Rhythms Magazine - March/April 2019

Limited-Edition Super Deluxe box set includes: • • • •

A handmade wood case built at the Fender Custom Shop in California from the same materials as Keith’s iconic Telecaster, Micawber 2 LPs and CDs with the original album plus 6 unreleased songs from the sessions An 80-page, hardcover book with never-before-seen photos & a new essay by Anthony DeCurtis Meticulously reproduced memorabilia, including 2 7-inch singles, posters, and other promotional materials

30th Anniversary Editions Available March 29th 2019 Deluxe Box • 2 CD Set • Limited-Edition & Standard Vinyl • Digital

keithrichards.com

THE SOUL MOVERS BONA FIDE

UPFRONT 09

10

Editorial

12

14

Tribute - Chris Wilson

Brand new album recorded in some of the biggest hitmaking studios of the USA; Sun, Royal and Fame!

Volume N0. 292 March/April 2019

Bluesfest and Rhythms share a birthday! By Brian Wise.

Rhythms CD Sampler #3

This is our best sampler ever. Subscribe to get it!

The Land of Gary Clark Jr

Tribute - Anthony O’Grady

60

Snarky Puppy

61

Samantha Fish

62

Melbourne Ska Orchestra

63

Lukas Nelson

65

Little Georgia

Jack Johnson

Stuart Coupe salutes a doyen of the music press.

18

Nashville Cat!

Ian McFarlane talks to the silver-haired veteran about his new album.

Anne McCue meets Richard Thompson.

66

Claire Anne Taylor

67

Raw. Honest. Brilliant. By Megan Crawford.

Ralph McTell

A septuagenarian troubadour still firing. By Tony Hillier.

A former Strangler tours with a concept album.

By Christopher Hollow.

The Tasmanian songwriter returns home for inspiration.

By Martin Jones.

COVER STORY 46

BEN HARPER

He helped put Bluesfest on the international map and it helped him in turn. By Brian Wise.

BLUESFEST SPECIAL 31

A Chat With The Bluesfest Supremo!

32

Boomerang - The New Director!

34

36

Bluesfest Essentials

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Mojo Juju

The singer’s acclaimed album addresses important issues.

By Meg Crawford.

ON TOUR

Catch Murray Cook, Lizzie Mack, and their Soul Movers on tour nationally throughout March and April!

58

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Brian Cadd In Silver City

I’m With Her

Here is an Americana supergroup with three virtuosos.

By Brian Wise.

An Australian blues legend departs! By Ian McFarlane.

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42

Director Peter Noble talks to Michael Smith about his remarkable career.

Jane Fuller picks up the baton. By Michael Smith.

A few hints to make your festival easy.

Bluesfest Memories

Your memories of Bluesfests past.

Photos by Bill Bachman.

Bluesfests - The First 20!

‘The Colonel’ looks back. By Mark Doherty.

Backsliding At Bluesfest!

Dom Turner recalls the early days.

44 RocKwiz At Bluesfest

We asked Brian Nankervis, RocKwiz co-host, for some memories. Of course, we also have a Kwiz. Photos by Steve Ford.

49

Mavis!

51

Iggy Pop - The Godfather of Punk!

53

Kasey Chambers

One of the greatest singers of all time returns to Bluesfest.

By Brian Wise.

54

Stuart Coupe recalls his meeting and dealings with the legendary punk. (That’s Mr Pop to you!)

Tackling politics in modern-day America helps this guitarist make his best album to date. By Brian Wise.

The genre-defying band were inspired by their travels.

By Andra Jackson.

Setting the blues world on fire. By Meg Crawford.

It’s time to start the party! By Steve Bell.

Bernard Zuel talks to the leader of Promise of The Real, son of Willie and musician and producer for A Star Is Born.

Michael Smith finds the group has collected lots of stories over the past 3 years.

Byron is the second home for this Bluesfest favourite.

By Martin Jones.

Deva Mahal

Meg Crawford talks to a soul singer forging her own path.

THE ARTISTS A-Z 66

Who are they? Our comprehensive guide to the Bluesfest artists of 2019.

COLUMNS 91

33 1/3 Revelations

92

Underwater Is Where The Action Is

By Martin Jones.

By Christopher Hollow.

94 You Won’t Hear This On Radio

95 96

98

By Trevor Leeden.

Waitin’ Around To Die By Chris Familton.

Classic Album

Billy Pinnell on two Iggy Pop classics.

Musician

Nick Charles talks to Aaron Searle.

MORE REVIEWS

100 Feature Albums

Brian Wise listens to Chris Wilson and Tanya Lee Davies.

