He toured nationally with the Beatles, Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, Kenny Rogers, Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette and Charley Pride.
With Jigsaw, he had five top 30 hit singles, "Gwen (Congratulations)" (1971), "Shame and Scandal", "Midnight Bus" (both 1972), "World's Greatest Mum" (No.
Chester won Golden Guitars at the Country Music Awards of Australia for best-selling track in 1975 and for Male Vocalist of the Year in 1981, 1982 and 1983.
[1][7] In October 1959, Chester formed a band, The Jaywoods, and organised dances at a West Preston church hall: "I could play the guitar ... but I was pretty useless at it.
[5][7] His idols were Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and locally Johnny O'Keefe.
[1] Music journalist, Ed Nimmervoll, noted "without really trying the Jaywoods' rehearsals were attracting a crowd to St. Cecilia's Hall in West Preston, which turned into regular Saturday night dance".
[2] By 1960, The Jaywoods became Johnny Chester and The Chessmen, with Chester on lead vocals, Jeff Cason on Upright Acoustic Double bass, Huey Fry on lead guitar, Albert Stacpool on piano, Les Stacpool on saxophone, and Len Woodhouse on drums.
[9] Chester was also backed by The Thunderbirds, which were an instrumental group formed in 1957, and by the end of 1960, consisted of Henri Bource on saxophone and flute, Harold Frith on drums, Charles Gauld on guitar, Gordon Onley on bass guitar and Murray Robertson on piano.
[7] One of his early fans was radio DJ, Stan Rofe, who promoted the artist on the 3KZ program, Platter Parade.
[1] He had also issued his debut album, Wild and Warm in 1963 and two extended plays, Johnny Chester's Hit Parade and My Blues and I, with W&G.
[11] Australian Women's Weekly's Ainslie Baker declared he had "proved himself an easy, friendly talker" and predicted this could lead to his "having Melbourne's first teenage TV show".
[6] He was disappointed that The Chessmen were unavailable for the 19 gigs, through state capitals and to New Zealand, "As all the boys have day jobs ... they would not be able to get the time off".
[12] From October for two seasons, Chester was the host of the ABC TV program, Teen Scene, with The Chessmen as the resident band.
[1] According to Australian rock music historian Ian McFarlane, Chester is "one of Melbourne's first and best rock'n'roll singers of the early 1960s".
Fenton died in an industrial accident during the construction of the South Eastern Freeway in Melbourne and was replaced on drums by Eddie Chapel.
[13] In August 1970, Jigsaw, without Chester, had a number-one hit with a cover version of United Kingdom group, Christie's "Yellow River".