As mentioned on page one, Leroy Johnson and the Waterbag band played the Culture on Country Survival Day concert last January. The original plan had Leroy and band opening the stage for Uncle Vic Simms. Uncle Vic wasn’t feeling so good so he swapped the playing order.
This was Uncle Vic’s last gig before he passed away earlier this month.
Uncle Vic was a Bidigal man, raised on the La Perouse Mission, NSW. He was a popular musician, particularly in the Redfern area. Leroy remembers him performing around Redfern many years ago. “He was small and real energetic.”
Uncle Vic’s musical career began when he was a teenager. At age 11, he got up on stage and sang Tutti Frutti, when Col Joye and the Joy Boys were having a break. Not long after, Col Joye took young Vic Simms on tour with him. He shared the stage with names like Shirley Bassey and Johnny O’Keefe. Uncle Simms released his first single, Yo-yo heart, in 1961, aged 15. His first album, The Loner, was released in 1973.
He recorded this album while serving a sentence in Bathurst Goal. A charity group heard Vic playing the guitar and singing. They organised a mobile studio, session musicians, set up in the prison dining room and gave Vic Simms one hour to record a whole album. As a part of promoting the album, Vic was given special leave to play at the Sydney Opera House, shopping malls and he gave concerts in other prisons.
This caused problems back in the prison with other inmates. Vic is quoted as saying, “I didn’t want to be their jacky jacky,” Simms says. “I still had to live there, and I didn’t want to carry the torch for the Department of Correctional Services and keep up an impression that everything was OK for the rest of the guys in there.” Quote from Jailhouse rocker.
Uncle Simms was acknowledged with the Outstanding Contribution to Aboriginal Music Award at the Deadlys in 2001, The Loner was inducted into the National Film and Sound Archive registry in 2009, and the album was remastered and re-released in 2013. Rest in Peace Uncle.
This article appeared in Wilcannia News, Mid-February 2025.
