit.
Dayman was engaged to Marge Mary Byrnes (c. 19202014) of
Benalla, Victoria
Benalla
is a small city located on the Broken River gateway to the High Country north-eastern region of Victoria, Australia, about north east of the state capital Melbourne. At the the population was 10,822.
It is the administrative centr ...
in December 1945.
By July 1949 he was working as a contractor for
East Torrens Council and living in
Belair.
Career
Ivan Dayman was working as a promoter for his Adelaide Swing Shows by December 1959.
In 1963 he hired
Pat Aulton
William Patrick Aulton (c. 1938 – 13 February 2009) was an Irish Australian record producer, musician, arranger, and songwriter.
He is best known for the successful pop and rock singles and albums he produced for Australian and New Zealand ar ...
(MC and former vocalist of band
the Clefs
Levi Smith's Clefs, originally The Clefs, were an Australian R&B, pop rock group, which formed in Adelaide in 1963. Lead vocalist, Barrie "The Bear" McAskill, joined in 1965. In 1967 he took over and renamed the group after founding keyboardis ...
) as a producer, arranger and songwriter in his promotions group.
The Clefs were a local "R&B" dance band which performed at "the city's thriving club circuit."
By early 1964 Dayman had relocated to Melbourne where he leased the
Festival Hall on Saturdays, which he renamed, Mersey City.
He was the manager of England-born singer,
Tony Worsley, and matched him with an existing group, the Blue Jays (see
Bobby & Laurie
Bobby & Laurie were an Australian beat pop duo of the 1960s, with Laurie Allen (19422002) on vocals, guitar and keyboards and Bobby Bright (born in England, 3 February 1945) on vocals and guitar. Their regular backing band were the Rondells. Th ...
), to form Tony Worsley and the Fabulous Blue Jays.
They were his first act to perform at the Festival Hall.
He expanded his business interests into Brisbane where he established
Sunshine Records in collaboration with Aulton and
Nat Kipner
Nathan Kipner (October 2, 1924 – December 1, 2009) was an American songwriter and record producer with a considerable career in Australia. He is remembered as the producer of the Bee Gees' first hit " Spicks and Specks". He was the father of S ...
(later formed
Spin Records).
American-born Kipner was a former real estate agent in the
Gold Coast
Gold Coast may refer to:
Places Africa
* Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana:
** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642)
** Dutch G ...
.
The label's first single, "Jaywalker" (October 1964), was an instrumental by the Fabulous Blue Jays (without Worsley).
It was followed a month later by "I Sure Know a Lot About Love" by Tony Worsley and the Fabulous Blue Jays.
Sunshine Records releases were distributed by
Festival Records
Festival Records (later known as Festival Mushroom Records) was an Australian recording and publishing company founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1952 and operated until 2005.
Festival was a wholly owned subsidiary of News Limited from 1961 to ...
.
Other artists signed or managed by Dayman were other than his flagship artist Normie Rowe
included
Mike Furber
Michael Alexander Furber (28 September 1947 – 10 May 1973) was an English-born Australian entertainer popular in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of Mike Furber and the Bowery Boys. Furber's group had hits with "Just a Poor Boy", "You Stole M ...
(from mid-1965),
Peter Doyle (from mid-1965),
and New Zealand acts
The La De Das
The La De Da's were a New Zealand rock band of the 1960s and early 1970s. Formed in New Zealand in 1963 as the Mergers, they had considerable success in both New Zealand and Australia until their split in 1975.
In Australia the band is proba ...
(while they were in Australia, from mid-1967),
and
Mother Goose
The figure of Mother Goose is the imaginary author of a collection of French fairy tales and later of English nursery rhymes. As a character, she appeared in a song, the first stanza of which often functions now as a nursery rhyme. This, howeve ...
(from October 1976).
Dayman owned or leased multiple venues within his territory, such as
Cloudland Ballroom in Brisbane (leased from Hans Apel in 1965),
The Bowl Soundlounge in Sydney,
and the Op Pop disco.
He converted ten-pin bowling alleys into ballrooms by filling in the gutters with the same timbers. In
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
and
Corrimal
Corrimal is a northern suburb of the city of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. Corrimal's CBD is situated on the Princes Highway, and several streets adjacent to it. The main shopping centres are Lederer Corrimal and Corrimal Park Mall ne ...
, such converted venues were re-named, Wonderland Ballrooms. The Corrimal Bowl was managed by Merriel Hume, a Brisbane vocalist who had regularly performed at Cloudland.
By having a stake in both the bands and the venues, Dayman was able to monopolise the profits.
Dayman was respected by the musicians he hired because he treated them well and respected their abilities. An example of this is the fact that he paid for musical arrangements both instrumental and vocal. Further, he paid for rehearsals of the new arrangements and for vocal arrangements in keys that suited his stable of artists. He picked his vocalists from the cream of the Brisbane and Adelaide nightclubs and TV scene. All the bands and vocalists were therefore able to perform using the library of pop hits and standard arrangements.
