Rhythms March-April 2021 by rhythmsmag

FREE RHYTHMS DOWNLOAD SAMPLER

S R E D I L S K C A B E TH ck to play,

ba e m o c e w ” . “When h s e r f s l e e it always f

All Our Exes Chain Emily Wurramara Cat Empire Ian Moss Jeff Lang Joe Camilleri Kev Carmody Little Georgia The Waifs Troy Cassar-Daly John Williamson

PLUS:

Even Valerie June My Darling Clementine Femi & Made Kuti Jimmy Dowling Richard Clapton

2021

$12.95 inc GST MARCH/APRIL 2021 ISSUE: 304

HISTORY:

‘Eagle Rock’ At 50 The Bushwackers

BRUCE HEARN Bruce Hearn came to prominence in the ‘80s with iconic and highly-politicised Melbourne ska band, Strange Tenants, but his roots run deep and wide. He cut his teeth playing at folk clubs and protests in the ‘70s, and more recently led Australian Blues Music Awards-nominated finalists Hu Hurricane Hearn. Bruce returned to folk recently with his acclaimed Woody Guthrie tribute project, and now presents his first proper solo album. The Word Is The Music The People Are The Song includes ten Hearn originals demonstrating the depth of his and his brother Ian’s song-writing prowess alongside ten interpretations of classic material from Bruce’s heroes, including Peter La Farge, Bob Dylan and Christy Mo Moore. The album includes a new arrangement of the old Strange Tenants classic "Grey Skies Over Collingwood", a song also popularised by Weddings Parties Anything.

Bruce Hearn and The Machinists Live at the Athenaeum: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie. With its all-star cast and stunning acoustic performances, this document of Bruce and band's Woody Guthrie tribute is also a celebration to Australia’s own folk revival. "What a triumph your Woody show was. Fan-fucking-tastic.” - Peter Foley, The Caravan Club “Consummate rabble-rouser Bruce Hearn captures the power and the passion of yesteryear’s socio-political movements with this historic document.” – Chris Lambie, Rhythms

Both albums available as Double LP, Double CD or digital download via brucehearn.bandcamp.com and all good record stores.

brucehearn.com.au brucehearn.bandcamp.com

Volume No. 304 March/April 2021

HISTORY 101 42

DADDY COOLEST! Ross Wilson and the 50th anniversary of ‘Eagle Rock’. By Ian McFarlane.

FEATURES 46

SHOOTING STAR Valerie June’s new album is set to make her an even bigger star. By Brian Wise.

50 PURE GOLD Ben Mastwyk and The Millions’ new album is on the right track. By Denise Hylands.

UPFRONT 09 10 12 14

The Word. By Brian Wise. Rhythms Sampler #11. Our Download Card! Only available to subscribers!

Nashville Skyline By Anne McCue. Bluesfest Director Peter Noble Talks By Brian Wise.

BLUESFEST PREVIEW 16

THE BACKSLIDERS: CAPTAINS OF CRUNCH

The legendary outfit’s 15th album puts a positive spin on hard times. By Samuel J.Fell.

Emily Wurramara has a new single and a new album on 19 CRUISIN’: the way. By Brian Wise

21 22

LANG’S CHOICE Jeff Lang chooses his top 10 Blues albums.

JOE’S BAKER’S DOZEN

THE WAIFS STAY POSITIVE The revered group look forward to playing live again. By Brett Leigh Dicks.

Joe Camilleri selects his 13 top jazz and blues albums.

MEMORIES OF RIVERESQUE Mick Thomas on recording a

FOR A SHORT TIME Jen Anderson writes about getting back together with Weddings, Parties, Anything.

WORLD CLASS COUNTRY Troy Cassar-Daley’s new album

classic album with The Weddoes in Tasmania.

is an artistic and personal triumph. By Jeff Jenkins.

LITTLE GEORGIA ON OUR MINDS The lockdown didn’t

stop this duo from releasing new material. By Brian Wise.

STILL TRUE BLUE After more than 50 years John Williamson still remains an important voice. By Jeff Jenkins.

PLANET MOSSY This guitar great continues to do things his own way. By Jeff Jenkins.

INTRODUCING …..GARRETT KATO

From busking in Byron Bay to recording. By Samuel J. Fell.

All Our Exes gear up for a Bluesfest reunion. By 35 EX-CELLENT Samuel J. Fell.

36 38 40

SOUL MAN Kev Carmody is one of our greatest songwriters. The re-released Cannot Buy My Soul album is proof. By Stuart Coupe. NEVER BREAK THE CHAIN Fifty years on the legendary

Chain is unbroken. By Samuel J.Fell.

CLASSIC ALBUM – TOWARD THE BLUES

After half a century, Toward The Blues remains a seminal Australian blues album. By Billy Pinnell.

CATS The Cat Empire’s Felix Reibl says the band thrives on 41 COOL its live shows. By Brian Wise.

COUNTRY DARKNESS

LIGHTNING GIRL Tracy McNeil’s tour behind her award-

HOT ASH Even’s Ash Naylor talks to Jeff Jenkins about the band’s

SOCIAL NETWORK Jimmy Dowling releases an album that

UK duo My Darling Clementine record an intriguing album of Elvis Costello songs (plus one of their own). By Bernard Zuel. winning album is back on the road – a year later. By Denise Hylands. great new album, Down The Shops.

seems to make time disappear. By Samuel J. Fell.

62 RICHARD CLAPTON’ MUSICAL LOVE LETTER

The great songwriter returns to his roots and records some of his favourite songs. By Jeff Jenkins.

HISTORY 201 66

FIFTY NOT OUT!

Clouted by Covid-19, the iconic Aussie band celebrates a half century of folk. By Tony Hillier.

COLUMNS

70 71

Musician:

Tony Rice. By Nick Charles.

33 1/3 Revelations:

Lowell George’s Thanks, I’ll Eat It Here.

Lost In The Shuffle:

Ron Davies’ U.F.O., By Keith Glass

By Martin Jones

72 73 74

You Won’t Hear This On Radio: By Trevor J. Leeden Underwater Is Where The Action Is. By Christopher Hollow

Jason Molina. By Chris Familton 75 76 Twang! Americana Roundup. By Denise Hylands.

Waitin’ Around To Die:

REVIEWS 77

FEATURE ALBUM REVIEWS: Sunbury ’73, Femi & Made Kuti, The Kinks Lola vs Powerman, Glen Hansard, Shakey Graves, Bruce Hearn, Luke Sinclair, Don Morrison, Steve Tilston.

88 GENERAL ALBUMS 91 Blues: By Al Hensley 92 World Music & Folk: By Tony Hillier 93 Jazz: By Tony Hillier 94 Jazz 2: By Des Cowley 95 Vinyl: Lucero and more. By Steve Bell. 96 Film: ZAPPA! Brian Wise talks to director Alex Winter. 98 Books 1. Craig Horne’s I’ll Be Gone. By Des Cowley. 99 Books Too! Way Out West. By Stuart Coupe 100 Hello & Goodbye By Sue Barrett.

AN EVENING OF WORDS & MUSIC WITH

CREDITS Managing Editor: Brian Wise Senior Contributor: Martin Jones Senior Contributors: Michael Goldberg / Stuart Coupe Design & Layout: Sally Syle - Sally’s Studio Website/Online Management: Robert Wise Proofreading: Gerald McNamara

CONTRIBUTORS

Jen Anderson Sue Barrett Steve Bell Nick Charles John Cornell Des Cowley Stuart Coupe Meg Crawford Brett Leigh Dicks Chris Familton Samuel J. Fell Keith Glass Megan Gnad Michael Goldberg (San Francisco)

Al Hensley Tony Hillier Christopher Hollow Denise Hylands Jeff Jenkins Martin Jones Chris Lambie Trevor J. Leeden Warwick McFadyen Ian McFarlane Anne McCue (Nashville) Billy Pinnell Michael Smith Bernard Zuel

CONTACTS Advertising: bookings@rhythms.com.au Festival Coverage Contact: denisetwang@hotmail.com Rates/Specs/Deadlines: bookings@rhythms.com.au Subscription Enquiries: subscriber@rhythms.com.au General Enquiries: admin@rhythms.com.au

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elcome to our 2021 Bluesfest edition. I hope you enjoy the many features on the artists performing at the festival as well as the other features and reviews in this issue. If you are a subscriber, or become one, you will also receive the special download sampler which features some fantastic Australian music. (Thanks to all the artists and labels for providing the tracks). This time last year we were preparing to head to Bluesfest with a batch of magazines and a chance to enjoy a week in one of the best festival locations anywhere when everything suddenly stopped. The past year has been something that we could never have imagined. It is only with thanks to our loyal subscribers and advertisers that we’ve managed to keep going. Rhythms remains one of the very few national music magazines which is a tribute to our supporters (and possibly our unrelenting obsession with music). This year Bluesfest features an all-Australian line-up for the first time ever and it is an exciting prospect and one which makes me absolutely delighted. First, it focuses us on the fact that this country has an incredible array of great musicians, from all musical genres, of international standard. Eighteen months ago, I was able to see the Teskey Brothers on a bill with Tash Sultana playing to a sold-out house at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, coinciding with the Americana Music Conference. The reaction of the audience was extraordinary and proved that fans don’t really care where an act originates as long as it is good. The fact that the Teskeys’ music was inspired by American music gave them an immediate connection and Tash Sultana has just as devoted an audience over there as here. They are just two of the acts playing at Bluesfest. You can read about many of the Bluesfest acts in this issue and you can find more features about them at our website (www.rhythms.com. au). Make sure you check out Ian McFarlane’s feature on the anniversary of Daddy Cool’s ‘Eagle Rock’ and catch the legendary Ross Wilson at Bluesfest. There are plenty of other local legends to see and I am loathe to single out acts because you have Kasey, Barnesy, Ian Moss, The Black Sorrows, The Backsliders,

Weddoes back together for Bluesfest. Chain, The Church, The Angels, John Williamson (and that’s just a short list)……..but if you have never seen the iconic Weddings, Parties, Anything (revered in Victoria) then this is a rare chance. Of course, the lack of international acts is striking after so many decades of legendary musicians, but it is only temporary. Consider also that many festivals in the USA feature predominantly American acts. As many of you know I am a frequent attendee at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival where it is almost impossible for an international act to get on a bill of over 500 acts (despite my pleading with them to include some Australian acts). So far, The Waifs and John Butler are the only Australian acts in the past decade or more to make it. Jimmy Barnes has been there as a fan but he would hold his own against any of the big-name rock acts that feature. So, for this year’s Bluesfest let’s celebrate the chance to see our own musicians in the forefront. I am sure it is going to have massive implications for the festival in future years. The fact that Bluesfest is going ahead is in no small part due to the dogged determination of its director Peter Noble. (You can read my

interview with Peter in the following pages). Make no mistake, the music industry has been on its knees and needs our support. I suspect that it could have got a lot more support from state and federal governments too, although I do know that they have given substantial funding (as have many local councils). However, I suspect that if the festivals had been able to call themselves a ‘sport’ and you had been able to bet on them then the imperative to get things moving would have been far greater! Maybe Bluesfest should have incorporated an NRL component. (After all, it was once staged at Red Devil Park in Byron). So, I am looking forward to this Bluesfest immensely because it promises to be unique. I hope you enjoy the Bluesfest spread but I also hope you enjoy all the other features in a jam-packed issue, especially if you are not able to go to Bluesfest. We have features on the wonderful Valerie June, whose new album is set to make her a star (if she wasn’t already). You can also read about Richard Clapton and his new album Music is Love: 1966-1970, in which he performs some of his favourite songs. Speaking of great covers, Even’s Down The Shops, which is in much the same vein is also a ripper! There’s also My Darling Clementine with an album of Elvis Costello covers, brilliant songwriter Jimmy Dowling from up northern NSW, Tracy McNeil & The Good Life, and the Bushwackers celebrating their 50th anniversary. Plus, our usual huge array of reviews. If you have picked up the magazine and wondered how to get hold of the free download sampler – which we have been including in each issue – then wonder no more. All you have to do is subscribe to the magazine as a print & digital subscriber and you will be on the mailing list to receive the sampler along with the magazine. If you are at Bluesfest have a great one and, hopefully, we’ll see you back there next year for the Rhythms 30th anniversary! If you are not going to Bluesfest I hope you enjoy this special edition and thanks again for your support. Brian Wise Editor 9

IT’S THE FABULOUS Welcome to our Rhythms Sampler #11 in our usual incredibly handy and ecologically sensitive download card format. It’s our 2021 autumn almanac with 26 tracks of brilliant Australian music. This download is available to all print plus print & digital subscribers ONLY. You can add the songs to your library, or you can also create your own CDs with the tracks. If you are not a member of the Rhythms family, then you need to join to get this fabulous sampler. Please go to rhythms.com. au/subscribe and join us. If this isn’t the best compilation you’ve heard this year so far, the editor (that’s me) will buy you a drink at Bluesfest (offer only available between 9.00am and 10.00am, Thursday April 1). Thank you to all the musicians and record companies that have donated songs. Thank you also to all the subscribers who have made this possible.

SAMPLER

SIDE A 1. TEA AND SUGAR TRAIN

The Backsliders From the great new album Bonecrunch the legends are at it again! (See feature this issue).

2. WEREWOLVES OF LONDON

Henry Wagons From the show Zevon: Accidentally Like A Martyr (appearing in April), an homage to the late, great songwriter Warren Zevon.

3. CORNER OF BENT STREET AND HIGH

(McKenzie, Soldati, Stokes, Stops) Mushroom Music Mick Thomas’ Roving Commission From the forthcoming album ‘City’s Calling Me’ Mick’s second lockdown album, recorded during the second lockdown. (See review in this issue). Courtesy of Brickfielders Recordings.

4. TEXAS

Little Georgia A 6-minute psyched-out, grunge-tinged epic produced by Nick DiDia. Louder than you’ll ever be! Watch the video at littlegeorgiamusic.com. (See feature in this issue).

5. ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE DAYS

Jeff Lang Another One Of Those Days’ (written by Jeff Lang). One of 22 songs included with the book Some Memories Never Die.

6. FOR YOUR LOVE

Even From the absolutely terrific album Down The Shops in which the boys play their favourites. (See feature in this issue). Courtesy of Cheersquad Records & Tapes.

7. REAL WORLD

9. RUNNING ON THE WHEEL

The Luke Sinclair Set Lead singer with Raised By Eagles steps out solo with a brilliant album. (See review in this issue). Available at thelukesinclairset.bandcamp.com

10. BLACK CROW

The Weeping Willows A new track from one of our favourite duos, Andrew Wrigglesworth and Laura Coates.

11. STORM CLOUDS

Jeb Cardwell Stay tuned for the release of Jeb Cardwell’s debut studio vinyl album due for release in 2021 through Blind Date Records.

12. DIAMOND STONE

Toria Richings First single from the forthcoming EP of the same name from the UK born singer and songwriter who now resides in Sydney.

13. FACETS OF THE DIAMOND

Ben Mastwyk & The Millions From Living On Gold Street. Available at mastwyk.bandcamp.com (See the feature in this issue).

SIDE B

14. WICHITA LINEMAN

Kerryn Tolhurst From Shagpile, an album of brilliant instrumentals by this Australian guitar and songwriting legend. Available at: music.apple.com

15. MATCH TO A ROCK

Tracy McNeil & The Good Life From the award-winning album You Can Be The Lightning. Tracy and band are back out on tour from April. (See feature this issue).

16. INNER CITY COOL

Freya Josephine Hollick The title track of the exciting new album coming out in May. Listen to this extraordinary voice!

Bruce Hearn From The World Is Music, The People Are The Song (courtesy of ISKRA Records). (See review in this issue).

8. LANDLOCKED

17. NO PERFECT MAN

Chris Wilson From Live At The Continental, maybe the best Australian live album of all time. (Courtesy of Cheersquad Records). 10

Nick Batterham Taken from his forthcoming studio album Lovebirds out this April via Cheersquad Records & Tapes.

18. HARLEY AND ME

Cilla Jane New song from the New South Wales based singer and songwriter. From the forthcoming Roses album.

19. THE RAZOR’S EDGE

Krishna Jones From the album The Razor’s Edge Krishna’s debut solo album…. Funk, groove, rock and soul. (Courtesy of Zen Arcade Music).

MARCH/APRIL 2021 RHYTHMS SAMPLER #11 Subscribe to Rhythms Print or Print & Digital today and we’ll send you our EXCLUSIVE SAMPLER FULL OF GREAT MUSIC....AVAILABLE ONLY TO SUBSCRIBERS

IT’S THE BIGGEST RHYTHMS SAMPLER EVER! EXCLUSIVELY FOR RHYTHMS SUBSCRIBERS:

GO TO: rhythms.com.au/subscribe

The Backsliders, Henry Wagons, Mick Thomas’ Roving Commission, Even, Little Georgia, Freya Josephine Hollick, Chris Wilson, The Luke Sinclair Set, The Weeping Willows, Jeb Cardwell, Toria Richings, Ben Mastwyk & The Millions, Kerryn Tolhurst, Tracy McNeil & The Good Life, Bruce Hearn, Nick Batterham, Cilla Jane, Krishna Jones, Andrew McSweeney, Acre, The Western Distributors, Enso Niche, Mitch Dillon’s Compulsive Ramblers, James Thomson, Dan Challis

20. HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

Andrew McSweeney From the Melbourne artist’s upcoming solo EP, released May 2021.

21. SOMEONE’S MAKING RAINBOWS

Acre From the album Thieves and Fakes (Courtesy of Zen Arcade Music). Acre are an original band from Byron Bay, Australia.

22. OFF IN THE DISTANCE

The Western Distributors Title track from the Sydney band featuring Catherine Wearne and Andrew Travers, formerly in The Happening Thang.

23. THE CLIMBER

Enso Niche First song from a mysterious Sydney-based project. Are there some well-known names involved here? Who knows!

24. THE LAND

My checque/money order for $

is enclosed.

Mitch Dillon’s Compulsive Ramblers “It’s not country, and it’s not rock, and it’s definitely not country-rock, but it is all of those things.”

25. FATAL RIBBON HIGHWAY

James Thomson From the album Golden Exile available at jamesthomsonmusic.com

26. NO LONELY LAND

Dan Challis The title track of Dan’s latest and sophomore (that’s second to you) album. “The album represents a short but significant chapter of my journey as a songwriter,” says Dan. Available at danchallis.com 11

ANNE MCCUE

ailable s are av

Both alb

ne of the worst things that ever happened to independent musicians was that automobile manufacturers stopped putting CD players in cars. Sales of CDs thereby dropped off at an alarming rate. While the return of vinyl records is an aural blessing, vinyl manufacture is approximately ten times more expensive than CD manufacture. Today we are looking at two albums that haven’t been released on CD at all - a current trend. Both of these recordings have digital releases and Lou Turner’s album is also available on cassette.

Imbolc by Joe Pisapia (Treetone)

In his liner notes, Joe Pisapia writes, “Imbolc is a Celtic word which translates to “in the belly.” It is a traditional marking of time concerning the halfway point between the winter solstice and equinox. Historically it was a time of prayer and supplication to the divine to once again return a fruitful harvest season, as the winter sustenance stocks continued to wane.” From the opening refrain of Joe Pisapia’s latest album, we immediately know we are in for a treat of sophisticated beauty: a nylon string guitar plays major sevenths, minor sevenths and jazz infused intervals with rhythmic pulses from south of the border. Add to that a strong sense of whimsy. Vibraphone and cello are sensitively placed on either side of the leading guitar voice and why not add a little mellotronic pad just for that last chord? Pisapia is both a rhythmic and intelligent

player, schooled in complexity and heartfelt innocence with a good amount of hope thrown in. ‘A Letter From This Time Last Year’ has a playful layering of electric, acoustic and treated guitars which capture the naivety of everything that came before. A cowboy electric guitar provides the rhythm section, a gentle galloping toward to the future. ‘Plant Medicine’ introduces a Spanish inspired poeticism - just a rhythm guitar and a lead guitar in an atmospheric dialogue with one another. And then the more ambient clouds rise up in the background, abruptly stop and then rise up again. On ‘Casarza Ligure’ Pisapia plays rhythm and lead parts at the same time and then another voice joins along with a bass guitar - heard for the first time here on track four of the album. Cascades of string samples provide the counterpoint. Joe Pisapia’s album soothes my soul, delights my intelligence and fulfills my craving for unpretentious world-aware music that is soulful and authentic. Again from the liner notes Pisapia writes “Perhaps the season of greed and selfishness will die and give way to an inevitable and beautiful evolution of thought and compassionate action. But perhaps we, the music makers, the believers, the artists, are the daffodils, the prophets of hope, who are seen as expendable to those who, like the final frost, exasperatingly defend darkness and prolong the inevitable end of winter.“

Songs For John Venn by Lou Turner (Spinster) On Songs For John Venn, there is a kind of easy, languid motion within the tracks as if the musicians were just having an informal relaxed play-through of the songs. A casual summer’s afternoon jam somewhere in the South, perhaps with a couple of lazy flies buzzing in the room and maybe some singing cicadas in the not too distant trees. The windows are

camp.

on Band

open and the warm breeze is gently passing through the music. The album opens with ‘Solar Eclipse’ - a laid back summery feeling with a stream of consciousness lyric which speaks of ‘the great love letter in the sky.’

‘Can you feel the tracing of my finger on your dedication?’ sings Turner who is both poet and composer. Turner herself plays flute, bass, percussion and mandolin and is joined by musicians from the band Styrofoam Winos plus some additional Nashville instrumentalists. Like John Venn, Turner grew up in a religious household. Through creative alchemy she transformed her interest in the mathematician into a motif for her writing of this album. She says, “the theme exists on this record in form as well as content, and the backing artists make up the form of my Venn diagram.” “The spirituality I felt in music as a child is still there, but is far more mysterious and boundless, and simultaneously more grounded and rooted to contexts and histories. Spiritual jazz (specifically Alice Coltrane’s ‘Journey in Satchidananda’) has become hugely important to me for this reason,” she says. The recording has the feel of one of those early 70s records that was almost lost and then rediscovered all these later and indeed is partly inspired by Bridget St John’s Songs for the Gentle Man.

25 - 30 June 2021

Kasey Chambers 25 - 30 June 2021 Travis Collins Amber Lawrence Gina Jeffreys

500milesofmusic.com www.500milesofmusic.com

Photo by Dane Beesley

sually when I meet Bluesfest Director Peter Noble, over the phone, for a chat to preview the forthcoming festival he is somewhere overseas catching acts he is looking to book. Last year he rang from the Spirit of New Orleans train heading up to Memphis for the International Blues Challenge after the Folk Alliance Conference. Then it was off to Los Angeles for the Pollstar Awards where Bluesfest was nominated along with international festival behemoths such as Glastonbury, Isle of Wight and Rock in Rio. This year, Noble has been forced to stay home. Having had to cancel last year’s event he is determined that this year the festival is going ahead. We speak early on a Sunday morning because the rest of Noble’s week is full of meetings, mainly with state and local officials about the festival’s Covid-safe plan. We were going to talk mainly about the music, but politics intrudes. Noble has managed to reschedule a bunch of tours by international artists (who should have been at last year’s and this event) and just got permission to implement his team’s plans for the forthcoming event. He should sound like a relieved man, but he confesses that they have been trying to track down the 180 or so people who have not yet asked for a refund on last year’s tickets in order to purchase new ones. It is one extra worry he doesn’t need but he asks me to send a shout out to those people to contact the Bluesfest office. The other thing that is preying on his mind is the way the Covid-safe plan will impact the festival and the struggles everyone in the music industry has been going through. “It’s been a long difficult journey from being shut down March last year to where we are today,” says Noble, who adds that the week the shutdown occurred he and his team met to start planning for this year. “Yes, we had to pull back the amount of days they’re working, from five to three or four,” explains Noble, “but it was part of, ‘We’re doing another festival next year. That it has to be the goal. We have to focus on that and work toward it. By doing that, we won’t fall into this malaise, ‘Well, we don’t know what we’re doing. We’ll just wait.’ That to me was the death of the Bluesfest, that we’re just going to wait on everything and not try to be part of the change that we needed to have toward live music returning.” “It was critical and I’m not trying to crow there,” he adds, “because it’s about our own survival and our future. We’re a totally independent Australian company, we’re not reliant upon ongoing investment from a

partnership with major international companies, and that is an important part of who we are, but it was also part of our need to do what we did. We had 29,000 people to refund. That has been the biggest and most difficult thing we’ve ever done.” Noble says that, at this stage, the approved plan (the third of three comprehensive plans he submitted to the state government) allows for 15,00 people a day at Bluesfest. It will also mean that there will only be three stages and that everybody will be seated outdoors with no dancing but voluntary mask-wearing! “Everything is half,” says Noble. “Outdoor shows are deemed by government to be the safest because the free flow of air. Seated shows are required everywhere. We all have to - as we support live music support the health of those people who want to attend live music shows, and it’s not deemed that dancing is safe enough yet. “Yes, people will be exposed to the elements of rain or sun and will need to bring appropriate cover. There will be areas which will have cover, but they won’t be in front of the stages.” “I would like to say that the New South Wales Health Department has been brilliant,” notes Noble, who says he has been on the phone to government officials almost every day for months. “They’ve wanted to see events come back. I know we’ve all felt that sports definitely got a major kick a lot earlier than the first major event, COVID safety plan, which is Bluesfest, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying.” Noble says that he hopes the plan, developed by a company commissioned by Bluesfest, is applicable to other festivals as well. “It is highly likely that other states would approve it as well, so it’s always been the way back for our events industry to do multi-day, multistage camping events,” he says. “That means that the Woodfords and Port Fairys of this world will have the comfort that there is a plan the government can approve in existence. “In the end, we want people to come and have a good time, but they also have to realise that events are not going to be the same in the future until COVID is eliminated.” Back to the music. I tell Noble that every musician and music fan that I have spoken to about Bluesfest is excited about the all-Australian line-up. “Although, it didn’t start out that way, it has been embraced by the public, in this time of COVID, to a level that I’m deeply appreciating,” says Noble.

“When you start talking about an all-Australian event, I start thinking about all the Australians who’d played Bluesfest,” he adds, recalling that when Billy Thorpe played the festival at Belongil Fields he got two noise fines in half an hour. “The police came around and said, ‘We’ve got a noise complaint. You need to tell him to turn down’ and I went, ‘You want me to get on stage and tell Billy Thorpe to turn down? My life is not worth the fine you’re going to give me’.” If you think of some of the classic Australian festivals, like Sunbury back in the early ‘70s - which was predominantly an Australian line-up - and the early days of Bluesfest – it appears that this year’s event will be a massive boost for Australian musicians. “I’ve been very agreeably - I wouldn’t use the word surprised - but pleased to see the response,” responds Noble. “Of course, we announced in November that the internationals weren’t coming and from that point on it’s been embraced. The only international I added was Franti. He loves playing blues here but I purposefully didn’t go out there and add any other international artists, and I’ll still be adding Aussie artists now that we’ve got the COVID plan up.” “I love the bill,” he continues. “I’ve got the same mix that I do at any Bluesfest with artists that appeal to all ages; and I believe if you look at the top few lines, they all have a connection. I’m very pleased to have artists like Kev Carmody, like Russell Morris, like Tex doing that Man In Black show that I’ve been trying to get for years. I mean just Teskeys we all know! There’s quite a good mix but I’m not finished yet.” “Jimmy Barnes hasn’t played for the better part of two decades, apart from Cold Chisel,” says Noble when I ask about the artists who haven’t played the festival previously. “The Church hasn’t played before. Jon Stevens hasn’t played before, neither has The Living End. Briggs hasn’t played before. Weddings Parties play about once a decade. Dami Im hasn’t played before – and if you heard her records: man, she’s a soul singer and she’s great. I didn’t book her for any other reason than I was blown away by her album. “I mean getting Pacey, King & Doley together, that’s a good one. All Our Exes Live in Texas are actually reforming to play Bluesfest. Roshani, I mean she’s a powerhouse. She is so good it’s scary and she’s blues. I love to find discovery artists. “Usually, you find me at different things like Australian Music Week and coming to Melbourne and just looking around. Well, I haven’t had that opportunity in the last twelve months like I normally have.” “You think I just have this magic thing where I just know everything?” adds Noble when we talk about finding new artists to play. “It’s always having your ear to the ground, and people in the biz telling you about someone; that’s a big part of it.” “I spent some of my time the last month trying to get Johnny Green’s Blues Cowboys to perform,” says Noble, and I mention that they are one of the legendary local band ever to play the event. One of the greatest Bluesfest acts ever, I tell him. “Johnny said, ‘That’d be like herding cats’,” when I last asked him. “Grunter is still playing, so is guitar player Johnny Gray. Ezra Lee’s moved to Melbourne. Anyway, I’ll just stay on Johnny every year until he bloody does it.” If you never got to see them then let this quote say it all: “Imagine a Hank Williams/T-Bone Walker hybrid blasting from the wireless in a sleek 1950s Cadillac with fins bigger than Texas, the thump of thunderous rain sizzling in the desert sun all around and you have something close to the feel of the Blues Cowboys”. “That’s the sort of stuff you look around for,” notes Noble. “But there’s so many musicians you want to book. There’s also something else I always have to be thinking about: the legends aren’t with us forever, and they’ve got a right to be on our stages. “Which reminds me of the late Max Merritt playing Bluesfest and it was just brilliant. Max was just incredible. But when you start talking about an all-Australian lineup, I’m sorry I start to reminisce. But I think that it’s obvious in the future that the percentage of Aussie artists will be higher than it’s been in the last few years – for all festivals.”

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With their fifteenth record, The Backsliders manage to put a powerful and positive spin on these hard times, writes Samuel J. Fell

t begins, as so many of their records have, with a riff. A muscular, fuzzed out slide riff, reminiscent in this instance of NYC’s Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. It’s a riff that’s quickly underpinned with a shuffly beat and offset with tightly controlled harmonica. The vocal comes in, and the song begins to stretch out. You know, instantly, that this is the work of Backsliders; Australian blues at its most primal, its most real. Bonecrunch, the band’s fifteenth record, is indeed primal and real. It’s the product of an organic and intense musical relationship between guitarist Dom Turner and drummer Rob Hirst that’s lasted more than three decades. It benefits too, in spades, from the powerful harp work of Joe Glover and Ian Collard; the keyswork of Hirst’s Midnight Oil bandmate Jim Moginie; and the backing vocals of Nikki D and Gloria Brown and

Tomika Webb, who play with Turner in the Turner Brown Band. It’s an album that is undeniably the work of this band, and released as it is during Hard Times, it’s taken on what seems an urgency – opener ‘Tea & Sugar Train’, ‘Bad Recruit’, ‘Pass For Jesus’, ‘No Know-How’, ‘Tombstoning’ (built around Hirst’s stellar drumming) and closer, a chugging cover of Bukka White’s ‘Shake ‘Em On Down’, subscribe to this ethos – dirty and grinding, riff-driven blues with something to say. Urgent. Primal and real. Having said all this however, one of the most pertinent and powerful songs on Bonecrunch, is also perhaps the quietest, the most sedate. Entitled ‘John Prine’, it was written, as Turner says, “mainly about the Covid experience”, and begins (after a chilling slide intro) with the line, “It was

the year that the clock stopped.” And then, to top the year off for Turner, singer and songwriter John Prine died, cementing the basis for the song. “I loved his writing,” Turner says of Prine, a huge influence. “I don’t really write in the same way, as if I could ever compare myself to him anyway, but he tended to write in this beautiful narrative style. But what I do take from his style, is his observations, his putting of observations into very simple and poetic terms, rather than complicating things.” It’s a song which sits snugly among the others on the album, this album that exhibits that urgency. More than an urgency, it’s a power that rumbles forth, sometimes from the combined drive of Turner’s guitar, Hirst’s drumming and both Glover and Collard’s harmonica playing, and also in equal measure, via the lyrics of certain songs. One example is ‘Mass Destruction’, where Turner sings of racism being a tool of same. “[The urgency there] was conscious,” Turner says. “I think Rob used the words, ‘We don’t want to make a loping, middle-aged album’, and in saying that, we like loping grooves, but we did tend to go a bit harder on some [of the songs here], and on some of them, the lyric drove the riff, made the riff harder. ‘Mass Destruction’ is actually a version of a Faithless song, and the lyrics were so powerful and relevant when they were written, about the George Bush-era of American politics, but they just apply to today as well.” As well as an urgency, another feeling Bonecrunch really conveys is one of hope. The times we find ourselves in, for myriad reasons, are tough, and so from this record, Backsliders have been able to wring a positivity, despite a number of the tracks dealing with stickier issues. “When you listen to some of the songs, I think, god I hope people don’t think this is just a whole downer record with all this negativity,” Turner smiles. “I, in particular, tend to rant on about things that annoy me socially, more than politically, but the idea of it is, there’s hope

at the end, a positive in the end.” It is, as can be a hallmark of the blues, an uplifting record – the urgency lends itself to some impressive riffage via Turner’s guitar, which combines with Hirst’s chugging percussion to really give it that upbeat vibe. It’s the blues, and it’s powerful. What is important to note however, is that it’s blues done the way Backsliders do the blues, which is to say they use the music as a guide, not as a hard and fast rule. “We try not to keep making the same record, we try to vary things,” Turner concurs. “And that sort of happens naturally; I couldn’t think of anything worse than if we just kept making

Preaching Blues, our first album, in various forms. You need to evolve.” Turner also cites this as one reason for the band’s success and longevity. Bonecrunch is Backsliders’ fifteenth record, from a career that spans over three decades (Preaching Blues, their debut LP, was released in 1988), and while their music is undeniably Backsliders, no two albums are the same. “For us, on a creative level, we do what we really want to do,” Turner acknowledges, before expanding, “I think another reason [for the longevity of the band] is we all have quite a number of projects outside of >>>

“We don’t want to make a loping, middle-aged album.” – Dom Turner

FEATURE

>>> Backsliders. Which means, when we

come back to play, it always feels fresh and also feels like we have other musical experiences that we can then bring back to the band. “With this particular album, it was supposed to be made a couple of years ago, but other projects got in the way, and then when Covid hit we thought we’d record it. And we noticed when we were recording it, we were all bringing these other musical influences to this record. And that creates a variety and makes it more interesting, and keeps the band going.” The band have been combining these experiences to create albums for decades then, the result being that, as Turner says, no two albums sound the same. What is a constant however, is how the records actually come together, a fairly stable affair, Bonecrunch being no exception. “We have a technique, Rob and I, which is based on improvisation,” Turner says. “We get into a rehearsal studio, and we literally

improvise and record it, take it away and piece things together. “So, we were able to do a bit more of that during Covid, Rob and I went into a rehearsal studio a few times and did that – we banged out, made a whole lot of noise and came up with riffs and grooves. The approach tends to fall into place naturally with us… we have a really similar approach to songwriting, so it’s actually completely natural in the way we work together. So, when we do come together, it seems to meld.” It’s not just on record that this meld occurs – anyone who’s seen the band live, at any point over the past thirty-three years, with any number of harmonica players backing Turner and Hirst up, can attest to the fact they meld just as well on stage. Of course, over the past twelve months, this hasn’t been a regular occurrence; the band have played one or two gigs in the past couple of months, and will reunite at Byron Bay’s Bluesfest, but it’s a far cry from their regular schedule. These couple of shows they have played though, to officially launch Bonecrunch late last year, would have, I venture to Turner, given the band a renewed appreciation for the live setting. “Absolutely,” he enthuses. “In saying that though, personally I’ve always been very

FEATURE grateful that the band has been able to continue on for such a long time. One of the things, with this group, is we play what we want and like… so we’re always grateful for the fact people still come and see us, and in general, people still like it. “But yes, because we haven’t been able to play, now the thrill of playing live, the enjoyment of being able to interact with an audience, we really missed that and are really looking forward to doing more of it.” Whether or not the band are able to take Bonecrunch far and wide, as they’d have done with their previous fourteen releases, remains to be seen. They will, however, play where they can, melding together as one upon the stage, the band’s loyal fanbase getting out to see them, to hear this music, as they always have done, albeit in slightly different fashion these days. In the meantime, we have Bonecrunch – a blues record made of hard times, primal and real, designed to alleviate the pressure from those very times, as is Backsliders’ way. Bonecrunch is available now via Rocket Distribution and backsliders.com.au Backsliders play the Byron Bay Bluesfest, April 1-5.

Emily Wurramara’s latest single hints at a great album to arrive later this year. By Brian Wise

CRUISIN’

t has been a long journey for Emily Wurramara. Literally. From Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria all the way to Tasmania. That’s almost the entire length of the country. After a breakthrough EP, Black Smoke, in 2016, Emily followed up with the acclaimed David Bridie-produced debut album Milyakburra two years later. ARIA nominations, Queensland Music awards and the 2019 AIR award for Best Blues & Roots Album quickly followed. Now, she is in Tasmania waiting to get back into touring mode. “I just wanted to have a fresh start and go somewhere where I knew absolutely no one,” says Emily when I ask what led to the move south. “And it’s been great. My partner lives down here, so I live with him and my daughter and his beautiful family.” “There’s something about this Island that just really captures, not just your heart, but your soul and your spirit too,” she continues. “There’s something about it that’s just beautiful.” Emily recently released the single ‘Cruisin’,’ the title of which belies the subject matter which is about Emily’s godbrother, Deon, who died in a car accident almost three years ago. “I think what I wanted to give out, and the message that I wanted to give out,” explains Emily, “is that we’ve all lost loved ones in our life, and we’ve all felt that grief, but it’s about celebrating their life and your life and just celebrating their memory - and cruising to a place that makes you feel peaceful to people that make you feel happy, to areas or wherever in the country that make you feel at home. It’s just a dedication to finding peace.” “He was like the only big brother I came to know growing up in Meanjin (Brisbane),” says Emily of Deon. “He did a lot for our community and did a lot to look after just his family. He was a very family driven person and there was so much love involved. There was so much happiness. I think that’s the memory that I really wanted to capture and I wanted to capture that in the film clip as well. So, I hope I did.” Emily admits that there was a lot of pressure after the release of Milyakburra and that the move has been beneficial. “It’s so much pressure,” she admits. “But at the end of the day, I just want to make

music and I just want to, hopefully, help people heal on their journey on their life journey, through my music. Hopefully, this next record will help them do that.” That ‘next record’ - which we eagerly await - will be recorded at some stage after Bluesfest and released by the end of the year. If the beautiful Milyakburra is any indication, the new album should be a stunner. While Emily promises an array of special guests, it is difficult to pry much information out of her about it. (Much like many musicians who think it is bad luck to talk about a project before it is completed). “I can’t really talk about that too much at the moment, but I’ll be recording all over the place and some really beautiful collaborations will be happening on the album that I’m so really excited to share these musicians that I’ve brought on board,” she reveals. “They’re so talented and so humble, and they’re still amazing each in their own right. I’m very, very excited to finally be releasing a second album to everyone.” Now, Emily might not be able to tell us who plays on the album but she can reveal that she will co-produce it and that there is a batch of songs waiting to go. “All the songs are written,” she admits. “It was really hard. Because I had written so many songs over the year, so it was really hard for me to choose how many songs that are going on this album because I’m

really excited. I have a really good team around me. I’ve just signed with ABC Music and have my manager who’s been with me since I was 14. They’re all very supportive and they were very lovely and accommodating to what I want and how I want to release this. So, I’m very grateful for that support.” “I’m co-producing most of the songs,” she continues. “So, it’s really interesting going into the studio and working with people and seeing how different artists and producers and songwriters work in their own way. With the last album I recorded and produced with David Bridie and that was really beautiful. David’s an amazing human being and I’ve got nothing but love and respect for him and how he’s helped throughout my career. So, I’m very excited to let everyone know there’s actually a couple of producers that’s going to be a part of this. So, it’s going to be a great collaborative project.” “I sure am. Yeah,” says Emily when I ask if she will preview some of the new songs at Bluesfest where she will be playing with her band, backing vocalists and dancers. “I’ll be doing a mix of some new songs and some old songs. I’m so excited for Bluesfest, the all Australian line-up. It looks amazing. It’s going to be an amazing time. And I just can’t wait to be back on Bundjalung country with the fam to celebrate that.” Cruisin’ and Milyakburra are available through emilywurramara.com 19

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When Rhythms asked me to list some albums which have been inspirational for me, the temptation in me was great to bang on endlessly about several hundred recordings or more. So, it’s no doubt as much of a relief to the reader as it was to me that I’ve been limited to just ten, and I’ve endeavoured to list them as they came to mind, without lamenting too hard over what was omitted. Here they are, in no particular order: HOUND DOG TAYLOR & THE HOUSEROCKERS BEWARE OF THE DOG

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This for me epitomises how great a live record can be. It’s loose, wild, and exhilaratingly raunchy. Hound Dog’s chainsaw slide guitar slashes over second guitarist Brewer Philips’ driving accompaniment and Ted Harveys’ drums in what sounds like a small club full of boisterous revelry. When I heard this I thought that if you played in a band that made this kind of racket, it must be the greatest fun on Earth. I still think that. BOB DYLAN TIME OUT OF MIND

"RICH WITH MEANING & TRUTH…REAL & RAW, JUST AS TRUE COUNTRY MUSIC SHOULD BE” RHYTHMS

This album has such an amazing atmosphere, dense and murky, with various instruments bubbling away in the shadows, creating a hypnotic mood behind Dylan’s rasping voice on an incredible batch of songs. He’s the king of vocal phrasing, making every line swing and each key word punch you in the gut.

