Mersey Beat - Johnny Templer & The Hi-Cats

It all began in 1959 at the Colomendy camp at Loggerheads where Vic Grace had brought his recently acquired guitar and was playing some of the current songs of the time, which were mostly skiffle and folk style. Tony Gaskell had met Vic at the previous years camp and during musical get-togethers Tony made up a tea chest type bass, just like the skiffle groups, and another guy 'found' a wash board and so a skiffle group came into being.
Back in Liverpool Tony became the proud owner of a newly invented instrument, the bass guitar, and through the grapevine Vic Grace heard about this and contacted him to see if he fancied forming a group. Together with a couple of friends, Aussie Brown and Brian Cochen, they had a line-up of Vic Grace on vocals and lead guitar, Tony Gaskell on bass guitar, Aussie Brown on rhythm guitar and Brian Cochen on drums. As they were now all in employment, there were regular trips to The Cavern with Tony, Aussie and Paul McCartney getting the 86A bus together in to Liverpool.

The first gig of the new group, at Springwood Hall (All Hallows Church Hall), was a great success and a neighbour of Vic Grace, Wally Hill a local entrepreneur who put teen shows on at venues like Blair Hall, Hollyoake Hall and St Columbas in Widnes, offered them some bookings. It was while chatting to Bob Wooler, who they'd met at the Cavern, Hambleton Hall and quite often in Garston, that he suggested 'Hi-Cats' as a good name for the group, and it stuck.
The group became established quite quickly, playing mostly chart covers of the day, some country music and 'Shadows type' instrumentals, with appearances at all the local venues including The Cavern, The Iron Door and Birkdale Palace where they played on the same bill as 'The Beatles'. On their second appearance at the Cavern on a lunchtime gig, Brian Cochen became ill, and Paul McCartney stepped in and played drums for them during their session.

The 'Hi-Cats' appeared on the 'Here We Go Show' for the BBC in Manchester, a weekly radio show with the Northern Dance Orchestra with a guest appearance from a local beat group. Vic realised that vocals were their weakness and a lead singer was needed, so Wally Staines joined them and they beame 'Danny Havoc & the Hi-Cats', with now a front man to woo the young ladies at the front of the stage!
The group continued to play chart covers, learning the latest songs every week, and only playing a few of the raunchy songs that groups such as 'The Beatles', 'The Big 3' and 'Derry & the Seniors' were playing. 

 

However when Danny Havoc left because of personal problems, with a new front man, John Dempsey, they became 'Johnny Templer & the Hi-Cats'. John's influence made the group a lot more dynamic, both in its sound and choice of material, introducing vocal harmony to all the songs. The group became very busy and toured extensively in the North West but there had always been an uneasy tension between Vic and John, who had his own ideas about how things should run. Inevitably this came to a head leading to Vic being replaced by Roy Wood (Jay), a brilliant lead guitarist who appeared with them for some months until his sad death by suicide. He was replaced by Stan Smith but then Brian then left to be replaced by Mal Thory and 'Johnny Templer & The Hi-Cat's were back, coming in at No.20 in the Mersey Beat newspaper poll.

Barbara Harrison started to make appearances with the group, increasing their popularity, which would lead to her singing on a regular basis, being billed as 'Johnny Templar & the Hi-Cats' with Barbara.
At this time 'The Beatles' had just completed their first month at the Star Club in Germany and in an attempt to find more Liverpool talent, auditions were set up at the Rialto Ballroom in Toxteth with virtually all the Liverpool groups attending. The auditions were supervised by 'Big Gus' who became the go-between and negotiator with the groups. 'Johnny Templer & the Hi-Cats' performed their three songs and were approached by Gus, offering them the same money as 'The Beatles' to go to Germany. Everyone was keen to go, except Aussie, who had doubts about it, which only resulted in them being offered even more money - making them potentially the highest paid group.
However, unable to find anyone to stand in for Aussie Brown, the trip didn't materialise.
A definite case of  'What if'?
In the ensuing arguments, Aussie decided to leave the group, re-joining Vic with his new group 'The Secrets'. 'Johnny Templer & the Hi-Cats' carried on for some time before calling it a day, although they would re-form as 'The Borderliners', a four piece group with great harmonies and a driving sound.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2016/11/mersey-beat-lance-fortune.html