Springsteen & Loudon Wainwright III. By Brian Wise.

102 Albums Rhythms writers review a swag of new albums.

107 Blues By Al Hensley.

108 World Music & Folk By Tony Hillier.

111 Film & DVD

Inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame by none other than Paul Kelly, Kasey revisits The Captain for us! By Stuart Coupe.

112 Books

Local Legends: Russell Morris, Joe Camilleri & Richard Clapton

Des Cowley reads Joel Selvin’s book on the Grateful Dead, Fare Thee Well.

Sue Barrett on this month’s arrivals and departures.

Jeff Jenkins and Steve Bell report on three genuine local legends still going strong and making new music.

114 Hello & Goodbye

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JOHN LEE HOOKER AUGUST 22, 1917 - JUNE 21, 2001 PATRON SAINT OF RHYTHMS MAGAZINE

CREDITS Managing Editor: Brian Wise Senior Contributor: Martin Jones Senior Contributors: Michael Goldberg / Stuart Coupe Design & Layout: Sally Syle “Graphics By Sally” Website/Online Management: Robert Wise Proofreading: Gerald McNamara

CONTRIBUTORS Jen Anderson Sue Barrett Steve Bell Nick Charles Des Cowley Stuart Coupe Meg Crawford Brett Leigh Dicks Chris Familton Keith Glass Megan Gnad Michael Goldberg Al Hensley

Tony Hillier Christopher Hollow Jeff Jenkins David Johnston Martin Jones Chris Lambie Trevor J. Leeden Anne McCue Ian McFarlane Chase Mantel Billy Pinnell

Michael Smith Brian Wise

CONTACTS Advertising: bookings@rhythms.com.au Rates/Specs/Deadlines: admin@rhythms.com.au Subscription Enquiries: subscriber@rhythms.com.au General Enquiries: admin@rhythms.com.au Editorial Enquiries: admin@rhythms.com.au Website: rhythms.com.au

SOCIALS Facebook: facebook.com/rhythms.magazine Twitter: twitter.com/rhythmsmag Instagram: instagram.com/rhythmsmagazine

PUBLISHER RHYTHMS MAGAZINE PTY LTD PO BOX 5060 HUGHEDALE VIC 3166 Printing: Spotpress Pty Ltd Distribution: Fairfax Media Publication Solutions/Newsagents The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced without express written permission from the publisher and/or copyright holders.

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T I m N B 6 I E OR ANTwith T great Dia TEMusselwhite. bat had a pre-festival reception in one of the S Charlie USthe L o T A r IMP ORtoured T C L M c N IR F (A say OThe Messiah, P ART is Lnot Ccharacters MP buildings and it was a chance to get close - IM NALHarper L FD PD E TEINNERas A Y E I U D in the Monty Python film The Life of Brian, to some of the greats. It was also the first N F L T A I C L E U T butTheINis certainly R the Disciples. You O one LE U T A P of time I met Dom Turner of The Backsliders O C N O O CR S RI Pabout ON T 1:1 S D can read more him later in this issue. and the association continues (you can O U A S I N RT .A E A Bluesfest was 1993 when I caught OMtrip for both ATbeen read his recollections in this edition) as it - DOMy Lt’s C E . first a long, strange P V T A N M S E A has with some of the other musicians on T L the train up from Melbourne with my P Rhythms Magazine. While S Bluesfest and THI @IMcelebrates its 30th anniversary that bill. Nick Charles writes our Musician T then life-long best friend John, who had a Bluesfest N 8 RI 7 P column. Fiona Boyes has been on one of our 8 : profound influence on my musical tastes 7 we are celebrating 27 years IL this79month, samplers and is the only Australian blues 0 print. (We will not contemplate the EMA 130in as a teenager. I daresay I would never artist ever nominated at the Memphis Blues PH: have heard of half the music I listened to fact that the age of twenty-seven was a .5 n d (3

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IT WAS 30 YEARS AGO TODAY………!

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Awards.

There have been many Bluefest highlights since my first – and I have been lucky enough to have been to most of them, apart from being waylaid by the occasional motorcycle accident. Bob Dylan’s Certainly, Bluesfest has become a major appearance in 2011 must rank as one international festival and this has been of the personal musical highlights but due to foresight and determination.

I could easily list 20 or 30 others. Apart Rhythms too has relied largely on from the high-profile acts there determination to keep going. Of have been a myriad of lesser course, the decades have seen commercial names that have changes in the festival and in the been spectacular: David Lindley, magazine.