TEN INSPIRATIONS By Jeff Lang

NINA SIMONE LIVE AT RONNIE SCOTT’S

Musically stripped-back, with only a drummer accompanying Simone’s piano and voice, some of these performances – in particular “God, God, God”, “If You Knew”, “Mr. Smith” and “For A While” – are almost unbearably intense. It’s like we’re not witnessing someone performing for an audience, more a personal conversation between an artist and the unknowable. DAVID LINDLEY AND EL RAYO-X EL RAYO LIVE

El Rayo-X combines an unusual mixture of influences - roots rock combined with reggae underneath high lonesome vocals and Everly Brotherslike harmonies – and this live album captures them at their best. Sporting the most searing electric lap steel tone I’ve heard; he sounds like he’s channelling an r’n’b sax player. An added bonus is a solo performance on Rag Bag, displaying a rhythmic feel on acoustic slide that is unique. ALI FARKA TOURÉ & RY COODER TALKING TIMBUKTU

My favourite of Cooder’s ‘world music’ collaborations. Malian master Touré’s guitar coils and shivers through the music like a rattlesnake, while Cooder’s slide guitar is like a fat water moccasin, languid and slowly moving before suddenly striking. An added bonus is Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown’s electric violin on one song. Hypnotic and beautifully recorded. KRISTIN HERSH MURDER, MISERY AND THEN GOODNIGHT

On this album former Throwing Muses frontwoman Hersh explores old folk songs which her mother sung to her as childhood lullabies, surprisingly considering the bloodshed that runs rampant throughout this material. Peering through to the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music from the vantage point of a late-nineties alternative rock singer/guitarist makes for an oddly touching album. RAINER WORRIED SPIRITS

Rainer Ptacek recorded this sparse, hypnotic album at his Tucson home, his National resonator guitar sounding rusty and raw, riding the groove on each song with a focus that belies his technical skill, as textures from a looping device float in the background. His singing voice, which reminds me of what it might sound like if David Byrne was a blues singer, is strangely affecting.

RICHARD & LINDA THOMPSON I WANT TO SEE THE BRIGHT LIGHTS TONIGHT

Richard’s peerless electric playing sounds like a set of bagpipes, James Burton’s guitar and a Sufi devotional singer have been blended through a bright Fender Stratocaster, whilst his songwriting is displayed in full force. Linda Thompson’s voice is perfectly poised, never overdramatising the subject matter with showy histrionics, her quiet confidence letting the superb songs sell themselves. DIRTY THREE OCEAN SONGS

This album is a favourite for long solo drives, its instrumental pieces flowing into one another, like I’m being taken on a journey through one mood. Jim White’s one of my favourite drummers – he plays emotion on the kit like no other, and he’s recorded beautifully here behind Mick Turner’s skeletal guitar and Warren Ellis expressive electric violin. J.B. LENOIR VIETNAM BLUES

As a singer who sports a higher register voice myself, it was a great discovery to hear Lenoir’s emotive vocal style, pitched higher than is often the case with blues singers. His songs are often bluntly political, which isn’t generally common in blues, and the interplay between his acoustic guitar and Fred Below’s minimalist drumming remains an inspiration. 21

FEATURE By Brett Leigh Dicks

he Waifs are no strangers to isolation. While their formative years were spent living in each other’s pockets, the recent past has seen members spread to different parts of Australia and North America. But as the band reconvenes for a series of forthcoming Western Australian performances, the state’s rigid antipandemic stance has seen the five Waifs isolated from one another in their own backyard. With Donna Simpson now residing in Perth, her Utah-based sister Vikki Thorn has spent the past year in the family’s hometown of Albany. A recent COVID-19 outbreak in Perth has seen the metropolitan area cut-off from its southwest neighbour with the entire state remaining subject to travel restrictions with its eastern counterparts. The other founding member, Josh Cunningham, along with more recent recruits, David Ross Macdonald and Ben Franz, are currently locked into two weeks of quarantine. “We’re very fortunate to be playing at all so it’s a small price to pay,” Josh Cunningham told Rhythms Magazine while in selfisolation, having crossed the controlled border into Western Australia just three days prior. “Even though I can’t go outside and (this room) could be anywhere in the world, it’s nice being back in familiar territory and knowing the rest of the gang are not too far away. The last time we were all together was for some shows here in Western Australia this time last year. When we came off those, we were all eagerly looking forward to a big year ahead – Bluesfest and a tour of the States – but then it turned into a very different kind of year.” Once Cunningham, Macdonald, and Franz are freed from isolation and Thorn can move uninhibited between the southwest and Perth, the band will start rehearsing for a series of west coast shows. The tour will get underway in Albany and culminate with a performance at Good Day Sunshine in Dunsborough (with Missy Higgins and Ben Lee) before the band heads east for the 2021 instalment of Byron Bay Bluesfest. Fingers crossed it won’t be a matter of déjà vu all over again for the Western Australian five-piece. “I know, right?” responded Donna Simpson with a hint of wariness after being reminded of similar tour plan the band harboured in 2020. “When we announced these shows people across here were so excited but people in the east were asking, why not Tasmania, why not Queensland, why not here or there? We could plan it, but it

No strangers to isolation, the revered group look forward to playing live again. doesn’t mean it will happen. It’s so difficult because everything’s changing day-by-day and we’re all at the mercy of a virus.” While other acts have managed to maintain some semblance of a musical presence through undertaking live stream performances, The Waifs has been on hiatus. With such an unprecedented interlude between shows and tours the prospect of getting out in front of an audience again is one thing the band is relishing, even if it potentially comes with a measure of trepidation. “The Waifs are not a live stream or zoom kind of band,” Simpson said. “We need an audience and we need the love flowing both ways between us and the crowd so we can’t wait to be playing live again. “But, to be honest with you, it’s also a bit nerve-racking. The confidence it takes to

walk out on stage and knowing exactly what you’re doing and how to perform, for me anyway, is something you build over time. And after this long away that starts putting questions in your head. Is my voice up to scratch? Do I have my playing chops up? So, it’s both exciting and intimidating to be coming out of nothing and walking back out onto a big stage.” At the completion of the band’s Western Australian tour, The Waifs are relishing the opportunity of returning to Byron Bay Bluesfest and being part of an all-Australian line-up. For Vikki Thorn, Bluesfest has not only played a seminal role in broadening the local awareness and appeal of The Waifs in Australia, but has also helped put the band in an international context. “For our genre of music in Australia it’s the festival that really champions anyone

“The Waifs are not a live stream or zoom kind of band. We need an audience and we need the love flowing both ways between us and the crowd so we can’t wait to be playing live again.”

that doesn’t quite translate to places like Woodford or the folk festivals,” Thorn explained. “It really shines a spotlight on the Americana/roots acts in Australia and for The Waifs it has been such an incredible opportunity for our music to be heard alongside some of these incredibly big overseas acts in a setting and scale that doesn’t happen anywhere else. “We’ve played big stages all over the world, but that’s still one of the biggest and the energy there is incredible. There are not many places where you get to walk out onto a stage that James Brown has just played on. It has provided an amazing opportunity for lots of Australian artists over the years. It elevates the artists and helps form all sorts of connections here and internationally.” As Byron Bay Bluesfest will no doubt show, one of the most impressive aspects of

The Waifs is the band’s ability to weave its musical magic according to the occasion. Be it laying siege to a Bluesfest crowd and having them in the palms of the band’s musical hands or winning over the hearts of an audience in a Californian folk club, The Waifs have a unique ability to craft the moment. Having eight albums to draw upon certainly helps when it comes to adding dynamics to a set, but it also must complicate pulling together a set list. “Different artists approach it very differently and between Donna, Josh, and I, we approached it differently again,” Thorn said. “It can be difficult because you want to represent what you’re doing and your new material and where you’re at as an artist at the time but there’s also got be an energy there and you need to be able to capitalise

upon that energy. The set list is instrumental in that. “If I’ve had an incredible time seeing a particular artist at a festival then it’s natural to want to repeat that experience. But as artists you can’t be beholden to that expectation. There’s definitely a fine line you have to walk. I love being a crowdpleasing band. Our songs might change but what I really want to keep bringing to The Waifs shows is that good positive energy. It’s very satisfying to walk off stage feeling that you’ve pleased a crowd and given them what they wanted. I love that feeling.” The Waifs’ story has of course been etched into Australian music folklore. Shortly after the Simpson sisters formed an Albany-based duo called Colours, in 1992 they headed off on tour in a VW Kombi meeting Josh Cunningham in Broome. In 1998 drummer and percussionist David Ross Macdonald expanded the line-up to a four-piece with Ben Franz joining the fold on bass, dobro, and pedal steel in 2001. The quintet has since gone on to carve an international reputation few Australian roots-infused bands can boast. “David and Ben have been with the band for more of its history than not and our sound has a lot to do with what they bring musically,” Cunningham explained. “Ben is the unofficial musical director because he’s the smart music guy who’s been to music school and knows his stuff. Dave came on board first and played on a small stripped back drum kit for a few years and that gave us a unique sound. Then Ben came on board and over the years we’ve morphed through a few different variations, from sounding like a typical band with a full rhythm section to more of a sparser sound with a double bass. “A lot of it though comes down to the personalities and relationships and the connection we have which often transcends the style of music we’re playing. We’ve shared a lot of history and there’s a great connection between us all. That connection and history will be on full display when The Waifs takes to the Byron Bay Bluesfest stage as a trip to New South Wales’ north coast is an experience the band always relishes - both onstage and off. “Where else would you get to meet James Brown?” Simpson responded when asked about what makes the annual roots-fest so special. “I was hanging out at the festive late one night and everyone else had left so I had to hitchhike back to town. I went straight to the bakery and was leaning against the wall with a pie stuffed in one pocket and a sausage roll in the other, hoeing down a custard tart when a limo pulled up. The window winds down and there’s James Brown laughing at me making love to custard tart saying, ‘That looks good.’” 23

The Teskey Brothers’ guitarist and producer Sam Teskey chooses his five favourite blues albums of all time. BB KING LIVE AT COOK COUNTY JAIL So, my number one blues album would have to be BB King, Live in Cook County Jail. This for me, is just the best blues album because I just think blues needs to be live because it needs to be the call and response from the audience and the singer and the guitarist. That live feel is how you grab all of these sounds and everyone’s sharing. It’s this conversation that happens between the audience, the singers, the guitarist, the soloists. Everything is just kind of melded together to make this unstoppable blues album by BB King, the king himself. So that would have to be my first pick.

TESKEY’S TRACKS

NINA SIMONE TO LOVE SOMEBODY

FREDIIE KING TEXAS CANNONBALL

THE DUANE ALLMAN ANTHOLOGY

This album brings in all the worlds that I love, and I guess it’s just a homage to Duane Allman’s work and how much he’s played with other artists and done so many other amazing things. Obviously, his guitar playing is phenomenal. But just seeing the collaboration between him and all these other artists like Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin - just all these mainly incredible soul artists, really - and bringing in that blues, that Southern blues, Southern rock sort of world, bringing it all together is just an amazing sort of feeling and sound for me on so many different levels. 24

It’s not really a blues album, it’s actually an album of covers, released straight after ‘Nuff Said, which is great. Nina Simone has obviously got all these amazing albums and amazing songs and I’m a huge fan and she’s always got a way of delivering her music with such power. It really gets straight to the depth of your body, as soon as you hear her voice. All the songs are covers but just hearing her sing these songs it just glues it all together for me. All her amazing original music, backed up with this album of her, just delivering these amazing songs by other artists. So, from the start to the finish, it’s a great album. She’s hard to talk about, Nina Simone, because it really is a feeling.

This is just a great blues album. Great studio blues album. It’s just got so many great tunes on it: some of his own, some covers. The way he delivers covers. Like ‘Ain’t no Sunshine’ - it’s just with such drive and such force. It’s just so dynamic for a studio album. It’s something you can really listen to all the way through and enjoy every moment of it from one side to the other. It’s a great album that just carries all the way through. Freddie King’s quite a hard player but he’s got some great attitude the way he plays and the way he sings when he plays as well. He does a great job of calling or responding from his fingers to his vocal.

FLEETWOOD MAC FLEETWOOD MAC

Then we’ve got the original Fleetwood Mac album - the 1968 album with Peter Green. There’s an extended version that I love that has all of the outtakes of the music. It’s got takes one through to nine and you can kind of really get a feel and a sense of how they’re building this album together in the studio. Being someone who loves music production and recording, I really love to see this insight. The music itself, is amazing and Peter Green’s guitar playing is just a phenomenal thing. So, this album for me is just an absolute classic blues album. It really is something special to listen through, all the way through and to get a really good insight into how it’s being recorded and maybe the frustrations that there may be going on in the band, which is all part of it really.

Picking 10 albums really doesn’t work here because you know you’ve left behind something that really plays a big part in your listening experience. Different sounds create different moves on you ... this of course is a fruitless exercise so here’s my baker’s dozen in no particular order PHARAOH SANDERS KARMA (FEATURING LEON THOMAS)

JOE CAMILLERI’S BAKER’S DOZEN OF BLUES & JAZZ LEE MORGAN THE SIDEWINDER

Coleman was to become the wedge in modern jazz. What a wonderful time for the avant garde...a true force. BILLIE HOLLIDAY LADY IN SATIN This record took me on a new journey…I was getting a dose of the Stones…but when I heard this record it opened up a new world of possibilities. HOWLIN’ WOLF

I love Lee Morgan… I love this album...just makes you want to boogaloo. ERIC DOLPHY IN EUROPE VOLUME 2

‘The Creator Has A Master Plan’...it’s so powerful, so spiritual...teaming up with Leon Thomas was genius. JOHN COLTRANE A LOVE SUPREME

MOANIN’ IN THE MOONLIGHT I play this record a lot…’I’m A Fool To Want You’… ‘You’ve Changed’…critics say this wasn’t her best work but for me I love hearing those songs LOUIS ARMSTRONG WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD

My first avant-garde jazz record...Eric Dolphy was doing something even Coltrane wasn’t doing.... OLIVER NELSON BLUES AND THE ABSTRACT TRUTH I inherited a whole bunch of Louis Armstrong records but only started playing them years later. I wasn’t into them for a long time but I sure do love and treasure them now

It was the record that broke all barriers...a calling for the young and old music minds... and still sounds brand new today MILES DAVIS JACK JOHNSON

Very sophisticated record featuring some great players.. Dolphy, Evans, Hubbard… restrained and wonderful sounds.

The most unique sound I ever heard at that time…it was big and raw…just a great collection of songs…it was rude…it felt forbidden...all the elements of danger...just what a teenager with only sex on his mind needs. BLIND WILLIE MCTELL LAST SESSION

JUNIOR WELLS HOODOO MAN BLUES

ORNETTE COLEMAN TRIO LIVE AT THE GOLDEN CIRCLE STOCKHOLM 1965

Many books have been written about Bitches Brew but Jack Johnson was the start of it all... after the beautiful Kind of Blue.

THE PAUL BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND THE PAUL BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND

This record grabs you by the throat and won’t let go.

I recorded two songs from this album in my career - ‘Baby It Must Be Love’ and ‘Dyin’ Crapshooter Blues’…..it was the record that introduced me to this wonderful singer songwriter and interpreter.. by chance I picked this album from a catalogue…still is one of my all time favourites. Every song on this album is a Maserati.

Joe Camilleri’s Black Sorrows are playing at Bluesfest. Joe’s latest album with Bakelite Radio, Rosary of Tears, was in our Readers Poll Top 10 Australian Albums of 2020.

FEATURE

Jen Anderson (violin player) with Weddings, Parties, Anything) writes about getting the band back together.

FEATURE

Mick Thomas shares his memories of making the album Riveresque in Tasmania with Weddings, Parties, Anything.

t’s somehow fitting this album opens with the song Houses. Because it was recorded in a house where we were all staying together. A house where we’d done pre-production for an earlier record and decided that we should perhaps be making our own records in a place like that. And because at the time we were all getting on well enough to be in a confined place for a couple of weeks without throttling each other. Strange. As we pulled up to the house, I whispered to Jen Anderson to run up the stairs before anyone else and turn left at the top meaning she would claim the primo renovated bedroom looking out across the valley. Instead, she turned left after the first flight of stairs at the mezzanine and ended up in one of the dusty under-reconstruction dog boxes (former servant’s quarters most likely) and Stephen O’Prey managed to claim the palatial suite. But somehow this was all right and such was the humour of the band as it was back then everyone seemed to see the funny side. Even though Stephen got the good room. That big old sandstone house in northern Tasmania had been such an important place for me, and inadvertently the Weddings. Looking back to 1984 after a fledgling WPA had done a few shows around Melbourne and then fallen flat, it was in that very kitchen I sat with my brother, his wife, and her father and a couple of other friends, and played and played and dissected, discussed and deconstructed just what a repertoire a band like the Weddings might have and what it could sound like. I recall it was Christmas

and to date the only one I have ever spent out of Victoria actually. Also strange. And so, it was significant to be back there 20 years later recording with the band. Even though Pete Lawler had departed the previous year I think the line-up felt strong and invigorated at the time. There was a sense of unity and purpose that was served well by being sequestered in a small town in the Fingal Valley. We were here to make a record. A statement. The last band in town. The only band in town. Ever. A lot of the album was tracked with people in various rooms of the sprawling old former country Inn, but that song Houses was recorded in the big kitchen with everyone in together. Six people sitting facing each other with a slow combustion stove crackling away to heat the water for our showers and our evening meal. And I think you can hear it all. It was a few days into the session and we had set up ‘in the round’ to grab a few informal B-side type tracks but something about the informality and the sensitivity of this song just seemed to lend itself to this format. To his credit, our engineer Cameron Craig was all too happy to go for it. Even though it was well into the nineties it should be remembered those draconian studio principles of keeping the instruments separate (‘separation – so we have control when we mix them all together’) and making sure everything was 100% on the beat (‘not moving around too much’) were still really dominant and compulsive elements in the way people judged their recordings. And so, it was good we were in a position to really

say how we wanted it to sound. We wanted it to sound like us sitting around a kitchen. Even more strange. So often you read about bands ‘making the record they always wanted to make’. And here we were doing it. Sadly, like so many of those records, it turned out to be a valedictory address. I think we were there in the town of Avoca for about two weeks. In that time Stephen O’Prey managed to get barred from the pub and we had to play an actual gig there to get him allowed back in. The phone booth down the street was given a fair working over as everyone made their daily threeminute connection to loved ones back on the mainland (Oh, how heavenly the time before mobiles). We received one request for a booking for a 40th birthday party on the strength of being called Weddings, Parties, Anything (little did I think that 40th birthday parties would become a staple later on in my performing career). We worked hard. We made a record. And although at times personal hygiene was compromised it was an invigorating exercise. Surreal that six months later we found ourselves sitting together not in a half renovated nineteenth century rural Tasmanian kitchen but around the table at an Albert Park restaurant. And it was here the people from Mushroom Records told us that the album was finished as a commercial proposition and that a ‘Best Of’ compilation was to be our next release. It suddenly felt a long way from a sandstone kitchen in Tasmania. Mick Thomas’s new album with The Roving Commission is reviewed on Page 81.

ow can one express the emotion that comes from fully realising how quickly your life is moving along towards its inevitable outcome? The awareness that if you don’t grasp it with both hands and hang on tight, a magic moment might be missed, an opportunity for adventure slip by? And how much crisper is the framing of it all in the context of a COVID pandemic? There is just so much to do and see, and such a short time in which to squeeze every last drop of goodness out of our lucky lives. It is with these lofty thoughts in mind that us Weddoes, who 8 years ago said we’d never perform again, have changed our minds. It’s time for us to take to the stage once more. If for no other reason than to remember what it’s like to be ‘on tour’ - the excitement of a big show, playing all those great songs again, hanging out with each other and catching up with fans and friends whom we hardly ever see any more. Right now, living through Victoria’s third lockdown, just the thought of getting out of the house is exciting, let alone travelling to another state and playing in front of a real live audience! Some of you might wonder what happened to the Weds when we called it a day and disappeared from the limelight. The membership that had made up the entity known as Weddings Parties Anything dissolved, and each person went their own way. Just as it is for everyone else in the world, love and loss dealt its cards to each member in seemingly random fashion – people scattered, careers diversified, babies were born, kids finished growing up and left home, loved ones passed on, friends came and went. But music has remained a central thread, forever connecting the band members to each other. Specifically, the music that we made together and played together created an intangible bond that will endure beyond space and time. The songs themselves will always exist out there in the world, in the form of recordings. Some of them continue to be performed live by Mick Thomas and the Roving Commission, sprinkled throughout a set list that largely showcases his rich catalogue of newer postWeds material. Those older songs feed the memories for Weds fans and capture the hearts of new listeners. But for us musicians who were in the Weds it’s the chemistry of playing live with each other that creates such a special place in our own hearts and provides the real impetus behind getting back together to perform once again - well that’s how I see it anyway.

How can I explain the transcendental feeling I get when Mark ‘Wally’ Wallace (accordion, keyboards) and I are playing the instrumental of ‘Step in Step Out’ together? Or when I hear Michael ‘Barf’ Barclay (drums, vocals) sing his glorious harmonies on Rosy and Grey? Or the feeling of being almost out of control as we rocket our way through ‘Woman of Ireland’, with only the brilliant timing of bass player Stephen ‘Irish’ O’Prey keeping us in check? What about when Paul Thomas (electric guitar) in his trademark lairy Hawaiian shirt turns the volume up to 11 and we trade ridiculous licks in ‘Decent Cup of Coffee’? And then there’s Mick – front man and fearless leader of the band. The man who possesses such a gift for song writing, whose brilliant story-telling captivates audiences, and whose signature voice conveys the emotions behind all those songs. The memory of standing next to Mick during the Weds days, with sweat pouring off him as he gives every inch of his being to the music, throughout every single show, brings a bit of a lump to my throat, as I realise the fortune I’ve had to mingle with such might and talent. Two other essential members of the band must be mentioned, even though you won’t see them performing on the stage. Stan (Schtan) Armstrong is our guitar tech/stage manager, who at times comes across as rather surly but we know he doesn’t mean it because underneath he’s a softy with a heart of gold. Stan is old school; he’s been around since PA systems were 4-way splitter boxes

requiring 2 trucks to cart everything around in – no wonder he gets grumpy sometimes after years of back breaking lugging and putting up with pedantic artists. But not only does he know acoustic and electric guitars inside out, he can re-string a mandolin as quick as a flash, he knows how to set up a pedal steel, and he even learnt how to tune and care for my precious violin back in the day. I have many fond memories of looking over at Stan standing side stage, hands on hips, lips pursed, ever on the alert to come and grab a guitar with a broken string, or to hand over a re-tuned mandolin. Out the front of house is Dylan Hughes, the most dedicated live sound engineer I know. Dylan is a perfectionist who never stops trying to achieve the very best possible sound out of a band. Front of house engineers never get the sort of praise they deserve, but I want to put it on record just how important they are. Standing on stage, looking out over the audience and seeing Dylan constantly tweaking, listening, adding an effect here and there – it fills you with confidence that everything you play is being translated as it should out into the arena. So, there you have it. We’re all still here and mighty glad we are about that too. We’re reassembling, dusting off the Blundstones, checking if the Hawaiian shirts and frocks still fit (probably not), and getting ready to tread the boards once more. It’s only going to be for a short time, but I can guarantee it will be memorable – see ya! 27

FEATURE

After some tough times, Troy Cassar-Daley emerges with one of his finest albums. BY JEFF JENKINS The moment I realised that Troy CassarDaley was great was when I heard ‘Home’, the title track of his 2012 album. It’s a poignant and wistful song about childhood memories, with Cassar-Daley singing: “Standing proud and tall, now it looks so small/ My world was in that street, I thought I had it all.” ‘Home’ is a modern country classic. I’m not sure why I hadn’t listened more closely to Cassar-Daley’s work until I heard ‘Home’. Maybe I wrongly thought that someone so affable – he’s always a joy to interview – couldn’t be a great artist. But Cassar-Daley has certainly confirmed his place as one of our pre-eminent songwriters, winning three APRA Awards – including 2020’s Most Performed Rock Work of the Year for ‘Shutting Down Our Town’, which he wrote for Jimmy Barnes – as well as four ARIA Awards, and an astonishing 37 Golden Guitar awards, second only to Slim Dusty. No wonder Australian rock royalty is queuing up to work with him. His new album includes co-writes with Paul Kelly, Don Walker, Shane Howard and Ian Moss. Moss also does a duet, ‘South’, and Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie plays on the record. Paul Kelly says, “Troy’s a true gentleman, warm and genuine, always a pleasure to be around. He sings straight from his heart and straight from the heart of his country.” And, Kelly adds, Cassar-Daley is a great co-writer. “I’ve written a few times with him and usually he has the song well on the way – a title, an idea, some lyrics, chords and a melody – when we meet. He’s the one who’s pregnant and I act as the midwife.” Cassar-Daley is a proud Gumbaynggirr/ Bundjalung man. His mum, Irene Daley, was Indigenous; his dad, Tony Cassar, was Maltese. “Once at a school football game 28

a kid from another school told me he was ‘part Aboriginal’ and I replied, ‘Which parts of you are Aboriginal?’” Cassar-Daley wrote in his autobiography, Things I Carry Around. “I never understood that term, ‘part Aboriginal’.” Cassar-Daley’s life changed forever when he took his first trip to Tamworth, for the Country Music Festival, with his family when he was 11. When they arrived, they discovered that Jimmy Little was playing that night. “Jimmy was such a hero to us – he was the first Goori artist to play on Australian TV and the first to have a number one hit in the charts.”

Little interrupted his show to announce: “I believe we have a young man from Grafton who is just starting out who might jump up and do a song with the band and me … his name is Troy.” Cassar-Daley says he “drifted up on stage in shock”. “What would you like to sing, son?’ Little asked. “Do you fellas know any Merle Haggard?” Cassar-Daley replied as they launched into ‘Sing Me Back Home’.

“That first trip to Tamworth was the start of a lifelong love affair with the town and its music. My mum’s favourite story is that I whinged all the way up there for an ice-cream and all the way back for a new guitar.” Sixteen years later, Cassar-Daley was supporting Haggard when his hero did his first Australian tour. Fast forward to 2021 and The World Today – Cassar-Daley’s 11th studio album – documents a difficult period in his life. His dad died in 2019 and Cassar-Daley was also dealing with some marital issues. “Then came COVID and that’s when I really hit rock bottom,” he says. Unable to play live, which meant he couldn’t provide for his family, Cassar-Daley felt hopeless. “My purpose was lost.” He recalled a favourite saying of one of his uncles: “It’s not all beer and skittles.” In the end, making music saved him. “Against all odds,” he sings, “I still believe.” It remains, however, a fragile balancing act. “Sometimes I’m hopeless,” he admits in ‘Broken Hearts Can Fly’. “Then I’m a king.” The World Today is an artistic and personal triumph. It’s a fine collection of songs. And his marriage survived. The album’s acknowledgements start: “My beautiful wife Laurel, my rudder, my love, we’ve run aground a few times but you navigated us out of the storm, it blows me away how strong our love is.” Troy Cassar-Daley has learned to deal with whatever the world throws at him. “My uncle was right,” he smiles. “Bring on more beer and skittles, I say.” Troy Cassar-Daley is playing at Bluesfest 2021. The World Today is released on March 19. 29

FEATURE

More than 50 years after his first hit, John Williamson remains an important Australian voice.

The lockdown didn’t stop the dynamic duo from releasing a new live album and an epic single. By Brian Wise

t has been more than a year since Ashleigh Mannix and Justin Carter have seen each other. Yet, despite being separated by thousands of kilometers, they have managed to keep their band active, if only by organising a live album release and an epic song and video. “Oh my gosh, like you couldn’t believe,” enthuses Ash when I ask if they are looking forward to Bluesfest. “Bluesfest is the ray of hope that we’ve been looking for.” “Bluesfest is like the dream,” adds Justin. “It’s like, ‘Oh my God, we get to play music.’ It’s more than just a festival, it’s everything.” No doubt Little Georgia will bring the same energy to the Bluesfest stage (for the fourth time) that they brought to the show you can hear in their release of Joy, recorded in May 2019 at the Northcote Social Club in Melbourne. “Actually, we’ve got the full five-piece band together and rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed, and had our Bluesfest shows,” recalls Justin, “and then the week later we headed down to Melbourne to the Northcote Social Club. We all just walked off stage just really enjoying ourselves, but felt like, ‘Gee, that felt like a great show.’ It really felt like we’re all in it together kind thing.” “Basically, a couple of years went by but we’d always talk about that show like, ‘Oh, wasn’t that a fun show?’ Anyway, as most people did sort of the middle of last year when the pandemic was sort of fully into full mode where everyone was just stuck at home, I was diving through old boxes and things like that and I found an old Handycam and I thought, ‘Oh, what’s on this?’ I was just fast forwarding through and I found that show on there. I remember actually trying to film the show but I didn’t have a tripod and I didn’t know where to put it. So, I just threw the camera down on the merch table and it wasn’t really filming the show at all. It was pretty much just capturing audio. It caught sort of half the stage.” “It’s really rough and raw audio but we’re definitely enjoying ourselves on stage.

So, I sent it through to Ash and she felt the same. So being trapped away from each other for the whole year, last year, we thought, “Well, it could be a good way to give something to our fans.” Obviously, we couldn’t play live shows last year so we thought we would give them a live album. And we’re really stoked with it.” Last year also saw the release of what they call a ‘psyched out, grunge tinged epic’ single, ‘Texas’, produced by Nick DiDia who worked on their album. The accompanying video was directed and filmed by award winning American cinematographer Matt Kleiner. “Look, let’s just say Brian, that the whole band went through a bit of a situation maybe a couple of years ago,” explains Justin, “and anyway, basically the song ‘Texas’ was almost like the going to church, like getting the weight off our shoulder kind of thing.” “Al Green’s church!” adds Ash. “It was a real journey that whole experience. We’d never done a single, recorded or released a single before, but it was something we definitely committed to. And as with the live album it’s like, ‘Well, this probably won’t get played on radio, but who cares? We loved it. And now we need to do this. And it’s rocking.” “And also, I think, to be honest, we’ve been so, so lucky that Peter Noble has had us at Bluesfest,” says Justin. “This will be our fourth year. The first year we played as a duo sort of an acoustic harmony kind of thing. And then the second year we played as a three piece. And then the year after we played as a five piece. So, basically,

the festival and the main stages that we’ve been playing has really allowed us as a band to grow and to really in a way, see our sound evolve. And to be honest, ‘Texas’ kind of came out of being able to play a main stage of a festival on such a huge stage and having to work how to wow people. Really when Ash was wailing at the end of that, how can you not feel emotion? You know what I mean? So, in a way, the three years of Bluesfest has in a way helped that song kind of turn into what it is.” “And we are really looking forward to maybe playing a few at Bluesfest,” responds Ash when I ask if they have written any new songs over the break. “We’ve got rehearsals coming up, which will be really exciting to dive in there and see what the last year’s done to us and prepare for Bluesfest. And hopefully try out some of the new songs and see if we can get them on stage.” “The thing was as well,” adds Justin, “‘Texas’ was the direction where we’re heading because we were starting to play bigger festivals, bigger stages and we were doing a lot of band stuff. That’s where that sound was going to be huge. We’re shut off from each other, being opposite ends of the country and we’ve seriously got two albums worth of music. When we get back into the studio, do these songs turn into singer songwriter, folk songs? Or do they go follow Texas and just get bigger and badder and wild? We don’t know, and that’s the exciting thing.” Little Georgia’s live album Joy is available at littlegeirgiamusic.com

BY JEFF JENKINS Quambatook. What an exotic name for a tiny town, about 300km north-west of Melbourne. Nowadays, it has a population of about 250, but it’s given the world two music icons. John Williamson was born in 1945 in nearby Kerang. “So I have to put Kerang on my passport,” he says, “which irritates me because before that, my mum carried me around in her stomach for nine months in a great little Mallee town called Quambatook. My heart still warms at the sound of the name Quambatook: ‘resting place beside a river’. That’s what I’d like on my passport.” Williamson even wrote a song called ‘Dear Little Quambatook’. “My little town hasn’t disappeared yet,” he sang. “Dear little Quambatook, hometown to me.” Quamby was also home to Ian “Molly” Meldrum. Williamson fondly recalls Molly performing at the town’s concerts at the Town Hall, singing ‘All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth’, and ‘Bicycle Built For Two’ with ‘Freddo’ Cameron. “Actually, I was surprised Molly didn’t end up at the Comedy Theatre,” he says. “He was always far more flamboyant than any other kid I knew.” Molly’s nicknames in Quambatook were ‘Mallee Chick’ and ‘Mallee Root’, while Williamson became known as the Mallee Boy after his 1986 album. Like Williamson, Molly remains proud of his Mallee roots. He recalls interviewing the Red Hot Chili Peppers and remarking that they looked “as fit as Mallee bulls”. The American rockers were perplexed. “What,” said singer Anthony Kiedis, “we’re as fit as Molly’s balls?” Williamson left Quambatook to go to boarding school, at Scotch College, in 1960, and it was in Melbourne that he saw a Pete Seeger concert (“I was blown away by the rustic texture of his banjo playing and the clear message songs he sang”) and discovered Joan Baez (“her voice just melted my soul”). His heart is still is Quamby, though he is grateful that his parents moved to Croppa Creek in north-west NSW. “Without it, perhaps I never would have realised that my country was so amazingly diverse.”

Williamson released his self-titled debut album in 1970, featuring his breakthrough hit ‘Old Man Emu’, which he wrote on the tractor on his family’s farm. “Going round and round on a tractor gives you a lot of time to think.” His dad’s cousin, Brian Rangott, was Channel Nine’s musical director and he suggested giving the song to boxing champ Lionel Rose who’d just topped the charts with ‘I Thank You’. Williamson, however, kept the song for himself and performed it on the Channel Nine talent show New Faces, winning the Victorian final, which led to a recording contract with Ron Tudor’s Fable label. Molly wrote about his childhood mate in Go-Set: “I always knew the lad could drive a tractor, ride a horse and plant a crop, but to record a number one hit … well, that’s another story. Good on yer, Johnno, for bringing a bit of the Aussie flavour into the charts. Must throw down a beer with ya one day.” Williamson – who was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2010 – provided one of the few Aussie accents on the radio. And he has always stood up for Aussie voices. In 2013, he resigned as president of the Country Music Association of Australia, after 10 years, complaining that the annual

Golden Guitar awards had become too American, citing the nominations of Keith Urban, and Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey’s The Great Country Songbook, “an album with 90 per cent American covers”. “If we are not respected as a legitimate organisation to promote original Australian country music, I cannot be associated with it any longer,” Williamson said. “We should be nurturing what Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson started.” Williamson – with his trusty Maton BG808 – has never been afraid to voice his opinion. In 1989, he released the proconservation ‘Rip Rip Woodchip’. Two years later, he called for a new Australian flag in ‘A Flag Of Our Own’. And in 2014, on his album Honest People, he did a marriage equality anthem with Beccy Cole, ‘It’s All About Love’. With more than 50 albums, John Williamson is second only to Slim when it comes to singing about Australia. “But my life has not really been about music,” Williamson wrote in his autobiography, Hey True Blue, “more a continuing love of the Australian character and especially the bush. “This country is what makes me tick.” John Williamson is playing at Bluesfest 2021.

The Australian guitar great continues to do things his own way. By Jeff Jenkins

FEATURE

“I could tell that he was gentle and sensitive,” Jimmy Barnes observed in his bestselling autobiography Working Class Man. “But when he did look at you, his eyes seemed to look deep inside you, searching, looking for something … Mossy was always on another planet, but we loved him.” Ian Moss is certainly one of our most intriguing rock stars. He looks the part – he’s charismatic and ridiculously talented, with a soulful voice and incomparable guitar skills – but he moves at his own pace. Whereas his Cold Chisel bandmate Barnesy is a ball of energy, always promoting new projects – books, albums, tours, documentaries, alarm clocks – and capable of filling any rock journalist’s notebook with classic quotes, Mossy is unhurried and enigmatic. In the 38 years since Cold Chisel’s Last Stand, Mossy has released just seven studio albums. And whereas most rock stories are based on relentless repetition – write a hit song, play it exactly the same way for years – Mossy refuses to stick to the script. “Another thing 32

By Jeff Jenkins

about Mossy,” noted Mark Opitz, who produced East and Circus Animals, “he never played the same thing twice.” A couple of years back, I was engaged to write a biography for Mossy’s latest album. It was arranged that I would call him at 11am. I dialled the number a few times, but there was no answer. About an hour later, he called me, apologetic. “Sorry, mate. I was asleep. And now I’ve got to go to rehearsal. Maybe we can have a chat tonight?” I told Mossy I was going to a gig that night and wouldn’t be home until late. “How late?” he asked. “About midnight.” “That’ll be perfect.” So that night, I called Mossy at midnight and we talked into the early hours about his selftitled album, a fine record that features a soul ballad called ‘Broadway’, a song as good as anything he’s ever done. He wrote it for his son, Julian. “It’s a song about missing my son when I’m on the road,”

he explained. “I love doing gigs and being on tour, but as soon as the plane was about to take off, down would come the blues.” “The years fall away so quickly now,” Mossy sings. “I’ve all the fortune and the fame. Oh, but I’d leave it all to yesterday just to be with you again … ’Cause I need a little something that feels like home.” It’s a modern classic. Another line leapt out from his latest record: “You’re a fast car, I’m a slow crawl.” I’m not sure what inspired the lyric, but it could easily be about Barnesy and Mossy and their respective approaches to the music industry. Whereas Barnesy released his first solo album just five months after Chisel’s final album, Mossy didn’t issue his debut until five years later. That album, Matchbook, featured his first solo hit, ‘Tucker’s Daughter’, which topped the charts and led to my first encounter with Mossy. I was in the early days of my writing career at The Sun, and I knew that a Mossy story would

get a good run in the paper. I contacted his label, Mushroom Records, and requested an interview. That afternoon, my phone rang. It was an agent at Premier Artists. “I believe you want to do an interview with Ian Moss,” he said. “Yes,” I replied. “Well, here he is.” The agent handed the phone to Mossy, and suddenly I was interviewing a rock legend – with zero preparation. Sure, if you grew up in Australia, you were familiar with Cold Chisel. And if you’re interviewing Jimmy Barnes, all you have to do is pretty much say “G’day Barnesy” and he’s off and running. But Mossy, as I soon discovered, is a different beast altogether. He’s not difficult or unfriendly, just a little vague and not a big talker. “Hi, Ian,” I said, nervously. “Congratulations on going to number one.” “Thanks,” he responded, quietly. “It must be great having your first solo single go to number one …” “Yeah.” I learnt a couple of valuable lessons that day –

always be prepared, and it’s a good idea to have more than one question. It’s a cliché, but Mossy is an artist who lets his music do the talking. And he doesn’t need anything more than his Fender electric guitar and his Maton acoustic. As Cold Chisel’s biographer Anthony O’Grady noted, “When Moss goes into guitar dreamworld he pulls out chords and notes and sounds that do not fit the plot as such but which create new dimensions – astounding stuff that can never be reached through intellectual process, only through a quantum leap of intuition and imagination.” In 2014, Mossy’s fellow musicians ranked him as Australia’s greatest guitarist in a News Corp poll. Alex Laska, guitarist in Kingswood, put it simply: “Moss can deliver subtlety with intensity, intensity with subtlety.” Ian Moss might be an unusual rock star in many ways, but there’s no doubt that he is a true musician. Instinctive and inventive. And it comes from within. Ian Moss is playing at Bluesfest 2021.

TRASHED! HOW MOSSY FEELS 40 YEARS ON It’s one of the great moments in Australian TV – Cold Chisel trashing the set at the TV Week Countdown Awards. And it happened 40 years ago. On March 16, 1981, the music industry gathered at the Regent Theatre in Sydney to celebrate the Australian music of 1980. It had been a stellar year, with Split Enz’s True Colours, Australian Crawl’s The Boys Light Up and Flowers’ Icehouse. But Cold Chisel dominated the night, winning a record seven awards. The band refused to accept any of the trophies but agreed to close the show with a live performance of ‘My Turn To Cry’, the closing track on East. Unbeknownst to Molly Meldrum or the organisers, Chisel had decided to change the lyrics to attack TV Week. “I never saw you at the Astra Hotel,” Barnesy spat. “I never saw you in Fitzroy Street, and now you’re tryin’ to use my face to sell TV Week … So eat this! Eat this!” The climax was Mossy smashing his guitar – except, it wouldn’t break. The band had bought cheap copies of their instruments. “Hendrix and Pete Townshend made it look so easy,” Mossy laughs, “but I just couldn’t break it. The strings were cutting into my hands. I don’t know what the timber was; it weighed a tonne and it just wouldn’t break.” TV Week discontinued their association with the awards after Chisel’s performance. Four decades later, Mossy says, “I actually had mixed feelings about doing it. Looking back, it really was just a publicity stunt, and it did us the world of good. I remember feeling like a naughty kid and feeling a bit guilty. A lot of people didn’t like it; it really tore the country up. I’ve got mates in Alice Springs, where I grew up, and one or two guys still say, ‘We still don’t like what you did.’ “I can’t really understand why they took it so seriously.”

