Concert Recordings
Beats, Folk Music & Bongo Beats
There was a time in Sydney’s past, in the post-WW2 years of the late 1940s and through the 1950s, when the sounds of bongos, beat poetry, and passionate debate echoed across the city.
Sydney was a much smaller world, and it was easier to identify an intellectual sub-culture – in this case, the self-proclaimed Sydney Push. This libertarian movement would persist through to the early seventies.
In the late fifties and sixties, the conversation over coffee tables changed to equal rights, censorship, Ban the Bomb, and, later, the rights and wrongs of the Vietnam War. The music changed too, for it was the sound of folk music that best-accompanied talk of protest and social change.
The late seventies witnessed more change as pub rock shattered the conversation. Television also seized the minds of the masses as Australia quickly moved from a nation of people who once entertained each other to a people who ‘got entertained’, mainly from television. Even hotels installed television sets – sealing the fate of conversation and music.
The Sydney Push, possibly taking its name from the rebellious larrikin street gangs of the past, who called their gangs ‘pushes’, was a fluid clan of left-wing intellectuals and philosophers, mostly arts and philosophy students, rebels and creatives, who frequented Sydney coffee shops and pubs.
There was no real membership to the Push – people floated in and out – just like their conversations knew no boundaries. They bonded through rejection of conventional morality and conformity.
Consistent members included Clive James, Jim Baker, Eva Cox, Margaret Fink, Harry Hooton, Robert Hughes, John Olsen, Germaine Greer, Paddy McGuinness, Wendy Bacon, Lillian Roxon, Jill Neville and Frank Moorhouse – and many others who floated in and out and roundabout.
Gatherings of the Push meant hours of debate and discussion over endless cups of coffee or glasses of wine and beer. One wit described it as ‘’critical drinking’.
Folk music was impromptu and often raucous, including endless bawdy song sessions. Occasional singers included Beth Shurr, Don Henderson, Bill Berry, Brian Mooney, Marion Henderson, Gary Shearston, Terry Driscoll, Don Ayrton and Declan Affley. One bawdy song, ‘Professor John Glaister’, was supposedly written by John Anderson, Professor of Philosophy at Sydney University, and another about Vincent Van Gogh’s sexual exploits, written by painter, John Olsen.
The Sydney Push coincided with the arrival of the beat generation.
In 1959 the Australian Women’s Weekly announced: ‘Over the past two years, something new has appeared on the Sydney scene – the beat generation. They’re not dead-beat or beat-up – they feel ‘the beat’ in cool jazz, folk music or a gutty rock number. And they dig things in a bohemian way. Most of Sydney’s “beatniks” agree with Jack Kerouac, author of “On The Road” and spokesman for America’s beat generation, that anyone from 15 to 50 can be a beat as long as he ‘digs’ everything.
Call them another lost generation, call them junior existentialists, call them beatniks — they’re still the most colourful band of scatterbrained adolescents ever to appear in Sydney.”
Many suggested the “look” was the ‘just-out-of bed’ look — unwashed, uncombed, and unshaven.
Others suggested true Beatniks used fashion (or non-fashion) as a statement of individuality. Duffle coats were de rigour — and they had to have toggle fastenings!
The Australian Women’s Weekly continued: ‘Besides duffle coats the boys wear desert boots (often referred to as ‘brothel creepers’), corduroys, polo-necked jumpers, and beards. The girls have long dramatic faces (if possible) and wear their hair either long and unbrushed to their shoulders or caught up in a birds’-nest effect in a do-it-yourself-without-a-mirror empire style.’
beatniks were seen as the bane of coffee-shop proprietors because they’d sit for hours over one cup of coffee where they thought deep thoughts, or discussed deep thoughts — or they just sat. Taking a cue from TV’s Bob Denver who portrayed a beatnik on TV’s The Many Loves of Dobbie Gillis, and, later, Gilligan’s Island – you certainly didn’t have to be an intellectual to be beat.
The bibles of the beats included Joyce Cary’s “The Horse’s Mouth,” George Orwell’s “Down and Out in Paris and London,” and, of course, Kerouac’s “On The Road”. Beatniks were supposed to dig the current paintings and the current folk songs, and sprinkle their conversation with erudite references to these books, paintings, jazz and folk music.