Gil Scott- Heron, Iris DeMent, Lucinda Williams…the list goes One of the most important musicians on. And who can forget Johnny in the development of Bluesfest – Green’s Blues Cowboys, the most though he would never claim this unlikely looking rock ‘n’ roll band honour - is Ben Harper, who arrived of all time who were just great (or a relative unknown in 1996 and left was that the beer?). a hero. The response to Harper’s appearance was so strong that he There have been many other returned the following year and highlights (at least I think of again to close out the decade in them as that). I recall standing ankle deep in water at Belongil 1999. By 2001 he was the headliner watching Mick Taylor in 1995 and this year marks his 7th visit since because that Stones fanatic James then. Harper encapsulates what Young insisted that Mick and Keith, Bluesfest is all about: he brought who were playing in Brisbane the a modern sensibility to an old next night – would pop in as special tradition. He played the blues but guests. Needless to say, they he was influenced by so much more, Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite at The Ryman Auditorium, didn’t. We were driven to Brisbane including the wonderful guitarist Nashville. the next night to see the band.

David Lindley.

(Having a certain singer walk out Dick Waterman - blues historian, on one of my Q&A sessions lives manager and noted photographer (and We arrived, or were dumped by someone, on in everyone’s memory, unfortunately). mentor to Bonnie Raitt) – told me a few at Belongil Fields, excited to find that we I hope you enjoy the 30th anniversary years ago at his home in Mississippi that were staying in the old cinder block building of Bluesfest and the 27th anniversary ‘blues is a big tent’ and it doesn’t matter that the roadies were using. That immediate edition of Rhythms. Bluesfest attendees how people get into the tent because when excitement ended swiftly when a torrential have always been the magazine’s biggest they are there they can discover the music. downpour hit (you know the kind) and we supporters and I hope you can join them if That is what Ben Harper facilitated by discovered that we had no pillows, sheets or you are not already a subscriber. drawing in a younger audience. The line-up blankets and it took an hour to clear out the Until next issue…… suddenly expanded to an amazing array of cockroaches. I have had a healthy respect Brian Wise for roadies ever since and have never international and local acts that gives this Editor aspired for a second to do that job! event a profile on the world stage. Recently, significantly negative one for many of our favourite musicians). This publication has been inextricably linked with Bluesfest since our inception and we are delighted that the relationship continues.

Diesel

Lloyd Spiegel Hat Fitz and CarA

19-twenty Hussy Hicks Mason Rack Blues Arcadia Then Jolene + more TBA

www.akoostik.com.au

— www.oztix.com.au

Tickets

October 18, 19 20

had it not been for his influence and his connection with another school friend whose Qantas pilot father would bring albums back from the UK and the USA weeks or months before their Australian release. (There is a little sadness as I write because John, who helped me in the early days of the magazine doing the delivery and the mailing, is no longer with us).

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MARCH/APRIL 2019 THE RHYTHMS SAMPLER CELEBRATE OUR 27th BIRTHDAY WITH THE THIRD RHYTHMS CD SAMPLER!

RHYTHMS MARCH/APRIL 2019

2. ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO with DON ANTONIO Something Blue From The Crossing. A Texas songwriting legend with an Italian band! The ‘concept’ album addresses current issues in USA politics, including, as the title suggests, immigration - and it rocks.

From the late and great John Power of Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, the Rock Doctors, The Hippos and more. This is the b-side of ‘Rocket 88’ which was released on Joe Camilleri’s Mighty Records label. A blues ballad featuring John’s amazing voice. We thank Joe for allowing us9 to use this. Look out for L 201 A P R I John, the new Black Sorrows H /Citizen C appy R H .

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4. OH PEP! Up Against The World

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Courtesy of Bloodlines. From Prisoner of Love, the 20th and latest album from one of our most acclaimed songwriters (soon to give up touring, he says). Look out also for his brand new double-disc solo career spanning retrospective.

7. THE BACKSLIDERS You Are Not Alone

3. HIGH RISE HILTON & THE SKYSCRAPERS Just To Be With You

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6. STEPHEN CUMMINGS The Wind Blew Hard

From the brilliant album I Wasn’t Only Thinking About You, one of our favourite albums of last year. Pepita Emmerichs and Olivia Hally are two of the hardest working young musicians in Australia and have achieved acclaim in the USA. It’s time for you to discover their talent.

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From the album Heathen Songbook.

They were at Bluesfest from its second year so we are delighted to have them along here. One of Australia’s finest blues outfits ever, lead by Dom Turner and propelled by the incredible drumming of Rob Hirst.

8. OPELOUSAS Sugar Baby

From Opelousas Baby, an album by some ‘veteran’ musicians with Kerri Simpson’s ‘rough, raw vocals’ and Alison Ferrier on ‘down and dirty stripped-back guitar’ and fiddle, with Anthony Shortte’s ‘swamp-soaked percussion.’ Straight from the Melbourne delta to you.