FEATURE

The world was the oyster until everything stopped. Now All Our Exes gear up for a reunion at Bluesfest. BY SAMUEL J. FELL

ne gets the impression listening to your music that genres aren’t too important to you – tell us, not how you’d describe your music, but from where you draw inspiration? It’s a bit of a problem with the genre thing – I love all different types of music, so often I’ll get whisked away into a different world. But to me, the most important thing is to tell the story with the song; not just the words, but also the production and instrumentation. I almost look at music more like painting, and taking from different genres is like using different colours and techniques to get exactly what you picture in your mind. You’ve been quoted as saying your approach is akin to that of a ‘mad scientist’ – tell us about that, what’s your approach to writing / recording? Well, often it’s a total shit-fight, recording and writing. I’ll sometimes record songs two or three times before releasing the first version I did. It’s very much a trial and error process, and it gives me the freedom to make mistakes and take risks with songs. I never like to feel in a box with anything in life. Tell us briefly about your transition from busking (in Byron Bay) to recording, and how the two differ, or, indeed, how similar you seem the two forms. Yeah, busking was, and still is, an important part of, not only my music, but the entire industry. I [find] mostly that [it helps] to test out songs and see how people react in real time to a new melody or idea. It’s kind of the ultimate test – no one is expecting to hear you and if you can draw an audience with an original song, it’s simply the best answer you can get. 2020 was one hell of a year – for you though, it seems it was quite productive: you followed up a 2019 EP (Distant Land) with two others in s. hemisphere and n. hemisphere, which culminated in your album, hemispheres – how was it from your side? I found it great. I love to tour and see new places, but I’d been touring for four years straight, internationally, so needless to say I was a little burnt out pre-Covid. 2020 gave me lots of time to think more about production and songwriting and really focus on those skill sets. So far it’s been one of the best years of my career, which is strange.

BY SAMUEL J. FELL

You’ve spent a fair bit of time pursuing a production role too (particularly with Ziggy Alberts)… how’s that side of things for you? Yeah, my accidental career. I literally started recording simply because I had no cash to book a studio. So after recording

friends and so on, I started becoming a busy producer, engineer, and mixer. I love doing that type of work I find it really satisfying seeing friends and young careers go so well. Garrett Kato plays the Bryon Bay Bluesfest, April 1-5.

y the end of 2019, All Our Exes Live In Texas were in a good spot. Their debut record, 2017’s When We Fall, had won an ARIA; their fanbase was growing across the globe; they were touring both at home and overseas, selling out shows and opening for some heavy hitters – the world was their collective oyster, until the world stopped. Fortunately for the band – made up of Hannah Crofts (ukulele), Georgia Mooney (mandolin), Elana Stone (accordion) and Katie Wighton (guitar), all four contributing vocals – they’d already made the decision to take a break. “We’d done a tour in 2018, in America, and we’d been pedal to the metal,” Wighton explains. “We’d been pedal to the metal for a long time… we were self-managed at the time, we didn’t have a tour manager, only two of us could drive, we did 27 shows in 35 days in 16 states in America, and we just got to the end of it and said, this is exhausting, we need to take a breather.” “So, we just decided to take some time off, before Covid came around,” she says, “so we didn’t have to make too much of a sacrifice ourselves, as a band… the

slowdown in the music industry sort of suited our pause.” As such, 2020 yielded little in the way of output for the band, particularly given half of them were in Melbourne, the other half in Sydney. Not ones to stop completely however, each of the members embarked on solo sojourns, all four releasing material under different monikers during the year. “It was equal parts lovely, equal parts [challenging],” Wighton laughs on making music outside of the comfort zone of All Our Exes, under the name Kit. “The challenges are that I no longer had the brains trust,” she smiles. “The four of us all have such different skill sets and brought such different knowledge to the band, and it meant we were this four-headed beast, in a way, where we could brainstorm things… it was challenging not to have that. “In terms of a creative direction though, I’m fast, I don’t like to be slow; a lot of what we did in the Exes was very considered. I’m not as patient as that, so it was nice to be able to go, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this, that was cool, and creatively having total control.” Wighton has embraced the change, as have all the band’s members. As for All Our

Exes then, now they’ve had the break they needed, what’s the plan going forward? After the success of their debut, one would think a follow-up was on the cards. “Well, we’ve never said never, in terms of making music together again, because we had such a good time, and it’s something we really want to do,” Wighton muses. “So, it’s about timing, I guess. There are definitely conversations we’re having between the four of us, and we’re really keen to do it, it’s just logistically and also financially [tricky]. I think it’s definitely a case of we want to, it’s just the how and the when.” In the meantime, a return to the stage as a band is imminent as All Our Exes line up for Byron Bay’s Bluesfest over the Easter long weekend, a set that’ll not only be keenly awaited by fans, but by the band members themselves. “Absolutely, we’re really looking forward to it,” Wighton finishes, “just the fact that we’ve been apart from each other as well… it’ll be nice to actually see each other, and the chance to play music together, [that’ll be lovely].” All Our Exes Live In Texas play the Byron Bay Bluesfest, April 1-5. 35

FEATURE

It took the Paul Kellyinstigated Cannot Buy My Soul tribute to his songs to really bring Carmody’s songs to a wider audience that they deserved. By Stuart Coupe

ev Carmody is unquestionably one of Australia’s finest ever songwriters. Considering the depth and quality of his writing, in the ideal world (which we know doesn’t exist) Carmody should have long been a household name in this country. But it took the Paul Kelly-instigated Cannot Buy My Soul tribute to his songs to really bring Carmody’s songs to a wider audience. And that project (which was further expanded late last year) came after many years of the two being friends and collaborating together . Carmody first heard Paul Kelly in the mid1980s. It wasn’t like he needed to make a special effort – in that period surrounding Gossip, Paul’s music was everywhere on the radio. Carmody wasn’t and still isn’t a big music listener but if you turned on a radio at the time Paul’s songs would begin seeping into your consciousness. “The ones that got me were the more descriptive ones, songs like From St Kilda to Kings Cross which describe the bus trip – because as a Blackfella you could relate to that,” Carmody says.

”You never had enough money to buy a motor car but you had enough to get on a bus and go on those long damned trips with your nose jammed against the glass. His descriptive capabilities were pretty phenomenal.” It was after a long hitch-hiking trip to Sydney that Carmody actually met Paul. “I remember when I first went to the big city of Sydney. I got a lift down in a 30 tonne truck carrying seafood coming from Brisbane and the old driver dropped me off right on Broadway. The fellow I was supposed to meet with was going to show me around the big town. “So, this guy – he was going to record me takes me to a Go-Betweens concert at the Enmore Theatre and I remember sitting up in the seats in the balcony part, right up high, and he said ‘there’s Paul Kelly’. Paul was sitting there and I met him very briefly that night. Just a hello how are you sort of thing. “I was quite taken with the Go-Betweens as a band. It was one of the few concerts I’d been to in my life. Until then I’d never really been to concerts except around a bloody campfire.

“I remember that he wore a leather jacket – and I’d ridden motor bikes all my life. I always had a bike, the old Norton’s and the old Triumph’s and AJS bikes, and I thought ‘gee, he must have a bloody motorbike’. When we went outside afterwards, I was looking up and down the street to see where his bike was, and I said ‘you’ve got a leather jacket – you must have a motorbike’ but he didn’t have a bike at all. Funny thing – here’s a bush bloke in the city assuming that if you wore a leather jacket you had a bike.” Carmody and Paul continued bumping in to each other. After Carmody’s first album, Pillars Of Society, was released in 1988 he heard from Paul who contacted him and asked if Carmody would support him at what used to be the Darling Downs Institute Of Technology (now the University of Southern Queensland). At that show Carmody met all of Paul’s band for the first time and immediately fell into their world. He liked the way the band interacted with Paul. “For a country boy I thought they were really tight, a good band I can tell you.” Carmody was quickly embraced by both Paul and the band. He was one of the gang

and crammed into the tour bus to go to shows with them as they did more gigs together. “They had the sort of personalities that when you first met them it felt like you’d known them forever. You just fitted in with them. There was none of this stand-off business. You were in. Travelling with them in the van was a pain in the rear end as it was so cramped. But I had this admiration for them as a band because they were tight and they weren’t afraid to do a little bit of solo stuff, throwing stuff into the songs and shows to keep everybody on the toe. Whenever they were around, I was just in the fold as it were.” Aside from Paul, Carmody mostly gravitated to Steve Connolly. “He had that Irish background in music as well as the rock’n’roll stuff – and the politics.” Connolly would produce Carmody’s 1991 album Eulogy (For A Black Person) which also featured contributions from Paul, Peter Bull, Jon Schofield, and Michael Barclay. Paul dropped in and out of the Eulogy sessions but it was very much a Carmody/ Connolly collaboration. And the Messengers kept coming in to do bits and pieces. “It was all thrown together bit by bit,” is how Carmody recalls the recording of the album. Then there was the camping trip that changed both Paul and Carmody’s lives. Along with Paul’s song Declan they headed out into the country. “I have this old land rover. One of those troop carriers for the wife and kids. Paul said he was coming up and that he’d really like to see me. I said we were about to go off for a big camp and that we’d throw everything in the back and off we’d go. “I remember picking him and Declan up from the bus stop. We went camping at a place called Wivanhoe which is a town outside of Brisbane, out west of there. It was the first time that the dam there had ever been opened to the public. So, we put tents up, got the fire going, and I had the guitars, the banjo and the mandolin. That was when From Little Things got started. She was rolled around then, on that trip.” Most fascinating is that this was not planned as a songwriting trip. There was no intention for Carmody and Paul to come up with new material. It was just a casual jam which would evolve into one of the best-known Australian songs of recent times. “I threw in the chord progression on the mandolin and Paul was a little bit interested and then I swapped it to the

banjo and he got a bit more interested and the next thing I said was “well, it’s a pretty boring bloody chord progression but it’d be a good one to do a story to’ and so we started talking about a topic we could write about. “I told him a few things about my background and of course the big one was the bloody Gurindjie strike. That was huge in our black society. He took to it straight away and you know what he’s like – he writes pretty bloody quick; you’ve got to pull him back.” The song is based on the story of the Gurindji Strike and Vincent Lingiari and in essence describes the events whereupon the Gurindji people and their claim sparked the Indigenous land rights movement. The protest led to the Commonwealth Aboriginal and Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 which gave indigenous people freehold title to traditional lands in the Northern Territory and the power to veto land mining and other developments on those lands. So, Carmody and Paul just sat around a campfire and dashed off From Little Things at what Carmody recalls was around 2am in the morning. “She was quick. The story was there so it was just a matter of saying ‘ I don’t like this business, that cliché of a snowball in hell – what about a cinder in the snow’. Just turning things around a bit. “Then Paul went and checked with Frank Hardy and I had a bit of a yarn to Professor Fred Hollows because they were both involved on the ground at the strike, just to make sure everything was OK. Gough Whitlam loved that song.” And at least in Carmody’s mind there was no sense at that point that they had created an iconic, important Australian song. He thought it was far too long for that. “Then Paul recorded it but I couldn’t because the old man who was the centre of it from an Aboriginal perspective had passed away so there was no way I could record it or be involved with it because he’s named in the song. I had to wait two years for the buramaji, the respect, before I could do it.” Paul and the Messengers recorded the song for Comedy, whilst two years later Carmody’s version appeared on his Bloodlines album in 1993, with Paul playing guitar, harmonica and singing. “The version Paul and I did together was actually done for a documentary with Tiddas and Paul and I all together in a studio, Carmody recalls. “They wanted a shot of that on the video. I told the sound engineer to flick a switch and see what happens. It was spontaneous.

“We’d only rehearsed it once or twice. I had the banjo and Paul had the guitar and Tiddas were just using their voices. They sent a copy to me when I went back to Brisbane and I said, ‘the bloody banjo, the sound of it is going in waves – up and down, up and down, can’t you level that out somehow’ but they said they couldn’t because they forgot to switch the banjo mic on.” Carmody and Paul would collaborate again in 2001 on One Night The Moon, a film directed by Rachel Perkins also a co-writer. A short sharp cinematic and musical tale of racism and the arrogance of a white man rejecting the ways and understanding of an indigenous tracker, when searching for his missing daughter with tragic consequences. Paul played the lead and worked on the score. “That was a great project with Mairead Herron and her sister Dee who was with Steve Connelly. Paul had worked with them before. Paul’s got that ability to make a statement” Later Paul came up with the idea of an album of other artists performing their versions of Carmody’s songs, the result being the 2007album Cannot Buy My Soul, followed by a two night stand for a concert version at Sydney’s State Theatre in 2008. Another performance was held at the River Stage in Brisbane in August 2009. “That was all Paul. I had nothing to do with it.,” Carmody says before saying how much he likes the idea of collaborating with Paul again. “I reckon it’d be great. When we write together we hardly ever look at each other. Recently he came and stayed for a few days and in those cases the guitar always comes out and we work on a few ideas and then a couple of years later something might come up. Then he’ll say he’s recording it. Last time I just started off with a couple of chord progressions and we put a title on it – Jesus And The Gypsy. Paul took to the title straight away. “When we do that he’s jamming on the guitar and doing something and I’m jamming on my guitar and doing something and all of a sudden it comes together and at some stage one of us will go, ‘that feels pretty good’ and then we’ll start working that music. For example, I’ll throw something in and say, ‘what about Jesus and the gypsy’ and then bang bang bang from him. He’s pretty quick at putting rhyming stuff down the side. He puts that in fairly well right away and then we just fill the rest in. It’s totally random. There’s no Thesaurus. No rhyming dictionary. Bugger that.” Stuart Coupe is the author of Paul Kelly: The Man, The Music and The Life In Between published by Hachette. 37

FEATURE

The Chain remains unbroken – 50 years after the release of their classic single. By JEFF JENKINS Phil Manning and his family know a thing or two about longevity. His grandfather was in the same band for 66 years. Manning – a founding member of Chain – laughs when Rhythms suggests he’s chasing his grandfather’s record. Lou Coventry played with Tasmania’s Latrobe Federal Band from 1899 to 1965, also serving as bandmaster for 46 years. He was awarded an MBE in 1966. Established in 1872, the Latrobe Federal Band is Australia’s oldest brass band. Chain have had a few breaks, but they must be our oldest blues band. Formed in 1968, the band still plays regularly, including their upcoming gig at Bluesfest. Appropriately, Chain’s biggest hit was a “work song”, the classic ‘Black and Blue’, which turns 50 in 2021. Before joining Chain, Matt Taylor had been in Brisbane’s Bay City Union, which also featured a young Glenn Wheatley. The band was initially successful when they relocated to Melbourne, but town hall bookers stopped hiring them, telling Taylor: “We’re not going to put on any more blues bands because they clear the dance floor.” But the emergence of pub rock, with Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and Chain, changed the scene. Taylor says the lowering of the drinking age, from 21 to 18, at the start of the ’70s was a turning point. “The pubs realised that music attracted drinkers and heavier bands seemed to attract the biggest crowds.” Chain defined the heavy blues sound, coming up with ‘Black and Blue’ at Taylor’s first rehearsal with the band, in Brisbane in 1970. “It was a Wednesday and we had a gig on the Friday, so I had to learn stacks of songs,” he recalls. “When we started packing up, Phil started mucking around with that riff.” Taylor ordered the rest of the band to unpack their gear. “I’m going to come up with some heavy words,” he informed them, “and we’re going to do a work song.” The song was known as “We’re Groaning” 38

until the title was changed to ‘Black and Blue’ the day Chain recorded it.

despite the hits, “we were always only two weeks away from starvation”.

Credited to Phil Manning, Barry Sullivan, Matt Taylor and Barry Harvey, Chain debuted the song at the Red Orb that Friday.

As for Phil Manning, well, he’s got less than 15 years to break his grandfather’s record. Don’t rule it out.

It’s a timeless classic. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band covered ‘Black and Blue’ on their 1973 album, Messin’. Ash Grunwald did it on his 2013 album, Gargantua, with The Living End’s Scott Owen and Andy Strachan. And a seven-inch version of the Chain original has pride of place in Jeff Lang’s collection.

“In the pop scene, I wouldn’t like to be prancing around the stage in a frilly shirt at 70,” says Manning, who is 73. “That’s rather degrading, if you ask me. But that’s one of the nice things about blues music – as long as you can keep your health reasonable, you can do it until the day you die.” Chain are playing at Bluesfest 2021.

“It’s quite an achievement to write a song like ‘Black and Blue’ that is so recognisably a blues song whilst maintaining an Australian identity at the same time,” Lang says. Chain also played a key role in the story of Michael Gudinski, Australian music’s greatest entrepreneur. Gudinski was the office boy at the Melbourne agency AMBO, who booked Chain’s gigs. “I would go in there to see the big-wigs and I’d end up talking to Michael because he loved music,” Taylor recalls. “He was just 17 and his dad thought he was a bum because he had quit school, but he had more front than Myers.” Gudinski became Chain’s booking agent and manager. “Look,” Taylor says, “Michael was going to become a multi multimillionaire no matter whether I was part of his story. But everyone needs someone to have faith in them, to give them a break, and that was us.”

“It’s quite an achievement to write a song like ‘Black and Blue’ that is so recognisably a blues song whilst maintaining an Australian identity at the same time.” – Jeff Lang

Chain had a gold album before Taylor actually saw an African-American blues artist. He supported Muddy Waters in 1973 but was surprised to find that Muddy and his band didn’t improvise on stage. “Chain played the blues like a jazz band, just making it up as we went along.” Albert Collins told Taylor: “You guys play the blues, but it ain’t nothin’ like blues I’ve ever heard.” When Chain started, most Aussies thought the blues was just a footy team. It hasn’t been an easy road. Taylor notes that 39

FEATURE

CHAIN

TOWARD THE BLUES

Felix Reibl promises that the Cat Empire will be back in top gear for Bluesfest.

Festival Interfusion

Billy Pinnell

By Billy Pinnell

By Brian Wise

mong the acts scheduled to perform at Bluesfest on the Easter weekend is Chain who will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the release of their seminal album Toward The Blues. The line-up will include long time members, singer/ harmonica player/songwriter Matt Taylor and guitarist / songwriter Phil Manning - founder of the band in 1968 with keyboard player Warren Morgan and singer Wendy Saddington (who named the band after Aretha Franklin's soul classic 'Chain of Fools'). After brief tenures with the Bay City Union, one of Australia's first electric blues bands and the Wild Cherries, Taylor took over as lead singer in September 1970. Although Chain’s personnel frequently changed (membership includes more than fifty musicians), the combination that in 1971 recorded the classic singles 'Black And Blue' - the only blues song to ever reach number one on the Australian Singles chart - and its follow-up 'Judgement', consisted of the band's most famous lineup: Taylor, Manning, bass guitarist Barry Sullivan, aka Big Goose and drummer Barry Harvey, Little Goose. Originally released in September 1971, Toward The Blues was recorded in three days. Like all Chain line-ups this combination was short-lived (less than a year), but in Chain brief has been better as evidenced by the compatibility of these four musicians, the Barry's had previously played together in the Wild Cherries, Taylor and Manning were both in the Bay City Union. Toward The Blues was fortunate to ride the wave of the hit single 'Black And Blue'. While this version was replaced by a new longer take recorded specifically for the album, it would reappear as

a bonus track along with 'Judgment' and 'a B-side 'Blow in D' on a 2001 album reissue. Based on a convict work song Taylor had come across on some obscure U.S. import and a Manning guitar riff, 'Black And Blue's chant of 'we're groanin’' stuck in people's brains while Taylor's impassioned vocal, devoid of any semblance of pseudo-authenticity, gave all Aussie blues singers who came after him licence to develop a truly Australian blues perspective. The second of the three bonus tracks was 'Judgement', another imaginative, musically adventurous composition whose theme revolves around a dream Taylor had about meeting with his maker at the Pearly Gates. While pleading to be admitted through the turnstiles he gives an account of his life confessing 'the only sin I committed Lord was to join a four-piece band'. While neither of these songs are strictly blues in their construction, they fit comfortably with the remaining tracks most of which allow the musicians plenty of room to bounce off each other such as the third bonus track a slow blues appropriately titled 'Blow in D' and a cover of Junior Wells' 'Snatch It Back and Hold It'. 'Booze is Bad News Blues,' written by the band, is highlighted by Manning's slide guitar while the jazz tinged instrumental 'Albert Gooses Gonna Turn The Blues' and a rocking cover of Robert Johnson's '32/20 Blues' showcase the talents of Sullivan and Harvey one of the greatest rhythm sections in Australian rock history. For decades, Taylor and Manning, two of the most significant individuals in the preservation of Australian blues music whose arms have muscles on their muscles from waving the blues flag for so long keeping the Chain name alive will, I'm sure, be given a hero's welcome when they take the stage at 2021's 32nd Byron Bay Bluesfest.

“Bluesfest is really one of my favourites,” says The Cat Empire’s Felix Reibl. “Bluesfest is the festival that I remember going to when I was 16 or 17, and staring up at the stage and sort of praying, willing it, whatever it was, just saying I want to get up on that stage one day.” Last time I saw Reibl was in Adelaide last year when he was involved in staging the Spinifex Gum show for the Womadelaide festival. Soon afterwards he was with the Empire in Europe for what turned out to be an interrupted tour when the pandemic broke loose. Since then, there have been no gigs for the band at all. “So, in many ways Bluesfest has always held a very precious spot in my festival heart,” he continues, “and we’ve been very fortunate because The Cat Empire has been able to perform at great festivals all over the world and I still rate Bluesfest as one of the really exciting ones to play to, because of that very early connection to that place and the great experiences I had before I was a musician.” “The Cat Empire headed over to Europe,” says Reibl of last year’s events, “and we got about six shows into a European tour and we’re about to head to Spain - and that obviously didn’t happen. So, we got one of the last flights out, just a totally packed flight. Since then, more or less, we’re in isolation in Melbourne, pretty much.” The band’s first gig back was in February and they have at least ten dates prior to Bluesfest. “That was the first time in nine months we could perform and so I haven’t been so

nervous in ages,” says Reibl of their return to the stage, “but it really came back and it was just like a breath of fresh air. I mean genuinely just, a band like The Cat Empire has to be performing live, that’s how we exist, and so it was great. So, I feel for the first time really confident that we haven’t lost it, that we can go and do some really good shows now.” While Reibl has his Spinifex Gum project outside the band, he says that all the other members have also had their own projects to work on during the lockdown. “It’s a very prolific group of musicians in The Cat Empire” he says, “and everyone does really interesting projects on the side and very diverse projects. So yeah, it’s one of those bands that everyone celebrates for what it does. When we get back together it’s really to celebrate being in that festival environment and being live with an audience and then being as dynamic as we can be. I think people doing other projects that sort of excite different parts of their musical interests is really important for that, because it means when we get back together we’re really celebrating.” I mention to Reibl that The Cat Empire is quintessentially a live band and, in fact, one of the great live bands of this country. “Look, the band has always existed to perform live, I think,” agrees Reibl. “We’ve done a lot of studio albums and we’ve travelled a lot, but I think our strength has always been in that sense of occasion that comes from the audience and from the band interacting with them. And it’s always been sort of so dynamic and exploratory

in terms of the sorts of different musical influences it’s had and everything like that. And those sorts of influences really come from traveling and from being around other musicians, and from being in other parts of the world, and from just being amongst it in a live music sense. So, from a very early age, well as a musician at an early age, The Cat Empire existed by performing live and I think it can only continue to exist when there are shows on the horizon.” Are we likely to hear any new music now that the group has had nearly 12 months to come up with something? “Yeah, absolutely,” replies Reibl. “There are certainly plans to go and record some things. What we had to do, because we were about to do quite a lot of touring in Europe, and for me when we came back that energy that I had sourced touring very quickly turned into songwriting. So, I feel like the time off the road has been pretty productive, in the way that I’ve been able to write for The Cat Empire quite a bit. But we haven’t really had a chance to rehearse any of that new stuff but we’re making plans to do some recording this year.” Reibl is also excited about the allAustralian line-up at Bluesfest this year. “I’m personally really excited by that, it’s true,” he notes. “I think the one benefit that we might see when shows start coming back is that you’ll get people really engaging with Australian acts in a big way and really supporting that, and I think that’s good. So, I’m excited about how the festivals feel with a much more Australian lineup.” 41

“For me, ‘Eagle Rock’ was a defining song. Quite often first songs are like that; they define what you’re about. It’s the distillation of everybody’s consciousness or whatever.” – Ross Wilson

RHYTHMS - Sounds Of The City

The Australian dance classic ‘Eagle Rock’ stirred the nation in 1971. What makes the song still resonate to this day? Ian McFarlane gets on the good foot to find out. By Ian McFarlane

Daddy Cool-Daddy Who Daddy Cool cover 1971

>>> 42

Daddy Cool-Eagle Rock Single A-side 43

RHYTHMS - Sounds Of The City into vintage rock ’n’ roll and doo wop, Wilson sensed an even greater opportunity to entertain audiences. Quickly realising that some of his fellow band members were ready and willing to roll with it, Wilson coalesced with Hannaford, Duncan and Young as Daddy Cool. As soon as the band took off they were able to sideline the Sons. ‘Daddy Cool’ was the title of a 1957 hit by American doo wop group The Rays, although Wilson has commented that he named the band before he’d heard the song. Still, as a rock ’n’ roll revival outfit, DC was just a way of having fun on stage, a humorous and entertaining diversion from the serious business of advancing the horizons of rock music, a chance to wear amusing costumes, leap about, making a visual impact as well as impressing with the music. DC’s first booking was actually interstate at the Aquarius festival, Glenelg Town Hall (SA), on 12 October 1970. Two weeks later they opened the bill at the T.F. Much with Spectrum, Chain, King Harvest, Sons Of The Vegetal Mother and Lipp Arthur, playing a benefit for Melbourne drug rehabilitation clinic Buoyancy Foundation. Regular gigs followed and in January 1971, DC took off on outdoor stages with their appearances at the Odyssey Festival, Wallacia (NSW) and Myponga Festival (SA). When ‘Eagle Rock’ exploded on to the Australian charts in May 1971, they became the biggest band in the land with the rock press falling over themselves to cover their every move.

A Defining Song When I interviewed Wilson on the occasion of the song’s 30th anniversary, he had this to say about ‘Eagle Rock’. “For me, ‘Eagle Rock’ was a defining song. Quite often first songs are like that; they define what you’re about. It’s the distillation of everybody’s consciousness or whatever. ‘Eagle Rock’ does say a lot about my influences, what I was listening to at the time. “The song came about while I was in England playing with Procession. I was trying to improve my guitar skills, which are still pretty limited. I came up with this riff. Actually, there was a song we used to play in Party Machine called ‘Woman Of The World’ which was the first time I’d used that kind of finger picking style. I’d developed this finger picking style, like a rural blues style. I was trying to copy some of those players from the 1930s, but I never got past just using my thumb and one finger. I could never get the other fingers working (laughs). With the ‘Eagle Rock’ riff, 44

people work out these funny, complicated ways to play it, but it’s just a basic ‘A’ chord and open ‘E’ on the top. I had this riff, but because I was so deficient in being able to move my fingers around on the fretboard, I just wanted a chord where I didn’t have to move around too much, just move one finger. Just work on the syncopation. “Most guitar players will play a more complicated version but the way I play it, you get the droning thing going. So, I was doing that and I came up with this riff. There was this article in The Sunday Times and it had a picture of people dancing in a Juke Joint, and the caption said they were ‘Doing the Eagle Rock and cutting the Pigeon Wing’. This is the way songwriting works; I’d got the title and that was the key to unlocking what was in my subconscious. The title just seemed to connect with the riff I was playing. “I got back to Australia and I finished off the chorus. I’d play it to people and say, ‘Do you like this riff?’. ‘Have you heard it somewhere before?’. It seemed so good, I was thinking, ‘Gee I hope I haven’t pinched that from somewhere’. After a while I figured I must have come up with it myself. I’ve read similar stories like with Paul McCartney when he wrote ‘Yesterday’, or Keith Richards with ‘Satisfaction’. Those are quintessential songs. It’s something that’s there inside you. With ‘Eagle Rock’ it formed the foundation for everything I’ve done since. It summed up a philosophy I had, just have fun with this music, you know. “‘Eagle Rock’ certainly still means something to me because it’s such a groove to play it, you know? It’s the kind of song you don’t wanna mess with. There are other songs I’ve written where I mess with the arrangements, but that particular song was so defined by the time we came to record it that there’s no point in changing it, I usually play it the same way. Depends who I’m playing it with, certain guys can nail it each time, certain guys can’t. “With the original Daddy Cool guys, it was the perfect combination of players. It was absolutely the right group of guys to play that song, and they just latched on to it straight away. It was that combination that made the impact.” Drummer Gary Young explained the rhythm section’s modus operandi: “The main feel, the thing that made Daddy Cool sound like Daddy Cool was the shuffle beat. The shuffle is almost identical to what was called swing in the 1930s. It originates from this little tish-ta-tish-ta-tish rhythm on the hi-hat, sorta like a jazz thing. It would swing. When blues musicians moved from the Mississippi Delta up to Chicago in the ’40s and started to shuffle the blues, drummers

would play the shuffle all together, hi-hats and snare. The good thing with the shuffle, if you use that technique and put a bit of rocking to it, it picks up. If you slow down a jazz swing shuffle, using the cymbal and the snare, you get the beat and rhythm for ‘Come Back Again’. Then if you attack it with a bit more aggro and just use the hi-hat and the snare you get the definitive shuffle on the one that sold the most records for Daddy Cool, ‘Doin’ the Eagle Rock’. Wayne plays a throbbing bass, I do the shuffle, ‘Now listen! We’re steppin’ out’. That major shuffle is the most typically Daddy Cool feel and it was right for ‘Eagle Rock’.”

A Watershed Year The year 1971 certainly seems to have been the watershed year in the development of Australian music. The multifarious and radical social changes brought on by the 1960s were being felt. Anti-Vietnam War sentiments were on the rise, with 100,000 people having marched in the streets for the 1970 Vietnam Moratorium in Melbourne. Various sections of Australian society were fed up with over 20 years of continuous Liberal-Country Coalition government; the election of Gough Whitlam’s Labor was just around the corner in 1972. Musicians were coming out of the 1960s engendered with a sense of their own self worth and a willingness to take their music to new heights. The heavyweight, underground bands of the day like Tully, Tamam Shud, Aztecs, Chain, Spectrum, Blackfeather, Company Caine and Carson were forging their own identities, the pub scene was beginning to burgeon and the festival / concert circuit was well under way. In addition to ‘Eagle Rock’ hitting national #1, Spectrum had done the same with ‘I’ll Be Gone’ while Chain had gone to #1 in Melbourne (Top 10 nationally) with ‘Black And Blue’. The impact of ‘Eagle Rock’ was immediate because it worked on so many different levels. There was a number of other astonishing Australian singles released in 1971. I can think of Healing Force’s rhapsodic ‘Golden Miles’, Blackfeather’s mystical ‘Seasons Of Change’, King Harvest’s enthralling version of Jimmy Webb’s ‘Wichita Lineman’, the Master’s Apprentices’ evocative ‘Because I Love You’, the La De Das’ funky rocker ‘Gonna See My Baby Tonight’ and Ted Mulry’s sunshine pop classic ‘Falling In Love Again’. Then there were the albums of the day: Spectrum’s Part One, Chain’s Toward the Blues, Daddy Cool’s Daddy Who? Daddy Cool!, Blackfeather’s At The Mountains Of Madness, the Masters’ Choice Cuts, the Aztecs’ Live, Company Caine’s A Product Of A Broken Reality, Kahvas Jute’s Wide Open,

Lobby Loyde’s Plays With George Guitar, even Russell Morris’ Bloodstone and Hans Poulsen’s Natural High. All remarkable works in their own right. Essentially ‘Black And Blue’, ‘I’ll Be Gone’ and ‘Eagle Rock’ have come to represent a significant development in the annals of Australian rock ’n’ roll. It was the first time that previously underground acts featured on the mainstream charts. ‘Black And Blue’ was the first blues single ever to lodge itself in the Top 10, let alone make #1 on any chart. And by applying a commercial outlook to the prevailing underground trends of the day Wilson came up with a winning formula. And it was just a hell of a lot of fun! When ‘Eagle Rock’ was reissued in 1982 and became a hit again, it produced an unlikely new dance craze. Dubbed ‘Eagle Drop’, it involved guys in bars, when the song came on the juke box, spontaneously dropping their pants and dancing around with their nuts out. As soon as the song finished, bar etiquette ensured that daks were returned to their rightful position.

“Doin’ the Eagle Rock” It’s time to dig deeper into the hidden meanings of the words ‘Eagle Rock’. Clearly, as he has outlined, Wilson didn’t invent the phrase. Eagle Rock was a 1920s AfroAmerican dance performed with the arms outstretched and the body rocking from side to side. In a further cultural context, extending the arms in the shape of an eagle’s wing was a gesture by friends urging a slave to fly from the master’s whip. “Doin’ the Eagle Rock” is also a metaphor for sexual intercourse (as was essentially “Rock ’n’ Roll”). Wilson has said that, at the time of writing the song, he had no knowledge of the connection and it was only years later the penny dropped. The first mention of ‘Eagle Rock’ in a song was the 1913 ragtime and jazz standard ‘Ballin’ The Jack’, written by Jim Burns with music by Chris Smith. “Then you do the Eagle Rock with style and grace / Swing your foot way ’round then bring it back / Now that’s what I call Ballin’ the Jack”. The song was recorded numerous times, by the likes of Danny Kaye, Fats Domino, Rosemary Clooney etc. Wilson’s use of the opening invitation “Now listen! Oh, we’re steppin’ out” also references the 19th century Anglo-Irish folk ballad tradition which often incorporated a “Come all ye...” refrain as a way of catching the listener’s ear. The Australian bush ballad ‘Ned Kelly Was Their Captain’ even opened with “Come all you wild colonial boys”. By extension, Irving Berlin knew the value of a good opening announcement as his 1911 song ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ so eloquently put it: “Come on and hear / Come on and hear Alexander’s Ragtime Band”. In the 1940s jump blues group The Treniers announced “Rockin’ is our business / Rockin’ is what we do oh yeah / Come on everybody

we want you to rock with us too” (‘Rockin’ Is Our Bizness’). Various rock musicians had similar ideas. For example, in 1959 Eddie Cochran declared “Oh well, c’mon everybody and let’s get together tonight” (‘C’mon Everybody’). Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad knew how to get an audience going with “Are you ready? / You can trust me all the way” (‘Are You Ready’, 1969). English ska pop legends Madness opened their second single ‘One Step Beyond’ (1979) with the reverb heavy statement “Hey you! / Don’t watch that, watch this!”. I’m sure you can think of many other examples. ‘Eagle Rock’ was promoted by one of the first Australian rock film clips, directed by Chris Löfvén who had also done Spectrum’s similarly styled film clip for ‘I’ll Be Gone’. The black and white footage features Wilson and two girls dancing in the Aussie Burgers malt shop as ‘Eagle Rock’ plays on the juke box. Hanna, Duncan and Young are seen smiling and miming to the music. This is intercut with footage of the band’s boisterous performances at the Myponga festival and the T.F Much, showing people dancing madly. Also – rather helpfully, so that we make the connection – there are wedge tailed eagles strutting their stuff and flapping their wings. The final frames show the guys leaping into their FJ Holden and tearing off up The Esplanade (Luna Park just out of shot). Elton John is said to have heard ‘Eagle Rock’, and maybe even seen the film clip, during his October 1971 Australian tour. Legend has it that it inspired him and his lyricist, Bernie Taupin, to write their own version which became his #1 hit ‘Crocodile Rock’. Heavily nostalgic, ‘Crocodile Rock’ definitely wears its influences on its sleeve. There’s also the story of Wilson’s encounter with UK glam rock hero Marc Bolan. He’d likewise heard ‘Eagle Rock’, and while on his November 1973 Australian tour with T. Rex Bolan insisted on meeting Wilson. He wouldn’t perform until Wilson had been summoned. As Wilson came face to face with the diminutive rocker, Bolan pointed his finger and declared “Oh, so it was you that ripped off ‘Ride A White Swan’!”. If there might be some correlation with the hand clapping / three chord simplicity of each song, Bolan knew a kindred spirit when he met one, laughing it off by declaring Wilson to be a “superstar”. 45

By Brian Wise

Valerie June’s new album The Moon & Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers is set to help her breakthrough.

t’s been a long journey for Valerie June, make no mistake. While her new album seems certain to be her breakthrough there are decades of struggle behind it. It doesn’t seem that long ago, but it is now eleven years since I first saw Valerie June Hockett playing electric guitar under a gazebo one blazing hot day on Delta Avenue in Clarksdale, Mississippi, during the annual Juke Joint Festival. June’s appearance, with her Medusa-like dreadlocks, was striking but her voice was even more so. Is this what Billie Holiday would have sounded like if she sang the blues? Soon, a crowd of a few dozen became several hundred. I would love to claim some sort of prescience about June’s trajectory from there, but you didn’t have to know much about music to know she was headed for great things. The most common exclamation from the audience members was ‘Wow!’ We all purchased the indie CDs she was selling as Valerie told us how she was heading to New York to record with the Old Crow Medicine Show. I always tell people that I am so thankful that I turned in the right direction onto Delta Avenue that day. Some friends turned the other way and ended up watching monkeys riding pigs around a vacant lot, as one of the festival’s many attractions. (At least I later got to see the racing pigs!). A few years later when we met at the Blues Awards in Memphis, she was nominated as ‘Best New Artist’ (which she should have won) for Pushin’ Against A Stone, her first fully-fledged album co-produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. The album did

well and set the scene for the ethereal and acclaimed The Order of Time in 2017, which was released on the prestigious Concord label. Soon after, we saw her playing as a support to Van Morrison at the new Ascend Amphitheatre downtown. This was the latest in a series of high profile supports and appearances, including the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park. June might not have hit the big time on the charts, but she was getting a lot of attention and praise, especially from notable musicians. ‘A voice for the ages,’ was just one of the plaudits she received. Four years on, June has just released The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers. The album was recorded in Los Angeles and Miami and is co-produced by Jack Splash who has worked with Kendrick Lamar, Alicia Keys, John Legend, amongst others. Surprisingly, it is not a dramatic change, rather a development on June’s already ethereal sound, with perhaps some more R&B elements, including a nod to Memphis, June’s home for many years before she moved to Brooklyn. In fact, the album’s first single, ‘Call Me A Fool,’ features Stax legend Carla Thomas on background vocals. This followed a three-track EP released late last year, which hinted at the album’s theme. Splash’s presence is unobtrusive and very sympathetic to June’s vocals. “I’m kind of laughing but I feel like crying because you have been there, and it’s deep,” says June when I remind her of that Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale. “I mean, it’s a long journey and that festival is so great. I mean that year, my friends said, ‘Let’s go to Reds.’ [Red’s Lounge]. And I went in there. It was late. I went in there, and I was just like, ‘This is just going to be some dirty juke joint.’ And Beverly Guitar Watkins was on the floor, playing guitar behind her head. I lost my mind. I was like, “Who’s this tiny little black woman playing guitar better than Hendrix?” Can you believe that? We got to do stuff and see stuff like that in Clarksdale of all places.” “It was a long time ago. Now I have started crying. Damn it,” adds June as I ask her to talk about the start of the journey which took her from Jackson, Tennessee, to Memphis and then to New York. “I had a job working at a cafe and then that wasn’t making enough money,”

explains June about her years in Memphis. “So, I got a night job working at another cafe, and then that wouldn’t make enough money. So, I started cleaning houses, and I would do all three of those jobs. Then I ended up quitting one of the cafes because it closed and I got a job at Maggie’s Pharm [pharmacy], and I worked there for seven years and cleaned houses. Then I started taking care of, like doing personal assistant work with some of the families that I was cleaning for. So, I was making food for them and taking their clothes to the cleaners and walking dogs and playing music at bars and restaurants all over Memphis when the weekend came and it was just.........It was a lot.” “It was recently that I read an article about the minimum wage in America,” continues June. “Biden and Harris proposing it going to $15 an hour. There was a black female, I think from Ohio in the - it might’ve been a CNN or Washington Post article - and she was saying that she really needed that $15 an hour change because she was working as many jobs as she could. She was a single mom and she didn’t have any time to spend with her kids at all. She was like, “If I could just get that $15 an hour, then that would make it so I could attend of my kids’ PTA meetings.

