By Tim Elliott,     May 28, 2021

Ron King, 75, and his brother Jeff, 71, are founders of veteran Sydney blues band, the Foreday Riders, which began playing in 1967. While opposites off stage, the two men share a special connection when the music starts. 

Ron: Jeff and I went to Meadowbank Boys High [in north-western Sydney]. We had our usual spats. I used to torment Jeff when he was doing his homework and, one day, he did his bottle and stabbed me in the wrist with a pencil. I probably got lead poisoning from it: I still have the mark. Things were different in the 1950s, when we grew up. We had occasional holidays, but they were pretty simple: once we got the steam train to Nambucca!

As kids we listened to the Top 40 on the radio: 1950s rock’n’roll – Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent. When I turned 18, I started buying albums and brainwashing Jeff with my record collection. I got into traditional jazz and skiffle, then the Beatles. But the turning point was the Rolling Stones. Jeff came home from school one day and said: “I’ve heard something I think you’ll like.” It was the Stones doing Howlin’ Wolf’s song, Little Red Rooster. That led us to the Chicago blues guys like Muddy Waters and Jimmy Rogers.  

Jeff was already playing guitar. John Murphy, a school mate of ours, said to me, “Why don’t you try harmonica?” And I thought: “I can’t go broke buying a harmonica!” The band started in our house, with school friends coming around. We’d rehearse in my bedroom, or on the back verandah or the lounge room, banging away. 

Our folks were very accommodating. They probably thought it was keeping us off the street. We started playing 21sts and school dances. Then we worked in a wine bar in The Rocks [by the Harbour Bridge], then at various joints in Sydney’s inner west. Back then, places like Rozelle and Balmain were very working class and hard-drinking.

“Jeff said to me we’re so different but the common ground is the music, and that has kept us good buddies.”

We’ve been playing so long together that our relationship on stage has become very symbiotic, almost psychic. We know our moves so well, which isn’t always the best thing. A lot of the blues is about improvising: some people say it’s better if you go off on your own tangent.

‘Music is our common ground, but we’re totally different animals when it comes to other stuff. I’ve always been a great reader, but Jeff’s probably only read a couple of novels in his life. He’s a practical guy. He likes camping, fishing, anything to do with cars, woodwork, metalwork. I’m a movie buff, but he’s never had time to get into it, so I recommend stuff to him.

Also, I’ve never been married – not for lack of interest – and I don’t have any kids. But Jeff got married in 1978: he has five kids and seven grandkids. So I’m the eccentric uncle, which keeps me busy. Jeff once said to me that we’re so different but the common ground is the music, and that has kept us good buddies. Or maybe it’s because we’re so different that we get along.

If you’d told us when we began that we’d still be playing music 50 years later, we would have laughed. But the blues isn’t an overnight thing; it’s a stayer, it’s a marathon. If you’re playing blues, you’re in for the long haul.

Jeff: We moved from Meadowbank to West Ryde when I was four. We had a very simple life – Dad didn’t even have a car until we were in our teens. Ron and I were typical kids and we had our tiffs. At the age of 14, I was doing homework at the dining table and Ron was driving me crazy, so I got a pencil and stabbed him right in the wrist with it. Got him a beauty! I thought he was going to kill me, but that was the last fight we ever had.

Neither of us were sports-minded. Ron was much more into books and movies. We used to have a cinema at West Ryde and, as the older brother, he used to take me to the movies. He’s into books and digs the intellectual stuff.

He’s just a very bright cookie. But he’s not into technology: he’s never had a computer and he doesn’t drive. He’ll go to the bank to get money out over the counter instead of using a card. He still uses a Bakelite landline with the old rotary dial. He has a mobile phone, but he doesn’t tell anyone about it. I’m the only one who knows he’s got it, so I call him up now and again so he can practise. He was really peed off when the NBN came in, because he didn’t want to lose his landline. But he’s the best harmonica player in Australia.

I was given a guitar at 15 by my cousin. I got a book on how to play it and just plugged away at that. But I learnt by ear – I can’t read a note. That’s why I got interested in blues, because it was just three chords!