The Royal George Hotel in Sussex Street was the most infamous drinking haunt of the Push and the Beats. It offered an intellectual camaraderie, informal folk singing and a bohemian old style pub ambiance.
The Liberty Coffee Shop in Rowe Street, in the CBD, was the other favourite.
Rowe Street was a city lane alongside the Australia Hotel between Pitt and Castlereagh Streets. In its heydays, from the late 1800s to the 1970s, it was bustling with bookshops, restaurants, cafes, fashion, music and other speciality retailers. It had a distinct European flavour. In 1973, in a decade of architectural vandalism, it came tumbling down to the wrecking ball along with the old Theatre Royal and Sydney’s elegant Hotel Australia – to make room for the MLC Centre.
Author, Isadore Brodsky, in 1962 , painted a picture of what Rowe Street must have been like – ”Rowe Street is the street of the savant employing each of the five senses to understand thoroughly what is to be tasted, savoured, and slowly enjoyed in art and literature in theatre and music, in legend and fact and anecdotal bric-a-brac. …always interested in any fresh expression in art and earnest to encourage it.”
At the Lincoln Cafe, with its goldfish windows, poets recited, folk singers sang (often from the Lincoln’s own songbook), and everything was, to use the word of the day, ‘cool’.
Lee Gordon was the biggest music promoter in the country at the time and, promoter for all the Big Shows at the old Sydney Stadium at Rushcutters Bay. In 1959, Gordon, never slow to pick a trend, recorded, (to use his own words) a groovy single, ‘She’s The Ginchiest’, for his Leedon record label. Barry Crocker was another who got in on the act. He cut Beatnik Baby a song that waxed lyrical about a girlfriend who only longed for coffee and jazz. Another to put a stream of beatnik consciousness down on vinyl was DJ John Burls who recorded The Little Beat Bongoes with the help of Terry Bissaker on bongos.
As if heralding the end of the beat generation, the folk revival and The Sydney Push, in 1972, three of the world’s most famous beat poets visited Sydney for performances – Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Russian poet Voznesensky. Adrian Rawlins, a much-loved eccentric poet and personality, compered the performances. One of the shows at the Sydney Conservatorium got out of control, led by artist Brett Whitely who loudly expressed his boredom with Ferlinghetti’s poetry. Whitely and three others were arrested for offensive behaviour. The sound of bongos faded away.
Folk music experienced a decade of widespread popularity between 1955 and 1965. It was played on the radio, on television and in concert and influenced by major recording artists like Pete Seeger, Burls Ives, Odetta, Kingston Trio, The Weavers, Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd. Australian artists of the times sang British ballads, English, Scots and Irish folk songs and some Australian folk songs, which typically were described as ‘bush songs’.
The leading performers of the era included Gary Shearston, Martyn Wyndham-Read, Declan Affley, Marion Henderson, Lionel Long, Colin Dryden, Brian Mooney, Alex Hood, Danny Spooner and Tina Lawton. In the 1970s, The Larrikins and The Bushwacker’s Band led another revival, often with bush dancing.
In 1970 Sydney hosted the 4th National Folk Festival, an initiative which had started in Melbourne in 1967 with the Port Phillip Folk Festival. Sydney’s festival was called The Port Jackson Folk Festival and attracted thousands to venues across Sydney University and Newtown.
The success of the festival, both artistically and financially, led to the establishment of the Folk Federation of New South Wales, a not-for-profit organisation which, in 2020, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. This same organisation staged the 2019 Sydney Folk Festival and the 2020 SydneyFolkFestival@Home virtual festival.
Over the years, Sydney has been the home for numerous folk clubs, many taking the name of the hotel they were held in, including the Elizabeth Folk Club, The Folk Attick, Edinburgh Castle, Royal George, Maitland & Morpeth, Loaded Dog, The Shack, Pact Folk and The Troubadour.
Today, folk music is increasing in popularity along with a desire for the organic over the urban.
The words ‘folk music’ now represent many musical expressions that can be found in Sydney – it’s a big colourful, and generous description covering traditional music, world music, blues, bluegrass and beyond and, most importantly, original and traditional songs that tell stories about our country and our city.
The beat goes on….
