I was born Gerard Bertelkamp on November 28, 1948 in Amsterdam, Holland where I spent the first nine years of my life growing up like any other typical Dutch boy. As a kid I remember going with my parents to some of the film nights the Dutch government provided for families interested in migrating to other countries around the world. They would show movies of how life existed in those particular countries. Immigration was encouraged because The Netherlands was overpopulated. Socialism in Holland was cramping my father's style and he decided that he would gamble on a brighter future somewhere else for his family. After viewing films on South Africa, Rhodesia, Canada, America and New Zealand, my parents chose to migrate to Australia in 1957. Taking very few belongings with us, we boarded the "Willem Ruys" in Rotterdam and sailed into the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal, around the southern tip of Africa, stopping briefly in Singapore before sailing on around the west coast of Australia before reaching our final destination of Melbourne. An overnight train trip took us to Adelaide, South Australia, where my parents had decided to settle.
My Dad was a carpenter and got a job working for a Dutch builder whose last name was Smith. We moved from Woodside to Finsbury Migrant Hostel on Grand Junction Road not far from Port Adelaide. These migrant hostels were constructed out of corrugated iron in the shape of an arch, not unlike army barracks. There was no heating or air conditioning. The shared laundry and toilet facilities were very poor as there was no soap with which to wash your hands. The eating facilities were cafeteria style and I can remember my parents complaining bitterly about Australian food. English and Australian food tend to be very bland compared to European food. I was enrolled in Pennington Primary School nearby and I can remember wanting to join in with the other children so badly but of course there was a language barrier. They thought it was funny to teach me swear words and then tell me to go up to a teacher and say the word, which landed me in big trouble. It was here that I first experienced the game of cricket and Australian rules football. I have fond memories of going to "the pictures" every weekend, as we called it back then. Because there were no hand-washing facilities at the migrant hostel, I became ill with an infectious liver disease and was placed in Northfield Infectious Diseases Hospital not far from Finsbury Hostel. I was confined to a bed in a ward and wasn't allowed to have any contact with my family for three weeks. My Mother was devastated because I was torn from the family and placed in a strange place not being able to speak one word of English. It was against hospital rules to get out of bed so when I needed to go to the toilet, they handed me a chrome flask with a handle on it and tried to explain what it was for. I didn't have a clue and it wasn't until I heard another patient in the bed next to me one night tinkling away that I understood the purpose for the flask! When I was finally released from the hospital, my Mother insisted that we would not live in the migrant hostel one more day. My Dad secured a loan from a bank and bought a block of land in the suburb of Netley, bordered by Marion Road and half way between the beach and the city. 43 Harvey Avenue was just a sandy block of land with absolutely nothing on it except three corner jacks, some very nasty and sharp prickles (thorns). I came to find out the hard way because as soon as we drove up to our block of land, I took my shoes off and went running wildly through the sand! Big mistake!