” I just think about it and I’m like, I know what that’s like to have to have a lot of jobs to make one basic rent and basic bill payment. That’s my life. That’s what I was doing when I lived in Memphis, then hustling music for some tips on the side.” “I fell in love, and my then boyfriend - who became my first husband and is now my first ‘wasband’ - he moved to Memphis, and I wanted to live with him after I graduated from high school,” explains June when I ask what led to the move to Memphis. “So, I just moved in with him down in Memphis and thought that we would start a life together and we did and it was a beautiful life for a while. “I mean, we got married, we went to Africa and all throughout Europe and we’d save money and go on these trips, backpacking and stay in tents on the street and stuff like that. So, we had a really interesting relationship, and he was actually the first person that I was in a band with in Memphis and that was called Bella Sun. He was the guitar player because I didn’t play anything and I was the singer. “When the band broke up with our divorce, that’s when I decided to start teaching myself how to play instruments because I’d worked really hard to

“To me, the blues was always the happy music. It was at the end of the day, after working on the plantation and seeing so much abuse you had to get it out and that was the way people did it.”

promote our shows around town and we had a pretty good following. Like you said, people just started coming up to our music. They would ask me after we broke up, ‘When’s your next show? When’s your next show?’ I couldn’t tell them I could play a show because I didn’t have anybody who could play music with me. So, I started teaching myself how to play the instruments, just so I’d never have that experience again in my life. I always wanted to be able get up and do a show if I felt like it and stand on my own. So, that’s what got me to finally seriously sit down and start spending 10 minutes a day learning guitar.” In 2017, June wrote a very moving piece for the New York Times about her father titled, ‘The First Time I Lost A Parent.’ It was a tribute to her father’s abiding influence. He not only ran a construction company but also, because he was a music fan became a promoter. She wrote: ‘So many times on the path toward manifesting my own musical dream, I have leaned on the work foundation he and my mother laid for us.’ “He was a music promoter and that was one of his businesses,” she explains. “That was his fun business, his dream and his other business was the business that made money. So, I learned how to promote music through working with him. I learned how to promote my shows in Memphis after I moved by the things that I learned from being with my dad.” So, June’s story is hardly one of overnight success; there are years of struggle behind it. “Yeah, many, many years, many years of just living the dream,” she agrees. “But you know, living the dream isn’t always glamorous. So, people think living the dream, that must be amazing, but living the dream sometimes is driving a hooptie (a dilapitated old car) and cleaning the toilet and then getting on stage.” The release of The Moon & Stars arrives just two months after June celebrated her 39th birthday and witnessed the success of her Voice Your Vote campaign in helping to get Joe Biden and Kamala Harris elected. She must be reasonably happy with the election result? “I’m very happy with it because I felt like we needed an administration that wasn’t pouring gasoline on fire and then inciting people toward more hatred and division and negativity. >>> Photo by Renata Raksha 47

>>> I just feel like America, could help to be a light and a guide and an inspiration for other nations but we can’t do it if we’re fighting each other and pulling each other down and not looking at humanity as a oneness.” Coming from the South, June is acutely aware of the divide in America having probably seen it in action for her entire life. “Oh yeah. I’m very aware,” she agrees. “It’s funny sometimes how people try to tell me about it as if I wouldn’t be aware because I live in a magical space, and the energy that it takes for me to step outside it and give attention to all the negativity is quite a lot. So, I choose to make the choice to live a joyful life of resistance, a joyful life of looking for the beauty in each moment and showing that as an example to younger black girls so that they will know that they don’t have to choose the same slave narratives, and they don’t have to choose the same chains and bonds that we’ve had put upon us.” “We don’t have to choose that. But if you don’t see the examples, then it’s harder to think that you could break out of it. You know? So, I think it’s important for us to look at the past and to face the past. But it’s also important for us to have magical iridescent, progressive beings that are like, ‘No, I’m going to shine. I’m going to shine. I’m going to shine. You’re not going to take my smile away. Nobody’s taking my smile. I’m going to shine’.” “Hell, no. That’s why I like the blues,” laughs June when I suggest that it is not easy to be smiling all the time. “To me, the blues was always the happy music. It was at the end of the day, after working on the plantation and seeing so much abuse, you had to get it out, and that was the way people did it.” June laughs when I ask her what she was doing during ‘the break’ between The Order of Time and The Moon & Stars. “Wow! You say break!” she exclaims. “The only break I’ve seen was last year with the pandemic. Other than that, when I put out a record I usually tour for two or three years pretty heavily: like 100 shows, 150 shows each year. So, I was on the road. I was on the road for a couple of years and then the pandemic happened. I made the record from 2018 until January of 2020 but I was on the road even during that time doing solo shows. So, that’s my life. Most of my income is made as a touring artist. So, I try to stay on the road as much as I can while my body is able to go and work, then I feel like I need to, because when I get older, I’m not going to want to hop on a plane so easily. “I’ve met so many producers, Brian,” responds June when I ask her how she came to work with Jack Splash. “I went on a producer tour. It was great, too. I loved all the producers that I met, but I chose to work with Jack because his appreciation for things like poetry, for visual arts, for sculptures, for 48

all kinds of other art, fashion was huge. And I was inspired by it basically. And I was like, I want to just be in the room with this person, soaking up all of that knowledge and that energy. It was just like being around someone who (has no) bounds to their creativity. “So, whenever I decided to choose to work with him too, I was like, I could work with an Americana producer or a blues producer or more like roots producer or a rock and roll producer. But I feel like I want to work with Jack because what he does with genre in his mind is the same way he deals with genre in fashion, poetry or art. There are no rules. He could take a genre and use it like a colour on a canvas versus using it as the actual painting. We were able to take the songs and do anything I wanted to do “Oh my God. Yes. It’s so great,” exclaims June when I mention that Splash has worked with many high-profile musicians. “Alicia Keys or CeeLo, John Legend. But really what got me was his last production that he’d done before I worked with him, I think, was Tank & The Bangas. Tank is so eclectic: she raps, she has poetry, her voice does almost opera sounds as well as low Southern sounds. I just liked what he did on ‘Colors Change’ on her record. It was so beautiful. I was like, if we could just capture half of that magic with the string arrangements and just the softness of it on my record, that’s going to be a whole new world that I really hear in my head, but I don’t know how to make it happen.” Splash also uses a palette of very interesting effects too and you can hear that at the start of ‘Within You,’ which immediately grabs your attention. June also gives credit to her engineer, Kenny Takahashi. “Kenny is incredible,” she enthuses. So, between engineers and producers, the work of sculpting the sound that I was hearing in my head, just they were the wizards. They were the ones who were able to make that happen.”

“When I get low or I feel down, I need these things to lift me up and I call them prescriptions; and, it could be a song, it could be a poem or a piece of art or a movie or anything.” The title of the album, The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers indicates a lot of the subject matter. Like much of June’s other work, especially on The Order of Time, it is very deep, spiritual and meaningful. “Well, many times when we were working on the record, it would be we didn’t plan this, but every day that we started in the studio was a full moon,” says June, “and that to me was bizarre. I was just like, ‘How in the world did it line up that this is a full moon again?’ It was a full moon in Miami and LA and New York. It was always on full moon days we

worked. Then when we came out of the studio on the very last day of our session, it was, I don’t know something going on with the stars and I looked up and there were three shooting stars that went across the sky and I was like, ‘Oh my God, the moon and stars have been with us through this whole record.’ It was amazing seeing that. “So, as I listened back to the music, I was just like dreams and stars. They just are everywhere in these songs. You know? Then I thought about my dream and I also thought about the dream of my father and the dream of my people and then Dr. King and his dream for humanity and John Lennon and his dream. When he says, ‘You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. We can live as one.’ I was deep into this idea of dreams and how you can have a small dream that’s just for you or for your family or your community, or you could have a dream for humanity, which is like Dr. King’s or John Lennon’s. But no matter what, with dreams, you’re going to experience challenges. You’re going to experience failure. And every dream is a risk, and dreamers get weak. For example, Dr. King’s dream is still, not 100% fulfilled. We see that after the need to even protest last year, as heavily as we did in our nation. “So, when a dreamer gets weak to me along my path, what’s kept me going were songs like ‘A Change is Going to Come’ by Sam Cooke or poems or art or photos, something, or a quote, something that would keep me lifted. One of my favorite quotes is from Joseph Campbell who said, ‘If you can’t see the path is laid out, if you can see every step in front of you, then it’s not your path.’ He basically says, you need to be on the path where you got to clear the way you got to clear the thicket. That’s your path. It’s not already paved. “So, when I get low or I feel down, I need these things to lift me up, and I call them prescriptions and it could be a song. It could be a poem or a piece of art or a movie or anything. But these are my prescriptions that I wanted to share with the world that are for people who have dreams.” “Everybody has a dream. When you’re a little kid, we all come to earth with a dream. But as we get older, the world says, ‘No, we don’t need that.’ So, we dim our little dreams down, and we say, ‘No, I can’t do it.’ But I happen to think that we shouldn’t do that, that dreams are needed. Especially now in our country with our new administration, we need more dreamers. I loved seeing that poet, Amanda Gorman get up at the inauguration. I went online to her Instagram afterwards and it said poet and dreamer as her description. And I was like, yes, bring it on. We need more of you young folks dreaming. “So, that’s it that the songs would be for courage, for bravery like a song like ’Call Me a Fool’, Carla Thomas sings at the beginning of it, she actually reads, ‘Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet.’ And I think she’s like a fairy godmother because

every dreamer they need fairy godmothers, of course. When she reads that, then the dreamer says, ‘Well you go ahead and call me a fool then because I don’t care if the world supports my love or my dreams or anything. I believe that this is needed and I’m going to follow my heart,’ and they jump in the water anyway. So, that’s kind of one of the stories on the record. There’s a lot of stories, but we don’t have time for all of them.” “I really wanted to do that with that song,” explains June about Carla Thomas, one of the stalwarts of the golden era of Stax Records, “because I just felt like Carla did the song, ‘What a Fool I’ve Been’ on Stax years ago and the idea of the fool has been played within many, many songs. It’s played with in tarot cards, and the fool is always this risk taker. They’re always a person who will do what they feel like will keep their heart open. So, Carla already had experience with working with the theme of being the fool. So, I was like, Carla, when she’s sings, ‘What a fool I’ve been,’ that right there, you got to... I had to have her on my record singing. You know, it’s so good.” While June has been blessed with a unique voice there are certainly singers who have inspired her over the years, especially Nina Simone, who also had a distinctive voice and was an amazing character. “I love her so much,” says June of Nina. “Oh yes. What a unique character. I mean, one thing besides her voice that I’m inspired by now in the midst of the pandemic is that they said - and it might’ve been her direct words that she practiced for six hours a day. With the pandemic, I feel like I’m finally learning how to play the guitar because I spend four to six hours every day with the guitar in my lap. And I’m inspired by her practice because I’ve never really spent much time practicsing. Like I said, I dedicated myself to 10 minutes a day and tried to squeeze in. I’d maybe do 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the evening when I got off work. But I never really had this kind of time and so I’m loving this time. I miss traveling. I miss the world, but I’m loving how I’ve been able to carve out a practice like Nina had.” For someone so relatively young, June ask some really big questions. She obviously spends a lot of time thinking about life, the universe, everything else, reflected in songs such as ‘Why the Bright Stars Glow’, ‘Stardust Scattering’ and the album closer, ‘Starlight Ethereal Silence.” There’s a lot of so much depth there. “Well, there is a lot of depth and that is hard to talk about even,” she says. “So, the word ‘star’ - it can say it all in a lot of ways because it automatically puts the mind in a totally different place. I just believe that every life has a purpose and every person that comes to earth has some kind of gift they can give to the earth. I think that we’re here and this is a school for us to learn how to treat each other and to learn how to treat the earth. And that maybe there are other ways and other places of being, but our mind doesn’t even have to go that far. Just being here is amazing. Just seeing the moon and the stars at night is a miracle.

“I just believe that every life has a purpose and every person that comes to earth has some kind of gift they can give to the earth.”

Ben Mastwyk’s new album, with his band The Millions, pushes his songs further and takes more risks.

By Denise Hylands

elbourne’s own Cosmic Country Cowboy Ben Mastwyk, has taken a wild trip from playing in a genre-bending, noisy, grungy experimental rock band at high school to psychedelic honky tonk country with his band The Millions and the release of his 3rd album Livin’ On Gold Street. Prior to his solo career you would have seen Mastwyk playing banjo with Jemma Rowlands & The Clifton Hillbillies. Meeting Rowlands at art school they discovered their mutual love and admiration for country music. Having got a banjo for his 30th birthday, there was no stopping him. “For me, it was pretty much Gram Parsons 24 seven back then,” says Mastwyk when asked about the country music connection that he made with Jemma that got him motivated to pursue country music.” I honestly struggled to listen to anything but Gram for about two years. I just got so mystified by the sounds in there. Then you can kind of follow Gram’s influences out and it connects to the entire history of country music. I was listening to a lot of Carter Family, back then. I grew up with two of my mum’s favourite singers, Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams. So, I’d always listened to country music growing up anyway. But I guess this is when I came around and became really obsessed with it in my own right. “Gram does a few things. He both connects you to the absolute heart, soul and roots of country music. But he also connects you to this broader notion of country rock and the psychedelic and cosmic aspects of it as well. Viewing country music through that lens and Gene Clark and a whole bunch of other people, to explore that more cosmic edge, that for me really helped me connect my earlier, more experimental rock kind of thing back into this roots world of country music.” 50

The Gram Parsons connection is so clear: you can’t miss Mastwyk and The Millions by the Nudie inspired suits they wear. It’s the attention to detail that makes this outfit shine. “It connects back to all the golden era country music stuff: rhinestones and Nudie suits,” explains Ben, “and all of that, to me, one of the most exciting things about country music is that juxtaposition of sad, heartfelt songs whilst wearing ludicrous rhinestone encrusted outfits. Ben says ludicrous, I say fantastic! “Absolutely,” he agrees. “Ludicrous in a good way. There’s just something about that juxtaposition of those elements, which I just find enthralling. It elevates the country performance to this other worldly kind of place.” Looking back on Matswyk’s previous albums - Mornin’ Evenin’ in 2015, the debut, was inspired by time spent travelling across the US and Winning Streak from 2018 was the breakup album – but on this new album it sounds like life is good. Mastwyk doesn’t, by any chance, live on a street called Gold Street? “Well, you mentioned that Winning Streak, was written about the breakdown of a Relationship,” he replies. “This album is about a new relationship and at the time that I was starting this new relationship, we were literally and figuratively living on Gold Street in Collingwood. It’s not just a clever name, it’s facts as well. “I think I went through some pretty hard times over the last few years as we all do. But I’ve really arrived at a place that is very full of life and love. And I feel connected to the core of my creative self again which is really exciting.” From the twang of the crying pedal steel to the clickety clack of the guiro, The Millions

deliver as well as some beautiful voices that join Mastwyk in song. “You’ll know from my previous records,” he says, “I love singing with people. I’ve got my favourite singers in the Melbourne country music scene, Rose Zita Falko and Brooke Russell, who I’ve worked with for a long time now. And somebody who’s really thrilling to work with because I absolutely adore her voice is Loretta Miller.” In addition, Michael Hubbard not only plays guitar in The Millions but has also produced the album. “He was the producer of this record,” agrees Ben. “Yeah. We’ve got a great working relationship. Where I’ll come in and sit there with the guitar and I’ve usually got a big bag of songs on me and I’ll just play him a bunch of songs and be like, what do you like? What do you reckon? Which ones stand out to you? “I try and give him as much creative freedom as possible because I really trust his musical sensibility. It’s really exciting to create music that isn’t just the product of my mind. To run it through his musical mind. We just end up with something way more exciting than if I tried to kind of micromanage and mastermind the whole thing myself.” The album sounds great and it feels like Mastwyk has really found his voice and his own sound not only as a solo performer but as a part of a band. “Thank you,” says Mastwyk. “I feel like on the last record we were discovering who we were, and this record, we knew who we were. There was a lot of confidence in this record, I think. And that meant that we kind of felt confident to push the songs even further and take more risks and be more cheeky and more bodacious.” Living on Gold Street is available at mastwyk.bandcamp.com/

“The bottom line is, regardless of our love of Elvis Costello’s work, and joy in reinterpreting a favourite songwriter, at

UK duo My Darling Clementine team up with Steve Nieve to reconfigure Elvis Costello’s songs. By Bernard Zuel

the end of the day we are songwriters, we are not a

Photo by Marco Bakker

covers band.”

irst in three EPs and then, at year’s end, those three compiled into an album, Michael Weston King and Lou Dalgleish have engineered one of the more curious, supposedly niche but actually widely appealing projects of that mad year, 2020. The husband-and-wife team who have long worked as a roots/Americana duo under the name My Darling Clementine, reconfigured Elvis Costello songs – some familiar, several known only to deep cut fans – into country duets. Old school style. Like Tammy & George, without the drunken brawling, or Loretta and Conway without the comic twang; like Johnny & June without 52

speed and forbidden love, or The Civil Wars without, well, the uncivil breakup. Like Keith Urban and … actually, no, nothing like Keith Urban at all. Called Country Darkness, it’s a cracking set: finding new ways to hear these songs, and new approaches even to songs that had country roots themselves. And like Emma Swift’s marvellous reimagining of Bob Dylan, Blonde On The Tracks, it blurs lines of demarcation between fans, devotees and newcomers. But you might still ask why would a duo with plenty of their own songs and at that point no public clamour for the concept, conceive

of a project like this? “Why not?” says Dalgliesh with a laugh. “Pure self-indulgence enjoying the opportunity to work with our favourite songwriter’s material.” She’s only party serious, as King explains that it came from an idle thought one day to put together a Spotify playlist of his favourite Costello songs which could be classed as country or country soul. “I thought this would make a great album, I’m surprised Elvis hasn’t put an album out with this - of course you could do the same with other genres he’s worked in - and then I thought, maybe we should do it.”

He’s quick to point out that it’s not like My Darling Clementine have always stuck to straight lines anyway. Even after our second album, we made a song-and-story album with Mark Billingham, the British crime writer – another Elvis maniac - based around a number of our songs and contributions from Graham Parker and Brodsky Quartet,” he says. “But once we got Steve involved with this, then it was like, we better see this thing through, let’s do a couple of songs and finish it.” Dalgliesh steps in to say that “I think it was a more positive approach than he has just described it: ‘we might as well just see this

through’. We were very excited to have Steve on board and we thought this is a project that three of us can really enjoy and embrace. It was a very exciting thing to get our teeth into.” It’s time to introduce the third key member of the project, Steve. As in Steve Nieve, keyboard player of some renown, composer, man of many names (from birth name Nason, through Steve A’Dore and Nieve, then Maurice Worm and Norman Brain, to, often, The Professor) and Costello’s right-hand man through almost all his multifarious projects since joining The Attractions in 1977. While Dalgleish and King had met him once

or twice before and had friends in common, including members of Nick Lowe’s band who played on the first MDC album, it was still an out of the blue pitch to him, just after the Grammy award-winning Look Now album Nieve had made with Costello and the rest of his second long-lasting band, The Imposters. An online post from the Paris-based Nieve wondering “who should we work with next?” caught King’s eye and “I emailed him and said, you should work with us”. Nieve readily agreed. Indeed, at one point all of The Imposters - including the US-based drummer Pete Thomas and bass player Davey Faragher - were in line to work on the record, >>> 53

>>> though logistics, geography and finance eventually ruled that out. By contrast, jumping on the train to Paris, and later, exchanging tapes online, was no trouble at all. In fact, Nieve and MDC were somewhat ahead of the covid trend of international border closures creating remote partnerships and “musical tennis”. Their working method would see Nieve send piano parts over, King and Dalgliesh heading into a Sheffield studio near their home to build a track around it, and then they’d send it back to him for extra keyboard parts. Out of those would come things like the fairground organ behind the fast-spinning wheel of The Crooked Line, which in its original form on Costello’s 2009 album, Secret, Profane & Sugarcane was an easy bluegrass mountains dance around the front parlour. “Some of the outtakes that Steve sent were just fantastic: mad little bits and one song every two lines it would change,” says King. “It was like he sent us a jigsaw with all these bits to be assembled. A lot ended up in the bin, I must admit, but that was how it was.” It may seem odd that Nieve would be interested in reworking songs many (but certainly not all) of which he had played on originally. Been there done that? But apart from Country Darkness showing the seemingly endless opportunities for imagination and rethinking, Nieve has regularly performed Costello songs solo or completely rearranged in other ensembles. And for writers and collaborators like Dalgliesh and King, getting his wholehearted involvement and creativity, was exciting. Within reason. “It was exciting, but we didn’t always like his ideas,” says Dalgliesh with a bit a spark in her eye as King chuckles beside her. “It was very much a collaboration. Much as I am a complete mad fan of Steve, and we both absolutely admire him and love his work with complete respect for him, the nature of a collaboration is that it doesn’t work if one person calls the shots.” Or indeed plays all the shots. Dalgleish, who once performed a theatrical show based around Costello songs sung from a woman’s perspective and stepped in to perform Costello’s part in a performance of the semiclassical Juliet Letters which he wrote with The Brodsky Quartet, has been enjoying the assumptions made by many listeners and critics that the elegantly simple playing on ‘Indoor Fireworks’ is Nieve’s work, when she played it. “Yeah, everything that Steve contributed that’s on the record we 100 per cent loved, but it was a two-way thing and we had ideas and we worked through them just like any writing team would until we were all happy,” 54

Dalgleish says. “We were excited, yeah, but I think so was he.” When thinking about Nieve ideas refashioning their own, King singles out ‘I Wear It Proudly’, from Costello’s protoAmericana 1986 record King Of America. His initial thought had been to do it in the style of a Johnny Cash boom-chicka-boom song, whereas Nieve was hearing it more like Bruce Springsteen’s quietly atmospheric ‘Streets Of Philadelphia’: slowed down, a moody synth figure in the background. “He was right,” says Dalgliesh. Costello nerds would know that the original version of ‘I Wear It Proudly’ did not feature Nieve, or indeed any member of Costello’s then band, The Attractions, with the album made by a cast of rather biggish names in American music, including members of the other Elvis’ TCB band. While the record was/ is a stunner, the exclusion of The Attractions was something which maybe still is a sore point with Pete Thomas and Nieve, who along with then-bassist Bruce Thomas, sat for some weeks in an LA hotel waiting for their call to the studio. So, yeah, maybe Nieve had had some 30-years of pent-up ideas for that song. In any case, something else to note about this new version of ‘I Wear It Proudly’ is that if you didn’t know better, you might believe it was a rye-and-gin-soaked Tammy Wynette & George Jones classic. But while those artists might be the touchstones for us, that’s not really how the album plays out:

obvious routes were more often avoided than followed. For example, ‘Different Finger’ moves from its original straight country to something more like Tex-Mex, ‘Stranger In The House’, (which was originally a duet with George Jones in 1979), picks up a touch of rumba and gets closer to the Mexican border than Tennessee, and ‘Why Can’t A Man Stand Alone’ is played as a deep soul ballad, providing a stylistic link to the original My Darling Clementine song on the record, ‘Powerless’. If you’re wondering, choosing to include their own ‘Powerless’ was no mere token. “The bottom line is, regardless of our love of Elvis Costello’s work, and joy in reinterpreting a favourite songwriter, at the end of the day we are songwriters, we are not a covers band. So somehow, even though it’s Elvis, our favourite artist, and even though it’s Steve Nieve, we still feel a part of us needs to be on there,” says Dalgleish. “Certainly, for me - Michael can’t comment as he pretty much wrote that - I think it’s a fantastic song and you deserve to sit alongside Costello’s work. “Which obviously is the ultimate compliment I can pay my husband. And they don’t come around very often.” They both chortle at this. “That’s the only [compliment] this year, and you are present for it,” says King. Sounds like a country duet in the making don’t you think? Country Darkness is available now through Fretsore Records.

January 27, 28 & 29, 1973, on a farm north west of Melbourne…

By Denise Hylands

n February 2020, Tracy McNeil released her 5th album You Be The Lightning with her band The Good Life, packing up her life in Melbourne to pursue a nomadic musical journey. And then, well you know what happened… “I let the job go for the year and sold all my furniture,” explains Tracy. “I sold everything that I’d accumulated over the last 12 years in Australia, got rid of it, and Dan (Parsons) and I just packed what we could fit into his van that had a bed, a fridge and all our gear and a PA underneath, and our clothes and two tiny little suitcases, and that was it. We hit the road. The plan was to live four months in Australia, then meet up with the band and tour and do duo shows in between, and then hit the road to Canada and do the endless summer. So, we’d do summer Australia, summer Canada, return just in time to go summer again in Australia and just tour the crap out of this record and Dan’s really. So, yeah. That was it.” Living in Brisbane for most of the year, the plans for the album and a year on the road had suddenly come to a halt. “I actually was trying to rationalise my mind because I just could not fathom having to cancel,” says Tracy. “And it’s funny how you go from that mindset to now, I got so devastated. It took me probably a month to come out of a depression over it really. And then I just slowly got used to this idea that nothing is constant, everything’s changing. I mean, we all know this, but until you go through something like this. If a gig gets cancelled now, I’m like, all right, whatever. Who cares? We’ll figure it out down the track. So, I’m holding on less tightly to things, which I think is a good thing for mental health.” With all their plans going down the drain, good things did happen and the new album got some really great recognition throughout the year. An ARIA nomination and Music Victoria Award for Best Country Album. “It was very exciting,” she says. I didn’t ever think it would happen to be honest, but yeah. We were just over the moon. I couldn’t believe it. And it’s that kind of thing, you physically can’t keep pushing the record because you pack it out on the road and meet the fans and play for the

people and try to win new listeners over, and get to enjoy the time with the band and feel like you’re really working the record and getting it out there. You just have to hope that we’ve done enough and hope that it resonated enough. So, to get the Aria nomination for best blues and roots, I thought it was cool, and then the nomination for the Music Victoria award for best country album, made me pleased because it shows the diversity. The album sits in all these different pockets. Nobody’s quite sure where to put it. Also, being featured in so many people’s top list of releases for the year including No. 5 on the Rhythms Top albums of the year. I know and your list too, which was very nice. Very kind. Thank you.

McNeil has announced a tour, starting in April, which is very exciting, and she will be getting the band back together and getting out on the road. “Yes. I can’t believe it,” says Tracy. “And you know what’s really cool, is we landed the support for Aussie legend James Reyne of Australian Crawl. And we landed that last year, and we were going to get to play all these beautiful theatres. So, The Enmore and The Palais and all of this, and when COVID hit, as much as I was disappointed about my own tour, I was thinking, oh my goodness, we’re not going to get to play all those gorgeous shows with James. So, it’s fantastic news that that is now a part of our official tour. We’re back on board with him, and fingers crossed, if all goes to plan, we’ve got about 17 shows on our tour. And a lot of them are with James opening up the show for him. So, that’s really exciting for all of us. So, has Melbourne lost McNeil to Brisbane or will she be coming back home? “You might’ve lost us for a while,” she replies. “I think our plan is to try to keep playing music. I think what’s happened now is we’re at this really nice part with the band where we don’t have to necessarily live in the same town anymore, because we’re not playing the pub scene every weekend like we have been for the last 10 years. So, we can just meet up, have some rehearsals and hit the road. And it’s warm. The winters are great.”

“It was a landmark event. A watershed, in a sense. Before Sunbury, import record shops were all the rage and people thought of Australian music as being second-rate to what was going on overseas. Sunbury was the start of people standing up and feeling proud of their own music.” MICHAEL GUDINSKI

Originally released in April 1973, Sunbury was Mushroom Records’ first release and the very first Australian triple album.

LIMITED EDITION THREE LP SET OUT NOW Tracy McNeil & The Good Life tour from April 9. Details at tracymcneil.com. You Be The Lightning by Tracy McNeil & The Good Life is out now.

Remastered by Don Bartley in 2020 and containing all the original artwork. Pressed on ‘watermelon’ coloured vinyl in Melbourne, the spiritual home of Mushroom and birthplace of Bloodlines.

“We love both kinds of music – ’60s and ’70s.”

PIC: Emma-jane Johnston

- Ash Naylor

Melbourne’s Ashley Naylor might be the hardest-working man in showbiz.

Catholic nun, a nine-year-old schoolboy and a guitar. It sounds like a strange scene from The Blues Brothers or Flying High. But when they make the biopic of Ashley Naylor’s life, this could be how it starts: Sister Deidre is giving young Ash his first guitar lesson. She shows him how to play an old gospel song, ‘Rock My Soul In The Bosom Of Abraham’. Ash is so excited he races home to play the song for his mum. She’s at work, so Ash calls her and proudly plays the song for her over the phone. ‘Rock My Soul In The Bosom Of Abraham’ doesn’t turn up on Even’s new album, Down The Shops, a collection of covers, though Naylor jokes: “I’ve been re-writing that song for the last 42 years.” Indeed, he took the invitation at the start of ‘Abraham’ to heart and embraced it as a career-defining mantra: Why don’t you rock my soul? The only thing is, the story of Ash Naylor’s life might have to be a mini-series instead of a movie. Is there a busier musician in the world? As well as being a key member of Paul Kelly’s band, Naylor is also in The Church, The Stems and The Ronson Hangup. He’s part of

By JEFF JENKINS the RocKwiz Orkestra. He has a covers band, Thee Marshmallow Overcoat, with Davey Lane. And his own band, Even, has been a mainstay of the Melbourne music scene for 27 years. “I didn’t think too much about the future when I was in my 20s,” Naylor smiles when asked if he’s surprised by Even’s longevity. As he sang on the band’s self-titled fifth album, “Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to years …” Before Even started, Naylor and drummer Matthew Cotter had been in a band called The Swarm (fronted by Francis Leach, later a noted broadcaster). “Matt and I did some demos in ’93 and a good friend of ours, Jeff Tennant [who also managed The Fauves], mentioned to Wally [Kempton] that we were looking for a bass player. As it happens, Wally liked the demo and had some time up his sleeve, and here we are.” The three-piece started in simpler times, when the internet didn’t really exist (try Googling “Even”) and “The Voice” was John Farnham, not a TV show. Hell, Even even called one of their albums In Another Time. Naylor says: “We love both kinds of music – ’60s and ’70s.”

Even did their first gig in 1994, at the Empress of India in Fitzroy, with Ammonia and Hurdy Gurdy. They “gravitated towards like-minded bands” in the early days, and they’ve outlived just about all of ’em, including Snout, Sidewinder, Oliver, 78 Saab, Knievel and Ammonia. One of the band’s first big gigs was supporting The Fauves at The Club in Collingwood. “They were really good,” recalls Fauves singer Andrew Cox, who can still remember how many payers they had that night (129). “And they took their place in the huge list of bands who have played beneath us on a bill and then quickly gone on to become much more popular – see Powderfinger, Regurgitator, You Am I, Motor Ace, The Superjesus ... it’s a long list, so I won’t continue.” Even are celebrating some big anniversaries in 2021. It’s 25 years since their debut album, Less Is More, which created a big buzz when released. It was nominated for an ARIA Award for Best Independent Release (the trophy went to Savage Garden, who won a record 10 awards that night). And it came in at number 30 when The Age ranked the 50 best Australian albums of all time.

It’s also 20 years since Even’s highestcharting album, A Different High, which reached number 48 on the ARIA charts. ‘Black Umbrella’ – from Even’s second album, Come Again – remains the band’s biggest single, spending one week at number 85 at the start of 1999. Chart-topping success might have eluded Even and Naylor, but he has something much more important – the respect and admiration of his peers. Paul Kelly marvels at Naylor’s ability to play just about anything. “We badger him backstage to play the big singalong songs as a warm-up before we go on,” Kelly says. “In amazement I watch his hands move all around the fret-board as he and the rest of us belt out ‘Tin Soldier’, ‘Up The Junction’ or ‘Days’ at the top of our voices.” Ash Naylor is the human jukebox. In his Paul Kelly biography, Stuart Coupe explains how Naylor ended up in Kelly’s band after Dan Kelly and Dan Luscombe departed. Drummer Peter Luscombe was playing with Naylor in the Countdown Spectacular band. Kelly saw one of the gigs and when Luscombe suggested Naylor would be a good fit for the vacant guitar spot, Kelly replied, “I thought you were going to say that. I agree.” “The next thing I know,” Naylor says, picking up the story, “I’m having a cup of tea in Paul’s kitchen and playing his songs face to face with him. That obviously went well because 12 years later I’m still doing it.” Naylor also officially joined The Church at the start of 2020. Steve Kilbey had been a long-time fan, saying of Western Sun, the second album for The Grapes, Naylor’s duo with Sherry Rich: “Naylor and Rich’s voices harmonise and you feel those great open spaces and frontier towns come alive before your ears.” Naylor is also a member of Melbourne band The Ronson Hangup, named in honour of the great English guitarist Mick Ronson. Naylor met the band’s Pinkerton brothers, Steve and Mal, in the ’90s, “and we’ve been carrying on like giggling schoolgirls ever since”. The Ronson Hangup released a self-titled album in 2009 – to date, their only LP – and Naylor remains a committed member. “I love their amazing songs and their collective world view.” EVEN

DOWN THE SHOPS

Cheersquad Records Now well into their third decade, the indie-pop trio is a Melbourne institution whose contribution to the local music scene compares with other local heavyweights like Paul Kelly and Joe Camilleri. Their journey has encompassed seven studio albums, bristling with irresistible pop-rock melodicism, reflecting their inspirations whilst retaining their originality. Down The Shops is a compilation with a difference, bringing together a diverse range of covers that have previously seen life as A or B-sides of singles and tribute albums, and paying homage to both influences and peers. Bookended by a cracking rendition of ’’Til The

Steve Pinkerton calls Naylor “indefatigable”. “He’s a ball of energy and infectious good humour, with a voracious appetite for creating and playing music,” Pinkerton says. “On or offstage, Ash is genuinely a ‘salt of the earth’ type of guy – extremely honest and puts others first. We often laugh how we won the trifecta because we get on like a house on fire and so do our partners and our children. Our ongoing friendship oscillates between sharing a stage to camping with the kids.” The first Even album included the line, “You must have lost your mind, has it lost you?” But despite the acclaim and the big gigs, Naylor’s feet have remained firmly on the ground. Indeed, if there was a competition for the best bloke in Australian music, he’d be fighting it out with his buddies Davey Lane and Steve Pinkerton for a podium finish. “After all these years you get to the point where you realise you’re serving the song and not your ego,” Naylor told Stuart Coupe. “That’s what your own records are for.” Even’s latest album, Down The Shops – their eighth studio album – collects the covers they have recorded over the years, saluting their idols and influences, including The Stems (‘For Always’), Sunnyboys (‘Show Me Some Discipline’), Hoodoo Gurus (‘Arthur’), The Kinks (‘’Til The End Of The Day’), The Beatles (‘And Your Bird Can Sing’), The Posies (‘Solar Sister’) and The Masters Apprentices (‘Living In A Child’s Dream’). Naylor was part of Jim Keays’ band before the Masters legend died in 2014. He’s had many unforgettable moments on stage, including playing with Stephen Cummings and The Sports at the MCG, supporting teen sensations Silverchair in 1996 at the Sydney Showgrounds (“scary, yet exciting”), and losing his voice on stage at the Big Day Out (“it was the longest 45 minutes”). He’s even backed Police Academy sound effects star Michael Winslow. And he fondly recalls George Negus introducing Paul Kelly at a festival: “The Yanks have got Bob Dylan and we’ve got Paul Kelly.” We’re also pretty damn lucky to have Ash Naylor, too. Down The Shops is out now on Cheersquad Records & Tapes.

ASH NAYLOR’S FAVOURITE ALBUMS Luke Thomas, Ash Naylor’s bandmate in The Ronson Hangup, asked Naylor to list his favourite albums for his web page “My Top Ten”: Explosive Hits ’75: “This compilation was a vivid soundtrack to my early childhood.” Kiss – Double Platinum: “Kiss was my first real rock ’n’ roll obsession.” Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV: “One night I heard ‘Black Dog’ on the radio and my world changed.” The Beatles – Rubber Soul: “Their sound is so familiar to me that their influence has become subconscious.” The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead: “In the sonic wasteland of the ’80s, The Smiths stood out like the proverbial.” David Bowie – Hunky Dory: “An album full of incredible songs by an artist on the cusp of greatness.” The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses: “I waited all of the ’80s for this band.” David Crosby – If I Could Only Remember My Name: “I often reach for this album to remind myself that rock music can be truly liberating, especially when not aimed at a commercial target.” Midnight Oil – 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1: “As a teenager in the early ’80s, I was transfixed by the twin guitar attack of Martin Rotsey and Jim Moginie, as I was later in the ’80s by Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes from The Church.”

End Of The Day’ (The Kinks) and The Meanies’ ‘The Reason Why’, there are sparkling versions of songs by The Beatles (‘And Your Bird Can Sing’), The Yardbirds (‘For Your Love’), Blondie (‘Presence, Dear’), The Sex Pistols (a thunderous ‘Pretty Vacant’), MC5 (‘Shakin’ Street’), as well as Oz mainstays Sunnyboys (‘Show Me Some Discipline’) and Hoodoo Gurus (‘Arthur’); the Master’s Apprentices classic ‘Living In A Child’s Dream’ is a standout. The album is presented in a beautiful cover, a glorious work of art by drummer Matt Cotter depicting another time another place, befitting of the enclosed musical journey. From power pop to punk, from timeless hooks to jangling riffs, Even has it covered TREVOR J. LEEDEN 59

Jimmy Dowling’s latest release is born of time, space and the help of some serious musical cohorts, writes Samuel J. Fell “She’d cut the head clean off,” Jimmy Dowling sings. “Put it straight in the pot. There’s another saucepan caramelising diced onions in oil, to that she’d add the water and set to boil. Salt. Pepper. Cumin. That aroma filled her kitchen. “Cures whatever ails ya. Ladle it out into a giant bowl. Turns deckhands into Adonis’s.” Dowling’s laconic, uniquely Australian drawl is low, almost spoken word in how slowly he delivers these lines. He’s backed by Reuben Legge’s alto sax, the subtle drumming of Hamish Stuart. Dowling himself adds smatterings of acoustic guitar. The song is ‘Fifi’s Egyptian Fish Head Soup’, and its simplicity belies the feeling that informs it, makes it more powerful than, as I suggest to Dowling, merely a recipe set to song. “That one took twenty years to write, whittle [it] down and leave things out,” he muses. “I was working on it just before I recorded it; it harks back to my commercial fishing days.” This song is one of ten, which combine elegantly to form Dowling’s latest offering, Sociable Sounds. It’s an album that seems to make time disappear; a slow, thoughtful, introspective record that demands repeat listens on rainy days with plentiful red wine and cheap cigarettes – there’s no hurry to this record. Indeed, it’s taken some time to appear, although to be fair to Dowling, perhaps not – we inhabit the same laid back, slow moving part of the world and every so often over the past year, we’ve bumped into one another, and every time he’d make reference to songs he was working on, some recording he was doing. And so perhaps, to me, Sociable Sounds seems a long time coming, but as Dowling says, in his pithy way, “[It’s not been] long, it’s just been strung out.” He stops to think, you can almost see him shrug, even via email, and writes, “Even when I think I’m speeding things up, they’re slow. Ha ha,” he adds. And so, working closely with producer Christian Pyle, out of Prawn & Spanner Studios, Sociable Sounds came to be, slowly slowly perhaps, or just under the radar. Which is, truth be told, how Dowling works, not just musically, but in life; slow and measured, that’s Jimmy Dowling. These songs then, are born of him and are his children; all carrying 60

characteristics of the man who helped make them, no matter how slowly (or seemingly so) it all built into how it sounds, how it runs together, today. “The music didn’t take long at all,” he says. “Christian did it all pro bono, so we had no deadlines, we recorded when we felt like it; we’ve both got kids and work and we live an hour apart… life gets in the way. “And we waited for musicians to be passing through, so we could record the way we wanted and get it in one or two takes. There was saving dollars for mastering. Right when I was going to start putting it out last year, the great artist Shane Bishop suggested it was time I had my head on an album cover for once and that he’d love to paint the portrait, so naturally I said, ‘Yes please’.” Because of the COVID menace, despite the fact Dowling and I live in reasonably close proximity, most of our correspondence for this story was via email, along with a slew of short and almost indecipherable text messages at odd times of day. I’d be sitting at my desk, writing something else in the postgloam, and my phone would ding. Once, twice, three times in quick succession. “There’s a lot of musical empathy between myself and all those characters on the record,” he wrote at one point, before breaking it down further. “JZ (Jonathan Zwartz)’s double bass reminds me of a big old ship’s anchor that can also manage bottom-of-the-ocean ballet.” “Hamish [Stuart] is the most musical and lyrical of drummers.” “Matt [Walker] is a genius who can play anything to suit, with a bit extra.” A little later, after another small flurry of text, he says, “I’ll keep sending shit. Can ya use my phone stuff?” “Sure can,” I write back. “Christian Pyle’s brilliant studio, lamp-lit, Victorian clutter, all manner of instruments, books, strange objects, weird ‘n’ wonderful things up the walls and hanging from the ceiling, made me feel comfortable and at home to start. “We’d work late and have a cuppla beers ‘n’ I’d stay in the cabin nearby. Very civilised.” Dowling credits Pyle with more than just the stellar production that pulls these songs together, rendering them a coherent album as opposed to a mere collection of tunes. It was Pyle, as Dowling says, who came up with the album’s name, and who pushed for it to happen: “It was all CP’s idea, about three years ago,” he remembers. “I contacted him a year later, then we started a few months later…”

Also helping Dowling were the ‘characters’ to whom he alluded – double bassist Jonathan Zwartz, drummer Hamish Stuart, guitarist Matt Walker, Reuben Legge on alto sax, Dean Drouillard on six and 12-string guitars, Phil Levy on bouzouki, Cye Wood on fiddle, Don Walker adding some piano. There’s also a Bar Choir (Judge Mason and Mooseknuckle Matthews, on ‘Mr Valentine’s Dead’), plus Dowling adds guitar, some trumpet, some accordion. Pyle too, adds bass drum in parts. “Some of the best hired guns, and top blokes too,” he says of his musical cohorts on the album. “I’ve worked with them all before. They know what to do and what they do is why they’re there. They’re all players that suit the songs, like Don’s saloon style, he does that perfect for the bar room scene of ‘Mr Valentine’s Dead’. “He only came in for that song, but asked if there was anything else I heard him on. I’d been thinking of ‘Hemp Twine’, just in case, so we played that to him while he listened, eyes shut, then got up and walked over to the piano and said, ‘I’ll start playing when you finish singing’, and there we had it.” More, via text, on ‘Fifi’s Egyptian Fish Head Soup’: “[That] wasn’t hard to write because it was true. It started out as a soup and I had to compress it into a stock cube. Not that Fifi would ever use stock cubes in her soup. Ha, ha.” “I used to come back from two weeks at sea and give her a 20kg albacore – [she was an] old family friend from Egypt. The sax made [the song] sexy. Without that, it’s just a young deckhand, a middle-aged lady and a fish.” Dowling’s wife, Sarra, “wanted to use Don’s original version of ‘In The End’ for our wedding waltz, ten years ago. I wasn’t into it and told her it wasn’t a waltz anyway, and that I’d record it one day as a waltz so we could use it if we ever got married again… [Sociable Sounds] was released by MGM on our wedding anniversary too. Funny.” Dowling notes too, that Sociable Sounds is his “first album with horns, first album without pedal steel.” He talks of Pyle again, noting “If it wasn’t for CP, the record wouldn’t be here. He even inadvertently came up with the title in some offhand comment he made about starting recording for the day… ha, ha.” I ask Dowling, via email this time, if he’s happy with how Sociable Sounds has turned out. His answer essentially sums it all up – short and to the point: “Yes,” he writes, pithy to the very end, “Happy it worked.” Sociable Sounds is available now via MGM Distribution, and www.jimmydowling.com

“We’d work late and have a cuppla beers ‘n’ I’d stay in the cabin nearby. Very civilised.”