A Rosy Garden
By Shirley Collins & Peter Bellamy. Sydney Opera House
In 1980 the acclaimed British folk singers, Shirley Collins and Peter Bellamy, came to Australia to perform in the Sydney Folklife Festival, an annual event for almost a decade, produced by Warren Fahey for Larrikin Entertainment and the Sydney Festival. The concert, one of a series of ten over ten nights, was in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House. The concert was recorded by ABC FM at a time when folk music was part of the broadcaster’s programming.
My thanks to the ABC for permission and Michael Cunningham for providing the missing recordings and for Brian Grayson in supplying the track run-down.
A ROSY GARLAND’
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE
17 JANUARY, 1980
PRODUCED BY WARREN FAHEY AND BROADCAST BY ABC-FM.
Interviews by David Mulhallen.
PART 1
Shirley Collins (Accompanied by Winsome Evans):
- Just as the Tide was Flowing
- Rockley Firs, or Sweet Jenny Jones
- Bacca Pipes Jig
- God Dog (Robin Williamson)
- Hopping Down In Kent
The Sydney Morris Men:
- Jockey To the Fair
Peter Bellamy:
- On Board a 98
- The Molecatcher
- The Trees They Grow High
- Anchor Song (Rudyard Kipling/Peter Bellamy)
- Riding on Top of the Car
Chat and songs with Shirley Collins
PART 2
Chat and songs with Shirley Collins (Continued)
PART 3
Shirley Collins (Accompanied by Winsome Evans):
- Come All You Little Streamers
- Come My Love
- Plum Puddings
- All Flowers of the Broom
- The Captain With the Whiskers
- Dancing at Whitsun (Austin John Marshall)
The Sydney Morris Men:
- The Willow Tree
Peter Bellamy:
- The Maid of Australia
- The Lord Will Provide
- The Black and the Bitter Night (Peter Bellamy)
- Roll Down (Peter Bellamy)
Peter Bellamy and Shirley Collins:
- The Wedding Song (Come Write Me Down)
- The Green Fields of England (Peter Bellamy)
Shirley Collins’s life and extraordinary contribution to English folk song has been recently documented in a one-half hour documentary ‘The Ballad of Shirley Collins’
Full information on DVD http://www.shirleycollinsmovie.com/
The late Peter Bellamy was a brilliant interpreter of songs, including setting Rudyard Kipling songs to music. He was passionate about songs from his native Norfolk. Peter’s greatest legacy is his folk opera ‘The Transports’. Larrikin Records released the double album locally. Stage productions continue to be mounted as singers and audiences discover this unique musical production that tells of two transported convicts to Australia. The latest production was in 2017.
Here is Peter’s interpretation of Kipling’s Oak, Ash & Thorn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF9bMLqC1iw
Here is the 2017 production of The Transports from the Shewsbury Folk Festival.
Songs of Struggle
By Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger – Tom Mann Theatre
In 1974 I started corresponding with Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger about a possible tour of Australia. Neither had been to Australia and had always longed to visit.
Peggy had recorded numerous bush songs accompanying A.L.Lloyd on his early Wattle/Topic recordings and had a certain affinity with our musical history. Bert Lloyd had obviously told her, and Ewan, many stories about the bush and, of course, they had heard Bert introducing Australian songs at their renowned Singer’s Club, in London.
I had established Folkways in 1973 and Larrikin Records in 1974 and I wasn’t flush with money and simply couldn’t afford to mount a national tour – certainly not one on the scale that these two internationally regarded singers deserved. I had maintained a longtime relationship with the union movement and it struck me that one of the larger unions could possibly sponsor the tour. My first move was to contact the ACTU through George Seelaf who was Secretary of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees’ Union. I had been introduced to George through my old mate and fellow folklore worker, Wendy Lowenstein, who suggested George as a unionist interested in the arts. George was sympathetic and we had a wonderful evening together swapping yarns but the ATCU support wasn’t forthcoming from the then President, Bob Hawke. George suggested I talk to Laurie Carmichael, Assistant National Secretary, of the AMWU, one of Australia’s largest unions. Like George, Laurie was a lifelong communist and a man who had achieved remarkable gains for his union’s members. His secretary/assistant was Marie Robertson – no stranger to ‘people’s music’ because of her interest in New Theatre – and a keen supporter of the concept of the union being involved. After a meeting or three, Laurie committed the union’s support – they would underwrite the tour including the major costs of airfares and accommodation. I was engaged as tour coordinator and together we planned a national tour that took in media commitments, workshops and concerts. It was a terrific success in terms of audiences but, because of the relatively low ticket prices, it didn’t make a large profit. What it did do was bring unions and folk music together.