There was no running water, no electricity and no bathroom facilities! My parents bought a corrugated iron garden shed my Father erected which served as their bedroom, kitchen and living quarters all in one. They also rented a caravan for a year, which was used as my sister's and my bedroom. Our nearest neighbours were Jean and Dick Collett, and their children, Merrill and Richard, an Australian family who owned some of the land in that area. The Colletts provided us with fresh water, which we would carry back to our shed and caravan in two buckets. An old-fashioned ice chest kept our food cold and whenever the ice melted, I had to walk to the end of Harvey Avenue to Marion Road where the shops were and carry back two heavy ice blocks in Hessian (what Americans call burlap) bags. It must have been summer time because I don't remember going to school when I was released from the hospital. I do know that it was uncertain whether I would attend Plympton Primary School or the newly built Netley Primary School. Of course I was secretly hoping that I could go to the new school which was not far from where we lived and as it turned out Netley Primary was ready to accept new students in February of 1958 and that's where my sister and I were enrolled. I was held back a year because of the language barrier but what they were teaching me in grade 7 (the last year of primary school) I had been taught three years earlier in Holland. I knew very little about Australian history and geography and of course, English! For the rest of my life I will never forget my first teacher, Mrs. Brown, smacking the back of my leg with a twelve inch ruler until it was red raw because I had misspelled the city of Sydney. Not knowing, I had spelled it as "Sidney". I was in shock as students in Holland were never treated this way. There, if you didn't pay attention in class and you failed, that was your problem but never were students ever smacked for misspelling a word! I am convinced that it was this incident which made me the excellent English student I became plus the fact that I had to learn the language from scratch. I went through grades five, six and seven at Netley Primary. What's In a Name? I attended Plympton High School and it was during my early years there that I discovered my passion for music. It was through my high school friend, John D'Arcy, that I started singing harmony. John, an English migrant from Manchester, England, was an avid Hollies fan, the Hollies being from Manchester. We would rehearse at Tony de Vries' house after dinner on school nights and weekends. So how did I get my unusual name? Well, let me tell you that back in the sixties when we were all growing up as kids, there was a cartoon series on television called "The Dick Tracy Show" with various characters in it such as "Mumbles" and "B-B Eyes", as well as a funny little Chinese detective. For some reason, my friends at Plympton High School started calling me "B-B Eyes" which was soon after abbreviated to "B-B". All through my high school years the name stuck and it wasn't until Darryl Cotton joined my first band, Zoot, that he abbreviated my name even further to "Beeb". Then, I took the first part of my legal last name, "Bertelkamp" and anglicized the spelling to become "Birtles", thereby creating my professional name of "Beeb Birtles". The Road to Success Zoot turned professional and moved to Melbourne in August 1968 to seek the big time. Zoot became a very popular teenybopper band throughout Australia from 1969 until 1971 when the band broke up. From 1971 to 1972, Darryl Cotton and I performed as a duo called Frieze. Then, in 1972 I was asked to join a group called Mississippi which had also moved from Adelaide to Melbourne. The band ended their three-year run with a disastrous trip to England where they disbanded. The nucleus of Mississippi, Graeham Goble, Derek Pellicci and I, decided to reform the group and we recruited the services of Glenn Shorrock as lead singer and Glenn Wheatley as manager. The band changed its name to Little River Band in early 1975 and recorded their first album. What followed was an eight-year wave of worldwide success ending with my departure in October, 1983. July 23, 1978 Donna Marie Brucks moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles about six months prior to our fateful meeting in Dallas, Texas. (Her moving three thousand miles away from home inspired me to write a song about it but I chose to use the fictitious name of "Lucy" so that people wouldn’t think it was about her. Little River Band rehearsed the song as part of a bunch of demos we presented for "The Net" album but it was never released although I recorded a second demo version of the song in Nashville.) She found a job at Headquarters, a booking agency, and worked for John Marx who was Little River Band’s agent. When John was offered a better job at ICM (International Creative Management), he took it on the proviso that he could take his assistant, Donna, with him. ICM agreed to take John and his assistant, Donna!
Because we were an Australian band, we always needed assistance with finding extra pieces of gear or having road cases built etc. and Donna would be the one to help us out…this really wasn’t part of her job but she always went beyond the call of duty. She communicated more with management and the road crew than with the band members themselves, but we probably wouldn’t have fared nearly as well without her extra work! When we were getting close to the July 23rd gig at the Dallas Cotton Bowl, the road crew approached us and asked whether we would pay for Donna’s airfare to Dallas, TX with John Marx to see the show. Her birthday is on July 30th and so this was considered to be a birthday gift and our way of saying thank you for all the extra work she put in for us. It was the second Dallas Cotton Bowl Jam and the headliners were Fleetwood Mac, The Steve Miller Band, Little River Band and Bob Welch. The other act on the show whose name did not appear on the tee shirt was Billy Thorpe, another Australian artist. Billy was out promoting his then current album, "Children of the Sun". I remember being backstage in the green room when Donna walked in and we were introduced. I was acting very goofy that day for some reason, saying stupid things like "more cheesola for Beebola" as I was snacking on the food rider provided by the promoters! (Derek Pellicci, who came up with many of the band’s inside sayings and slang, called me Beebola.) Donna thought I was a little bit of an oddball but I was in a particularly good mood and was just showing off. I don’t remember much about the summer jam itself other than thinking what an incredible buzz it was to perform in front of 60,000 people on this stinking hot Texas day!