For his new album, Richard Clapton goes back to where it all began. By Jeff Jenkins This story starts – like so many great music stories – with Dylan. Richard Clapton was 15 years old and at boarding school. He’d stay up late, listening to Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson records with his best mate, Ross. One day, Ross’s older brother, Allan, returned from his post-graduate studies in Belgium with a stack of new albums. Clapton remembers it as the night he had his first nip of scotch. As Allan put on one of his new records, both Richard and Ross yelled, “Take it off!” “When you’ve been listening to Marvin Gaye, it was like fingernails down a blackboard,” Clapton recalls. He had a second nip of scotch just as ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ came on the stereo. “All I can tell you is I had an epiphany,” he smiles. “I went from, ‘Take this guy off to I’m seeing God.’” Richard and Ross’s favourite band was The Byrds and they soon discovered that this Dylan guy had written many of their songs. After high school, Clapton followed Ross overseas. As the Summer of Love was happening in San Francisco, Clapton was living in London and Berlin, but it was the Californian counterculture songs that provided the soundtrack to his travels. He owned only two cassettes – Neil Young’s After The Gold Rush and David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name. In his autobiography, The Best Years of Our Lives, Clapton declared, “I was one lucky hippie”. “I look back at that whole period of my youth and I think, ‘Wow, talk about being born precisely at the right time.’” Five decades later, for his 16th studio album, Richard Clapton has done something he’s never done before – a covers album, celebrating the songs that provided the soundtrack to his youth.

Not that the album, the aptly titled Music Is Love, was his idea. In fact, he initially scoffed at the suggestion, pointing out, dismissively, that he wrote his own songs. The idea was floated during a post-gig drink with one of Australia’s finest music managers, Terry Blamey, who guided Kylie Minogue’s career for three decades. Blamey had met Clapton during the ’70s when he was briefly the artist’s booking agent. “Though I’m not sure if Richard remembers that,” Blamey laughs. “He hardly remembers the ’70s.” When he wandered backstage, Blamey found Clapton buzzing with stories about a recent trip to San Francisco, where he was on the hippie trail in Haight-Ashbury. “You know what you should do,” Blamey said when the stories stopped. “You should do an album of hippie anthems.” Clapton was initially reluctant – why would a songwriter do an album of covers? – but a couple of days later he called Blamey. “I’ll do it,” he said, “on one condition – that you’re the executive producer.” This became an immensely personal project for Blamey as well. He spent several enjoyable nights with Clapton, listening to records and selecting songs. They had many common experiences, though they were shaped by different musical memories. For example, Clapton knew the opening track, ‘Get Together’, as a song by The Youngbloods, but Blamey first heard it as ‘Let’s Get Together’ by Jefferson Airplane. “It was on the very first album I ever got – Jefferson Airplane Takes Off,” Blamey explains. “At the time I was a teenager who wasn’t really into music. My dad came home from a business trip to California and said, ‘The guy in the record shop in San Francisco said you had to have this album.’ “That album changed my life.” As David Crosby notes in the documentary

Echo In The Canyon, “We were putting poetry on the radio. It changed everything for everybody.” While making this record, Clapton realised it was not just a personal project; the world – divided by Trump, fractured by COVID-19 and confronting the Black Lives Matter movement – still needed these songs. These are songs of healing and hope. The working title for the album was “Hippie”. Clapton also considered calling it “Almost Cut My Hair” but thought that was too flippant. He and Blamey settled on Music Is Love, which was the title of the opening track on David Crosby’s debut solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name. Clapton has always loved the eccentric Crosby. “He’s a part of my DNA.” Englishman Eric Clapton is also featured in the Echo In The Canyon documentary about the LA scene. “I loved it,” he says. “I was attracted to eccentrics and they were all there.” Richard Clapton is one of the great eccentrics of Australian music. His look has not changed in five decades – dark glasses and a mop of curly black hair. He’s a raconteur and one of the most-loved members of the Australian music community. His buddies call him Ralph. Terry Blamey calls him “Australia’s favourite hippie”. And as INXS noted in their official autobiography, “Clapton was known to party like the Eagles wrapped up in one man”. Music Is Love also showcases a fine band. Clapton has always surrounded himself with great musicians and Music Is Love features some stellar playing, with guitarists Danny Spencer and Jak Housden, Baby Animals drummer Mick Skelton, Clayton Doley on keyboards, and Clapton’s long-time bass player Michael Hegerty, with backing vocals by Mahalia and Eliza-Jane Barnes and Darren Percival. >>>

COUNTRY COMFORT

MUSIC IS LOVE The songs and the versions that Richard Clapton loved

GET TOGETHER – The Youngbloods “This is the perfect anthem for the times we’re living in right now.” SO YOU WANT TO BE A ROCK ’N’ ROLL STAR – The Byrds “I was one of those kids standing in front of the mirror with a broom, pretending I was in The Byrds.” SUMMER IN THE CITY – The Lovin’ Spoonful “John Sebastian was, and is, amazing. What a song. It’s been with me all my life.” LOVE THE ONE YOU’RE WITH – Stephen Stills “There are a lot of songs on this album that are very pointed, topical, socio-political songs. And there are other songs, like this, that are just great pop songs.” RIDERS ON THE STORM – The Doors “There was a dark, sinister underbelly to the way Jim Morrison sang it.” EIGHT MILES HIGH – The Byrds “This song probably meant even more to me in my youth than ‘So You Want To Be A Rock ’n’ Roll Star’. This was hardcore Byrds to me. But I never dropped acid, so I don’t have any stories to tell.” FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH – Buffalo Springfield “Some really nasty, heavy-duty stuff was happening during the hippie era and young people had to take to the streets.” WOODSTOCK – Joni Mitchell “I’ve always preferred the Joni Mitchell version, and I wasn’t sure if I could cut it.” CASEY JONES – Grateful Dead “I wasn’t really a Deadhead, but I always really liked them. I guess it was the spirit of the Grateful Dead, the whole hippie thing.” ALMOST CUT MY HAIR – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young “To me, this is the most important song on the album. It’s part of my DNA.” CINNAMON GIRL – Neil Young “I love Neil Young so much, it was hard picking just two Neil songs for this album. My band plays ‘Cinnamon Girl’ so well, so this was an obvious choice.” MUSIC IS LOVE – David Crosby “It’s all in the title – Music Is Love.” SOUTHERN MAN – Neil Young “Neil Young wrote ‘Southern Man’ in 1970. Fifty years later, we had the Black Lives Matter movement. How can a 50-year-old song still be so relevant and mean so much?” MIDNIGHT RIDER – The Allman Brothers Band “I felt we needed to spread our wings a bit and head to the south. To me, The Allman Brothers were a consummate hippie band, even though it was southern rock.” I SHALL BE RELEASED – Bob Dylan “Bringing it all back home. I could do any Dylan song; this is one of my many favourites.” 64

Clapton admired the band’s passion for the material. And sometimes he was amused. “Jak Housden made sure that everything was authentic and accurate. At one point he said to Michael Hegerty, ‘Mikey, you can’t be playing that bass, mate – they didn’t have five-string basses in those days!’” Clapton is envious of his good friend Danny Spencer, who got to meet David Crosby at an airport. They say don’t meet your heroes, but Clapton enjoyed a six-week tour with Neil Young in 1985. “He treated me incredibly well – insisting that I play for an hour and do encores,” Clapton recalls. “He told me that Aussies were his favourite bunch of people because we were so weird and wonderful. One night, he realised that my nickname was Ralph. After I came off stage, he put his arm around me and said, ‘So you’re Ralph, huh? You’re a bad boy, Ralph. My band hasn’t been to bed for two days. I’m gonna change the name of my tour from Rust Never Sleeps to Ralph Never Sleeps!’” As for Dylan, well, Clapton got close. When Dylan was in Australia with Tom Petty in 1986, Clapton heard that he was a fan and would attend his show at Selina’s in Sydney. It was a full house and the gig was going well, but Clapton kept running to the side of the stage, asking his crew if anyone had spotted Bob. After a few encores, the show ended, and Clapton discovered the truth – Dylan had turned up. “Apparently he arrived with an entourage of about a dozen people and some genius bouncer said to him, ‘I don’t give a flying fuck who you are, mate, you’re not comin’ in here with all your fuckin’ hangers on! So, fuck off!’” Music Is Love ends by going back to the beginning – Clapton covers Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released’. “I could do any Dylan song,” he says. “This is one of my many favourites.” Explaining his love of Bob, Clapton recalls reading an article about Dylan when he was a kid. “The journalist asked college kids what they dug about Dylan. I related to one kid’s answer, it was just perfect: ‘Man, I have all these weird thoughts going through my mind. I think I’m just weird and I wonder, is it just me? And then Dylan comes out and he’s talking about exactly what’s in my head. How does he know that?’” And that’s the thing about the great songwriters. They know. Richard Clapton is also one of the greats. But strangely, this album reveals as much about the man as his original work. It’s a love letter to the songs that shaped him. “It’s all in the title,” Clapton explains. “Music Is Love.” Music Is Love 1966 – 1970 is released April 9 on Bloodlines.

There are two primary reasons why Australian country music mainstay Anne Kirkpatrick is looking forward to hitting the stage at the impending Winton’s Way Out West Fest celebration. By Steve Bell

ot only will the festival signify her return to the live realms after an enforced pandemic layoff - the last time she graced a stage being at the Tamworth Country Music Festival back in 2019 - but its also taking place in the beautiful Queensland outback she grew to know and love in her childhood as part of the travelling music show run by her parents, country music icons Slim Dusty and Joy McKean. “I love it out there in Western Queensland, I have a lot of memories from touring out that way as a youngster with my Dad’s show,” the singer beams. “I know all of Western Queensland - that whole area from Charleville, Cunnamulla, Blackall, all up around there - and then Winton and Boulia, we always played there. “In fact, we’d catch top with Stan Coster - one of Dad’s songwriters - he and his family used to work out there a lot so we’d catch up with them, and in the caravan days we used to camp a lot between Winton and Boulia which is just gorgeous, as you can imagine. “I was just pretty lucky that my parents sort of didn’t have a nine-to-five job, they were out there with their own country music travelling show and I got to tag along and see most of Australia. I think the only place I haven’t been to is Birdsville and Coober Pedy, so there’s still some places left to see.” Kirkpatrick was more than just tagging along though, first appearing onstage with her parents at the age of 10 and soon becoming an important part of the itinerant production. “I was, I was encouraged to be part of the whole scene from a pretty early age and it just seeped into me,” she remembers. “The road sort of gets a hold of you. When I grew up my family was always travelling - that’s the thing - and I find now if I’m stuck too long in town I get a bit stir crazy, which of course has been funny with this lockdown. “So, we did a lot of travelling, but I have very fond memories from Western Queensland particularly - and the coast of Queensland - from back in the touring days.” While Kirkpatrick in time became a huge country star in her own right she’s recorded 14 albums, won six Golden Guitars and been inducted into the Australasian Country Music ‘Roll Of Renown’ - her family legacy looms large over her life, a fact she won’t be able to escape at Winton. Some of the many highlights during the week-long event include the Slim Dusty tribute Light On The Hill - featuring

his original backing troupe the Travelling Country Band - as well as performances by Kirkpatrick and her son’s band Small Town Romance, topped off by a main stage screening of the acclaimed 2020 documentary Slim & I. “Seeing all of our old family movie footage up on the big screen for the first time was quite confronting in a way, it was a bit strange,” she admits. “My son Jim was a producer on the film and worked on it representing the family. It’s a nice companion movie to the original The Slim Dusty Movie (1984) which came out in the early-‘80s, they really marry well together. “Seeing the love match - the partnership - which was my Mum and Dad was really unique, I don’t think there’s another partnership in the Australian music industry that’s been like that, and they were so successful too.” What seems incredible is that the legacy of Slim Dusty - who passed away back in 2003 - only seems to grow in his absence, and he remains a towering figure in Australian country music to this day. “Even these days I’m so often touched by people’s affection that they have for my Dad, and my Mum,” Kirkpatrick smiles. “I think the legacy continues because, let’s be honest, they spent so much time touring and out amongst people. It was 50 years off and on touring Australia and catching up with people year after year, and collecting their stories as well. That’s the thing, they collected people’s stories as well as writing their own and it’s all documented there - it’s still there. “It was really touching actually after my Dad passed away an Indigenous writer called Gayle Kennedy wrote a beautiful

piece in the paper about how Dad’s music was the soundtrack to her upbringing. She explained how Slim’s music because a fabric of her family’s lives - they played it when they were homesick, they played it at funerals, they played it at weddings. There’s something in those songs, and then all that time spent in amongst the people out there just seeped in. “They opened the doors for a lot of people to be proud of writing about Australia and playing Australian music and doing it their own way too - they just forged their own path - and I know a lot of artists since say how they showed that you can sing about Australia and make it work, it can and will happen. They gave people the courage to be themselves, and in that regard they’re still a benchmark, I think.” Anne Kirkpatrick will be appearing at Winton’s Way Out West Fest from April 6 – 11, 2021 (wintonswayoutwestfest.com.au)

Clouted by Covid but they’re still set to celebrate 50 not out! By Tony Hillier

he cancellation of this year’s Port Fairy Folk Festival — courtesy of the pandemic — may have skittled the Bushwackers’ plans for a mighty 50th birthday knees-up at the event that initially cemented their reputation and staged their 40th anniversary. But Australia’s best-known bush band is still planning to celebrate its diamond year in style. The Bushies’ long-time leader, irrepressible frontman and lagerphone demon Dobe Newton says part of the milestone celebrations will be the mid-year release of The Bushwackers Big Australian Songbook. “It’ll be a combination of the two songbooks that were released in 1978 and 1981, plus a number of original songs which have since become a stock part of our repertoire,” he expands. “Those books went through a number of editions, selling an amazing 80,000-odd copies in the 10 years they were in print, and became a staple in most schools in the nation — along with the 1981 Dance Book.” To counter these COVID-challenging times, the Bushwackers are attempting to stage what they’re calling ‘the world’s first virtual

“Every new band member has brought a different twist. It has meant that Dobe and I are always learning and adapting.”

bush dance’. Their plan is to produce a little movie of hundreds of people dancing the well-known Heel ‘n’ Toe Polka in their lounge rooms, kitchens, schools, parks, gardens, the beach, or wherever. Details are on the band’s website at: thebushwackers. com.au/iso-heel-n-toe Back in the late-1970s and early-1980s, when their songbooks and records were selling like hot cakes and their legendary dances filled town halls to the brim, up and down this sunburnt land, the Bushies inspired and spawned hundreds of bush bands, amateur and professional — a legacy which gives the band’s co-drivers considerable pride. As Roger Corbett, Newton’s long-serving ‘Wacker’ in rhyme and sardonic humour, who’s been with the band for nearly 40 years, observes: “There’s nothing more heart warming than hearing your work replicated by other people … I think those songs were/

are designed to be propagated through our society: “They make kids aware of the history and stories.” Newton sums up: “It’s about communities playing together, and I’m proud we’ve contributed to that.” While Bushwacker bookings in this 50th anniversary year have been slow coming because of the coronavirus, the Way Out West Festival at Winton (April 6-11) and the Gympie Muster (August 26-29) — the latter to be confirmed — were looking nailed on at the time of writing. A new original album might also be on the cards. The front men have also been archiving away with the intention of creating an online exhibition, if funding agencies come to the ball. When he joined four decades ago, Dobe Newton certainly didn’t foresee a knock of Bradman-esque proportions from the La Trobe University-formed band. “We uni refugees simply set out to try to make a go of it, to see if we could make an impression. We had no real expectations, but I’m humbled and delighted that we’ve struck some sort of chord.” Apart from acknowledging the timeless quality of Bushwacker music, the elder statesmen attribute the band’s longevity to the high turnover in members and the excellence in personnel. “It’s been a mutual admiration society with new players bringing their own styles and expertise and constantly renewing the repertoire,” says Newton while pointing out that accordionist/fiddler Clare O’Meara, fiddler Mark Oats and bassman Michael Vidale from the current line-up are all 18-year ‘veterans’. “Every new band member has brought a different twist,” Corbett maintains. “It has meant that Dobe and I are always learning and adapting.” Relative ‘new chums’ in the crew include the selfproclaimed festival sweethearts, fiddle whiz Sarah Bussutil and pianist Silas Palmer. >>> 67

>>> The Bushwackers has been a veritable who’s who of Oz music over the years. Their ‘Roll Of Renown’ over the last 50 years encompasses no fewer than 95 band members, including such distinguished players as Skyhooks’ Freddie Strauks, The Pretenders’ Pete Farndon, Little River Band’s Steve Housden, Tim Gaze of Ariel and Rose Tattoo fame, Goanna’s Robbie Ross, Dragon’s Pete Drummond and the guitar guns Tommy & Phil Emmanuel and Michael Fix — not forgetting the late great Louis McManus. Those notable refugees from mainstream music were captivated by the band’s energy and the power of Aussie folk. “The fact that it was uniquely Australian meant a lot to them,” Newton indicates. “Also, as Tommy Emmanuel says to this day, it was the most fun he ever had playing in a band.” Dobe nominates Emmanuel as the standout Bushies’ muso over the years, but says if he had to choose one player, it would be the late multi-instrumentalist Louis McManus. “Pound-for-pound, he’s the greatest musician I’ve ever seen, let alone had the privilege to play with.” Newton joined the band just a couple of years after it was formed at La Trobe by guitarist Dave Isom, aided and abetted by tea-chest bass player Jan ‘Yarn’ Wositzky and lagerphonist Bert Kahanoff. Various players, including accordionist Mick Slocum and the fiddlers Tony Hunt and Dave Kidd, later joined the founding members. In 1973, when the band went full-time, Dobe Newton replaced Kahanoff. Dave Isom, guitarist, banjoist and singer in the then 5-piece band, is marking his 68

alma mater’s landmark year with the re-mastered CD release of The Original Bushwackers & Bullockies Bush Band, taken from a 1973 cassette tape that he claims is all that’s known to have survived from the time. “These tracks represent the first music recorded in a professional recording studio by the Bushwackers,” Isom asserts, adding that they preceded the band’s first commercial LP, The Shearer’s Dream, which came out the following year. Isom maintains that none of the tracks, which include suitably rollicking renditions of bush chestnuts such as ‘South Australia’ and ‘Lazy Harry’s’, have been released before — apart from a cover version of the Slim Dusty hit ‘When The Rain Tumbles Down In July’. He also reveals that the band’s first name was “lifted” from one of his favourite LPs of the time, Bullockies, Bushwackers and Booze, by British folk singer Martin Wyndham Read and a number of Aussie folk singers. As he explains in the sleeve notes on the new album, the name became too much of a mouthful and confusing to most, so it was shortened to the Bushwackers. Interestingly, he reports that the great grandson and namesake of the infamous bushranger Ben Hall attended an early gig at Tullamarine. The Bushwackers’ colourful, rock-infused folk songs and dances were to later penetrate the hallowed portals of London’s Cecil Sharp House, headquarters of the English Folk Dance & Song Society. On their first visit to the capital, these colonial upstarts posed cheekily for a photo outside of 10 Downing Street. Their maiden trip

to Ireland yielded a spot supporting The Dubliners at one of the most famous venues in the Irish capital. In all, the Wackers spent about five of the years between 1974 and 1983 in Europe on different tours lasting between four and 14 months. “We were one of the first Aussie bands to venture to the UK to be part of the folk revival that was sweeping the world at the time,” claims Dobe Newton. “It was simply amazing to be there for the birth and early years of punk. My endearing memory is of seeing the Sex Pistols in an early pub gig generating a power, passion and frenzy that I’ve never seen the equal of. They blew away a recording contract that we were about to sign but they were the best of times.” Australian bush music owes a huge debt of gratitude to the Bushwackers, not only for helping to ignite the fire in the first place, but for keeping the flame flickering far and wide over the years, even during the times when folk was decidedly unfashionable. As an inveterate student of history, Dobe Newton believes it’s vital that the nation doesn’t lose track of its colonial past. “If we ever lost that tradition, we’d lose a wonderful part of our cultural heritage.” As much as their music has changed over the years, the spirit of the songs and stories that inspired the first incarnation of the Bushwackers have not. With their politics and social conscience proudly worn on their sleeve, the band these days combines original material with a traditional repertoire. Long may they take their unique Australiana brand of music through the country and overseas.

f course, you will know the surname Croce. Adrian James (AJ) is the son of the famous singer AJ Croce who had a string of hits in the ‘70s. Though AJ was only two when his father passed away the musical gene was inherited. What you might not know is that he has just released his eleventh album, more than double his father’s output. A.J’s latest effort is titled By Request, inspired by fans, friends and band members asking him for particular songs. He also throws in a few of his own. As well as recognising the surname you will also recognise at least half of the songs: Billy Preston’s ‘Nothing From Nothing,’ Neil Young’s ‘Only Love Will Break Your Heart,’ Randy Newman’s ‘Have You Seen My Baby,’ The Faces’ ‘Stay With Me’, The Beach Boys ‘Sail On Sailor’ (from the much under-rated Holland album) and Tom Wait’s ‘San Diego Serenade.’ The others might be welcome discoveries: Allen Toussaint’s great ‘Brickyard Blues,’ ‘Nothing Can Change This Love’ by Same Cooke, ‘Better Day’ by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Solomon Burke’s ‘Can’t Nobody Love You,’ ‘Ain’t No Justice’ (the follow-up to ‘Here Comes The Judge’ by Shorty Long). Being an accomplished piano player, Croce is perfectly suited to interpret many of the songs which lean towards the instrument. His voice, huskier than his father’s, is also a great match to many (especially ‘Stay With Me’). Croce’s last album, Just Like Medicine in 2017 teamed him with soul legend Dan Penn and featured Steve Cropper, Vince Gill, David Hood, Colin Linden, The McCrary Sisters and The Muscle Shoals Horns. By Request is more stripped back with Croce and band but no less powerful on many selections. Croce says that he recorded the album in September 2019 with the intention of touring it in the American spring last year. “I’d been touring a lot and I had lost my wife [to a heart attack] and I wasn’t writing as much as I usually do,” he explains. “Someone mentioned, ‘Well, what about doing covers? I thought about it and a lot of people have done that, especially this year, but I sort of felt like if I’m going to do it, I want it to be a theme around something. I’ve played thousands of requests. I mean, I started off playing requests and standards and whatnot when I was a kid playing in jazz bars and piano bars and stuff like that. “So, when I thought about it, I said, ‘Well, always loved entertaining, having friends over.’ So, I chose all of these different songs based on friends’ requests of those songs. So, each one is a different time, different friend, different requests, different circumstances. Most of them were all late nights that ended up with a bunch of people hanging out and playing music and making requests. So, it’s quite simple really.” While most of the songs might have been requests, there are plenty that sound very much like they must have been some of Croce’s favourites too. “In some cases, yeah,” he agrees. “if someone asked for a Billy Preston song,

Photo By Joshua Black Wilkins

REQUEST LINE AJ Croce plays some of his and your favourite songs on his new album.- By Brian Wise

I might play a few different Billy Preston songs, but this one was always fun to play just because there’s great chords in it, great changes and it just feels good. In the case of someone like Randy Newman, it’s probably not even in my top 10 favourite Randy Newman songs, but it’s a fun song to play and it was a request. So, that informed my choice to do it. [At the age of two, AJ’s father Jim took him to see Newman play at a club]. “And the same thing with Tom Waits. It’s one of my favourites of his but again, it was a request. Same thing with the Toussaint song. There’s so many amazing Allen Toussaint songs it would be hard to choose which one was my favourite, but that was a particular one that was kind of personal because of the lyrics to it about a woman digging what her partner was playing, but just tired of going to the show and that was very much a

request that Marlo [his wife] made a number of times.” “Ten or twelve years ago we played a show together,” he says when I ask if Allen Toussaint was a big influence on his piano playing. “We were both playing solo and ended up at the end of the show we played a couple songs together - four-handed piano - which I hadn’t done in a while. Then when I was putting together Twelve Tales [2014] which was six different producers recording two tracks a piece - he was on the top of my list. So, we recorded together. Then after that, anytime I was in New Orleans, he would come out to the show and sit in and hang out and we became friends. And, of course, he was a huge influence from the time I was probably thirteen.” By Request is available through Compass Records. 69

By Martin Jones

TONY RICE

(June 8, 1951 – December 25, 2020)

LOWELL GEORGE

THANKS I’LL EAT IT HERE Warner Brothers

BY NICK CHARLES

odern bluegrass guitar owes a huge debt to Tony Rice. Generally regarded as the greatest flatpicker in the genre and responsible, along with a select group of virtuosos such as Bela Fleck, Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas, for broadening the influences and greatly widening the audience. He helped combine elements of jazz, blues and world music with traditional bluegrass to create what is sometimes called ‘Newgrass’. But outside of all the labels, genres and pigeonholes he was simply one of the alltime greatest guitar players. In an historical and contemporary sense there are a handful of flatpickers who are instantly identifiable and significant – Doc Watson, Clarence White, Norman Blake, Dan Crary, Bryan Sutton and very recently the new brigade that features Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle. To all these artists, young and old, Tony Rice’s technique, tone and recorded output are monumental. The playing of Clarence White both with the Kentucky Colonels and solo was of particular impetus for Tony. He famously owned and recorded with Clarence’s Martin D28 and later with his own model (Santa Cruz) based on that guitar (in particular, its enlarged sound hole). Clarence White and Doc Watson’s renditions of traditional fiddle tunes arranged for solo flatpicking became the starting line or as Dan Crary said, “the big bang of flatpicking”. Tony 70

took that repertoire and introduced the colours first experimented with when he was a pivotal member of the brilliant David Grisman Quartet. David Grisman, the mandolin virtuoso, is probably responsible for sowing the seed of these new influences and introduced Rice and the others to Gypsy Jazz and even klezmer influences. Later, his collaboration with John Carlini further explored jazz and modal influences and elements of the Great American Songbook. Apart from his solo albums and ensemble work as The Tony Rice Unit he recorded benchmark duo albums with Norman Blake (Blake and Rice), Ricky Skaggs and Peter Rowan. These were more traditional song and fiddle tune explorations and have become the standards by which all other acoustic flatpicking duos are measured. One of his finest albums features his wonderful performances of the songs of Gordon Lightfoot. The ‘Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ stands out. Many contemporary guitarists also point to his dynamic rhythm accompaniment. A skill sometimes overlooked by players, but in a sense the very backbone of most folk styles. There are many fine instructional videos where he illustrates his skills as both a lead flatpicker and rhythm player. To witness a totally brilliant performance by Tony Rice highlighting all aspects of his art as well as incredible interplay with the earlier

mentioned instrumentalists have a look at the 1993 KET broadcast Pickin’ for Merle. His vocals are sometimes overlooked as well but, in fact, standout as superb bluegrass/folk expressions in his definitive baritone. One of my favourite vocal and guitar workouts is his version of Norman Blake’s classic ‘Church Street Blues’. He won multiple awards and was honoured with a Blue Grass Hall of Fame induction in 2013. Alan Lomax referred to bluegrass as “folk music in overdrive” but there is much more to the supreme musicianship of Tony Rice. Ricky Skaggs called him “the single most influential acoustic guitar player of the last 50 years.” Few musicians leave such an indelible mark on their instrument as Tony Rice and you could probably consider him in the same light as Earl Scruggs, Django, Charlie Christian, Hendrix and so on. Here is a must hear sample of his discography but only a brief guide to his brilliance: Guitar (1973); Church Street Blues (1983); Tony Rice Sings Gordon Lightfoot (1996); The Bluegrass Guitar Collection (2003); Manzanita, The Tony Rice Unit (1979); Unit of Measure, The Tony Rice Unit (2000); Blake and Rice (1987). There are many more brilliant collections and collaborations and there is also Still Inside The Tony Rice Story, a great read but quite difficult to get hold of now. To all lovers of Americana and acoustic roots music I suggest a serious investigation into the incredible work of Tony Rice.

tanding here surrounded by thousands of records, all I want to do is listen to Lowell George. More Lowell. Funky Lowell. Soulful Lowell. Country Lowell. Reggae Lowell. Rockin’ Lowell. Latino Lowell. The Godfather of Americana, Lowell George was embracing all these contemporary American roots forms long before it was fashionable. And then he died – his only solo album released just ten days before his untimely death. You can research George’s career with Frank Zappa and Little Feat – there’s a fairly recent documentary to watch, Feats First. But let’s concentrate on this first and final solo album, Thanks I’ll Eat It Here. The first thing you behold is the typically psychedelic art by long term Little Feat artist Neon Park with a robed, starry eyed George, hair blowing in the breeze, backed by a spoof on Manet’s Le Dejeuner Sur L’herbe painting featuring caricatures of Castro, Dylan, Dietrich and a copy of Ginsberg’s Howl. Like many of Park’s Little Feat covers, it gives you no idea of what you’ll find inside… in fact, it’s more likely to discourage the merely curious. Perhaps the figures on the grass on the cover should have been Allen Toussaint, Ann Peebles, Jimmy Webb, and Rickie Lee Jones, whose songs actually feature on the album. The album opens with Toussaint’s ‘What Do You Want The Girl To Do’, which had already been covered by both Bonnie Raitt and Boz Scaggs in the mid-‘70s. George’s version is unhurried and funky, his soulful voice born to sing that melody. His version of Peebles’ ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’ predates the disco hit versions by Eruption and Tina Turner by only a few years and is an inspired selection. His take is in the same style as ‘What Do You Want the Girl To Do’, laid back but with a powerful groove. By the time George produced Thanks I’ll Eat It Here, he’d had plenty of experience in the studio, producing a number of Little Feat albums as well as Valerie Carter’s Just a Stone’s Throw Away, Grateful Dead’s Shakedown Street and Robert Palmer’s Pressure Drop. (George also features significantly on Palmer’s debut, Sneaking Sally Through The Alley, which is a great

companion to Thanks I’ll Eat It Here, featuring two Toussaint songs as well as George’s own ‘Sailin’ Shoes’). Point is, despite his infamous lack of sobriety at the time, George was in touch, producing incredible sounds and arrangements in the studio. And, of course, he had his choice of musicians: Jeff Porcaro, Jim Keltner, Bill Payne, JD Souther, Bonnie Raitt, Richie Hayward, Chuck Rainey, Fred Tackett, Van Dyke Parks, etc, etc, etc. Two of those musicians co-wrote songs for this album. Parks contributed to ‘Cheek To Cheek’, a tune that sounds like it was dredged from a Mexican folk songbook. Tackett’s contribution, ‘Find Me a River’, is the album’s ballad and a thing of haunting grace and beauty. Its pairing with ’20 Million Things’, a song George wrote with his stepson Jed Levy, makes for an album highpoint. Its chorus, “I got twenty million things to do, all I can do is think about you” soars into your mind forever. Tackett also co-wrote ‘Honest Man’ with George, a reggae soul workout with

elaborate horns and backing vocals. George’s only other composition is ‘Two Trains’, which comes across a syncopated ode to Toussaint and New Orleans funk. The album is completed by a New Orleans inspired take on Rickie Lee Jones’ ‘Easy Money’ (fitting, as last time I spoke with Jones she was being very much inspired by New Orleans having moved there from Los Angeles) and a lighthearted swing jazz version of Jimmy Webb’s ‘Himler’s Ring’ to close out the record. It’s an album that just keeps giving with its wide-ranging influences and great performances. It’s also an album that can send you off on a near endless investigation into George’s many other musical projects and contributions… I’ve already started going through the Zappa records he played on with a new ear. Then there’s the work he did with Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Harry Nilsson, Jackson Browne, etc, etc. Oh, and his daughter, Inara, (whose band The Bird and the Bee I’ve long enjoyed) has engineered a similarly eclectic career to investigate. 71

By Trevor J. Leeden

CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG LIVE IN NEW YORK Timeline/Planet

BY KEITH GLASS

Ron Davies

U.F.O A&M SP 4400 (Released 1973) In the 60’s/70’s/80’s major record labels

worldwide maintained a massive album release schedule. Only a comparatively few artists scored a hit, others became ‘cult’ classics. Beyond that exists an underbelly of almost totally ignored work, (much never reissued) that time has been kind to. This is a page for the crate diggers. Sometimes you wonder. Ron Davies reportedly wrote over 500 songs yet perhaps the one that proved most successful best summed up his life. “It Ain’t Easy” was a hit record – but just not for him. Three Dog Night took it to the charts and David Bowie made it a cornerstone of the “Ziggy Stardust” album. Yet credited on both counts to ‘R. Davies’ most people would have thought it a Ray Davies composition. At least Ron managed to score an A&M two record deal out of it. Amazingly this was not his first cut by a long shot. In 1966 at the age of 17, Tacoma, Washington group The Wailers recorded almost an entire album of his songs as 72

that outfit moved from fearsome mainly instrumental garage sounds to something more akin to the beat-rock thing of the time. A listen to that album shows the group took Ron seriously and he had come up with the goods. Ron himself was also already a fine guitarist and not alone in the family with talent. His father had been a country performer when he was growing up in Louisiana. His sister Gail Davies later made significant headway in Nashville, a place Ron also made his home. The A&M label was bulging with talent in the early 70’s but apart from the mega selling releases of co-owner Herb Alpert and of course The Carpenters, they were most often not sure what to do with it. Ron’s initial album Silent Song Through The Land didn’t do much and partly as a result of that carries a fairly hefty price tag if you can find it today. It wasn’t until three years later A&M spent some more dough on a follow-up. Hedging bets, seems like they requested a new version of ‘It Ain’t Easy’ (it had been on the first album) which is probably definitive – yet overshadowed and stuck in the middle of side two by four other songs around it of such quality few artists could ever hope to construct an album side this good. For example, ‘It’s A Lie’ is a fine gospel pastiche which let’s loose all the instrumental and vocal talent within. \The heavy hitter musicians on U.F.O include David Spinozza (guitar) Wilton Felder (bass)

Billy Preston (keys) some fabulous vocal support including Claudia Lennear and Ron’s wife Vicki (who he took on the road with him) and co-produced by Tommy Vicari. This is an album by a quality singer/songwriter that should have put Ron up there with bigger names. Who are those names? Nilsson, Randy Newman, Paul Williams…to mention but a few. Alas it wasn’t to be. In hindsight maybe a fairly uninspiring cover didn’t help. It’s a gatefold so inside Ron (wearing the as depicted on cover flying hat) is leaning against a rocky outcrop with the lyrics taking up the right-hand side of the fold. Be-it taken in New Mexico or wherever, shooting for the moon probably didn’t need amplification the team was already doing in reality. Side one of the album is also strangely weaker than the flip. The opener I Wonder is aspirational with the lines ‘the golden road is hard to come by / but we all will in the end’ However the direction has less succinct finishing with a cover song. Tim Hardin’s Misty Roses is a fine choice but just doesn’t need to be here. Ron Davies died in 2003; his sister Gail organised a massive amount of talent for a concert and released an album titled Unsung Hero: A Tribute To The Music Of Ron Davies. Most of the contributors were much more well known than Ron – that didn’t matter, talent has it’s own reward.

Let’s face it, the recorded legacy of the four superstars performing together is relatively thin, so this 1970 Fillmore East show is a most welcome addition. The concert was part of the tour to promote the recently released Déjà Vu album and showcases everything great about the individual members of the quartet. Fundamentally an expanded edition of 4 Way Street (which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year), the 4-part harmonies are to die for, and it’s a superb highlights reel of their finest songs (to date), both acoustically and full-blown electric.

JOSEPHINE FOSTER NO HARM DONE Fire Records

Like Iris DeMent, Foster’s idiosyncratic singing is something of an acquired taste, but once the palate has been whet it unlocks myriad delights. Hovering somewhere between country blues and hillbilly folk, there is a distinctive old-timey feel to the eight songs, each imbued with melancholy sadness. Matthew Schneider provides empathetic support on guitar and pedal steel to telling effect on the yearning ‘Love Letter’ and the gorgeous ballad ‘The Wheel Of Fortune’. ‘How Come, Honeycomb?’ is a throwback to music hall balladry, and ‘Old Saw’ is awash in ethereal ghostliness. This is a left-of-centre gem.

ROY HEAD

ALEX MAAS

BARRY GIBB

No beating around the bush, if the roots of rock’n’roll is your thing, then you should be listening to this mighty record right now! No genre could confine Head, and this terrific retrospective delves into all his blue-eyed soul, rockabilly, 50’s rock’n’roll, R&B and country origins. Importantly, Head was one of the first rockers to openly pay due homage to the black artists whose music shaped the rock’n’roll era. Roy Head was a Texas tornado, and sadly passed away last September.

It’s refreshing to find an artist who rises above the negativity/cancel culture mindset that so many performers wallow in. Instead, Luca is an outpouring of positivity brought about by the birth of Maa’s son. Filled with laid back indie-folk ruminations that bear comparisons with early Phosphorescent and Bon Iver, the album is flush with mellow highlights, not least being ‘500 Dreams’, a swooning lullaby with echoes of Leonard Cohen circa Greenwich Village. ‘American Conquest’, an assertive dissertation that deals with the drastic consequences of gun culture, is something of an outlier track on a glorious sounding album of pastoral sparseness.

Sure, it’s his songbook, filled with unparalleled pop brilliance, but whoever thought it was a good idea to revisit and turn these 3-4 minute masterpieces into country-lite drivel needs to have a good hard look at themselves. There is nothing redeeming about this, and in no way does it honour a magnificent songwriting legacy; jeez, even the cover art is cringeworthy (and should bear a ‘Warning: This record is a mistake’ sticker). Surely it would be better to properly curate a reissue programme of those early masterpieces like Bee Gees 1st, Odessa, Cucumber Castle and Trafalgar.

IRON BUTTERFLY

WILBERT HARRISON

ONE MORE TIME! Sunset Blvd Records/Planet

JEFF BECK, CARLOS SANTANA & STEVE LUKATHER LIVE IN KARIUIZAWA, JAPAN Timeline/Planet

Famously known as the Nagano Session, this summit featuring three of the very finest rock fusion guitarists on the planet gets an official 2-disc release. The first disc is a pyrotechnic run through of Beck’s most popular songs, whilst the second pays similar dues to Santana’s catalogue. It all comes to a tumultuous close with Lukather joining in for a threeway testosterone fuelled jam that culminates in rousing – and very long – renditions of ‘People Get Ready’ and finally the Chuck Berry classic ‘Johnny B. Goode’. And the winner of this stunning shootout? The audience!

LUCA Innovative Leisure/Planet

UNCONSCIOUS POWER Esoteric Recordings/Planet

They will forever be remembered for one epic 17-minute slice of stone-cold classic mayhem that defined the free-love era. However, as this outstanding anthology shows, Iron Butterfly were not your stock standard lepidoptera, their particular brand of heavy rock could both float and sting. Whilst ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ may ultimately have been an accidental yoke around their collective necks, and the metamorphosis into fully fledged global superstardom never quite realised, the six albums included here and released between 1967-1971 show that the San Diego quartet could soar with the best.