Travelling around Australia with Ewan and Peggy two of my most memorable stories concerned the media:
Melbourne. We had secured one of the main evening television ‘Tonight’ variety programs and were waiting for Ben E. King to finish his interview. As Benny was ushered off the set the stage manager introduced Ewan and Peggy to the great bluesman. Benny looked at Ewan and said, “Man, will you write me a song like that one you wrote for Roberta Flack about ‘The First Time’. we all laughed.
Adelaide: Another television program but this one was a women’s lunchtime program hosted by a rather conservative host. I’d even go as far as to say ‘snotty nosed’. Peggy, being Peggy, was all smiles as they had their pre-show briefing. The hostess insisted Peggy sing “that delightful song ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, and Peggy kept smiling and agreeing. It was then Lights, Camera and Action as Peggy was introduced – but when it came to the song Peggy triumphantly declared, “No, I’ve got another song I’d like to sing…. it’s called ‘I Am A Union Woman’. The hostess turned a shade of red as the song progressed. We howled with laughter all the way out of the studio.
The usual concerts covered a lot of musical territory with a mix of traditional and contemporary songs and ballads however Ewan and Peggy (and I) thought it would be good to do a themed concert of ‘Songs of Struggle’. This recording, made by the AMWU, captures the spirit of songs of social change. It is a unique document and, of course, a wonderful journey with Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, surely two of the most significant folk song voices and minds in the history of the world. There are even some Australian references including a song they wrote (at my insistence) on that silly old bugger, Joh Bjeke Petersen. This was not just a program of political songs for it was truly an exploration of why people wrote them, where they sang them and how. As far as I know this is the only such concert of Ewan and Peggy performing this type of concert.
I am very grateful for the cooperation of the AMWU in 2010 for so enthusiastically endorsing that this concert should live on. In particular I thank Caroline Pryor and the AMWU secretariat.
I also acknowledge the National Film and Sound Archive who undertook sound restoration on the tapes which were recorded by the union. Finally thanks to Peggy Seeger and, of course, to the memory of Ewan MacColl.
I had not listened to this recording since 1976 and, in listening in 2010, I was surprised to hear I had performed the opening set of songs.
Warren Fahey 2010
PEGGY AND EWAN SECTION
Pt 1 – 2
PEGGY AND EWAN SECTION
Ballad of Accounting (by Ewan MacColl)
Men of the Honest Heart (trad UK)
We Poor Labouring Men (trad UK)
Lowell Factory Girl (trad USA)
Candidate’s a Dodger (trad USA)
The Company Store (trad USA)
Pt 1 – 3
Jimmy Maxton and the I.L.P. (trad UK)
Forward, Unemployed! (trad UK)
McKaffery (trad UK)
Ballad of Ho Chi Minh (by Ewan MacColl)
Che Guevara (by Peggy Seeger)
Union Woman II (by Peggy Seeger)
Kingaroy King (by Peggy Seeger & Ewan MacColl)
Pt 2-1
Voices from the Mountains (by Rutthy Taubb)Ladybird (by Ian Davison)
Frank Proffitt (by Don Lange)
Blast Against Blackguards (by Ewan MacColl)
We Don’t Want to Live Like That (by Ewan MacColl)
The Klan Song (by David and Alan Arkin, aka David and Alan Gray)
Iron-Moulder’s Wedding (by Graeme Miles)
Reclaim the Night (by Peggy Seeger)
Pt 2-2
Fragments:
1 Wonder Boy (by Ewan MacColl)
2 LBJ Looks After Me (by Ewan MacColl)
3 The Banks They Are Rosy (by Ewan MacColl)
4 Watergate Song (by Peggy Seeger)
5 China Rag ((by Ewan MacColl and Sandra Kerr)
6 Cosher Bailey parodies (trad UK)
7 Prime Minister Cut Down in His Prime (by Ewan MacColl)
8 Fitba’ Crazy (trad UK)
White Tornado (by Ewan MacColl)
Grey October (by the London Critics Group and Peggy Seeger)
Disc of Sun (aka Brother, Did You Weep?) (by Ewan MacColl)
The Father’s Song (by Ewan MacColl)
The Pay-Up Song (by Peggy Seeger)
Song of Choice (by Peggy Seeger)
Legal Illegal (by Ewan MacColl)
Peggy comments on the concert:
“I REMEMBER THAT CONCERT WELL. IT WAS PELTING DOWN OUTSIDE WITH A SUMMER STORM. DOWNPOUR. LIKE BEING UNDER A WATERFALL. WHEN THE AUDIENCE CAME IN THE ROOM WAS STEAMING. AS I REMEMBER THEY MATCHED THE SOUND OF THE RAIN WHEN THEY SANG THE CHORUSES … BUT I DON’T BELIEVE THE RECORDING DOES JUSTICE TO THEIR CONTRIBUTION. IT WAS A RARE OCCASION FOR US: A CHANCE TO SING SO MANY POLITICAL SONGS AT ONE GO. WE WENT ON AND ON AND ON … WAS IT TOO LONG? I HOPE NOT. IT’S BEEN SUCH A PLEASURE FOR ME TO LISTEN TO IT AGAIN, REMINDING ME OF THE WELCOME WE GOT FROM THE UNIONS AND THE COMRADES, OF THE STRUGGLE THAT ALSO GOES ON AND ON AND ON …”
– Peggy Seeger 2010
Notes from the original programs.
