Paul Elliott - AC/DC: For those about to rock

There was hard-earned wisdom in the words that Bon Scott wrote in Its A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock n Roll), the song that kicked off AC/DCs second album T.N.T. For when Bon finally made it as a rock n roll singer, it was the culmination of many years graft, busting his balls for little or no money. If ever a rock star was a working-class hero, it was Bon.

He was born Ronald Belford Scott on July 9, 1946 in Kirriemuir, a small town in Scotland. His father, Charles, nicknamed Chick, worked in the family bakery, and met his wife, Isabelle, known as Isa, at a dance in Kirkcaldy. They married in 1941 while Chick was on leave from the British army during World War II. The Scotts first son, Sandy, died after nine months, but Ron, as his mother always called him, was a healthy lad, and fiercely independent. He used to never come home from school, Isa recalled. Hed just go off with his little mates. He also loved watching his father play drums in a traditional pipe band that marched in the town square every Saturday, and would mimic the old man by banging on a cookie tin.

In 1952, after Isa had given birth to another boy, named Derek, Chick Scott moved his young family to Australia, tempted by the prospect of a better life. They settled in Sunshine, a blue-collar district of Melbourne, and here, young Ron began honing his drumming skills on a kit bought by his parents. But after four years in Melbourne, the family moved again, traveling one thousand, seven hundred miles to Fremantle, a port town twelve miles south of Perth. At ten, Ronald still had a strong Scottish accent, and his new school classmates quickly picked up on it, nicknaming him Bonnie Scotland. Later shortened to Bon, the name stuck.

Like his dad, the teenaged Bon played drums for a pipe band but quickly lost interest in the formal disciplines of both the band and school, which he left at fifteen to work as a farm hand. By this point, the rock n roll age was in full swing. Bon grew his hair long, got his first tattoo, fell in with a gang of rockers and began making sporadic appearances on stage at local dance events, cocky enough to jump up and sing the new rock n roll hits such as Little Richards Long Tall Sally.

Bon found it easy getting girls, but on one occasion this got him into serious trouble. At a dance hall, he took a young girl outside to fool around a little. When they returned to the dance, Bon was challenged by a gang of youths and a fight broke out. The cops arrived and Bon fled the scene in a friends car, but was quickly apprehended and later charged with unlawful carnal knowledge and giving a false name to the police. He was sent to a young offenders institute for nine months. It was a wake-up call. During those months, Bon vowed to clean up his act. He also decided that rock n roll was his future.

In Perth, he joined his first band, The Spektors, in which he doubled as singer and drummer. What the band earned was not enough to pay the rent, so Bon worked as a postman, a job he continued doing until 1967, when he and other members of The Spektors merged with those of another Perth group, The Winstons, to form a new act named The Valentines.

This gave Bon a first fleeting taste of stardom. He switched to full-time singer, sharing the spotlight with co-lead vocalist Vince Lovegrove. It wasnt because I wanted to be up front, Bon later said. It was because the singer used to get more chicks. And as a bubblegum pop act, The Valentines attracted plenty of young women to their shows. After the band relocated to Melbourne they made their debut single in Every Day I Have To Cry, a song written by American soul singer Arthur Alexander and previously recorded by the Bee Gees in 1965, before their first international success. Two subsequent singles from The ValentinesShe Said, released in 1967, and My Old Mans A Groovy Old Man in 1969 were written by Harry Vanda and George Young, leaders of the most popular Australian group of the late sixties, The Easybeats. In October 1969, The Valentines were the support act for The Easybeats at a concert in Melbourne. In all of this was the first connection between Bon and Harry and George. Five years later, their lives would become inextricably linked. And for Bon, in those years, there would be good times and bad.