GREENFIELDS: THE GIBB BROTHERS SONGBOOK VOL. 1 Universal

THE BEST OF Sunset Blvd Records/Planet

Harrison’s legacy is assured courtesy of his first and last hits, 1959’s ‘Kansas City’ and 1970’s ‘Let’s Work Together’ (Canned Heat and Bryan Ferry would also have sizeable hits with the latter). During the intervening decade between chart entries, Harrison continued to record prolifically, as this 3-disc compilation attests. A very fine, if largely overlooked, R&B troubadour, Harrison’s place in history is assured, if for no other reason than, courtesy of that debut single which now sits in the Grammy Hall Of Fame as one of the songs that shaped rock’n’roll. 73

IS WHERE THE ACTION IS

BY CHRIS FAMILTON

By Christopher Hollow

TOM JONES

SURROUNDED BY TIME EMI

Now this is a surprise. I’ve never been a Sir Tom Jones fan. I mean, I like his version of Mickey Newbury’s ‘Weeping Annaleah’ from the Delilah album but I’ve never searched out a record. But this is fabulous – starting with Tom’s sing-soliloquy cover of a Todd Snider song called ‘Talking Reality Television Blues’ with Trump and more in its sights – ‘Then a show called The Apprentice came on,’ he baritones, ‘and pretty soon an old man with a comb-over had sold us the moon.’ The Snider original is a purposely hokey Dylan homage. But Jones and his producer, Ethan Johns, son of uber-producer Glyn Johns, have super-sized it to be a statement - equal parts Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ + Michael Franti’s ‘Television, the Drug of a Nation’. People are saying the track is a Radiohead rip-off (‘I Might Be Wrong’ off 2001’s Amnesiac) but that’s short-changing it. The sitardriven Malvina Reynolds song, ‘There’s No Hole in My Head’, continues the high standard of reinvention plus there’s more super-interesting song choices from Terry Callier, The Waterboys and Tony Joe White. Surrounded By Time proves it’s never too late to bend an ear.

PEARL CHARLES

MAGIC MIRROR Kanine

The joy of piano glissando heralds the joy of LA artist Pearl Charles on her latest album, 74

Magic Mirror. The opener, ‘Only For Tonight’, is an out-and-out banger more Noosha Fox than the new Americana of Pearl’s past triumphs.

This indie dance-floor filler quotes the piano bit from ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’ that MGMT also used on ‘Time to Pretend’ and it helps Charles go down a whole new route. ‘Wasn’t made for a one-night stand,’ she sings. ‘Why did I play this like a man?’ ‘What I Need’ goes for (and succeeds) in finding a Christine McVie-style boogie feel. If there’s a theme throughout the LP it’s feeling like an imposter, getting through, faking it till you make it. ‘I’ve been deceiving without trying,’ she sings on the title, ‘Magic Mirror’. But Pearl Charles is in a good place. More glissando, less self-doubt.

JACK NAME MAGIC TOUCH Mexican Summer

If you, like me, are into close-mic, mysterious semiconfessional bedroom whisperings, then LA singersongwriter Jack Name is for you. My entry point for Name’s third record, Magic Touch, was the killer ‘I Came to Tell You

in Plain English’, which is a bald-faced, and brilliant, rip/ re-interpretation of Serge Gainsbourg’s 1973 masterpiece ‘Je Suis Venu te Dire Que je M’en Vais’. The rest of the record unfolds at its own pace depending on your attention span, but it’s all imbued with the spirit of a stoner Serge/Jane Birkin. Songs like the fab duet ‘Do You Know Ida No?’ (first heard on a White Fence album from 2012) and the quieter ‘Sacred Place’ serve as the heart of this impressive record.

KACY & CLAYTON AND MARLON WILLIAMS

moment with ‘Arahura’, a longing ballad about the sacred Arahura river, which runs on the west coast of NZ’s South Island, where Pounamu (greenstone) was collected and traded. With exchanges in mind, I’d hope that Kacy & Clayton can take a little of Marlon’s lyrical adventurousness to their future music and Marlon can tap into the Canadians’ volume of output. That’d be a fair trade.

VARIOUS ARTISTS LATENIGHTTALES: KHRUANGBIN Azuli

PLASTIC BOUQUET New West

This is the point where true North meets deep South, where Americana meets Australasia. Saskatchewan folk duo, Kacy & Clayton, have teamed up with dishy Kiwi singer Marlon Williams for a cool collaboration. Landlocked prairie longing meets breezy Pacific tones. Marlon’s vocal style is certainly creamy compared to Kacy’s drier, more wistful moods (e.g., he used to do an amazing live version of the effortless Jim Reeves classic, ‘He’ll Have to Go’). But it gels very well. Indeed, the most awkward thing about the pairing is the ampersand + the ‘and’ in the artist title, making Marlon sound a bit like a spare cake at a wedding. For me, the absolute standout of the album is the Kacy-led ‘Your Mind’s Walking Out’ with its echoes of Gene Clark’s ‘Here Tonight’, but Williams also has a powerful

When it comes to mixtapes, not many do it better than LateNightTales out of the UK, the Rolls Royce of compilations. This time round, Texan instrumental band Khruangbin flex their record collection with a wide-ranging curation. It should be noted that one of Khruangbin’s first big breaks was back in 2013 when Brit trip-hopper Bonobo featured one of their tracks, ‘A Calf Born In Winter’, on his LateNightTales entry. So now Khruangbin get to return the favour. Their set opens with ‘Illuminations’, the title track from Alice Coltrane and Carlos Santana’s inspired 1974 alliance and that’s where the familiarity with the tunes, for me anyway, ends. From there it’s all deep cuts for those with a sense of adventure Japanese pop, South Korean rock, Ethiopian disco and much more. And that’s the beauty of comps like this, you’ve got someone to hold your hand as you take in a myriad of unusual sounds and ideas.

UNSUNG HEROES: Jason Molina

wenty years ago, Jason Molina had already released a handful of dark and haunting albums under the name Songs: Ohia but he was about to emerge from deep in the indie underground and start to receive wider critical acclaim and an increasing number of fans. Barely thirteen years later, with close to a dozen studio and live albums, credited to Songs: Ohia, Magnolia Electric Co. and Jason Molina, he would be dead at the age of 39, from alcohol abuse-related organ failure. Sadly, we’ve lost way too many incredibly talented songwriters and musicians from the fringes of the music mainstream this century. From Elliot Smith to David Berman, Mark Linkous to Vic Chesnutt and most recently Justin Townes Earle, they’ve all had an innate and poetic ability to convey melancholy and pain, chronicling the dark corners of the soul. Molina has had a fine book written about him (Jason Molina: Riding With The Ghost by Erin Osman, 2017) and received an extensive reissue and posthumous release campaign from his longtime and hugely supportive label Secretly Canadian, yet I often meet fellow music fans who haven’t been introduced to the musical world of Molina. I suspect part of that is due to the way he straddled genres. Initially his work was dark and lo-fi gothic folk but over time and as he began to play with wider groups of musicians, he developed a still forlorn but wider take on Americana. From parched country blues to pedal steel-augmented and gritty alt-country, heartland rock, folk-rock and hypnotic slowcore, he found a way to blur those genre lines while creating and maintaining his own ghostly and specific narrative. Fear, anxiety, apparitions, broken hearts, nature and mystical spirits populated his songs as he sought to convey the hardships of life from his Midwestern perspective. On the song ‘I Can Not Have Seen The Light’ (What Comes After The Blues) he sang ‘I can’t remember what comes first, is it the hurt or knowing that it hurts’, a line that encapsulates Molina’s existential struggle between experiencing pain and understanding it. Music clearly was a panacea of sorts for this internal debate, allowing him to process and convey his thoughts to others but unfortunately the other part of his self-administered remedy was alcoholism. The weight and density of those themes could be heavy going at times as he stretched and slowed songs to a hazy crawl, but by 2003 when he hooked up with the band that would form Magnolia Electric Co.

(the name of his last Songs: Ohia album) he knew he’d finally found a group of musicians who could balance the darkness with a rock ’n’ roll and country musicality that added a wealth of textures and melodic counterpoint to Molina’s keening and aching tenor range voice. The next half dozen years found him touring the world, including band and solo visits to Australia, recording with Steve Albini and releasing some of his finest work. Molina’s drinking began to have serious health repercussions after the release of Josephine (2009), resulting in cancelled tours and numerous stints in rehab and hospital facilities in England and America. Jason Molina, one of the great songwriters and chroniclers of damaged souls and broken hearts, passed away on March 16, 2013 in Indianapolis.

Essential Listening:

Deeper Listening:

Songs: Ohia – Didn’t It Rain (2002) Songs: Ohia – Magnolia Electric Co. (2003) Magnolia Electric Co. – What Comes After The Blues (2005) Magnolia Electric Co. – Fading Trails (2006) Magnolia Electric Co. – Josephine (2009)

Magnolia Electric Co. – Sojourner (2007) box-set release, comprising: three full-length albums, one four-song EP and the documentary, The Road Becomes What You Leave.

CD: Feature BY JEFF JENKINS VARIOUS ARTISTS

By Denise Hylands

ell, here we are nearly a year on and slowly we’re getting back to some kind of normality when it comes to seeing live music again at least...slowly and cautiously we’ll get back the way it was... So, what’s been going on in the twangin’, country, Americana scene... Let’s start with some of our favourite octogenarians...At 84 years of age and over 5 decades in the entertainment industry, Kris Kristofferson has officially retired. The legendary singer songwriter has handed over the running of his business and record label KK records to his son John. As for retiring, Kristofferson says he will celebrate his 85th birthday this June with several special projects. KK’s good mate Willie Nelson doesn’t look like he’ll be slowing down anytime soon, getting his Covid-19 jab at a drive through clinic with wife Annie recently. He’ll be turning 88 in April and has just released his 71st solo studio album, That’s Life, a tribute to Frank Sinatra, the second volume of his Sinatra collection, following 2018’s My Way. While in his pandemic lockdown, apparently, he’s been writing songs and recording multiple projects in his home studio, including an album with sons Lukas and Micah. Why does that not surprise me? And then we get to one of my all-time favourites, Loretta Lynn, who’ll be turning 89 in April. 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of her Coal Miner’s Daughter album release, the release of Loretta Lynn: My Story In My Words the documentary, featuring old and new interviews with Lynn and the story of her rags to riches career as one of the outstanding female country artists of all time and the release of her 50th studio album, Still Woman Enough, out in March. Celebrating women

in country music and featuring new and old songs with some of her favourite female singers, Margo Price, Tanya Tucker, Carrie Underwood and Reba McEntire. Without Getting Killed Or Caught is a new documentary which follows Guy Clark, Susanna Clark, and Townes Van Zandt as they rise from obscurity to reverence: Guy, the Pancho to Van Zandt’s Lefty, struggling to establish himself as the Dylan Thomas of American music, while Susanna pens hit songs and paints album covers for top artists, and Townes spirals into self-destruction after writing some of Americana music’s most enduring and influential ballads. Based on the diaries of Susanna Clark and Tamara Saviano’s 2016 book Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark, the film tells the saga from Susanna’s point of view, with Academy Award- winner Sissy Spacek voicing Susanna’s narration. I must tip my hat to James White, owner of Austin’s iconic Broken Spoke Honky Tonk, who passed away on the 24th January this year, aged 81. He owned and ran the most authentic dance hall and bar I’ve ever been to. Since 1964, The Broken Spoke has played host to artists from Willie Nelson to Kitty Wells to Dale Watson and Garth Brooks, the list goes on. There was even a museum honouring the visits and performances of so many. If you were fortunate to get to the Broken Spoke you most likely would have met James. I did on many occasions. He was always thrilled that folks from Australia would visit his honky tonk. RIP Mr White. When I think of Texas, I think of Dale Watson. Although, he lives in Memphis now, he is so synonymous with Texas. He’s obviously made a connection with his new hometown because his brand new release is titled The Memphians. It will be his first ever instrumental album, “I never tied the Memphis music influence to my guitar playing until I started this instrumental project”, say Watson. Melbourne’s own Cosmic Country Cowboy, Ben Mastwyk & The Millions, release their 3rd album, Living On Gold Street. Look for the album feature in this issue. Michael Carpenter and The Banks Brothers are a new collaboration between Carpenter, a well-respected producer, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Jy-Perry Banks one of the country’s most in demand pedal steel players (also, dobro and guitar) and Zane Banks - a purist in the art of electric country picking, (also banjo and flat picked acoustic guitar).

Carpenter and the Banks Brothers have had a growing friendship over the last few years, with producer Carpenter using both brothers as session players in his famous Love Hz Studios in Sydney. This growing friendship led to a reasonably innocuous conversation just after the Tamworth Country Music festival in 2020, where Carpenter and Zane Banks joked about starting a band where we played ‘the type of music we loved, just for us’. It seemed like a good idea and now the album titled, Introducing... , is out in March. Jimbo Mathus & Andrew Bird have just released These 13, their first collaboration in two decades. Having both collaborated in the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Bird says, “Up until meeting Jimbo, all my musical heroes were dead. Jimbo was anything but and just oozed musicality of a kind I thought was extinct. It’s been my dream for years now to make this record with Jimbo. Just guitar, fiddle, and our very different voices. I wanted to make sure you can really hear him as if for the first time.” NEW AND FORTHCOMING RELEASES TO LOOK OUT FOR: Pony Bradshaw - Calico Jim - honest stories of southern life. Various Artists - The Next Waltz Vol. 3 compilation featuring Charley Crockett, Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis, Robert Ellis, etc Chris Wilson - Live at The Continental (reissue on vinyl) - still amazing Lucero - When You Found Me - country rock from Memphis The Luke Sinclair Set - Heavy Dreams stepping out solo from Raised By Eagles Barry Gibb - Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook Vol. 1 - with Dolly Parton, Gillian & Dave, Alison Krauss and many more. Steve Earle & The Dukes – JT - singing the songs of his son, Justin Townes Earle The Pink Stones - Introducing...The Pink Stones (April) - cosmic country from Athens, Georgia. Ted Russell Kamp - Solitaire (May) - 13th solo album for long-time Shooter Jennings bass player The Shootouts - Bullseye (April) - classic twangin’ influences sounds Esther Rose - How Many Times) (March) twangy heartbreak songs from New Orleans Fretland - Could Have Love You (March) fragile alt-country Valerie June - The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers (March) - that voice and those soulful bluesy, country, r’n’b grooves

SUNBURY 1973, THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN ROCK FESTIVAL Bloodlines

t was an audacious move. Ludicrous, really. Launching a local label with a triple record set, Australia’s first triple album. And 1973 was not a great year for music. Indeed, noted Australian critic Ed Nimmervoll would later write, “This was the worst year for singles music – filled with middle-of-the-road sentimentality. Record buyers rediscovered Perry Como and danced in the oldfashioned way with Charles Aznavour.” But 1973 was a landmark year for Aussie albums, with the first Mushroom Records LP – Sunbury 1973, The Great Australian Rock Festival. Recorded by John French, the triple album is the definitive document of the second Sunbury Festival. The first Mushroom press release, issued in May 1972, had stated: “Mushroom believes that 1973 is Australia’s year to establish itself as the new music frontier.” “Sunbury set up Countdown and set up the Australian public for Australian bands,” says Ian “Molly” Meldrum. “It showed that we didn’t just have to rely on English bands or American bands, that we could really, really hold our own.” Author Murray Engleheart called Sunbury “the biggest outdoor pub on the planet”. “It was a landmark event,” Mushroom founder Michael Gudinski believes. “A watershed, in a sense. Before Sunbury, anything Australian was regarded as secondrate. Import record shops were all the rage and people thought of Australian music as being second-rate to what was going on overseas. Sunbury was the start of people standing up and feeling proud of their own music.”

The Sunbury album ushered in a new era in Australian music – though, ironically, it opens with a track by Oz rock pioneer Johnny O’Keefe (who was introduced by MC Paul Hogan as “a new kid … his name’s Jimmy O’Keefe”). JO’K’s rollicking version of Neil Diamond’s ‘High Rollin’ Man’ sets the standard for an album that features seven artists who were later inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame – Johnny O’Keefe, Billy Thorpe, Lobby Loyde, Broderick Smith, Kerryn Tolhurst, John Bois and Ian Rilen – while Madder Lake and MacKenzie Theory provided Mushroom with their first hit albums.

But not all of the acts on the Sunbury album went on to find fame. And, strangely, many of the bands broke up soon after the event, including Carson, Country Radio, Healing Force, Mighty Mouse and Friends. The original Sunbury album cost $11.90, with the Mushroom ad stating, “3 records for the price of 2”. The label launched it at the swinging ’70s club Sebastian’s, with the catering courtesy of the Mushroom Growers’ Association, who provided hundreds of mushrooms (non-psychedelic).

“With Sunbury, we wanted to make a statement that Mushroom was a serious record label that we wanted the retailers, the media, the musicians and the public to take seriously and know we meant business for Australian music,” Gudinski explains. Billy Thorpe and Madder Lake were the only acts to play all four Sunbury festivals. Thorpie called Sunbury “a spiritual experience”, and he was seen as the King of Sunbury – the King of the Hill. Before his death in 2007, Thorpie dreamed of resurrecting Sunbury. Appropriately, the Aztecs contribution to this collection is called ‘Going Back Home’. “It was like a Nuremberg rally – really loud and basic,” Broderick Smith said of the Aztecs performance at Sunbury ’73. “If you were looking for subtleties and nuances and pathos and poignancy then forget it. It was like, here are the tanks! This is blitzkrieg! This is not poetry time.” A little quieter is The ’69ers kooky cover of The Kinks’ ‘Harry Rag’ – complete with kazoo solo – which showcases singer Francis Butler, who, five years later, released an album of religious songs, There Is No Escape, and became an evangelist. Butler relocated his Christian ministry from Sydney to Houston, Texas in 1987, and his website proclaims, “Jesus miraculously saved Frank out of the rock music lifestyle in 1976 and called him as an evangelist to build His church. At one time, Frank lived for rock ’n’ roll, but now lives for Jesus Christ, the Rock that never rolls.” There’s no doubt that Sunbury was a religious experience, and this album is a miracle in its own rough and raucous way. The Mushroom Group’s bold move paid off. Sunbury 1973 became the first Australian triple album to go gold. And nearly 50 years later, the company is still going strong, re-releasing the album – on triple vinyl. But instead of gold vinyl, this version has been issued on watermelon red vinyl – to mark the fact that Gudinski made a killing selling watermelons at the festival.

CD: Feature BY BRIAN WISE

t’s impossible to talk to Femi Kuti and his son Made (Mah-Day) without talking politics. Even though they have released simultaneous albums, on which they both appear, and despite the fact that no-one can think of when this has happened before, the conversation immediately turns to politics as soon as I ask what life is like in Nigeria. Both father and son are in separate houses talking to me on a Zoom hookup from a town near Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, which alone has a population of 15 million. Femi, now 58, and Made, 25, both fondly remember Australia and especially Womadelaide where Femi was the major headliner on his several visits, carrying the legacy of his father, the great Fela Kuti. It is a heavy burden to carry given that Fela is one of the most influential and abiding African musicians of all time. (There was even a Broadway musical on Fela’s life!) Femi played in his father’s band before forming his own band, Positive Force in 1986. Made, a multi-instrumentalist, played for years in Femi’s band before deciding to record his own solo album, also playing every instrument. Yet both musicians have stepped out of the shadows of their fathers and found their own voices and - given their lineage - politics is inextricably linked with the music that is driven by an irresistible beat, intersecting rhythms, elements of jazz, funk and highlife and an often joyous ambience (even when it is carrying a heavy political message). We’ve been lucky enough to see some of the great contemporary African artists over the 78

years, thanks mainly to Womadelaide. They all shared the ability to make you dance and to think – and, even when singing in their own language, have the power to conjure an emotive response. Partisan Records, home to Fela’s catalog, has released Femi’s new album Stop The Hate (Femi’s 11th album) and Made’s debut solo album, For(e)word. Both carry Fela’s influences with Made’s album giving the famed Afrobeat a contemporary twist. Both albums have been packaged into a double album called Legacy +. Both were recorded in France and are produced by Sodi Marciszewer, who recorded, mixed or produced Fela’s last six albums. It is a tantalizing juxtaposition of music – the older lion moving more towards what his father did and the young one taking the advice of his father and forging his own path. “Ah, difficult,” says Femi when I ask what things are like in Nigeria at the moment. “I mean, the poverty level is really bad. We haven’t been able to perform for a year now. Life is really getting unbearable for lots of folks. It’s not funny.” It is late in the evening in Lagos and Femi is sitting on a large leather couch in what looks like a comfortable but not ostentatious home. Femi tells me that he is tired, having got up early to do interviews. Plus, the fact that he has not been on tour for a year means that the time at home has meant that his children have also had him occupied. He laughs when I later suggest that he needs to go back out on tour to have a holiday. By the time the interview ends Femi is lying down full-length on the couch staring up at the camera. “Still, lots of people don’t believe,” he replies when I ask him about the Covid-19 situation. “But I know a few people who have died or have been infected by it. But because of the way the government handled it, a lot of people don’t believe. So, I think a lot of people have been infected and I don’t know why it’s not as bad as America. Nobody can figure that out, but it’s here.” I ask him how he feels about being able to record with his son and also watch him record his own album and then release both albums at the same time. “It’s an unbelievable feeling words can’t describe, it’s incredible,” he replies. “When

I think of some problems, when I remember the album, it soothes those pains. It’s even a healing process for personal issues probably I am going through with not being able to perform. To know he recorded a great album himself, played on my album to get to see him be a man. And he’s so humble and all those things. I mean, it’s incredible for me.” Made is in another location near his father. He is in a small, sparse study and sits up alert and eagerly leaning to the camera. In 2014 he followed in his grandfather Fela’s footsteps by attending the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London and befriended a lot of young jazz artists – which you can get a sense of on his album. I tell Made that I’m pretty sure that this is the first time ever that a father and son have released albums together simultaneously. I add that I can think of John Lennon and Yoko Ono releasing albums together but that I can’t think of any others. [I am sure readers will be able to fill me in here]. Femi chips in and reminds me that neither John nor Yoko were a parent of the other. “So, I think it’s the first one,” he adds. “Yep,” agrees Made. “That’s the kind of research we were doing as well. We thought it was so special as well just for that reason as well. It was my dad’s idea. We have to give him a 100% credit for that and it was also his idea to put the plus after the Legacy [in the title]. “Because you know it’s more than us. It’s bigger than the both of us. It’s everything that has come before and the things that will come after, the people. My younger siblings are very talented musicians as well. And yeah, it was a lovely process from start to finish.” Made recalls that he was in the same French studio when he was young and singing and playing sax on some of Femi’s tracks that appeared on one of his Grammy nominated albums. “I remember my dad giving me so many lessons,” he adds. “Me listening to as much as I could handle at that age. So, finally to be able to go back to that exact same space and produce my own body of work was very special. Everything about the album was so personal. It was just a very personal and special experience with my father and Uncle Sodi.”

Many of the lyrics on Made’s own album were inspired by his observations of Nigeria after he returned to the country a few years ago. “Very much so,” he agrees. In this regard he is definitely following in Femi’s musical footsteps. “No, matter how much you try you can’t navigate away from the problems of Lagos because they hit you right at the airport. You go out and the heat wave just hits you because there’s traffic everywhere. The roads are bad. Then you get home and the water is not working properly and (with) electricity there’s a power cut for a few hours. Then your brothers and sisters come back from school and you know that everything they’re learning there is quite unnecessary. Because they’re not learning about themselves. They’re not learning about culture. They’re not allowed to speak the language in school. Yeah, there’s a lot of obstacles in Nigeria and they’re more pronounced when you’ve been in other places. So, coming back I just found I was more annoyed with the country than I was before I left. I “I felt that I had to return, even though my dad and I had some conversations about are you sure you want to come back? My dad definitely wanted me to come back, but I personally really wanted to come back because I didn’t want to escape. I felt like escaping would make me part of the problem. And speaking about Nigeria from London is as elitist as I can possibly get. I have a home here and I have a voice here, so I wanted to come back and make music and...

Yeah, everything I just experienced I put into the album.” I mention that it seems like a great thing that they have chosen to live in their home country and address its problems because both of them could probably live anywhere else they chose. “It won’t be the same,” says Femi. “I think you really have to feel what you’re singing about and you have to be passionate about it. If you are talking about poverty, it will be different if you are singing it from outside than witnessing it and experiencing it yourself. So, especially if you’re passionate about it. I think like my father it would be best to be in the forefront of what is going on or what you’re singing about.” Femi’s album Stop the Hate doesn’t shy away from addressing big problems on songs such as the title track or ‘Land Grab,’ ‘You Can’t Fight Corruption With Corruption,’ ‘Privatisation’ and the single ‘Set Your Minds and Souls Free.” He has never backed away from being political, which at times must be very difficult in his home country. “These days is not really difficult,” he explains, “because there are so many people voicing out their displeasure. At the beginning especially between 2000 and 2008 was very difficult. And in 2000... I can’t remember the year……15 boys were waiting to..I don’t know if they were trying to kill me or give me a political warning. But we have had these kind of threats. The way I see it is when you understand the historical facts of Africa, then you understand that... You know

it’s going to be a long haul. It’s going to be a long journey. Probably and most likely not in my lifetime will it end. Probably it’s going to take another 50 to a hundred years if I’m going to be truthful.” “Stop The Hate, of course, is applicable everywhere,” I note. “Not just Nigeria [but even in] the United States, which is supposed to be the paragon of democracy. “It’s why I chose the title,” says Femi. “I think every country is facing some sort of problem. I think it was the most universal title on the album and it resonates with every culture, every people, every society. In every country we should stop the hate. This world we all have to live together and find peace and it will be more beautiful if we do this.” Made’s album, For(e)ward, has a similar import and its songs such as ‘Free Your Mind,’ ‘Different Streets,’ ‘Hymn’ (featuring a children’s choir), ‘Young Lady’ and ‘We Are Strong’ address similar issues. “I wanted my side of the album, as well as the whole album to represent progress,” explains Made, “moving forward understanding how we have arrived at this point in our lives and understanding what brought us here - and understanding what we want to hope for in the future. Also, as For(e)ward the dual meaning is that it is the first album I’ve ever produced. So, it’s also the introduction to many chapters of what I expect to be in my life.” Read the complete feature interview with Femi and Made Kuti at www.rhythms.com.au 79

CD: Feature

BY BERNARD ZUEL

BY BRIAN WISE

MICK THOMAS’ ROVING COMMISSION

GLEN HANSARD

LIVE AT SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE

CITY’S CALLING ME

Dublin Vinyl

ome things are meant to loosen their grip. But they don’t. I was at this concert, in the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House, and there was in theory nothing to surprise me, including the length which was heading towards Springsteen-ish three-hour territory. After all, it was certainly not the first time I’d seen Glen Hansard. Recorded several years ago now (October 2016, and shown on the Opera House site during the first Covid shutdown in 2020), this night had been preceded by nights seeing him out front of The Frames nearly 20 years earlier, as well as shows as a duo (with Marketa Iglova, his co-star in the movie/musical Once), solo and with a backing band. Each had their appeal, not least the sweat and joy of those Frames shows where collective action and collective reaction bound us in the fervour of his storytelling songs. But it was also found in the intimacy of those duo shows where the lightness of the touch belied the heaviness of the emotion in songs from the movie that reflected their own (by then already over) relationship. Nonetheless, surprise there was because what this Opera House show offered was the physical punch of a full band, with brass and strings, led by a rousing collectivist singer, matched with the close-quarters personal effect of a solo show – an effect that was not just because there were some songs in a minimalist setup (with little more than piano or, in one memorable, glorious, transcendent part, with just a bass accompaniment to his acoustic guitar) but because Hansard centered everything in a one-on-one atmosphere of joy and wonder. Not for nothing did George Palathingal give this four-and-a-half stars in his Sydney Morning Herald review. And now? And now it holds up. More than holds up. Put it this way, there are many times listening to the recording now that I still feel shivers, and not just from memory. In When Your Mind’s Made Up, which begins small, eases into a light jazz groove over which guitar sparkles, and then increases its tempo, temperature and force until it twice

peaks, Hansard and band push through everything. In Falling Slowly (the breakout song from Once), the strings, acoustic and piano provide the featherbed for the two voices to fall back onto, almost spent. And then in Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, with only Joe Doyle’s marvellous bass joining him, there is fluidity, sensuality, hurt and a remarkable, crowd-enhanced, raw explosion of a climax. There’s more – a lot more given this is a double album, which still doesn’t include everything from the show – like the melancholic optimism of McCormick’s Wall’s Irish folk, the interlude of yarn spinning and gentle enhancement that was the feature spot for pianist Peadar O’Riada in Aisling Gheal, and the support and comfort of the opening Winning Streak, whose message of hope feels ever more relevant. (Interestingly, that wasn’t the opening song on the night – Just To Be The One, also from the Didn’t He Ramble album, was the first song played. But in our Covid-afflicted

time, Winning Streak feels perfect and justifies the setlist fudge). When the show and album end with Her Mercy, it is a chance to capture all the elements of the night: quiet, intimacy, trust, escalating energy, joyous communal atmosphere, raucous drive, folk soul and sunshine. Two thirds of the way through Her Mercy, Hansard says “this concert’s going straight to the pool room”. He may have been caught up in the moment, but he wasn’t wrong on the night, and he’s not wrong now.

ick Thomas remains one of Australia’s most distinctive songwriters, not afraid to write about being Australian and able to hang his songs around a myriad of local places and events (contemporary and historical). It is something that Thomas developed in Weddings Parties, Anything and it has also marked his solo career. Even recording in Memphis for the 2019 album Coldwater DFU - 29 years after he was first there with the Weddoes - couldn’t disguise Thomas’ character. In fact, one of the strongest impressions that legendary producer the late Jim Dickinson had of working with the band was how quintessentially ‘Aussie’ they were. Years after the recording, Dickinson retained that memory of a band that he said he loved. Thomas, along with other writers - such as Paul Kelly, Shane Howard, Mark Seymour, to name a few – have been way ahead of the curve in centring their songs in our own locale. You can hear that here with Thomas’ own songs and those from friends and even a poem from the legendary Barry Humphries. It arrives after a year of quite intense activity from Thomas, given the lockdown we have had in Victoria. In June he released See You On The Other Side: A Postcard From April 2020 which included the epic single ‘See You When I’m Looking At You,’ featuring an array of special guests (it was surely one of the songs of the year). Thomas also appeared in and provided music for the excellent online series Mint Condition. Then there was a series of online shows (without audiences) in venues and from a home studio. It certainly hasn’t been a lockdown on Thomas’ activity and he is almost a one-person cottage industry. So, while he was on a roll, Thomas continued to record, and the results have been well- worth it. The subtitle of the new album is ‘old favourites re-invented, new gems unearthed.’ Thomas has explained that the concept for the album reflects the Dutch type of nostalgic, sentimental popular music Jordaanlied which extols the virtues of an Amsterdam neighbourhood. Applied to Melbourne this brings a rich vein of subjects. The album’s title is from the Van Walker song ‘High Street Bridge’ (from which you

can see the entire CBD) and enthusiastically praises the local live music scene. High Street also features in the opening track, Charles Jenkins’ ‘Keeping The Cannons Clean,’ about the cannons at the top of the street in Westgarth. But it is Barry Humphries’ poem ‘The Suburbs In Between‘ that truly encapsulates the entire album. Thomas says that he envisaged it as the cornerstone of the album. RocKwiz’s Brian Nankervis offers a superb reading of Humphries’ gentle diatribe against progress and his affectionate list of the lesser-known suburbs that evoke the changing character of the city of Melbourne. As someone who has been restricted more than most over the past few months this really resonated with me as I have discovered the many delights of my own suburb (unfortunately, not mentioned in the poem) and have come to appreciate my own city more than ever before (though, luckily, I haven’t had to drive anywhere!).

There haven’t been many better pieces about the city but one that nudges it is Thomas’ own ‘Under The Clocks,’ about an iconic location, Flinders Street station, from which all train and tram lines radiate. Its an evocation of the inner suburbs and the city itself. On the other hand, if you are travelling into the city by public transport you might encounter ‘The Met Police’ and Sal Kimber’s song paints a less than flattering portrait as Brooke Russell sings along with Thomas. Russell also takes lead vocal on Peter Lawler’s ‘Captain Collingwood’ (not about Eddie McGuire!) while one of the more unusual inclusions, that happens to be one of my favourites, is the Legends of Motorsport 2006 song ‘Corner Of

Bent Street & High,’ sounding far less grungy than its original incarnation. Jen Anderson, who will be with Thomas and the Weddoes for Bluesfest, plays violin on ‘The Sound of A Train,’ a song she co-wrote with Thomas. Anderson also arranges the strings on Marcel Borack’s ‘Regent To Ruthven’ (which will remind long-time Melbourne music fans of the Peter Best Beatles’ classic, ‘Alamein Train’ (which could have also been a nice inclusion). An excellent version of the Cold Chisel classic ‘Forever Now’ (written by Steve Prestwich) - originally commissioned for Triple R’s JVG Radio Method program – is included and features vocals from Tim Rogers, Angie Hart, Emma Heeney, Sophie Koh and Celia Church. The jaunty ‘At The Corner’, a song about one of Melbourne’s legendary live venues, recorded for the Leaps and Bounds Festival, will bring back memories for anyone who has been to a gig there. (‘I never saved the ticket stub I don’t have any proof/Of the night that Teenage Fanclub nearly lifted off the roof,’ sings Thomas, reminding us of one of the great gigs there). The entire album was recorded in isolation with band members sending in their contributions from remote locations: Dave Foley’s drums and Brooke’s vocals and guitar from the suburbs, Ben Franz’s bass from Perth, Mark ‘Squeezebox Wally’ Wallace’s keyboards from Ocean Grove. A variety of guests range from singers Jac Tonks and guitarist Dana Gehrman to Snooks LaVie on harmonica. Craig Pilkington of Audrey Studios, who also plays trumpets on ‘Forever Now’ and ‘The Suburbs In Between’, has mixed the album and, as usual, manages to get a really terrific, warm vibe. The album is obviously deeply rooted in Australian folk music, especially with the accordion present, but it has Thomas’s distinctive sound. Sometimes, I think it must be galling to those in other states to hear Melburnians continually claiming that it is the music capital of the nation. We must sound like Texans to you? This city of five million is not without its faults but maybe this album will encourage musicians in other states to initiate a similar project. Perry Keyes has already written some brilliant songs about Sydney. City’s Calling Me arrives at the perfect time to remind us of what we have been through together and what we have to be thankful for in these troubled times. 81

CD: Feature

BY DENISE HYLANDS & CHRIS LAMBIE

BY ?

SHAKEY GRAVES

ROLL THE BONES X (10 Year Anniversary Deluxe Reissue) Dualtone

Not every musician who lives in Austin gets a day named after them…the 9th of February is Shakey Graves Day…as proclaimed by the Mayor of Austin back in 2012 when Graves was 24 years old. Austin, is home to Alejandro Rose-Garcia aka Shakey Graves. Raised in a creative thinking family, his first calling was acting, credited for regular appearances in Friday Night Lights and in movies like Spy Kids amongst others, but music was his real passion. Hanging out in BRUCE HEARN

THE WORD IS THE MUSIC, THE PEOPLE ARE THE SONG ISKRA Records

the New York City ‘anti-folk’ scene was where he started making music but it was while in LA - when he saw a performance by bluespunk one-man-band Bob Log III - that he was impressed and inspired. Armed with a guitar and a handmade kick drum built out of an old suitcase, he became his own one-man-band playing his own blues folk rock, music he dubbed ‘hobo folk’. If you’ve had the pleasure of seeing him live, he’s a true entertainer. Rose-Garcia’s first album wasn’t just a case of laying down some songs he’d accumulated. It was more a piece about exploration and discovery over time, 5 years in the making, capturing music and songs he’d created along the way, some being tossed aside to make room for new ones, until it felt right, when all the songs had found their place, when that last song was added, it was complete. That song was ‘Roll The Bones’, which became the name of the album and the beginning of Shakey Graves. “I hear someone who felt really trapped,” he reveals. “In a lot of ways, it was a breakup record. My first serious relationship had fallen apart, and I was wanting to break up with my life - run away, be transient, and figure out who I was in the world. I can hear myself blaming the girl and trying to support myself, like maybe it’s okay to be dirty and crazy and have blinders on. Then, at the end, everything’s zooming back in and I’m saying ‘I guess I just got hurt and I’m in a bit of pain and, you know, it’s going to be okay.’”

Roll the Bones was released into the world in 2011 exclusively on Bandcamp with no promotion. Bandcamp made it a feature album for a month and it has stayed a top selling folk album on the website ever since. Since then, it’s been available to anyone for ‘name your price’, yet it has sold well over 100,000 copies…and every Shakey Graves Day he opens up the attics of his discography - making all of his albums, plus hundreds of unheard songs temporarily available for free. “I’ve used Shakey Graves Day as a challenge to myself,” he assesses. “I make so many random songs throughout the year that I either forget about or I’m too nervous to put on an album and it becomes a clearinghouse for that. It surprises me when people tell me that something released that day is their favourite of my stuff. In a larger sense, it builds off what I initially did with Roll the Bones - which is give it away for free.” Ten years on, along with his record label Dualtone, Shakey Graves releases a Ten Year Special Edition double LP version of Roll The Bones for the first time on vinyl and finally made available on all digital service providers. Accompanying the anniversary pressing are 15 additional tracks comprising an Odds + Ends LP, which stands as an essential document of Grave’s early era. The lovingly assembled packaging includes handwritten deep explanations of every song, offset with original photography. Finally, it’s out in the world proper. DENISE HYLANDS

Maverick Melbourne minstrel Bruce Hearn has played his way around the world of roots music since the 70s. From Americana to Celtic and colonial folk and blues, he’s also known as co-founder and trumpet player with Australia’s ‘Godfathers of Ska’, Strange Tenants. In 2017, he headed a triumphant salute to folk hero Woody Guthrie with collaborative concerts. The ‘unearthed’ live recordings resulted in 2020 release Live at the Athenaeum: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie. Taking its title from a Guthrie quote, this new collection marks a welcome solo debut from Hearn.