That night a few of us decided to go to a club called, "The Bellringer" (how appropriate) and we were just hanging out, having a few drinks. There was this one guy, a Qantas flight attendant, who kept coming over to Donna and asking her to dance. By now I was very attracted to her and I didn’t like this guy continually coming up and asking her to dance! She kept telling him that she didn’t dance but he was persistent and kept asking her. When I finally had enough I said to the guy, "listen here mate, don’t you hear what my wife is saying, she doesn’t want to dance with you!" Donna thought, "Whoa, he’s moving a bit fast" but it worked as the Qantas flight attendant left her alone. She did manage to wangle his Qantas tie away from him, which she wore when we danced together! We danced to a few songs until all of us had enough of being at "The Bellringer" and our limo driver drove us back to the hotel. Donna and John Marx flew back to Los Angeles the next day but she left such an impression on me that I started phoning her every day, no matter where I was. We’d have lengthy talks about anything and everything and during the course of conversation I’d try to talk her into flying out to meet me somewhere on the road. It never worked because she’d always come back with, "Listen, you’re in a rock and roll band and you probably have a different girl in every town so don’t play with my heart. I’m not flying out to meet you just for a one night stand!" End of story!
So this continued on for weeks until we were scheduled to play Nashville. It was arranged that we spend three days in Nashville but with only one show to play. So Graeham and I asked Glenn Wheatley, our manager, to book us into a studio to record some demos because we didn’t want to sit around and do nothing. So this is precisely what we did. Glenn booked us into Chris Christian’s "Goldmine" studio, which was located in the basement of Chris' house. It was there that I first met a young woman by the name of Amy Grant, who was just sixteen years old at the time. She came by the studio to hang out with the recording engineer, Brown Bannister. (Stealing kisses when they thought no one was looking!) We recorded for two solid days. By this time the message from Donna had started to sink in and I resigned myself to the fact that she wasn’t going to fly anywhere to meet me. We played our gig in Nashville and continued on the road and I stopped phoning her. She, in the meantime, had grown very fond of my daily phone calls and missed them terribly! I can’t remember exactly where it was, somewhere on the east coast, when our manager joined us on the road and handed us our mail. You have to remember that being all that way from Australia, the mail in those days was our vital link to loved ones at home because lengthy phone calls were very expensive! So here I was on the bus being handed a gigantic envelope with my name on it. The biggest envelope I have ever received in my life and I’m thinking, "Now who would be sending me this?" So I opened the envelope up and there in big letters was written: Call me, you @$#%$%!!! Donna has never been one for loss of words and I would love to tell you what she really said but I don’t want to offend anyone reading this! So I picked up the phone and called her again and finally talked her into flying out to St. Louis where we were playing in the next few days. She was thinking, "Well, if he wants to pay for me to fly out to St. Louis and I get to see my family while I’m there, that’s great". While the band was in Chicago I had bought her a bottle of L’air de Temps perfume, which I positioned strategically in the middle of the bed in her hotel room while I was off doing our soundcheck. She stayed on the road with me for three days before she flew back to L.A., and needless to say, she never got to see her family in St. Louis! It was about ten days to two weeks later that I asked her to marry me not really expecting that she would say YES! I nearly fell off my chair when she did! July 23, 2002 will be our 24th anniversary of the day we first met at the Dallas Cotton Bowl back in 1978. She is my true soul mate and the love of my life. There is just one little glitch to this whole story! At the time I met Donna, I was engaged to someone else in Australia and I was in the process of having her wedding ring made! I was questioning my relationship with my fiancé because I felt so totally at ease and comfortable with Donna. We had a definite soul connection and were attracted to each other like magnets! In a situation such as this you can’t help but draw comparison to your other relationship and it became very clear what I needed to do. I made up my mind to follow my gut feeling no matter what anyone else around me was thinking, saying or suggesting. I was head over heels in love with Donna Brucks! Little River Band’s tour of 1978 was coming to an end and Donna and I made arrangements for her to follow me back to Australia three weeks later. She needed the time to vacate her apartment and sell whatever furniture and belongings she couldn’t bring with her. On the day of our departure, as I was driving to the L.A. airport in the rental car with some of the other guys in the band, Donna was driving alongside in her car with tears streaming down her face. After having spent the most wonderful three weeks of our lives together, she wasn’t sure whether she would ever see me again! It was killing me to leave her behind but I knew I had to go back and end my relationship with my fiancé in Melbourne. This is precisely what I did and three weeks later Donna arrived at Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne, Australia and we’ve been together ever since. Six months after her arrival, on February 17th, 1979 we were married at the Balwyn Baptist Church in Melbourne. The first song I ever wrote for Donna was "By My Side" which was on the album, First Under The Wire. Below are the lyrics to the song as it was recorded.
