Wild One (Johnny O'Keefe Song) - O'Keefe's Recordings

O'Keefe's Recordings

O'Keefe was the first artist to record it, on his debut EP Shakin' at the Stadium, released on the Festival label. This version, ostensibly recorded live at the Stadium, was in fact a studio recording, overdubbed with the sound of a real audience.

An alternate version was recorded and released outside Australia: in the USA (as "Real Wild Child") on Brunswick and in the UK on Coral. "Festival liner notes have always put forward that the crowd overdub was the only difference... Ignoring the crowd overdub at the start, both versions have a different intro and JOK's vocal on the foreign versions is noticeably wilder than on the EP version issued here… As far as I know, the US/UK single version which, IMHO, is markedly superior to our version, was never issued in Australia... at the time, it did finally appear on a local compilation LP in the 70's and is now commonly available on various JOK CDs."

The song was the first Australian rock recording to reach the national charts, peaking at #20.