‘The Old Rebel Flag’. Consummate unionist Hearn honours blue collar battlers, laments continuing deaths in custody and pokes fun at latter-day, latte-sipping ‘greenies’. He admits to being a bit ‘Inner City Cool’ himself. But his roots redeem him as an advocate of the working class. A new version of Strange Tenants’ ‘Grey Skies Over Collingwood’ (Hearn’s childhood stomping ground) is particularly poignant. (Also covered in the 90s by Weddings Parties Anything.) There’s the occasional light brush of Country (‘Salt Of The Earth) and fiddle-smoked Appalachian strains (‘Shoulder To Shoulder’). Lyrics are informed and considered. Covers occupy the second disc: Dylan (x2), Woody and Arlo Guthrie, Christy Moore, Tom Paxton, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Peter La Farge. Hearn’s vocal renditions of folk classics are tender and true. Engineer Adrian Akkerman captures the intimacy and immediacy of a late-night coffee house set. CHRIS LAMBIE

The double album features Peter Beulke (double bass) and Craig Woodward (guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle) with Hearn back on the guitar plus harmonica, charango and… kazoo. This is fair dinkum grass-roots folk. Disc No.1 delivers 10 Hearn originals. Some are co-written with his brother Ian and others. Henry Lawson penned the words of 82

THE LUKE SINCLAIR SET

HEAVY DREAMS Once when I was talking to Luke Sinclair, the Raised by Eagles’ singer/songwriter, I suggested (only partially joking) that he should move to Nashville. Even eight years ago, when the band released its eponymous debut it was evident that Sinclair was turning into one of our finest songwriters in the vein that I was much happier calling alt.country than Americana, which is what it is referred to now. (At least I guess it’s better than ‘cowpunk’). Even at this stage Sinclair had plenty of experience working with local bands and his colleagues in RBE were also very talented players. In 2015, they played the Americana Festival at a showcase I thought was much too small. I wished I had enough funds at the time to hand everyone I met there a copy of their second and then current excellent album Diamonds In The Bloodstream. (The 2017 album I Must Be Somewhere confirmed that enthusiasm). I just happened to think that this band was as good as many of the North American bands that played the event. But Nashville is a tough place to create a presence, overflowing with great musicians as it is, and unless you are prepared to spend a lot of time there – like Anne Mc Cue, Emma Swift and even Keith Urban - it is tough to stand out. I just happened to think that Sinclair might be able to make it, at least as a songwriter, but it’s tough when the Americana movement there is so myopic and obsessed with the notion that Jason Isbell is the epitome of the genre. Then Sinclair went through a traumatic breakup and the pandemic lockdown hit just as the band might have been thinking of making another album. While Raised By Eagles were on a forced hiatus Sinclair decided to take the opportunity to record a debut ‘solo’ album, Heavy Dreams, under the moniker of The Luke Sinclair Set, a name suggested by songwriter Van Walker and one that signals a lot about Sinclair’s attitude as an almost reluctant front man. “The need to be working towards something, for me, it became a mental health necessity more than anything else, Sinclair explained to me when the new album’s first track,

‘Boots To The Grave,’ was released late last year. “So, I just felt like I really needed to be working on something that I wasn’t getting. That kind of catharsis and that connection that you get through playing gigs really is something I’ve realised I was taking for granted. Because when it’s taken away from you, and you don’t have that in your life, you really, really get a sense of how much you need it, as an artist or as someone that just needs to have that connection and that release”

Apart from Sinclair on guitar and vocals, the Set consists of Zane Lynd on bass, guitar, piano and harmony vocals; Matt Dixon on lead guitars and drummer Liam O’Leary. They are augmented by Kelly Day playing synth, adding some harmony vocals, as well as arranging a choir, and Simon Burke from The Meltdown on piano and organ. Roger Bergodaz not only co-produced with Sinclair at Union Street Studios but also adds percussion and piano edits. The forthcoming album was mastered by Peter Lyman at Infrasonic Mastering (who count Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell in their credits) in Nashville and I reckon it sounds as good as most things you are likely to hear out of that town this year. “The subject matter? It came out of some kind of terrible cataclysmic event in my life

that happened a couple of years ago and getting through that,” explains Sinclair. “Then part of getting through that was, of course, spending a lot of time on my own and writing songs.” ‘Running on The Wheel,’ the album’s opening track opens the book on what Sinclair has been going through. “All the places that we’ve been and the places we ain’t goin’ now, keep flickering and burning in the corner of my eye. All I can do is write.” Later, he confesses, “I just let it roll in and out of my life/I let go of the control/ Like a tumbling dice/We’re all tumbling dice.” It’s heart-rending as it swells to a conclusion that includes Kelly Day’s synth, harmony vocals and choir arrangement. Sinclair calls it ‘a giant of a song’ and there will be few better or more emotive songs this year. “It’s a much more sort of classiccountry soul,” said Sinclair about the sound and you can tell that he has poured his heart and soul into the songs. ‘Streams,’ the song that provides the album title, continues the theme as he sings, ‘I’m moving away from you now/These heavy dreams of keeping me close to you somehow.” The gentle, almost acoustic ‘Always The Water,’ with Roger Bergodaz’s piano figuring prominently, appears…. towards the end and intones, ‘You could never meet me on my time …… When you let me go, mama you’ll be fine.” “Interestingly enough,” continued Sinclair, “the lyrics kind of came absolutely secondary to the music and that never happens to me. I’m usually one hundred per cent focused on the lyrics and whatever happens on the guitar is driven by what I’m hoping to say, or what I’m hoping to convey emotionally through the music.” But don’t get the idea that the album is full of introspective ballads. ‘Every Song I Ever Wrote’ and ‘The Horizon Is A Goldmine,’ ‘Paper Boat’ and ‘Take It All Back’ cruise along superbly in the very best Raised By Eagles fashion, the latter propelled by Nick O’Mara’s lap steel. On ‘Boots To The Grave’, one of the standout tracks, Sinclair sings, ‘Find your place in the sun.” Let’s hope he does find his place in the sun soon because he has undoubtedly given us one of the albums of the year. Heavy Dreams is available at helukesinclairset.bandcamp.com 83

CD: Feature

BY STUART COOPE

BY TONY HILLIER

DON MORRISON

STEVE TILSTON

DONMO

SUCH TIMES

’d been thinking about how to write the sleeve notes to this collection of Don Morrison’s songs for weeks now. In fact, it may have been months. It’s not because I was avoiding doing them. Far from it. Every time I sat down to start I’d put on the two CDs and start listening to the songs. And that would be the end of it. I’d be transported into the world of Don’s songs and singing, taken of on excursions into the world he so magnificently conjures up in his lyrics. There was another factor too. I was feeling just a little embarrassed. You see, for over 40 years I’ve been listening to the finest (and sometimes not so finest) singers and songwriters. It’s a love of mine. A passion. It’s what I do. And I (thought) I knew almost all there was to know about it. I mean, I managed that other guy from Adelaide – someone called Kelly, and he gave me the OK to write a book about him. So, Mr Expert here was a little taken aback earlier this year when another mate in Adelaide told me about this guy called Don Morrison. My immediate assumption was that this Morrison chap was probably some newcomer. Then I started to get the picture – that he’d been writing songs for longer than I had been writing about songwriters. Then he sent me a bunch of CDs which included the majority of the songs you have in this package. I listened to them with an increasing sense of awe. I was hearing – let’s cut to the chase – one of the finest songwriters I’d ever encountered. One astonishing song after another, covering a huge array of subjects and styles. Really the only thing that unified them all – as you’ll hear on this collection – is that they’re magnificent. Hell, this Don character has even written a book – This Could Be Big: Forty Years At The Dag End Of The Australian Music Industry. And, guess what – that was wonderful too. I was expecting that the next thing he’d tell me was that once he’d played Centre Half Forward for the Norwood. Maybe he did and we just haven’t had that conversation yet. He certainly shares with another writer I love, Barry Dickens, a passionate love for the days of the Fitzroy footy club – back in the days when that was what they were known as. Check out Don’s song ‘Fitzroy I’m Calling You’ for his take on this particular issue. The first song I heard from Don was ‘The Rat Plague Of ’66’. It was so – well, different and captivating that I knew I was on to something. Then I immersed myself in the superb album It’s A Long Drive- Songs Of Streets, Roads And Cars. I was totally sold. Here was one of THE finest songwriters I’d ever encountered. It had just taken me 40 or so years to get there. I guess that’s OK. At least I did eventually arrive.

On the 50th anniversary of a debut album that triggered a lost letter of encouragement from John Lennon and ultimately a Hollywood film, Steve Tilston has overcome the UK’s draconian pandemic lockdown to deliver one of the most appealing and timely albums of his distinguished recording career. Unlike Al Pacino, who portrayed him in the comedy-drama Danny Collins, the English troubadour has never seriously hankered for the bright lights, although he does admit to having courted commercial success during the early years of his career. Now, on the cusp of 70, he’s regarded as one of the most consistently outstanding and esteemed singer-songwriters of his generation — a survivor from the so-called British baroque folk movement of the early 1970s that yielded other superb fingerpicking acoustic guitarists like the late Bert Jansch and John Renbourn. As Tilston told me in a 2007 interview for Rhythms: “I've tried my best to do good work without being too precious about myself, and most importantly I've danced to no other bugger’s tune but my own. This is more important to me than any fanciful notions of fame.” With Such Times, Tilston consolidates his reputation and retains his credibility as he taps into the zeitgeist like the social commentator and storyteller sans pareil that he is, his lyrical mastery, as always, matched by magnificent musicianship. His 18th solo album is full of stylistic contrast, while the trying times of life in the 2020s simmer close to the surface in many of the songs. The master musician mixes moods and textures adroitly to draw listeners inexorably towards subject matter that subtly alludes to COVID, Trumpism and other plagues of recent times. The infectiously upbeat and optimistic opening track ‘Daylight Rising’ is what might be described, in modern parlance, as a classic ‘earworm’, its frequently repeated chorus and irresistible melody burrowing into the brain and stubbornly refusing to budge, while promising metaphorically that an “ill wind will die” and that “there will come a time to open up the windows”. The set-ending ‘Little Flame’ observes the therapeutic effect of music on children and adults alike: “When the music starts it dulls all pain”. The relatively sombre title track, which comes laced with wispy flute, and the

FORTY BY FORTY

Riverboat/Planet

My Adelaide friends scoffed. They told me Don was a local legend. I knew better than to disagree with them. You don’t disagree with Adelaidians. In fact, one of my favourite songs on this collection is ‘The Leaving Song’ which concerns trying to get back to Adelaide after a period in England. My point was really about why Don was new to me and why as I played his songs do other people I knew, did they have similar responses. That response was usually a version of “who is this guy – he’s amazing.” One weekend I was playing through this collection and my partner yelled from three rooms away, “Turn it up – these songs are brilliant.” Packages arrived from Don. I devoured albums like Waiting. The beautiful self-titled one that contains the mind-blowing ‘Grand Junction Road’, ‘Five Men In a Car’’, the aforementioned ‘The Leaving Song’ and so many others. Then there was Raging Thirst with ‘Brunswick Street Strut’, and Random Notes with ‘Kensington Road’ (which is as fine as that other famous Adelaide song mentioning that strip of road), ‘Bob Dylan Was Born In Adelaide’, and the eight minute ‘Conversation With The Man From EMI’ which I sorta would have included on this collection – but you can’t have everything and it’s a superb reason to search out that album. Don’s subject matter ranges all over the shop – as you’d want and expect from a songwriter of

such talent. Musically he does the same with the songs on this album encompassing folk, country, blues, smatterings of rockabilly and rock’n’roll. So, after months and months of immersing myself in Don’s songs and recordings I’m convinced that he really is one of the finest songwriters this country has produced. Why isn’t he a household name like that Kelly fellow, Don Walker, Mark Seymour, Deborah Conway, Shane Howard and so many others that we could both name? Maybe it’s a bit of luck that didn’t go Don’s way. Maybe not having the right machinery behind him. It’s certainly not for lack of (sustained) quality and fabulous musical augmentation to flesh out those songs. The music creation caper is no different to other artistic pursuits – sometimes the chips just don’t fall the way they should. Sometimes the best footy teams don’t actually win the Grand Final. But you know what – despite being in a Don Morrison wilderness for most of my life I’m now a paid-up member of the fan club and waving the DM flag whenever I can to whoever I can. Chances are if you’re holding this CD you are too – or maybe like me you’re just starting your journey through the work of this remarkable songwriter. Now, just go out any tell someone else about Don Morrison. Promise me you will. Forty By Forty is available at donmo.com

more jaunty ‘Dust From My Heels’ hint at homelessness and the egregious behaviour of politicians of all persuasions. ‘Such Times’ contains some of the set’s most memorable lines, such as: “I can remember a landscape much fairer, where cheats and dissemblers were soon seen to fall/ Now they guffaw as they pander their scruples, rubbing them roubles and sneering at us all”. The deeply reflective ‘Satellites Decree’ has distant echoes of Acoustic Confusion, the auspicious 1971 long-player that kick-started Tilston’s recording career. In ‘A Million Miles Away’, the artist’s deepest and most mournful vocal tone combines with a banjo riff to enhance the folk narrative of what is a plaintive love song. ‘My Mystery Train’ comes closer to vintage American country music, exhibiting a distant resemblance to Johnny Cash. The circular figure that drives the folk blues ‘It’s A Crying Shame’ brings to mind Bert Jansch and the equally legendary guitarist-singer Davey Graham. As is customary, Tilston tosses in a couple of well-crafted and executed instrumentals, the bluesy Big Bill Broonzy-esque ‘12-8 Pull Off’ — a title that speaks for itself — and the more intricate and rhythmically complex ‘Four Corners’. The album’s sole non-original track, a recasting of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s delightfully poetic ‘Waters Of March’ (aka ‘Águas de Março’) in English retains its intrinsic bossa-esque poise while carrying the inimitable Tilston stamp.

Despite the exposure and bucks he gratefully received on the back of his aforementioned brush with Hollywood, Tilston — a quintessential ‘musician’s musician’ — has never really received the wide public acclaim that his towering all-round talent patently merits. As others have pointed out, he’s that rare combination of a singer, songwriter and guitarist who excels in all departments and is one of the few veteran artists whose work simply gets better with the passing of time. With requisite airplay and exposure, Such Times — a veritable album for our times — might well see Steve Tilston emulate another revered British all-rounder (and personal favourite) Richard Thompson and belatedly crash the charts. Stranger things have happened! Photo Credit: Shay Rowan

CD: Feature BY BRIAN WISE

aybe Mick Avory wasn’t the best person to enlist in the publicity campaign surrounding the re-release in a deluxe box set of the Kinks. “I still can’t believe it,” he says when I mention the various permutations of the re-issue. Drummer with the band for twenty years from 1964, involved in the running of Konk Studios for years after that and still a part of the business of the band, Avory is more musician and less salesmen than one might expect. “All I want is a DVD or a CD or something,” says Mick when I suggest that it must be interesting to see all this old material reemerge, and he adds, “All the paraphernalia that goes with it doesn’t really interest me, but the fans, they love all that.” Just over fifty years on from its original release in November 1970, the album is now available as a single-CD, vinyl album and a Deluxe Box Set that includes three discs (the original album plus singles (stereo and mono mixes), B-sides, alternate original mixes, new medleys with Ray Davies plus Dave Davies’ spoken word commentary, new remixes and original session outtakes, previously unreleased session and live tape audio, instrumental and acoustic versions, previously unreleased demos and BBC material, a 60-page book — plus a pair of reproduction 7-inch singles of the albums hits, ‘Lola’/’Berkeley Mews’ and ‘Apeman’/’Rats.’ Avory, who also played for many years in a Kinks tribute band called Kast Off Kinks, admits that he used to give away his copy of the deluxe editions to their singer Dave Clarke. 86

“He loves that,” says Avory. “I used to end up giving all the stuff to him because he’s really into it. It’s surprised me that there’s so many people that would collect all that because they’re all outtakes and bits and pieces and old photographs and stuff like that, and little bits of interviews. But to someone who’s really into it, it’s like a hobby I suppose. Not for me. I don’t suppose anyone in the group, most of the people in groups don’t collect that.” I suggest to Mick that he is supposed to be encouraging people to buy the box set. “No, they can buy it,” he replies. “I’ll give mine anyway, so someone gets the benefit. But they all go like hot cakes these things. It’s unbelievable.” At least we know that if Mick ever sold anyone a car or house he wouldn’t be selling them a dud! Nevertheless, it is a thrill to talk to a member of one of my favourite ever bands and in his place, it is up to me to encourage you to investigate what is a marvellous rerelease from one of Britain’s pre-eminent groups of the ‘60s and ’70s. No songwriter has ever captured the English condition better than Ray Davies and on Lola Vs Powerman he not only did that superbly but also wrote two of the bands biggest hit singles, including the controversial ‘Lola,’ maybe the first song about a transgender person. “The album is a celebration of artistic freedom (including my own) and the right for anyone to be gender-free if one wishes,” said Davies said in a statement. “The secret is to be a good and trusting person and friend.” “Things weren’t going right in the group and I think we’d exhausted our relationship, or Dave and I had anyway,” says Avory, reflecting on why he left the group in 1984. “You all start off the same and you’ve got the same interests and everything, but you go in different directions sometimes and it’s not a band anymore. So that’s when I butted out, but because I was there from the beginning, I was in the company and attached to it all. Working at the studio has followed on quite naturally really.” Avory says that he doesn’t see Dave Davies much – although Dave is trapped in the UK because of the pandemic – but that he is in contact with Ray who still lives in North London.

“He owns the studio,” says Avory. “So, I ring him every now and then. We get together and we have a little drink or a conflab about what’s going on record-wise or business stuff. So, I see Ray normally. I haven’t seen him for about a year now because of this blooming pandemic, but normally I’d be seeing him now.” Does Mick recall the recording of the album, which was done at Morgan Studios in Willesden? (Later, of course, they used Konk). “After using Pye for many years, we reverted to Morgan,” recalls Avory. “We did that album there. Well, I say out of there. They had three studios in the end, but I think we used studio one or two mainly. I’ve got some recollection of it. I’ve got all the tracks in my head still: know what they sound like. Dave’s got a strong number on that one called ‘Strangers’. That was one of the best songs he did, I think. That was quite a strong track for that album. There’s ‘Lola’ and ‘Apeman’ on it, which were singles obviously. “See, with the Kinks, it always moved onto something else. We went through different phases and different styles really. It was basically following what Ray had written about. So, the subjects changed a lot, as did the way we played them really. There are some that are similar to each other. I think

‘Apeman’ and Lola, musically, are fairly similar, same type of feel, half-time feel. “In those days, we used to rehearse round Ray’s house, and that was when it was more of a band and we all got together a lot and we socialised and we’d rehearse together. Ray used to record us jamming together. I’d do a drum rhythm and the bass player would join in and sort of improvise on the theme and Ray used to record all that stuff because he knew he could work it into a song or an idea that he’d got. He had all those ideas on a tape and he could refer to them. That helped quite a lot with the way the band could play the song because they’d gel together on certain things. He didn’t always write the song completely, he’d write parts of it and put it together. So, it was an evolution, a development. But songs like ‘Apeman’, I think he wrote that off complete, but a lot of the time it was a gradual building.” The big single, of course, was ‘Lola’, reaching the Top 10 around the world. Apart from the subject matter there was the controversy over the use of the Coca-Cola brand in the lyrics, necessitating a re-recording to replace it with ‘cherry cola.’ From the ‘60s and into the early ‘70s, and the heyday of the band, The Kinks would have met a whole range of very interesting, colourful characters whom Ray Davies would make the subject of a lot of his songs.

“Yeah,” agrees Avory. “Well, we used to know this Michael McGrath who used to work with John Stephen’s shop [Tre Camp] in Carnaby Street, and he used to do promotion and publicity for them - and he used to take pictures at Top of the Pops and television studios, anywhere he could get his face in. He got very friendly with the Kinks because he was gay. I think the name attracted him and we were a bit different and we used to dress up in colourful clothes, I suppose, at the time. So, it was something that drew him to us. “He introduced to all these people because he knew them. A lot of them were in showbusiness. There were sex changes and all that. Never really heard of all that. He introduced us to these clubs that he used to go to, and he used to mix with all these people. Also, he used to hold court round his flat in Earl’s Court, and he used to invite all different people from all walks of showbusiness. We used to go up there, and it was like an evening’s entertainment because he’d introduce all these guests that he had. His mother used to have a separate little apartment in part of the same apartment (but she had her own little room just adjacent to him). So, it was a bit of a weird thing. But because of that, it opened a new world for us and we became aware of all these people.

I don’t know for how long, but we used to go to clubs or go round his flat at that time, quite a lot, for a little while. Ray, obviously can write about something and make it into a song. Whatever comes his way, he can write about anything. So that’s how ‘Lola’ came about.” “But the actual subject of the thing was more important and more controversial than CocaCola, I would have thought” notes Avory, “but they didn’t ban the song. Funny. They’d play it on the condition we changed that word, that’s all.” In some ways the song was way ahead of its time and groundbreaking for that period. “Yeah, it was,” agrees Avory. “I think that must have gone over their heads a bit because when you analyse what it’s all about, it’s a bit controversial. But now everyone knows about all that stuff. They can still relate to that song all this time after.” “When you think back, when you start doing a little bit of revision and you say, ‘Blimey, I remember all that quite well’ and it seems to close the gap. But, 50 years, that’s nothing in my lifetime though, is it?” says Avory when I mention the anniversary. “I’m getting that old now, 50 years seems like just a little phase.” 87

CD: General STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES

J.T.

New West

It has been said that no parent should ever have to bury their child. The pain is unimaginable. Yet this was Steve Earle’s task last year when his son Justin passed away at the age of just 38. Anyone who saw Justin on tour here the year before might have noticed a hint that all was not right, but this had happened before and his father was hardly a role model in his younger days. Their relationship had been as volatile at times as both their lives had been, but they had grown quite close over the years as they both became more creative. While many of Steve’s influences naturally seeped into Justin’s work there was much more of a Southern soul and pop element to his songs. Justin’s voice also lacked Steve’s twang and might have been more appealing to a different audience. I always felt that there was a masterpiece on the way just over the hill. Steve’s wonderful tribute to his son is this album of Justin’s songs and when you hear them you almost think that many of them could have been written for his father. “It’s the only way I knew to say goodbye,” Steve Earle has said of the album and it follows his other tributes to heroes Guy Clark and Townes Van Zant. The songs are powerful reminders of a great talent cut short. BRIAN WISE

JIM GHEDI

IN THE FURROWS OF COMMON PLACE

Basin Rock Records/The Planet Company

Just 30 years old, Sheffield UK born folk singer-songwriter Jim Ghedi makes music that could have been written 200 years ago – timeless, evocative, atmospheric, poetic and deeply rooted in the traditional folk music of the British Isles. Deeply moving and melodically spritely by turns, In the Furrows of Common Place sees Ghedi, till now more the instrumentalist than the vocalist, singing half a dozen of the songs on the album, his lyrics charged with contemporary observations even as they’re presented within an historical context that adds to that feeling of timelessness. Those issues – poverty, homelessness, environmental degradation – have, after all, been around for enough centuries for society to have solved them, yet, here they are, surrounding us today. The traditional tune ‘Ah Cud Hew’, performed a cappella with the additional voice of trumpeter and flugelhorn player Sally Rowan Smith, reminds us that the African American work song has a corollary in the traditional sea shanty, while Ghedi creates a limpid musical backdrop the poem ‘Lamentations of Round Oak Waters’ by 19th century English Romantic poet John Clare, his droning harmonium the bedrock over which his voice evokes a bygone time still with us, Smith’s trumpet contemporary yet so right. Ghedi took himself and his fellow players – Smith, double bassist Neal Heppleston, drummer and percussionist Guy Whittaker and a Manchester violinist who travels as dbh – all the way up to Great Bernera in the Scottish Outer Hebrides in order to record In the Furrows of Common Place at Black Bay Studios with Pete Fletcher, and you can hear the calm of the place in every track. A beautifully thoughtful piece of work. MICHAEL SMITH

CD: General LAKE STREET DIVE

MAX MERRITT

OBVIOUSLY

I CAN DREAM

Seventy-four year old US Democratic Senator for Massachusetts, Ed Markey, who co-sponsored America’s Green New Deal makes a cameo appearance in the video for the first single lifted off this album, ‘Making Do’, as jaunty yet impassioned a warning to the current generation of the impact of climate as you could ask, which says as much about the socio-political integrity of this five-piece from Boston as it does the respect among their fellow Americans for their remarkable musicality. Fronted by singer Rachael Price, Lake Street Dive have seamlessly synthesised the best elements of 60-odd years’ worth of post-rock’n’roll popular music, from Beatle pop through R&B and soul to contemporary smooth jazz to create a fresh, heady contemporary mix. The band’s principal songwriter, bass player Bridget Kearney really seems to have this whole songwriting thing down pat, having quite obviously deeply immersed herself in and respecting every aspect of those genres. That loving commitment is evident in the band’s subtle, supple playing and tasteful arrangements, Price and Kearney accompanied in this endeavour by guitarist Mike Olson, drummer Mike Calabrese and newest member, keyboards player Akie Bermiss. Obviously isn’t a political record by any stretch, ‘Making Do’ really the only “statement” song, the issues addressed otherwise being the usual ones, but there’s an abiding intelligence behind their expression. There’s no dumbing down here – this is popular adult contemporary music for adult listeners. Obviously is a beautifully crafted joy to listen to. MICHAEL SMITH

It’s funny hearing Merritt singing about not remembering playing Sunbury, which he and his band the Meteors did in 1972 and 1973, in ‘Sunbury’, one of the five songs he cowrote included on this posthumous ten-song album, cheekily chiding his listeners with “if you remember Sunbury, you weren’t there”. Cowritten with former Men At Work’s Colin Hay, ‘Sunbury’ is one of two songs recorded at Hay’s studio in Topanga Canyon in California, the languorous country outing ‘The Closer I Get To You’ the other, Hay contributing acoustic, electric and slide guitars and a bit of mellotron as well as backing vocals. Merritt, who passed away in September 2020, finally losing his long battle with the auto-immune disorder Goodpasture’s Syndrome just shy of his 80th birthday, had begun recording this album in Melbourne’s Metropolis Studios in 2002 during one his frequent visits back to Australia from Los Angeles where he lived and those sessions provide the three final songs on I Can Dream, the Colin Hay cuts recorded in 2018 while the other five were recorded in Los Angeles between 2014 and 2020, all ten songs with now expat Australian James “Jimbo” Barton in the producer’s chair. Whatever else it did to his body, his illness didn’t affect his powerful voice which shines as soulfully as ever across the album, and apart from the aforementioned ‘The Closer I Get To You’, this is very much an old-school soul album in the very best sense, all the more impressive for the fact that the bulk of the players on the record are Australian, veterans all and easily the match of their American counterparts. Guitarist Rex Goh, keyboards player Rick Melick, bass player Nick Sinclair and drummer Mark Kennedy are the core players on those latter five songs, which include the anthemic title track, ‘I Can Dream Can’t I’, though the stalwart Harry Brus does

Nonesuch/Warner Music

Fanfare Records

the bass honours on ‘Medicine Man’. Various American players add bits and pieces across those songs as well as the two recorded at Hay’s studio, while guitarist John Dallimore, bass player Glenn Suckling and drummer David Hicks are the core players on those 2002 sessions, alongside long-time Meteor saxophonist Jimmie Sloggett. Very much a labour of love for Barton, I Can Dream is quite the timeless collection, an album that could have been recorded 40 years ago during Merritt’s heyday, and so is a fitting conclusion to a career that deserved greater recognition at its height. A fine addition/coda to an all too slim catalogue of work by a master performer. MICHAEL SMITH SKÁLD

VIKINGS CHANT Universal

It’s a pity I never studied Old Norse back when Tolkien’s books made it so terribly cool. Not that you really need to know a word in order to enjoy this extraordinary record, any more than you need to understand the lyrics of any great “World Music” record. Vikings Chant really is a lot of fun regardless – great sound, great voices and a great mix of evocative moods and soundscapes, from the atmospheric and lyrical (‘Níu’), through ominous and brooding to swaggering and even just a little bloodcurdling. Skálds are the old stories, the epic sagas of the Norsemen, the Vikings, as well as the tellers of those sagas, the balladeers and poets, and while no one can say exactly what they might have sounded like – there are obviously no records of whatever music may have accompanied their telling – producer and composer Christophe Voisin-Boisvinet, the man behind this project has done an inspired job in creating a feasible musical context

for them and the voices of the three singers – Justine Galmiche, multiinstrumentalist Pierrick Valence and Mattjö Haussy – at the core of the group. What’s even more impressive is that apart from Haussy, the bulk of those involved are French! There are no faux “dark metal” elements, thank Odin, just the occasional clang of axes against shields included as part of the percussion and, apart from the necessary synthesised sounds, the group of players he’s assembled play a variety of instruments based on those known to have existed back in the day – stringed instruments like the lyre, the talharpa, the citole played with a bow, the jouhikko, and the nyckelharpa or keyed harp. That’ll get keener readers busy surfing Wikipedia! You can also find all the songs translated up there in cyberspace. Of course there are names at least listeners who enjoyed the TV series Vikings will recognise anyway – Ragnar, Floki, Freya, Óđinn and so on – but honestly, Vikings Chant is just a cracking good slice of reimagined ancient folk music that can be enjoyed purely for the journey. Or it is up to Track 13, ‘Jóga’, when, for no apparent reason, it all switches over to English for three songs, including a version of The Doors’ ‘Riders of the Storm’! At least the fourth song in English, ‘High Hopes’, stays true to the journey. Either way I’m going to have find Skáld’s previous and debut album, 2018’s Vikings Memories. MICHAEL SMITH

catalogue. So Slim Pickens’ personal love letter on the passing of Prine is exactly that – personal. No ‘Sam Stone’. No ‘Angel From Montgomery’. No ‘Mexican Home’. Obviously, the album that means the most to Pickens is Diamonds In The Rough. At least half the selections on Trip To Mars come from that album, a couple more from the self-titled debut and Sweet Revenge. The exceptions are more recent songs ‘Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone)’ and ‘Morning Train’. It sounds like Pickens had a clear idea of how he wanted each song arranged and did all the recording and much of the playing himself. He had already started recording the concept when Prine became sick and died. We can only imagine what affect that had on the project. Instead of causing him to give up, it inspired Pickens to produce some of his best recordings to date. With some songs, like ‘Hello In There’, he chooses to experiment with the instrumental arrangement. On others he remains more faithful to the original. In some he sings so uncannily like the original author, you almost forget you’re listening to a cover. Throughout all, though, Pickens inhabits the original spirit of these great songs with an authenticity and reverence. MARTIN JONES SNEZ

FISHER ON THE SEA

Sunset’ – to winsome thoughts of the open road, the gypsy inside, as that washing dries. There’s pride in humble origins in ‘Steelworks Kids’ and simple joy in watching a three year old discover the world in a paper cup in the ache of ‘2 & 1 Make 3’, the paradox and beauty of life, seen from within and without, delivered with the most lilting of melodies, a clear-eyed poignancy and love of the little things, all too aware that it’s the big things that decide which way things will go, yet still filled with enough hope to keep going, keeping close those memories of home, child and love, her bedrock care. “I am hope,” Snez sings in ‘Michelle’, in a sketch of a proud woman defiant living on society’s fringes – “Your First World kindness keeps your conscience clean.” There’s even a dose of low-key rock’n’skiffle in the cheeky ‘Fire in My Eyes’ as her protagonist hits the local club with her friends and “assess the karaoke singalong/we’ve got slime-balls singin’ out of tune, ‘Sweet Caroline’ in shorts and thongs.” We’ve all seen that! The girls give as good as they get. Simple stories, real stories, Snez is a fisher of the little things, deftly weaving them into sublime little songs, Fisher On The Sea a quietly sprawling collection that, as short stories, would probably garner some regional literary award or other. MICHAEL SMITH SUZI QUATRO

Independent

THE DEVIL IN ME

A gentle lyricism suffuses the simple observations from this Blue Mountains, NSW-based folk-country with a pop sensibility singersongwriter, observations that stretch from a living room festooned with washing on a winter’s day to the sounds of bombs that force a mother to trust a trafficker to get her sons to safety, “and my tears filled the sea” (‘No Points for Me’), from the joy and loneliness of performing – ‘Busking on the Road’ and ‘Another

The Devil in Me is the second album on which Quatro has collaborated with her son Richard Tuckey, their first 2019’s No Control, and like that album, Tuckey has ensured his mum hasn’t just revisited her tried and true tropes but allowed herself to explore and embrace material fans might never expect that >>>

SPV/Steamhammer

SLIM PICKENS

TRIP TO MARS Independent

So, if we were all asked to pick out our favourite dozen John Prine songs, I wonder how much crossover there’d be? Ask around. I bet you’ll get wildly varying answers. Prine was that kind of artist – a writer with an astonishingly broad and deep

CD: Blues

CD: General

BY AL HENSLEY >>> still remains true to her musical heritage. So, yes, there’s plenty of classic “Suzi” rockin’, proof positive that she’s still got enough sass and swagger to give the current generation of grrrl rockers a run for their money, but then there’s some pure ‘60s R&B/ soul in ‘My Heart And Soul’, where the grit in her voice allows some real emotion to come across. There’s the slow groove ‘Love’s Gone Bad’, positively haunting – Quatro could be channelling Sade! The interplay of piano and sax that takes up the theme after the final chorus positively swoons. That interplay returns on ‘In the Dark’, but in positively funkified mode, Quatro delivering the lyrics with a supple worldweariness. ‘Do Ya Dance’ hints at ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ era Stones, while ‘Isolation Blues’ – an obvious nod to something we’ve all experienced the past pandemic year – slinks along slow and smooth before giving way to the relentless chug of ‘I Sold My Soul’. There’s something here for everyone, from the “traditional” Suzi fare of ‘Motor City Riders’ to the power rock of the title track, but it’s ‘In The Dark’ and ‘Love’s Gone Bad’ that do it for me – and prove there’s so much more in this little lady than you’ll hear down Devilgate Drive. MICHAEL SMITH THE STAVES

GOOD WOMAN

Nonesuch/Atlantic Records/ Footstomp

Quite why sisters Emily, Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor – The Staves – have been labeled “folk” artists is hard to fathom, unless it’s because they sing 90

in beautifully flawless threepart harmonies and counterharmonies, and some of those harmonies are accompanied only by acoustic guitar, as they are on ‘Nothing’s Gonna Happen’ and ‘Nazareth’. The music The Staves make is utterly contemporary, rooted in their experiences as young women finding their way the twists and turns of love, motherhood and sisterhood in this millennium rather than some idealised past of hedgerows and swains. This is folk born of 21st century suburban life steeped in sweeping pop melodies, the folk of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ or ‘Blackbird’ rather than ‘All around My Hat’ – and it’s just fabulous. The sisters have certainly lucked out in American producer John Congleton, whose most recent work has been on records for Sharon Van Etten and St. Vincent. While his production is completely contemporary, it’s applied subtly, with “big” sounds where they emphasise an emotion or idea, quietly mesmeric sounds where evocation and atmosphere is more appropriate. The irony in songs like ‘Paralysed’, ‘Devotion’, ‘Waiting On Me To Change” and the title track, ‘Good Woman’, is that they each turn their respective titles on their heads by presenting strong women who know their worth, uncowed in the face of the labels imposed on them. “Acting like you know me/Like you’re part of my family,” they sing in ‘Failure’, “I don’t owe you anything.” It’s a far more subtle expression of strength but powerful nonetheless – “I’ll be here, trying, just trying. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you should be sorry too.” (‘Trying’) Sometimes it’s all we really should demand of each other. Simple things perhaps, but delivered with such aching beauty. MICHAEL SMITH

VARIOUS ARTISTS

OUR NEW ORLEANS Nonesuch

The residents of the Gulf Coast, and New Orleans in particular, are made of stern stuff. The regular devastation wreaked upon the Crescent City’s residents by the literal force of nature would break lesser souls, but the resilience of its vibrant music community continues to defy Mother Nature and provide inspiration for New Orleans to bounce back and, against the odds, prosper. Hurricane Katrina brought the city to its knees, but its bestknown musicians stood up to record a wonderful benefit album that raised $1.5 million in support of Habitat For Humanity. This timely re-release (if ever an injection of inspiration was needed then it’s now) of Our New Orleans features the original 16 songs recorded by a Who’s Who of New Orleans music that includes, amongst many, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, BeauSoleil, Wild Magnolias, Randy Newman and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. A further five tracks have been added in this expanded edition, adding Buckwheat Zydeco, Ry Cooder, Davell Crawford, and Donald Harrison to the roster. Now available on vinyl for the first time (the extra tracks make up Side 4), this is a stirring testament to the power of music, New Orleans music, that draws upon the very soul of the city for inspiration; it is simply brilliant. TREVOR J. LEEDEN

FRANK ZAPPA

LIVE DETROIT 1976 Timeline/Planet

If there is a fine line between genius and insanity, then it’s fair to say that Frank Zappa has a foot firmly placed either side of that imaginary line; this astounding performance from Detroit’s Cobo Arena makes a compelling case for the former. Eschewing his jazzoriented big band format, Zappa is instead backed by a tight knit quartet (featuring Terry Bozzio, Eddie Jobson, Patrick O’Hearn and rhythm guitarist Ray White) with supporting vocal gymnastics provided by Flo & Eddie. Spread across two discs, much of the material is drawn from the recently released Zoot Allures album as well as audience favourites like ‘Dirty Love’, Camarillo Brillo’ and ‘Dinah-Moe Hum’ from 1973’s Over-nite Sensation. Black humoured and sleazy, Zappa delights in delivering sexually explicit monologues and ribald jokes on pieces such as ‘Poodle Lecture’ (truly hilarious) and ‘Stinkfoot’, countered by virtuosic solo interplay between his slashing guitar and Jobson’s electric violin. Many songs stretch out into extended jams, with pieces such as ‘Black Napkins’, ‘A Pound For A Brown’, and ‘Purple Lagoon’ allowing the other members of the band to showcase their considerable talent. Legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra bassist Ralph Armstrong (a Detroit native) joins in proceedings along with Flo & Eddie on several songs that seem to veer incongruously between do-wop and avant-garde (listen to ‘What Kind Of Girl Do You Think We Are’) before thunderously regrouping into yet another instrumental tour-de-force; it’s breathtaking stuff. Long a sought-after bootleg, finally this official release presents the entire performance re-mastered from the original FM broadcast. “I’m just a regular guy” says Zappa at one point; off-beat, genius, crazy, virtuosic and confronting perhaps, but never ‘regular’. TREVOR J. LEEDEN

BLUES ESCAPE

NEW MOON JELLY ROLL

KIM WILSON

VOLUME 1 Stony Plain/Only Blues Music

M.C. Records/Only Blues Music

Paraply Records/Red Eye

BLUES ESCAPE FEAT. JOHANNA LILLVIK

When versatile Scandinavian singer/songwriter Johanna Lillvik teamed up with blues band Hill Blue Unit to perform a one-off gig at a jazz club in Sweden in 2016 the group's vibrant musical chemistry resulted in the continuation of their collaboration as Blues Escape. The quintet has since enjoyed ongoing success appearing in jazz and blues venues and festivals throughout Denmark and their Swedish homeland. Lillvik's sturdy vocals are deeply endowed with volume, range and timbre as she navigates a repertoire of material focussed on the blues traditions of New Orleans. With backing by a rhythmically dynamic piano, sax, bass and drums combo, a rousing rendition of Dinah Washington's swinging 'Evil Gal Blues' opens the set ahead of Lillvik's torchy reading of Blue Lu Barker's 'That's How I Got Your Man'. The Ella Mae Morse boogie-woogie rug-cutter 'Pig Foot Pete' gives way to the tango-driven slow-drag of Jesse Pickett's 'The Dream' - an old bordello song from the ragtime era - in a medley with 'Marie Laveau', Papa Celestin's ode to the fabled voodoo queen. Other New Orleans staples include the Angola prison song 'Junker Blues', popularised by Champion Jack Dupree, and Richard M. Jones' 'Trouble In Mind'.

FREEDOM ROCKERS

Resurrected from the archives, this project was conceived when blues harmonica ace Charlie Musselwhite was once touring with the North Mississippi Allstars. Their mutual love for blues resulted in a recording session convened in 2007 at the Mississippi hill country ranch of musician/producer the late Jim Dickinson. The NMA, comprising Dickinson's sons guitarist Luther and drummer Cody along with bassist Chris Chew, joined with Musselwhite and guests Alvin Youngblood Hart and Squirrel Nut Zippers guitarist Jimbo Mathus, to jam together as the New Moon Jelly Roll Freedom Rockers. Each player brought a couple of songs to the session, taking turns on vocals. Playing guitar and mandolin Hart sings Charley Patton's 'Pony Blues', the Mississippi Shieks' 'Stop And Listen Blues', and Jimi Hendrix's 'Stone Free', while Mathus performs one of his originals and Patton's 'Shake It And Break It'. Jim Dickinson plays piano and sings Piano Red's 'Come On Down To My House Baby' and 'Let's Work Together' by Wilbert Harrison, Musselwhite rendering two of his standards and the Memphis Jug Band's 'K.C. Moan'. The music's down-home ambience is fetching and Volume 2 is eagerly awaited.

TAKE ME BACK!

Co-founder of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Kim Wilson returns to M.C. Records for his seventh solo recording since 1993. Subtitled The Bigtone Sessions, this first release by the singer/harmonica master in three years was recorded in the studios of his co-producer Big Jon Atkinson who also plays guitar on several sides. Wilson surrounds himself with small ensembles of assorted toptier musicians who like to jam together playing spontaneously on selections from the all-time great deep blues songbook. Guitarist Billy Flynn, pianist Bob Welsh, bassist Kedar Roy, and drummers June Core and Marty Dodson are among the session players who cook up a storm on songs that fit Wilson's virile voice like a hand-in-glove. Replicating the classic sound of '50s-era blues labels like Chess, Cobra and Vee-Jay, Wilson's recording preference is going live in the studio without overdubs directly to analogue tape in mono with no more than four channels. The result is a raw, organic mix with just the right ingredients for a potent blend of unadorned oldschool Chicago and west coast blues. Besides seven of his own compositions, Wilson embraces gems by Jimmy Nolen, Larry Williams, Percy Mayfield, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Rogers and Little Walter.

ELVIN BISHOP & CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE 100 YEARS OF BLUES Alligator/Only Blues Music These two blues veterans are indeed birds of a feather. Each grew up in the US south in the early 1940s, moved to Chicago in the early '60s and later resettled on the west coast. Both artists immersed themselves in Chicago's south side music scene when the city's post-war blues was at its peak. Guitarist/singer Elvin Bishop and blues harpist/singer Charlie Musselwhite, whose careers now jointly span over 100 years, paid their dues during that period. Their respective talents were recognised by fans and encouraged by locally-based established blues artists. While Bishop came under the tutelage of guitarist Smokey Smothers, Musselwhite was mentored by harmonica maestro Big Walter Horton. Coincidentally celebrating 100 years since blues music was first recorded, this is the first album that Bishop and Musselwhite have made together. Kid Anderson's Greaseland Studios in San Jose, California was the venue, Anderson contributing upright bass on four tracks. Bob Welsh was the only other supporting player adroitly filling out the sound on guitar and piano. The bracing bare-boned set blends songs by Roosevelt Sykes, Willie Dixon and Leroy Carr with roadtested originals from the back catalogues of both artists.