The Cloudland Big Band was gradually replaced with smaller groups. These included the Rick Farbach Sextet, the Sounds of Seven led by Vance Lendich, and Darcy Kelly's the Highmarks. His actions resulted in a revival of dance hall attendances and the Cloudland Ballroom was often packed for the midnight to dawn dances that he held at long weekends.
Dayman was successful for several years, but the cost of his attempts to launch Rowe's career in the United Kingdom caused a drain on his organisation's funds. The Sunshine group and its related labels collapsed some time during early 1967; the Kommotion label was shut down, and the Sunshine label and its roster was subsequently taken over by its distributor, Festival Records.
Kipner moved to Sydney to manage the Bowl, but after 12 months there he sold his share in Sunshine; he subsequently founded the Spin label in 1967 with
Harry M. Miller
Harry Maurice Miller (6 January 1934 – 4 July 2018) was a New Zealand Australian promoter, publicist and media agent.
Life and career
Born on 6 January 1934 in New Zealand, Miller grew up in the Auckland suburb of Grey Lynn. He moved to Aus ...
and
Clyde Packer
Robert Clyde Packer (22 July 19358 April 2001), usually known as Clyde Packer, was the son of Australian newspaper magnate Frank Packer and the elder brother of media baron Kerry Packer. From 23 April 1964 to 22 April 1976 he was a Member of th ...
. Aulton remained as Sunshine's house producer, but unbeknownst to him, Dayman had made him a director of Sunshine, and when the company collapsed Aulton became liable for its debts. As a result, his car and furniture were repossessed by Sunshine's creditors, but he was rescued by a job offer from Festival managing director Fred Marks, who appointed him as a staff A&R manager and record producer, with responsibility for pop productions in 1967. Following the collapse of the Sunshine group, Dayman continued to work in entertainment and artist management into the 1980s.
Death
Ivan Dayman's death was not noted publicly at the time, but official records indicate that he died in Perth on 1 October 1989.
Family
Ivan and Marge Dayman's daughter,
Marlene Dayman (born 1949),
is a former Olympic swimmer.
She competed as a 14-year-old at the Tokyo games in
1964
Events January
* January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
* January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch ...
and finished 6th in heat 3 of the
Women's 100-m backstroke.
Earlier she had defied an instruction from the Australian Swimming Union not to march in the opening ceremony.
The union banned Marlene (for three years) and three fellow swimmers, Nan Duncan (three years),
Dawn Fraser
Dawn Fraser (born 4 September 1937) is an Australian freestyle champion swimmer and former politician. She is one of only four swimmers to have won the same Olympic individual event three times – in her case the women's 100-metre freestyle. ...
(ten years) and
Linda McGill (four years), from swimming for defying their instruction.
His son, Mark Dayman, joined his business in the 1970s and later ran the Adelaide operations of the company, organising concerts that included Australian acts of the 1980s,
Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel are an Australian pub rock band, which formed in Adelaide in 1973 by mainstay members Ian Moss on guitar and vocals, Steve Prestwich on drums and Don Walker on piano and keyboards. They were soon joined by Jimmy Barnes (at the ...
,
Australian Crawl
Australian Crawl (often called Aussie Crawl or The Crawl by fans) were an Australian rock band founded by James Reyne (lead vocals/piano/harmonica), Brad Robinson (rhythm guitar), Paul Williams (bass), Simon Binks (lead guitar) and David R ...
,
Sherbet, and
Mi-Sex
Mi-Sex (also styled as MiSex) is a New Zealand new wave band originally active from 1978 to 1986, and led for much of its existence by Steve Gilpin as vocalist, Kevin Stanton as guitarist and songwriter, Murray Burns as keyboardist and songwri ...
, but he subsequently left the entertainment industry. Commenting on this period, in a 2013 interview, Mark said:
:"In those days the entertainment industry was not your everyday ethical business. It taught me how to read people and demographics, and judge ... the market and what would work given those factors. However, by my mid-20s I decided it was not for me."
Mark later managed a South Australian land, resource and infrastructure company called Fyfe Pty Ltd.
References
;General
* Note: Archived
n-linecopy has limited functionality.
;Specific
External links
"Ivan Dayman [picture]"taken in c. 1968 for
the Herald and Weekly Times
The Herald and Weekly Times Pty Ltd (HWT) is a newspaper publishing company based in Melbourne, Australia. It is owned and operated by News Pty Ltd, which as News Ltd, purchased the HWT in 1987.
Newspapers
The HWT's newspaper interests date ba ...
. Stored at the
State Library of Victoria
State Library Victoria (SLV) is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in the ...
since 1977.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dayman, Ivan
Music promoters
1920 births
1989 deaths
Businesspeople from Adelaide