In 1976 the Amalgamated Metal Worker’s Union – (now the Australian Manufacturing Worker’s Union) hosted the well-known folk artists Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl’s national tour of Australia, running from the 6th October to the 31st. Both MacColl and Seeger’s work had a distinct ideological bent, often writing and performing songs about the union movement. Seeger was particularly well known for her songs about the women’s movement, in particular, the memorable ‘I’m Gonna Be A Engineer’.
With shows in every state and in regional centres across NSW, it was an epic production and the first time an artistic endeavour of this kind had been attempted by a trade union.
Peggy Seeger’s style is a mixture of folk techniques and tone with an almost classical flair for decoration and instrumentation. Her roots are in the tradition and her head is in the revival – a revival which is not only attempting to keep the old songs alive and meaningful, but which sees as its main objective the extending of folk methods and forms of creation, and the adapting of these to the new media of communication.
Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger’s Australian concert program will include a mixture of traditional and contemporary folk songs including a sampling of new songs commenting on social-political developments throughout the world.
Australian Political Songs
This is the opening section of the Songs of Struggle concert. Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger’s concert appears in the previous section of this site
WARREN FAHEY OPENS WITH AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL SONGS:
Pt 1 – 1
Colonel Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken. (Clem Parkinson).
Doctor’s Fees Are Ruining My Health. (Clem Parkinson).
Clancy’s Prayer. (Collected from Joe Watson/Traditional)
The Bankers & The Diplomats Are Going In The Army. (Malvina Reynolds).
Moreton Bay. Traditional.
Joe Heaney.
By Joe Heaney. Sydney Opera House
In the late 1970s the traditional singer and storyteller Joe Heaney visited Australia to perform at one of the Larrikin Folklife Festivals. It was the first and only time the folklife festival filled the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.
Imagine that – an unaccompanied Irish singer and storyteller filling the Opera House. I first came across Joe Heaney through a recording on the Topic Record label and was struck by his clarity of singing and his repertoire of songs. This LP only skimmed the surface of Joe’s unbelievably extensive repertoire. I wanted to have Joe in the festival because he represented the true traditional singer. On arrival I arranged for the Sydney Morning Herald to feature a smiling photograph of Joe on the front page of the morning paper – and it worked. The telephones went crazy with bookings. When Joe walked out on the stage the audience erupted and when he finished he received a standing ovation. It was a rare opportunity to hear the tradition in action.
Listen to the concert and enjoy one of the world’s great folk singers.
I am eternally grateful to Davis Mulhallen, my producer associate at the ABC for many years, for his editing of the concert and for saving it for posterity.
Warren Fahey
Here is a video of Joe, introduced by Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band – Robin and his group appeared at the same Larrikin Folklife Concert at the Sydney Opera House. It’s wonderful to see Joe in action live.
Concert Part 1
Concert Part 2
Wiki Entry as at February 2010.
Seosamh Ó hÉanaí ( aka Joe Heaney or Joe Éinniú), Sean Nós singer, 1919 – 1984.