CD: World Music & Folk

CD: Jazz 1

BY TONY HILLIER

DAVID ISOM

BEST OF DOWN TO THE SEA Green South Records

the Vistula, the longest and largest river in Poland, and Urzecze, an ethnographic micro-region near the capital city.

sole vocal cut leans towards a more traditional Ethiopian folk sound. OMAR SOSA

AN EAST AFRICAN JOURNEY Otá Records

As founder of the Bushwackers band — that long-running purveyor of songs about droving, shearing and ancillary outback pursuits — you might presume David Isom to be a landlubber. The veteran vocalist and multiinstrumentalist is actually an inveterate sailor, who has circumnavigated the globe in his own boat. Further corroboration of Isom’s deep love of the sea comes with this sterling compilation of remastered tracks, culled primarily from two previously released volumes of his favourite maritime songs. Supported by a 16-strong crew that included former Bushwackers Hugh McDonald and Michael Harris (both now sadly deceased), with the Goanna gals Rose Bygrave and Marcia Howard on backing vox, Best Of Down To The Sea does credit to a well-chosen selection of nautical songs that includes renditions of Canadian classics such as Stan Rogers’ ‘Lock Keeper’ and ‘Make and Break Harbour’ and Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Christian Island’, as well as Eric Bogle’s tribute to Rogers, ‘Safe In The Harbour’, Bob Dylan’s ‘When The Ship Comes In’ and Harry Belafonte’s ‘Jamaica Farewell’. Isom’s two originals are by no means out of place in such august company, while his vocal delivery throughout the 19-track set more than passes muster. WARSAW VILLAGE BAND

WATERDUCTION

Karrot Kommando An historic region in mid-northeastern Poland, Mazovia, is the inspiration for the latest release from the country’s international flag bearers — more specifically 92

While the Warsaw Village Band’s choice of subject matter might be esoteric and dry and the language nigh impenetrable to non-speakers, the album actually flows beautifully, with the group’s acoustic instrumentation (dulcimer, violin, fiddle, baraban drum and female voices, punctuated by brass) creating a quite magnificent musical mosaic. YOSSA HAILE

MENTA MENGED Independent

Having played alongside such revered artists as Tilahun Gessese, Mahmoud Ahmed, Aster Aweke, and Alemayehu Eshete, Brisbanebased multi-instrumentalist Yossa Haile is arguably the highest credentialed Ethiopiaborn musician currently calling Australia home. His long-overdue debut album — a predominantly instrumental affair home-recorded with a local rhythm section — reflects the music styles of his homeland to varying degrees. The distinctive minor pentatonic scale that lends Ethio-jazz its dark and swirling sound pervades a third of the set. Three of the nine tracks are more pan-African oriented, while several others, notably the title piece, are rock-infused. The

Since emigrating from Cuba in 1993, the prolific pianist and recording artist Omar Sosa has pursued a passionate exploration of African musical cultures. His latest release, based on recordings made a few years ago during an extensive tour of East Africa, follows collaborations with musicians from West Africa (Senegal and Mali), North Africa (Morocco) and South Africa, and also South America (Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil). In this 33rd release of a 28-year recording career, Sosa puts his subtle and ever elegant Cuban stamp on cross-cultural dalliances with musicians from Kenya, Zambia, Burundi, Southern Sudan and Ethiopia and the Indian Ocean islands of Madagascar and Mauritius, blending his sophisticated jazz-informed ivory tickling with the traditional and contemporary sounds of local folkloric players and singers. The end result is diverse and, predominantly, absorbing music. GÁJANAS

ČIHKKOJUVVON Bafe's Factory

Those who witnessed Norwegian Mari Boine’s mesmerising performances at WOMADelaide a few years ago will be aware how potent indigenous Sami (Lapland) shamanic singing/yodelling, or joik, can be in harness with rock instrumentation and mallethit drums. From the far north of Finland, Gájanas generate similar dynamics courtesy of their powerful female singer Hildá Länsman, who sounds like a cross between Boine and Björk, and a kick ass male backing band that lets rip with fuzzy and screeching electric guitar riffs. The quartet’s debut album builds impressive momentum, culminating with a stunning saxophone solo in the penultimate track and a seriously funky finale. A CUMPAGNIA & TRIO SOSPIRATA MARE NOSTRUM Casa Editions

Although politically a region of France, Corsica was once part of Italy (albeit back in the 18th century), so the idea of teaming one of the Mediterranean island’s renowned Corsican a cappella ensembles with an innovative Italian instrumental trio seems entirely logical. Several tracks on Mare Nostrum feature one group or the other, but the album works best when the polyphonic vocal tradition of A Cumpagnia and the Tuscaninformed euphonium/trombone, accordion and frame drums of Trio Sospirata come together — especially in the more animated numbers like ‘Manganzia’ and ‘Pellegrinu’.

FERGUS McCREADIE

CAIRN

Edition Records

energy to light-up Edinburgh Castle, McCreadie’s flurry of notes on a Steinway Grand piano leading an electrifying path. The album’s other extended cut, ‘An Old Friend’, starts as a lovely air before building incrementally to a thrilling peak. At 22, Fergus McCreadie, who was mentored by Scottish saxophone supremo Tommy Smith, has the jazz world in the palm of his hands.

LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA SEPTET

THE DEMOCRACY SUITE Blue Engine Records

DAVE BRUBECK QUARTET

TIME OUTTAKES Brubeck Editions Hitherto there hasn’t been what could be truly termed a great Scottish jazz pianist and composer. Fergus McCreadie is already well on his way to rectifying that anomaly. While barely out of his teens, this precocious talent collected the Scottish Album of the Year award, for his 2019 self-released debut Turas. Last year, he was voted Best Instrumentalist at the same awards. A BBC Jazz Musician of the Year Finalist in 2018, he might well scoop the awards pool with this sophomore album, his first release for one of Britain’s finest jazz labels. With Cairn, the Glasgowbased youngster more than consolidates his reputation as a virtuosic pianist and formidable composer and as a bandleader. Inspired by the landscapes and beauty of his native Highlands and rooted in musical Scottish tradition, it’s an album that radiates extraordinary freshness and originality. McCreadie’s compositions are memorably melodic, elegant, nuanced and captivating. As a player, he impresses as an improviser of exceptional ability and flair. Throughout Cairn, McCreadie enjoys exemplary support from his equally youthful partnersin-rhyme and co-arrangers, upright bassist David Bowden and drummer Stephen Henderson. The trio symbiotically moves from impressionistic modal settings such as in the opening Satieesque ‘North’ and the stately curtain-closer ‘Cliffside’ to some thrilling high-octane mid-set workouts. In ‘Jig’, the spectacular Celtic-influenced cornerstone track, they generate enough

‘Twas the Dave Brubeck Quartet back in the early 1960s that awakened this then nascent music lover to the joys of jazz, when they gatecrashed the British pop charts with ‘Take Five’. My love for saxophonist-composer Paul Desmond’s quirky toon has never waned. Sixty years on, I was delighted to discover a version on Time Outtakes that includes Joe Morello’s original protracted drum solo that was omitted from the hit single release of the classic 5/4 two-chord piano/ bass vamp. As the title indicates, this new collection — part of the commemoration of Brubeck’s 100th birthday — contains other previously unreleased cuts of compositions that comprised the original 1959 Time Out recording sessions. These include, most notably, the 9/8 study of ‘Blue Rondo a la Turk’, another piece that satisfied the pianist/band leader’s fascination with odd time signatures, not to mention improvised counterpoint, polyrhythm and polytonality. Outtakes of ‘Strange Meadow Lark’, ‘Three to Get Ready’ and ‘Kathy's Waltz’, which were on the Time Out LP, are also reprised on Time Outtakes, along with a couple of pieces that didn’t make the original recording.

Even by his own elevated level of productivity, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and prolific Grammy Award-scoring trumpeter Wynton Marsalis has been excessively industrious and inventive in his role as music and artistic director of New York’s Lincoln Center Orchestra, guiding the ensemble to no fewer than 10 thematic albums in the past couple of years alone. The latest release offers another exploration of socio-cultural and political issues, conceptualising the MD’s timely assertion that “jazz is the perfect metaphor for democracy” with a buoyant set that counters naysayers and anarchists in the USA and elsewhere. The Democracy Suite — recorded live during the Covid-19 lockdown by a septet of LCO members led by Marsalis — may be instrumental but it speaks volumes, with seven magnificent musicians in various permutations on such wellarranged and uplifting pieces as ‘Out Amongst the People’ and ‘Be Present’.

Like its thriving UK counterpart, the nu-jazz scene in South Africa is seemingly awash with innovative and versatile young musicians intent on moving the genre into the 2020s while genuflecting to the past. Contributors to a collaboration that has a strong socio-political current include its Johannesburg-based curators, pianist/vocalist Thandi Nthuli and Siyabonga Mthembu, lead singer with the performance art ensemble The Brother Moves On, who are responsible for a track. The influence of a township upbringing that exposed them to pop and gospel as well as American jazz classics is reflected in the patchwork quilt of music that surfaces in Indaba Is. Standout tracks include Mthembu’s turn with pan-African band iPhupho L'ka Biko, which combines sitar and brass improvisations, and with The Ancestors (fresh from their albums with English sax supremo Shabaka Hutchings), and the multi-award winning Botswanaborn pianist and producer Bokani Dyer, whose ‘Ke Nako’ gets the set off in style. AMANDA TOSOFF

EARTH VOICES Empress Music

VARIOUS ARTISTS

INDABA IS Brownswood

Canadian pianist/composer Amanda Tosoff leads a hybrid ensemble that includes strings and no fewer than seven rotating vocalists and 10 guest instrumentalists through an absorbing set that deftly melds the words of legendary poets like Pablo Neruda, Walt Whitman and Rumi with classy modern jazz. A rendition of Joni Mitchell’s classic ‘The Fiddle and the Drum’ — beautifully delivered by Lydia Persaud — is among the highlights. 93

CD: Jazz 2

CD: Vinyl

BY DES COWLEY

BY STEVE BELL

ALISTER SPENCE TRIO WITH ED KUEPPER

RALPH ALESSI, JUDY BAILEY, SANDY EVANS AND OTHERS

ASM101

COLLABORATIONS Monash University, CD

ASTEROID EKOSYSTEM

Despite an extensive career to date, Ed Kuepper remains as creative and vital a musician as ever. This propitious double-album sees him teamed with the Alister Spence Trio, who, along with the Necks, are at the forefront of adventurous piano-trio music in this country. While Kuepper is not considered a jazz musician per se, he has nevertheless consistently paid close attention to sonic detail, remaining open to the possibilities of improvisation. On Asteroid Ekosystem, an all-instrumental affair, Kuepper meshes seamlessly with the Trio, unleashing dense guitar soundscapes that blend beautifully with Spence’s piano, Lloyd Swanton’s bass and Toby Hall’s percussion. Much of this music was improvised in the studio, and it exhibits a loose open feel, emphasizing electronic textures. You can aurally discern these musicians sculpting sound, crafting tracks via a strategem of close listening. ‘A Passing Universe’ digs into a deep and urgent groove, Hall’s choppy percussion forming a bedrock for Spence’s minimalist piano, overlaid with Kuepper’s jagged and searing rhythms. ‘Winds Take Forests’, on the other hand, is nearly 14 minutes of squalling guitar and electronics, a testament to Kuepper’s avant-garde leanings. ‘Face of the Atom’ sees Kuepper adopting a laid-back blues swagger, à la John Lee Hooker, casually strumming over Swanton’s walking bass lines. Asteroid Ekosystem is an exploratory album of sonic and ambient music, and reveals Kuepper to be the iconoclast that he is, unafraid, in his sixth decade, to tirelessly experiment, and push himself into new territory. 94

MONASH SESSIONS:

Collaborations is a compilation drawn from five recent digitalonly releases, part of the on-going Monash Sessions series that pairs international and local musician/ composers with staff and students from Monash (not that there is anything student-y about this music). At nearly eighty-minutes, it presents a generous slice of work by six composers: US trumpeter (and ECM recording artist) Ralph Alessi, US guitarist Ben Monder, and Australian artists Judy Bailey, Sandy Evans, Andrea Keller, and Linda May Han Oh. Almost to a tee, these composers have adopted the modus operandi pioneered by modernists like Gil Evans and George Russell, whose ensemble-work emphasized tonal colour and texture over traditional big band stylings. Keller’s ‘Lady Geri’ is ushered in with gentle piano and bass, building to a slow groove, over which Jonathan Cooper’s sax dreamily floats. Alessi’s ‘Lap Nap’ pitches Jack DohertyBrown’s growling trombone against a backdrop of percussion and piano, setting the scene for Alessi’s slippery trumpet, ducking and weaving, as if through a complex maze. Sandy Evans’ ‘Drums across the Ganges’ is a standout, its rhythmic bass lines and ensemble precision acting as a springboard for Evans’ snake-like soprano sax, synced to rapid-fire percussion. If there is an exception to the mix, it is Judy Bailey’s ‘Gee Whiz’, which harks back to an earlier stride and swing era. Her superb ten-minute ‘Moving On’, however, with its urgent bassline and catchy guitar hook, more than makes up for it. In brief, Collaborations is a dense and sprawling album, chockful of highlights.

THE ANDY SUGG GROUP

GRAND & UNION Kel CD

Melbourne-based saxophonist Andy Sugg has been steadily mining a post-Coltrane sound for some years, along the lines of players like Dave Liebman and George Coleman, both of whom he studied with. Aside from Sugg’s long-term duo with pianist Andy Vance, his preferred format is the classic Coltrane quartet, shown-off to great effect on his outstanding John Coltrane Project recording from 2011. His new album, an all-original affair, was recorded in Brooklyn, NY, featuring an American quartet: Brett Williams on piano, Alex Claffy on bass, and Jonathan Barber on drums. It kicks off with the title track, an extended modal piece driven by Williams’ pulsing dark notes. Sugg’s playing is fluid and brawny, incessantly improvising in and around the theme. ‘Ruby Mei’ is a gentle ballad, highlighted by Sugg’s long mournful lines, awash with warmth and devotion. ‘The Rite Stuff’ is a rhythmic number, driven by a percussive backbeat. On ‘Invocation’, Sugg’s solo twists and turns, while Williams’ electric piano injects a touch of funk. For the album’s finale, Sugg reprises ‘Ruby Mei’, this time performed as a sax/piano duet, echoing his work with Andy Vance. By upping the emotional ante, it provides a moving coda to the album. While Sugg acknowledges the influence of Stravinsky’s masterpiece The Rites of Spring on the album (even quoting a few licks from it), Grand & Union is a far cry from the classical canon, instead reflecting Sugg’s ongoing explorations of post-Coltrane jazz. Like Coltrane, he is equally at home playing modal jazz, blues, or ballads, all-the-while developing his own harmonically rich language, enhanced by a muscular and fluent tone.

THE HEADS THE PUSSYCAT TAPES VOL 1 Dave MacRae, digital release

LUCERO WHEN YOU FOUND ME Liberty + Lament/Thirty Tigers

In these days of digital music, it is easy to forget that pre-compact disc, there were few opportunities for Australian jazz musicians to document their music. Albums were expensive to produce, and, by and large, major labels were just not interested. It defies belief, for instance, that prior to the 2014 release of Bernie McGann 1966 (Sarang Bang Records), the sole extant recordings of the great saxophonist’s work during the sixties and seventies were confined to two tracks issued on the 1967 compilation Jazz Australia. The appearance of The Pussycat Tapes, therefore, warrants our attention, capturing, as it does, a 24-yearold Bernie McGann burning through a set of standards at the Fat Black Pussycat Club in 1964. According to pianist Dave MacRae, who engineered the release, the quartet of McGann, MacRae, bassist Andy Brown, and drummer John Pochée moved from Sydney to Melbourne to take up a monthlong residency at the club, playing as The Heads. Despite the bootleg quality of the source tapes – and the album is best considered a bootleg – there is a palpable excitement to the performance, documenting, as it does, some of the earliest modern jazz in this country. McGann’s playing on the bebop standard ‘Donna Lee’ demonstrates the extent to which he was still in thrall to Charlie Parker’s rapid-fire phrasing. If nothing else, The Pussycat Tapes gives us a glimpse of a young Bernie McGann in action, forging an Australian saxophone vernacular that justifiably became revered.

Memphis southern rockers Lucero have been at the musical coalface for well over 20 years now, their tenth studio album When You Found Me a product of their COVID-enforced road layoff but proving another fascinating addition to their growing canon. Once more produced by Matt Ross-Spang (Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell, Margo Price) - who also oversaw 2018 predecessor Among The Ghosts - its subtle sonic shift is based around keyboardist Rick Steff’s introduction of synthesisers into the Lucero palette. This brings a sweeping, near-cinematic feel to tracks like ‘Outrun The Moon’ and ‘Pull Me Close, Don’t Let Go’, while ‘Good As Gone’ rides on an upbeat tempo akin to a long-lost classic ‘80s rock hit. Frontman Ben Nicols is these days happily married with a young daughter and this contentment seeps into the lyrics, which have shifted subtly over the journey from world-weary road travails and restlessness towards desiring both stability and a better world for the next generation (‘All My Life’, ‘When You Found Me’). There are still some old school character studies (Coffin Nails’, ‘Back In Ohio’), and despite any aesthetic changes - and they’ve made significant sonic detours before, such as their horn-heavy Memphis soul phase - at their core they’re still the hard-livin’ southern rockers of yore, and that can only be a good thing. Early pressings on limited edition coke bottle-coloured vinyl.

KURT VILE

SPEED, SOUND, LONELY KV (EP)

Matador Records Late, great country pioneer John Prine’s passing was one of the genuine lowlights of 2020 - the motherlode year of lowlights - but his memory is being preserved in the work of his many musical acolytes, the latest being Philadelphian slacker-indie-rock mainstay Kurt Vile. His new five-track EP opens with a perfectly laidback cover of Prine’s perennial ‘Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness’ - which also lends a variation of its name to the collection - but Vile then raises the bar even further by actually duetting with Prine on a cover of the elder statesman’s ‘How Lucky’, their disparate voices and worldviews melding wonderfully in this left-of-centre meeting of minds. Other songs include his version of Cowboy Jack Clements’ wholehearted ‘Gone Girl’ and two strong originals (‘Dandelion’ and ‘Pearl’) which all slot together nicely into one cohesive package. Recorded at famed Nashville studio The Butcher Shoppe helped by both the cream of Music City’s session men and some outside names such as Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) and Matt Sweeney (Chavez), the EP finds Vile at his laconic best, the sparse production giving it an intimate live feel which suits the songs to the ground, all cut on 12” to 45rpm for increased fidelity.

KIWI JR COOLER RETURNS Sub Pop Records

Young Canadian indie rock four-piece Kiwi Jr announced themselves to the world with their independent debut album Football Money back in 2019, a catchy dose of classic ‘90s indie rock which drew immediate comparisons to old school darlings like Pavement and The Modern Lovers and gained them enough traction to be quickly signed by Seattle pacesetter Sub Pop. Now they’ve re-emerged with follow-up Cooler Returns, another irrepressible and hook-laden dose of sardonic observational commentary given salve by the dulcet and inviting tones of frontman Jeremy Gaudet (his vocals the main reason for the constant comparisons to the bands of Stephen Malkmus and Jonathan Richman, the undisputed kings of wry). While the sonic party vibe remains firmly in place the main change has found them favouring acoustic guitars over electric, augmenting them with flourishes of piano, organ and harmonica to bring a nice underlying organic feel to proceedings, even when they move away from the jangle towards more jerky, post-punk terrain. The crux of songs like ‘Undecided Voters’, ‘Highlights Of 100’, ‘Only Here For A Haircut’, ‘Norma Jean’s Jacket’ and ‘Waiting In Line’ is that they’re melodic, fun pop songs which slot together into a seamless whole that whistles past and demands repeat spins - hopefully the pandemic is somehow defeated soon because these guys will be amazing to see live. First pressing on limited edition translucent yellow-gold vinyl.

Alex Winter BY BRIAN WISE

ZAPPA UMBRELLA ENTERTAINMENT While it was difficult to resist the temptation to ask director Alex Winter about his other life as an actor – particularly as Bill in the wacky Bill & Ted movie franchise - it occurred to me afterwards that such an experience might have helped him appreciate Frank Zappa’s life and work even more. One of the most prolific musicians of the 20th century, Zappa’s music and his lyrics challenged conventions, shocked people, was constantly inventive and highly influential. While the closest he came to a hit song was ‘Valley Girl’ in 1982 (No.32 in the Top 100) and his only Top 20 album in 27 years was Apostrophe in 1984. By the time he died in 1993 at the age of 52, Zappa had released literally hundreds of recordings. He had also become a strident crusader against censorship in music and a political activist revered in the Czech Republic. Yet one of the most striking aspects of Zappa’s work was his humour which I was lucky enough to experience first-hand. In June 1973 Zappa and The Mothers (of Invention) band toured Australia for the first time and appeared at Melbourne’s Festival Hall. The amazing ensemble consisted of some crack musicians including George Duke on keyboards, Jean Luc Ponty on violin, Bruce Fowler on trombone and Ruth Underwood and Ian Underwood on percussion and woodwinds respectively. I still recall Zappa constantly stopping the band and making them restart songs, for some reason know only to him. (George Duke once told me the story of how Frank also enjoyed putting musicians on the spot by demanding unexpected solos but that after Duke ripped out an incredible spontaneous solo he was spared from then on). Apart from the incredible musicianship, I also recall rolling around in hysterics when he performed songs such as ‘Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow’ and ‘Nanook Rubs It In’ (and, no, I hadn’t been smoking jazz cigarettes). “Ooh, that was a good one,” says Winter of the line-up when we catch up via Zoom to talk about the new documentary. “That’s fantastic.” “That didn’t change as the years went on, that’s for sure,” he notes when I mention that Frank kept stopping the band. In Zappa, you can see plenty of Zappa and his bands in full flight. Winter and his team were given unrestricted access to Zappa’s archives thanks to Frank’s widow Gail and 96

the estate. There is a glimpse of the massive archives which gives you an idea of why it took Winter and his crew some years to trawl through them. “It was somewhat mythical, but I didn’t realize quite how expansive it was,” says Winter when I ask about the vault that housed Zappa’s archives, “and I’m not even sure the family really understood the depth of what was there because a lot of it wasn’t marked so it was kind of a journey of discovery for everybody.” Gail Zappa is a major interviewee, along with many friends and collaborators who appear in the film, including Ian Underwood, Steve Vai, Pamela Des Barres, Bunk Gardner, David Harrington, Scott Thunes, Ruth Underwood, Ray White and others “I was a big fan, and I grew up in an era that was very Zappa heavy,” admits Winter

when I ask him what drew him to Zappa as a subject for documentary. He had already made non-music films such as Showbiz Kids, The Panama Papers and Deep Web. “I grew up in the States, largely in the ‘70s and he was a real cultural type to us growing up. He was more than just a musician, he was kind of a leader of social, political, sexual culture as well, and he was hilarious, and he was a great artist. Everybody’s older brother had a giant Zappa poster in their room, and you grew up with a keen awareness of who he was. “What made me want to make the doc was beyond that, to the degree that I always found his life and the events of his life to be incredibly fascinating, and him to be a really complicated and interesting person who lived at a very interesting period in our history. So, those types of characters make good subjects.”

“I mean look, you know Zappa, you know the world, and it was not easy and we wanted to get it right,” responds Winter when I mention that the film took years to make, “and we wanted to tell a story and make a movie that was entertaining but complex and kind of epic in its scope to encompass aspects of his life - not to tell just the sort of linear bio story and certainly not to make an album to album music doc, but to tell a kind of epic drama about an artist, who lived in a particular period of time and Zappa’s a complicated fella so it’s something that we really wanted to just take our time with and to figure out.” “I was really interested in telling his intimate story if possible, especially given the fact that Zappa was so enigmatic and I did not want the film to feel like an outsider’s point-of-view,” says Winter when I ask him about the approach that he decided to take in telling the story. He no doubt could have found a very high-profile narrator. “I really wanted it to feel like we were experiencing, as best as possible, what Zappa’s life was like from his own perspective, without cheating, without pretending it was a first-person narrative but using as much material as we possibly could to convey his interiority, to convey his life and his worldview. And Mike Nichols, the editor, and I really felt strongly that the vault material was giving us such an intimate way in. We found shelves and shelves of never-before-heard or seen interview content with him, a lot of which was just him down in the basement, shooting the breeze with friends and associates and being very honest and forthright about the things that were going on in his life, and we really liked that stuff. So, one of the first things we did was built a timeline of a narrative, comprised of all that material and that was very helpful to us in guiding the approach.

“The other thing we wanted to do is kind of convey Zappa’s style, musically and his film style because he was an avid film-maker and his editing style was really specific so that was a guide for us as well.” “Oftentimes people called him a workaholic,” replies Winter when I mention how prolific Zappa was. (I once counted that there were at least 210 Zappa albums officially released and it is probably way more now). “It wasn’t a term I was interested in investigating too thoroughly in the film though we do mention it, we don’t shy away from it. He was someone who was incredibly committed to the life that he set out for, all the way back in his teens and to him, making art was of paramount importance and it’s what he wanted to spend as much of his waking hours doing as humanly possible so he made a lot of stuff and his output was prolific, but it also had a really high caliber of quality because he was such a perfectionist. Now, I don’t think there were too many popular artists from that era that had a life like that. I think Prince is somewhat similar and I think there’s a few others in other mediums that are similar, but he was pretty unique in his world.” While Zappa’s albums with the Mothers of Invention contained material that these days might be considered politically incorrect, much of it also challenged conventions. However, Zappa was a fierce defender of free speech and spoke up publicly for other artists at a Senate hearing (along with John Denver and Dee Snyder). “Essentially the three of them went to battle with all of these adversaries and succeeded,” explains Winter. “I would argue they succeeded largely because of Zappa’s testimony which was incredibly eloquent and persuasive. At one stage during the hearings, Zappa suggested, with no trace of sarcasm, that song lyrics should be printed in full on the covers of albums. The committee members took it as a serious suggestion. “I know, I know. They really felt a boot on their neck,” says Winter. “They were concerned that the art itself was going to be censored and that they wouldn’t be able to actually put out their work, so he was looking to try to create or show the willingness to create compromise.” Of course, Zappa had a few less likeable characteristics which Winter’s film doesn’t really shy away from. I mention that his crude humour with the Mothers could be considered offensive these days. “I mean, unless you listen to your average rap artists!” Winter retorts. “I think that that Zappa was a man of the times from the standpoint, that essentially, he was a multifaceted person. There was the very kind of patriarchal, old school, Italian dad,

but it was also the sexual revolution and he was really kind of ahead of the curve of even a lot of the artists around him because he was a little bit older than a lot of the artists around them, and so he spearheaded the groupie movement, you could argue. I really did want to focus on what kind of person does that, that has a genuine interest in his wife, who he was extremely close with and they ran a business together and it was not just a bad marriage that they pretended existed. I mean, they really were very entwined, and he was very devoted to his kids and yet, he would take off on the road and the rules were completely thrown out the window. I found that interesting and I wanted to look at it.” The other important thing about Zappa’s career, towards the end of his life, was his involvement in politics, particularly with Vaclav Havel and the Czech Republic. “I remembered it when it happened and I thought it was very impressive and very interesting,” says Winter. “What I did not realize until we got into the archival media, was how devoted he was to developing a greater understanding of world events. I found it incredibly impressive that he wasn’t just a kind of armchair, political pundit, kind of spouting off on what was going on. He went to Moscow and he went into different places of the world to try to roll up his sleeves and see what he could do to help and also to understand what was going on globally. That was something that was a surprise to me. I knew a lot about Zappa growing up, I did not know that and it was very intriguing.” Zappa is showing in cinemas nationally.

I’ll Be Gone: Mike Rudd, Spectrum and How One Song Captured a Generation By Craig Horne (Melbourne Books, P/B)

ruth be told I haven’t given much thought to Mike Rudd in recent decades. But it wasn’t always that way. I remember purchasing Spectrum’s Milesago as a teenager when it first appeared in 1971. To this day, it remains an album dear to my heart, part of a wave of Australian music I cut my teeth on, touching on progressive, psychedelic and blues music. Bands such as MacKenzie Theory, Company Caine, Kahvas Jute, Carson, the first iteration of Chain. This music seemed, at the time, a natural outgrowth of what was coming out of the UK, whether early Floyd, Blind Faith or John Mayall. With hindsight, it can be viewed as a short-lived chapter of Australian music, experimental and exploratory, that was eclipsed before it took root. If you blinked, you could have missed it. Craig Horne’s new book goes some way to resurrecting a linchpin of that era. Of course, when I think of Mike Rudd, I find it impossible not to conjure, at the same time, the inimitable Bill Putt, six-foot something with a walrusmoustache, always in the background, laying down steady bass, playing Boswell to Rudd’s Johnson. Spectrum may have metamorphosed over time, adopting a myriad of masks and guises, with band members coming and going, but the combination of Rudd/Putt was a constant, right through to the latter’s untimely death in 2013. Horne briefly recounts Rudd’s early years, growing up in Christchurch, NZ, earning his musical stripes with the Chants R&B. The band briefly lit out for Melbourne, but it was to be a short-lived thing, with Rudd soon after expelled. His dismissal proved fortuitous, paving the way for Rudd to take up bass duties with Ross Wilson’s Zappa-influenced Party Machine. What a fleeting era it was: Party Machine barely had time to ruffle a few feathers and record a 7” single before Wilson jumped ship, heading to London to join Procession. Yet the opportunity to work with Wilson had a lasting impact on Rudd, and to this day he generously acknowledges the influence Wilson had on him, both as musician and song writer. Spectrum formed in 1969. The band provided a platform for Rudd’s general 98

weirdness, grafting surreal lyrics (as a kid Rudd loved Spike Milligan) onto an antipodean version of prog rock. The band’s first recordings, at Armstrong Studios in Albert Park, comprised ‘Launching Place, Part 1 & II’. When producer Howard Gable asked if they had anything else, the band trotted out a number they had been performing in concert; and, in Horne’s words, an ‘accidental masterpiece’ was born. While the eventual release of ‘I’ll be Gone’ was delayed due to a radio industry dispute, it proved a number one hit. By then, the band had recorded its first album Spectrum Part One, a milestone in Australian music. While a contentious move (the jury is still out), Rudd’s decision not to include ‘I’ll be Gone’ on the album is commendable, even if it cost sales. Its three minutes of melancholic yearning and harmonica would have been out of step with the album’s organ-heavy prog- rock program.

Craig Horne is perhaps overplaying his hand in designating ‘I’ll be Gone’ as a song that ‘captured a generation’. It could equally be categorized as a millstone around Rudd’s neck, dividing his audience between those leaning more toward

Spectrum’s experimental side, and those wanting melodic songs. Either way, for better or worse, it is the song with which Rudd has become synonymous, and one that has sustained him as a heritage act for nearly half a century, whether playing Port Fairy or Long Way to the Top. Regardless, it’s probably a moot point, by the early seventies Thorpie’s ‘suck more piss’ and pub rock had taken control. It was the era of Sunbury’s million-dollar riffs, and Rudd needed to get on board. Enter the Indelible Murtceps, which eventually morphed into Ariel. If Rudd’s career was a game of snakes and ladders, Horne’s account makes it pretty clear he’s landed on his fair share of snakes (and surprisingly few ladders). Ariel, in particular, was Rudd’s best shot at success, a band that could play pubs or Countdown in equal measure. Yet every time fame seemed assured, something came along to scuttle it. Attempts to establish a foothold in the UK ended in calamity. Rudd’s tongue-in-cheek lyrics led to songs being banned from radio play. His ambitious rock opera Jellabad Mutant came to nought, after the record company lost confidence in the band. Ariel was unceremoniously dumped by EMI, then by CBS. Then Punk music arrived and practically buried everything that had gone before. The whole shebang ended with a last extravaganza Ariel Aloha, played out at Dallas Brooks Hall in 1977. In ten long years, since first arriving in Melbourne, Rudd had given it his best shot, and it turned out it still wasn’t enough. Life’s not always fair. In the final part of his book, Horne recaps Rudd’s life since Ariel’s demise. An introvert by nature, Rudd remains anything but bitter, and to this day continues to enjoy playing, and making music. Punters still call out for ‘I’ll be Gone’ and he’s generally happy to oblige, though he can equally draw upon a vast catalogue of songs. Horne’s account of the longterm ill-health and death of Rudd’s wife Helen makes for grim reading. Later still came the loss of best friend and musical partner Bill Putt, felled by a heart attack, still in his sixties. Thankfully, in more recent times, Rudd has found love again, and in the book’s final pages, despite life’s knocks, he portrays himself as a fulfilled man. I can only wish him well, and thank him for the music.

here have been very few people that have had a better than usual time during COVID and many many, of course, who’ve had and continue to have a terrible time both financially and emotionally. It’s probably not too surprising that book publishers have had – for By Stuart Coupe the most part - a pretty good COVID, if in fact it’s possibly to have a pretty good COVID. Some book shops have obviously been forced to close, often for extended periods but mail order has boomed and the bookshops that have stayed open have reported significantly increased sales – some up as much as 20 – 25%. People aren’t going out and not spending money on restaurants, live gigs, cinemas etc. But they are – often forcibly – staying at home – and they’re reading. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of books around for the music loving reader, and here’s just a handful of what’s come my way since we last chatted. Way Out West: The West Australian Pop/Rock/Blues Music Scene 1960 – 1979 (High Voltage Publishing www. highvoltagepublishing.com) is a perfect example of a magnificent obsession. Compiled by George Matzkov it is a large format, beautifully presented chronicling of exactly what the title promises. Soooo much info, plus photos, gig posters, record covers (many in glorious full colour) – plus it comes with CD and links to a playlist of 88 songs that will take you five hours to listen through to. This is from the same people who have bought us books on The Stems and probably by the time you’re reading this their greatly expanded, profusely illustrated update of Matt Taylor’s memoir will be out. Publishing companies doing books like these are a total labour of love – support them if you possibly can. I’m writing about this elsewhere in the issue but Tana Douglas has written a rollicking, roller coaster of a book in LOUD: A Life In Rock’n’Roll By The World’s First Female Roadie (ABC Books) which is full of great yarns from the woman who was AC/DC’s first sound person (she finished working with them when aged only 17) before going on to work with the likes of The Who, Status Quo, Sonic’s Rendevouz Band, Iggy Pop, Ozzy Osbourne, Santana, The Who, Ice-T, Elton John, The Police and so many more.

LOUD is insightful, anecdote filled and a fascinating insight into life behind the scenes in the live rock’n’roll world. Remember that? By the time this issue of Rhythms is out you’ll be able to buy well known music writer Barry Divola’s absolutely marvellous novel Driving Steve Fracasso (Harper Collins) which comes with a cover blurb from me saying that it, “reads as great as the fifth Replacements album sounds. It’s a New York-centric, music-obsessive tale of humour and poignancy, the literary equivalent of hanging with folks who think going to church is finding a record fair. A +” Sure, the obvious comparison is with Nick Hornby – but it’s a much better read than anything NH has published in the past decade. It’s classic music nerdism 101 meets travelogue as the two main characters travel from Austin, Texas, through New Orleans and up to a pre-9/11 New York City. The novel is dedicated to New York and Divola’s love of that city resonates throughout every sentence of this book. I loved it and I suspect you will too – especially if you know (or care) about what makes the fifth Replacements album so special. And maybe it’s the time for it but another music critic has just turned to fiction.

The legendary Nick Kent has written The Unstable Boys (Constable) which I’ve only just started reading but so far, it’s pretty cool. According to the cover blurb The Unstable Boys were a big deal (‘following in the footsteps of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones’) in London in 1968. Jump forward to 2016 and we meet best selling crime writer Michael Martindale who one day publicly declares his admiration and obsession with The Unstable Boys. In the aftermath of this the band’s ‘twisted and feral’ frontman turns up on the writer’s doorstep. It could be great. It could be terrible. But I love Nick Kent’s journalism so I’m in. Nick Kent was – and probably still is – a huge fan of the New York Dolls. It was published in 2018 but I didn’t pick it up until I was reminded of it after his recent passing, but I’ve looked at enough of There’s No Bones In Ice Cream (Omnibus Press) to realise that Sylvain Sylvain’s memoir of growing up and being in the Dolls is the absolute business. There’s now only one Doll left. I wonder if David Johansen is working away on a memoir. Let’s hope so. Till next month – happy reading. 99

Charlie Pride

Heath Cullen

Rachael Sage

Scott Wise

Shingoose

Spinifex Gum

COMPILED BY SUE BARRETT

HELLO

Some years ago, at the National Folk Festival in Canberra, Faith Petric and Seaman Dan (now both departed) had a lovely chat and CD swap. Tony Hillier of Rhythms recently paid tribute to Seaman Dan: www.rhythms.com.au/seaman-dan-tribute Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl is hosting a series of outdoor events, including Spinifex Gum: www.liveatthebowl.com.au With the music industry hammered by COVID-19, the advice of Australian Songwriters Association (ASA) Chairman Denny Burgess last year was “to keep writing and playing. These harrowing days will not last forever … so please let your experiences … inspire you to greater glory in your song writing and musicianship endeavours.” The ASA’s 2020 National Songwriting Competition (with sponsors including APRA / AMCOS) resulted in its best ever response. For official info on the results: www.asai.org.au Bianca Gannon (of Impermanence) is part of the Improvised Music Company’s Piece by Piece series: www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_ TEcAaF_Hg Goldenrod Music (www.goldenrod.com) – a distributer of music by female musicians for nearly 50 years – has added digital downloads to its physical product, including Pamela Means; Catie Curtis; Ronnie Gilbert; Laura Love; Tret Fure; Ferron; Casse Culver; Nedra Johnson; Judy Small; Martine Locke; Rachael Sage; Topp Twins; Indigie Femme. The Mount Beauty Music Festival in April is a free event, but to be COVIDSafe you are likely to need to register to attend. Fairbridge Festival is also taking place in April. And raffle tickets can be purchased online (1st prize: a Scott Wise handcrafted guitar). Among the new music releases are: Adam Simmons / Jean Poole (Zatoczka: Tribute to Komeda); Tret Fure (Stone by Stone); Kristy Apps (Take Heed); Catherine Britt (Home Truths); Martin Hayes (Live at the NCH 2020); Jenn Kirby (Being Time); Caroline Shaw (Narrow Sea); Kerryn Fields (Water); Marianne Faithfull / Warren Ellis (She Walks in Beauty); Jimmy Lee Morris (Truth is the Talisman); Heath Cullen (Springtime in the Heart); Arrogant Worms (Fan Funded Songs 2020); Lucy Spraggan (Choices); Snez (Fisher on the Sea). And some new music books: Amy Raphael – A Seat at the Table: Women on the Frontline of Music; Graeme Jefferies – Time Flowing Backwards; Susan Fletcher Haythorpe – Lost Generation: The Story of Cambodian Rock and Roll; Sophy Roberts – The Lost Pianos of Siberia; David Cohen (ed) – I'm Gonna Say it Now: The Writings of Phil Ochs; Darryl W Bullock – Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran the Swinging Sixties; Tony Russell – Rural Rhythm: The Story of Old-Time Country Music in 78 Records; Phil Alexander – Sounding Jewish in Berlin. 100

AND GOODBYE

Australian drummer Dan Morrison (47), of Area-7, died Victoria, Australia (Nov) Howard Wales (77), American keyboardist, died California, USA (Dec) American singer/songwriter KT Oslin (79), whose first of three Grammy Awards was for the song ‘80s Ladies’, died Arkansas, USA (Dec) Carl Mann (78), rockabilly singer, guitarist and pianist, died Tennessee, USA (Dec) Drummer Pelle Alsing (60), of Roxette, died Sweden (Dec) Charlie Pride (86), Country Music Hall of Fame member, died Texas, USA (Dec) American composer Harold Budd (84), died California, USA (Dec) Jason Slater (49), American record producer, songwriter and musician, died Hawaii (Dec) English singer/songwriter Chad Stuart (79), of Chad & Jeremy, died Idaho, USA (Dec) Seaman Dan (91), pearl shell diver, boat skipper and musician, died Qld, Australia (Dec) Irish songwriter Liam Reilly (65) of Bagatelle, whose songs included ‘Summer in Dublin’, ‘Second Violin’, ‘Streets of New York’, ‘Boston Rose’, ‘Johnny Set ‘Em Up’ and ‘All Fall Down Philadelphia’, died Ireland (Jan) Gaynor Bunning (82), Australian singer, died Qld, Australia (Jan) Grammy-winning songwriter Geoff Stephens (86), who wrote/cowrote ‘Winchester Cathedral’, ‘You Won’t Find Another Fool Like Me’; ‘There’s a Kind of Hush’ and ‘Sorry Suzanne’, died England (Jan) Warren McLean, Australian drummer with Flotsam Jetsam, Machinations, I’m Talking and Divinyls, died Bali (Jan) American bluegrass musician Tony Rice (69), died North Carolina, USA (Jan) Phil Spector (81), American record producer, died California, USA (Jan) Musician and producer Shingoose (74), a member of the Manitoba Music Hall of Fame, died Canada (Jan) Gerry Marsden (78), of Gerry and the Pacemakers, whose hit ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ (from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel) became a favourite with Liverpool FC fans, died England (Jan) American singer-songwriter Ed Bruce (81), died Tennessee, USA (Jan) Steve Brown (62), English record producer and engineer, died in January Australian music entrepreneur / band manager Chris Murphy (66), died NSW, Australia (Jan) Misty Morgan (75), American country singer, died Florida, USA (Jan) Reggae singer Yvonne Sterling (65), died Jamaica (Jan) Jimmie Rodgers (87), American singer whose hits included ‘Honeycomb’ and ‘Kisses Sweeter Than Wine’, died California, USA (Jan) 101

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RICHARD CLAPTON Music Is Love (1966–1970) NEW ALBUM Out 9th April Featuring 15 Iconic Songs Available on CD, Vinyl, Download & Streaming 104