Ronny Peel
1946 to 2020 RIP
I first met Ronny in 1969 at a gig in Prahran - a suburb of Melbourne. Before that his first band was The Mystics, second The Missing Links and then The Pleasers which took him to live in New Zealand for a while.
In the 90’s he returned to NZ for a reunion with them. He went on to play in Italy and England where he joined Thunderclap Newman. We crossed paths at many gigs for the next 6 years and during this time he joined The Browns and The La De Da’s. In late 1974 i had just completed a Stevie Wright tour when i was invited to go out again with Stevie in mid 70’s. The first one was 3 Aztecs and 3 Easy Beats. This second one was totally different. The All Star Band was formed with Ronny on board as bassman. The support (1st half) was the band doing a few plus a new kid on the block John Young (Paul added later) singing Pasadena and Yesterdays Hero and backing vocals for Stevie. When this tour was over John’s rising success meant he was offered a lot of live work for which he invited the band to join him. We lasted until late ‘79 then regrouped again in ‘83. Ronny wasn’t on board because in ‘83 he formed the Scattered Aces giving him the opportunity to do things more or less his way. Ronny rejoined the All Star Band in 85 and remained with us up until last year when emphysema made it impossible for him to carry on. During ‘77 to ‘79 Ronny played rythym guitar and this can be spotted on the Evie video clip from the Opera House 1979. In ‘77 I moved from Melb to Sydney and lived with Ronny at the notoriously famous unit in Double Bay called Boystown. He had just appeared on the centrefold of Cleo magazine. We knocked around together and those days were great. Being alongside the Cleo man meant there was many a romantic fringe benefit for me. Ronny also recorded an album and a few singles as Rockwell T James with Sherbet backing him. This put him on Countdown. Boys Town folded about ‘79. In ‘88 he and i shared a home in Bondi for a short time whilst we were seperately buying into Lake Macquarie thus leaving Syd behind.
During the Recession of 92 he took a delivery driver’s gig out of Newcastle to earn a needed quid. Pretty sure it lasted two days but as he put it “ been there and done that”. About 6 years ago he teamed up with a Newcastle muso mate Bobby Fletcher and Bobby named their duo “The Rockwells”. The days that John wasn’t working were the ones available to them. Bobby was born Nov 1st the same day Ronny died It was about the same time that Ronny learned he had a lung disease. About a year later they decided to record “Cover Story”.
36 THE LAST POST – 2021 SUMMER EDITION
I was invited to play a few and I could tell that this cursed condition was taking affect but nevertheless it was done and Ronny remained focused and did not falter. For me he was once again doing music his way. Seems like 3 years ago the Rockwells recorded their 2nd album “Red Back”. A bunch of local musos and I were invited and we got into it. Although the writing was on the wall and his singing, along with all functions were getting harder by the day, Bobby and R wrote the entire album.So this really and truly was now his music his way, same for Bobby who got a nasty disease that took his life a few years back.