By My Side The Move From Australia In the late eighties, I felt I was stagnating by staying in Australia. In my mind I had achieved everything there was to be achieved and I had reached the pinnacle of my career with Little River Band. I would have moved shortly after leaving the band but I could not convince my wife, Donna, to do so as she absolutely loved our life in Melbourne, Australia. Unfortunately it took a tragedy to get us to consider the move when her father was killed in a car accident in Missouri in 1991. She and our two daughters flew back for the the funeral and when they returned three weeks later, Donna and I talked about what was keeping us in Australia. Considering the closeness between Donna and her mother, she expressed her concern for living so far away and the possibility of receiving another devastating phone call.
So on January 11, 1992, we left Australia for the United States, first settling in Donna's hometown of Jefferson City, Missouri. Being the state capitol, there was not much to do with music there and within three months I was commuting to Nashville, Tennessee because of the songwriting community there. I found a lot of like-minded musicians, some of whom had also been in prominent seventies bands, who had moved to Nashville for the same reasons. Many of us, now with families, chose to live in Nashville because of the laid back family lifestyle as compared to the larger music centers. One of these musicians was Bill Cuomo, with whom I formed Sonic Sorbet Records in 1998. I released my first solo project, "Driven By Dreams," in 1999, and continue to write, produce and promote other artists through our label. My two daughters have now turned into responsible, caring young women. Hannah graduated cum laude from the University of Georgia in May 2002 and lives and works in Atlanta. Emmie graduated from Western Kentucky University in May 2004 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in print advertising. Getting used to being empty-nesters has been a gradual process for Donna and me but I guess that's just part of life. We have now lived in Nashville more than ten years and that time seems like a blur to us. Creative people have their highs and lows probably more than most normal people do but there are certain days when I pick up that guitar and it feels like it's meant to be there. It feels so right! I was born to do this! And so my hope and prayer is that I will continue to bring you the talent I have been given. Lyrics that will provoke your thinking and melodies that will take you on a journey. After all, life is all about the journey, not just the destination! |
The Birtles Family Album
Family is important to me! Click here to see more pictures of my wife, Donna, and our two beautiful daughters (under development; coming soon!!). My Discography Click here to see the body of my work (under development; coming soon!!). |
When my family first arrived
in Adelaide, South Australia, we were driven to a place in the hills called
Woodside, which was a holding place for migrants until they found work and
until space became available in one of the migrant hostels in Adelaide. I was
just a young boy but I can remember walking down country roads with friends
during the Australian summer heat and being attacked by magpies protecting
their young. Every so often we would turn around to make sure a magpie wasn't
in the process of swooping down. Magpies will attack you and peck the top of
your head to make sure you keep your distance from their nest. Their cry is
very distinctive and I will never forget their sound as long as I live. It is
sounds such as these as well as the laugh of kookaburras that tend to make me
homesick for Australia at times. The women folk were terrified whenever it was
time to do laundry as the possums would run across the galvanized iron roofs of
the laundry sheds and make them scream with fright! 
