Throughout his careers as a musician and as a farmer, Leo de Kroo has continued to build and repair instruments. Photo: Chris Roe.
Coolamon resident Leo de Kroo is one of Australia’s original rock ‘n’ rollers, a retired farmer, and an accomplished luthier who still knows his way around any instrument with strings.
One half of the popular De Kroo Brothers duo in the 1960s, Leo was a regular on TV shows like Bandstand and toured Australia and overseas with the who’s who of early rock ‘n’ roll.
More than a half century later, Leo and his wife Marianne enjoy a quieter life in the Riverina where he volunteers at Coolamon’s famous Up-2-Date Store and continues to repair all manner of stringed instruments in his workshop.
“I made my first guitar when I was a kid living with my family in Indonesia,” Leo said with a chuckle.
“I cut it out of cardboard, and I stitched it all together along the sides and I used elastic bands for strings.
“It sounded terrible because A, I couldn’t play it, B, I had no idea how to tune it and of course, lacky bands have got a limit!”
From this inauspicious start, Leo maintained his interest in music when the family migrated to Western Australia.
After battling bouts of rheumatic fever through school, he responded to a job ad looking for a young person with an interest in repairing musical instruments.
“It wasn’t an apprenticeship as such but it was a very good grounding for me as a 14-year-old because the guy who ran the workshop was actually a luthier,” he reflected.
“I was already learning to play guitar and so I also learned saxophone and tinkered with violins and cellos and stuff like that.
“When I started singing and performing on stage, I used what I had learned to make our own guitars, and I’d also make them for friends like Col Joye and Judy Stone.”
When he caught the rock ‘n’ roll bug in the late 1950s, Leo was well placed to emulate his international idols.
“There was a record bar in the shop, so anytime a new record from Elvis or someone would come in I’d learn to play it.”
Leo de Kroo and Doug Brewer in an early Bandstand appearance in 1960 as the De Kroo Brothers. Photo: TCN9.
With matinee idol looks, pompadours and matching sweaters, Leo and his mate Doug Brewer became regulars on the gig circuit around Perth before packing their guitars and heading for the east coast.
After a stint in Melbourne, the newly dubbed De Kroo Brothers set their sights on the bright lights of Sydney armed with a record and the name of a TV host.
“A guy had told us to go to Channel Nine and see if we could find Bobby Limb, who had the Mobil-Limb variety show on Friday nights,” Leo said.
“We had no idea about anything really, and we just walked in with this record to Channel Nine and asked where we could find him.
“He came over and said, ‘How good are you?’ and we said, ‘Pretty good, have a listen to this’ and he said ‘Hmm, do you want to come on the show on Friday?’ and of course, we said yes without any idea of what we’d have to do.”
As they exited the TV station, a tall bespectacled figure followed them out and laid a hand on each of their shoulders.
“He said, ‘My name is Brian Henderson and I have a show called Bandstand. Would you like to do that on Saturday?'” Leo chuckled.
“So there we were, a couple of unknowns and we’d booked Friday and Saturday on the highest rating shows on television. It was crazy!”
The De Kroo Brothers’ star quickly rose and they became part of the ‘Bandstand Family’ along with Col Joye, Little Patty, Jimmy Little, the Allen Brothers and three teenage siblings who would go on to global success.
“We were on a Queensland tour with Col Joye and some of the Bandstand Family and we were living in a railway carriage as we travelled around,” Leo recalled.
“As we were rolling into the station in Brisbane, somebody came from the front of the carriage and said, ‘Listen to this, it’s not radio, someone’s singing!’ and we looked out the window and there were these three kids on the platform trying to get our attention – and it was the Bee Gees.”
Along with touring and TV appearances, Leo continued to develop his skills as a luthier and established a music shop in Gladesville, which has gone on to be one of Australia’s longest-running guitar stores.
Leo de Kroo is a skilled luthier and continues to build and repair instruments in his Coolamon workshop. Photo: Chris Roe.
Leo and Marianne eventually moved to a property at Eumungerie outside Dubbo where they raised their family and settled into a farming lifestyle that Leo described as a “labour of love”.
Leo spent a decade as a radio announcer on 2DU and has continued to build and repair guitars over the years. When they moved to Coolamon to be closer to family seven years ago, Leo’s workshop came too.
His shed is a treasure trove of tools and jigs, stringed instruments he has created, and plenty of memorabilia from the early years of rock and roll.
“It was a big decision to leave the farm after 47 years in Dubbo, but we have no regrets,” he said.
“Coolamon is just a great town and we’ve got to know some really good people and it’s been one of those of the big moves you make that actually pays off.”
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