Adelaide's King of Rock and Roll

Barrie McAskill, resplendent in his leopard print suit, was 'crowned' Adelaide's King of Rock & Roll with his band The Fabulous Drifters in the early sixties. At the Teensville Casual Club, opened in July 1962 and held at the Palais Royal on North Terrace, the band would play before 2000 keen dancers on a Saturday night and 1000 on a Thursday. They regularly appeared on South Australian television shows such as Stairway to the Stars and Seventeeners.

Barrie went on to join the Clefs with Tweed Harris and played such clubs as the Princeton Club, Fiesta Villa, Big Daddy's, the Octagon Theatre, the Scene and the Oxford Club. Moving to Melbourne with the group, he later formed Levi Smith's Clefs and produced the classic album Empty Monkey.

The photograph is from his days with the Fabulous Drifters and comes from the scrapbooks of Peter Knoblauch of the Four Tones.

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