Ivan Dayman

Ivan Dayman was an Australian promoter, record producer and band manager of the 1960s and 1970s, based first in Adelaide, and then in Brisbane. Although his heyday 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 '60s "King of Pop", Normie Rowe.

Career

In 1963, musician-producer-arranger-songwriter Pat Aulton began working for Dayman and his promotions group.

In late 1964, Dayman established Sunshine Records in collaboration with Aulton and Nat Kipner, who would later go on to form Spin Records.^[1]

Among the acts signed or managed by Dayman were Normie Rowe, Mike Furber, Peter Doyle, The La De Das while they were in Australia, and Mother Goose in the late 1970s.

Dayman owned multiple venues within his territory, such as the Cloudland Ballroom in Brisbane (leased from Apel around 1965), The Bowl Soundlounge in Sydney,^[1] and the Op Pop disco.^[2] He also converted a number of ten-pin bowling alleys into ballrooms by filling in the gutters between the bowling lanes with the same timbers. In Ipswich Queensland and in Wollongong (Corrimal) NSW, the converted bowling venues were named 'Wonderland Ballrooms'. The Corrimal Bowl was managed by Merriel Hume, an established Brisbane vocalist who was originally one of number of the stable of regular artists regularly performing at Cloudland..^[3] By having a stake in both the bands and the venues, Ivan was able to monopolize his area of influence.^[3]

Ivan was much 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.^[3]

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 hugely popular revival of the dancehall and the Cloudland Ballroom was often packed to the rafters at the midnight to dawn dances that he held at long weekends. ^[4]

Dayman was very successful for several years, but the cost of his attempt to launch Normie Rowe's career in the UK reportedly caused a heavy drain on the 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.

Nat 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 and Clyde Packer. Pat Aulton remained as Sunshine's house producer, but unbeknownst to him, Dayman had made him a director of Sunshine, and when the company collapsed he 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. His son Mark came into the business in the 1970s and later ran the Adelaide operations of the company, organising concerts that included many top-line Australian acts of the 1980s, including Cold Chisel, Australian Crawl, Sherbet, and Mi-Sex, but he subsequently left the entertainment industry. Commenting on this period in a 2013 interview, Mark Dayman 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."^[5]

Mark Dayman now manages a successful South Australian land, resource and infrastructure development company. His father Ivan is now deceased, but his date of death is unknown.

References

External links

• IVAN DAYMAN - Promoter, artist manager, venue operator, record label owner, 1960s-1970s from MILESAGO: Australasian Music & Popular Culture 1964-1975.