A native of Carna, County Galway, Ireland, Ó hÉanaí spent much of his life living in England, Scotland and in New York City. From 1982 until 1984, Ó hÉanaí was an artist-in-residence at the University of Washington in Seattle. The Joe Heaney Collection of the University of Washington Ethnomusicology Archives was established after Ó hÉanaí’s death in 1984. The Féile Chomórtha Joe Éinniú (Joe Heaney Commemorative Festival) is held every year in Carna.
Partial Discography
* “Caoineadh na dtrí Maire” (The Lament of the Three Marys) (Gael Linn CE2 1957) 78 RPM
* “Neansín Bhán” (Fair Nancy) (Gael Linn CE3 1957) 78 RPM
* “Bean an Leanna” (The Woman with the Beer) Gael Linn CE4 1957) 78 RPM
* Individual songs on Gael Linn Discs (various artists): “Amhrán na Trá Báine” (Gael Linn CE16), “Amhrán na Páise” (Gael Linn CE17), “Sadhbh Ní Bhruinneallaigh” & “Is Measa Liom Bródach” (Gael Linn CE18) 1960 78 RPM, reissued in “Seoltaí Séidte” (Gael Linn CEFCD 184 2004) (various artists)
* “Amhráin Aniar” (Gael Linn GL4 c1960) 4 track EP 78 RPM
* “Joe Heaney Morrisey & the Russian Sailor” (Collector Records JEI 5 1960) 3 track EP 45 RPM
* “Joe Heaney The Bonny Bunch of Roses & Other Irish Songs” (Collector Records JEI 7 1960) 3 track EP 45 RPM
* “Joe Heaney Sings Traditional Songs in Gaelic and English” (Topic 1963; Ossian c 1979)
* “Come All Ye Gallant Irishmen” (Philo 1963, 2004; Clo Iar-Chonnachta, c1989)
* “Irish Music in London Pubs” (Folkways Records FW 3575 1965; reissued Cló Iar-Chonnachta 1990) (various artists recorded 1958)
* “Seoda Ceoil 2” (Gael Linn CEF 022 1969) (various artists)
* “Seosamh O’hEanaí” (Gael Linn CEF 028 1971) (Cover notes by Seán Mac Réamoinn), reissued as disc one in “Seosamh O’hEanaí O Mo Dúchas/From My Tradition Sraith 1 & Sraith 2” (Gael Linn CEFCD 191 2007)
* “Joe Heaney” (1975 Philo 2004) (Jacket notes by Kenneth S. Goldstein and Michael Maloney)
* “Seosamh O’hEanaí, sraith 2. O Mo Dúchas: From My Tradition” (Gael Linn CEF 051 1976) (Cover notes by Seán Mac Réamoinn), reissued as “The Best of Joe Heaney: From My Tradition” (Shanachie Aug. 19, 1997) and as disc two in “Seosamh O’hEanaí O Mo Dúchas/From My Tradition Sraith 1 & Sraith 2” (Gael Linn CEFCD 191 2007)
* “Joe and the Gabe” (with Gabe O’Sullivan) (Green Linnet 1979)
* “Say a Song: Joe Heaney in the Pacific Northwest” (Trade Root Music / Northwest Folklife NWARCD 001 Oct. 15, 1996)
* “Road from Connemara: Songs and Stories Told and Sung to Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger” (Topic Records Oct. 31, 2000)
* “Tell a Story: Joe Heaney in the Pacific Northwest” (Camsco 701 Feb. 5, 2008) (Liner notes by Sean Williams)
He was recorded by Pádraic Ó Raghallaigh for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, and by Peter Kennedy for the BBC in 1959. The BBC recordings were assembled on a BBC LP, not commercially issued, as BBC LP 22570.
For a detailed interview and overview of Joe Heaney’s life and music visit http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/heaney.htm
Down the Lawson Track
By Martyn Wyndham-Read, warren Fahey, Bill Gammage, Clare O’Meara
A live performance of the works of Henry Lawson with a script by Martyn Wyndham-Read that looks at the poet’s life and vision of the Australian bush.
With
Martyn Wyndham-Read – vocals and guitar
Bill Gammage – narration
Warren Fahey – readings, vocals and concertina
Clare O’Meara – violin.
Garry Steel – accordion.
Recorded live at the National Library of Australia Theatre by ABC Radio National.