Digby George Richards was born on 12 September 1940 in the rural central western New South Wales town of Dunedoo.
This meeting was fortuitous for all, as the band had already booked a venue for a dance night in two weeks time and unfortunately their then singer had turned out to be somewhat average and had departed the scene.
The R'Jays played their first dance in August 1958 at Castlecrag Community Hall, with a line-up of Richards, Jon Hayton on lead guitar, Barry Lewis on drums, Ken Conyard on rhythm guitar, Peter Marris on saxophone, and Roger Palfreyman on tea chest bass.
Just one week later, the R'Jays became the first band in Australia to play live on a TV pop music show, Bandstand, and became one of the regular performers.
[2][3] By that time the line-up was Richards, Hayton, and Lewis with Jay Boogie on piano and Peter Baker on electric bass.
[9] In January 1960 Richards supported a tour by US rocker, Billy "Crash" Craddock, promoted by Lee Gordon.
[10] Also that month Richards and the R'Jays issued a single, "(Real Gone) Annie Laurie", on Festival Records' label, Rex.
[14] Also that month he formed a commercial venture, All Star Promotions, with fellow pop artists Rob E. G. and Johnny Devlin, which ran teenage dance venues.
[15] Richards then undertook two review show tours with Ted Quig to "gain more experience in stage work and comedy sketches".
[3] He had a four-week tour of rural areas working as a comedy singing duo with Clarence "Buster" Noble, where "One of the things he taught me was facial expression".
[16] In May 1963 he issued another single, "The Love Express", which Baker noted had "a perky girl chorus, train sounds, and the come-hither note in Dig's voice make [it] a train not to be missed, and there's plenty of intimate appeal in the other song ["The Whole Wide World"] – which Dig wrote himself".
[3] In December he had a role, Dig the Beatnik, in Once Upon a Surfie, a surf musical farce at the Palace Theatre, Sydney.
[19] Richards' next four singles for Festival were "Come on and Dance with Me" (May 1964), "Mary from the Dairy" (December), "Puff (The Tragic Wagon)" (June 1965) and "I was Yesterday's Hero, Today I'm a Broken Hearted Clown".
[3][20][21] He then worked on the club circuit and in 1966 he toured South East Asia and performed for Australian troops in Vietnam.
[3][23] Four singles were issued from the album, "If I Could Write a Love Song" (December 1973),[26] "New York City (Send My Baby Home)" (No.
[3][23][27] Richards next album, Collection (1975) provided three singles, "Mr Hard Times" (January 1975), "Little Suzuki" (May) and a re-recorded version of "Raincoat in the River" (August).