9. MARTIN CILIA December Sun

From Surfersaurus. Courtesy of Bombora.

Australia’s premier surf rock guitarist joined The Atlantics back in 1998 and the band have since gone on to record many of his tunes that have also appeared in surf movies. He has also recently played with Mental As Anything.

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RHYTHMS SAMPLER #3 MARCH/APRIL 2019 1. Thank Me In The Morning - Ben Harper (3.38) 2. Something Blue - Alejandro Escovedo with Don Antonio (4.110 3. Just To Be With You - High Rise Hilton (John Power ) & The Skyscrapers (5.06) 4. Up Against The World - Oh Pep! (3.06) 5. Not My Lucky Day - Russell Morris (3.43) 6. The Wind Blew Hard - Stephen Cummings (3.35) 7. You Are Not Alone - The Backsliders (3.43) 8. Sugar Baby - Opelousas (5.46)

SIDE B

1. COLD IRONS BOUND I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine (Dylan) Cold Irons Bound is a Melbourne four-piece influenced by a mix of classic Indie (The Church, R.E.M., The Replacements, Teenage Fanclub) and Americana (Dylan, Young, Petty, The Jayhawks). Here they tackle Bob’s song that first appeared on John Wesley Harding (1967). It wouldn’t be Rhythms if we didn’t mention Dylan!

2. LINDA BULL I Got The Blues (Jagger-Richards) From Stoned: Celebrating The Music of the Rolling Stones. Available through Rhythms Magazine (www.rhythms.com. au). Originally recorded by the Stones for Sticky Fingers (1971). Here, one half of the famous local duo - who you can see singing with Paul Kelly - provides a stand-out rendition. The album also features many other incredible local talents including Chris Wilson, Raised

By Eagles and more.

3. NICK CRAFT No Silver Lining

From Minerva, his first solo record.

Produced by his brother and friend Martin (MCraft). They used to play in a psychedelic rock band called Sidewinder. Recorded by multiple Aria winner Wayne Connolly in Sydney.

4. ANDY BAYLOR Good Rockin’ Guitar

From Blues from The Irene Building.

Multi-instrumentalist Andy is a legend on the Melbourne music scene and has released more than a dozen albums since 1992. This is a collection of original songs with a strong blues feel. “This is blues as good as any you’ll hear in the world,” wrote Samuel J Fell in the SMH.

5. BLUES ARCADIA Seven Days A Week

From Carnival of Fools. Australian Blues Music Award winners Blues Arcadia deliver an uninhibited old-fashioned soul stomp revival, combining the legendary soul of Stax and Motown with the heat and power of the Chicago and Memphis blues.

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From the musician who helped make Bluesfest what it is today. Ben tells us that this song appeared on a limited compilation record in France. That’s the only daylight it’s seen other than a raw live backstage YouTube recording.

Virtually unknown. Thanks Ben!

From Howlin’ Back. Having lived in New Zealand, England, Canada and Austria, Henry brings experience delivered in his characteristic baritone.

The album features guest spots from popular Melbourne acts The Weeping Willows and Gretta Ziller.

6. YOLANDA INGLEY II Woman Got To Cry From Woman Got To Cry. Produced

by Sam Teskey and recorded direct to analogue tape at Half Mile Harvest Studio in January 2018. It features Ingley’s original songs and the brilliant musicality of her own band - an all star cast that includes Monica Weightman, indigenous singer and guitarist, Steve Dagg on sax and both of The Teskey Brothers.

7. MARK LUCAS & THE DEADSETTERS Shopping Town From The Continental Drift. Lucas is a resident of inner-western Sydney and with over 20 years experience playing in and fronting bands- from the late ’70’s London pub scene, to a diverse range of bands in Sydney from the mid ’80’s to the present. Lucas wears an awful lot of hats. Venue manager. Band booker.

Activist. Singer.

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1. BEN HARPER Thank Me In The Morning

From the forthcoming album Black & Blue Heart. Courtesy of Bloodlines.

One of the local legends appearing at Bluesfest this year. After a trilogy of historical albums it’s time for something new. This is definitely the real thing from one of our finest.

10. D HENRY FENTON Wang Dang Doodle

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5. RUSSELL MORRIS Not My Lucky Day

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GET SOME OF THE BEST MUSIC YOU WILL HEAR THIS YEAR FROM: Ben Harper, Alejandro Escovedo, Oh Pep!, Russell Morris, Stephen Cummings, Linda Bull, The Backsliders, Opelousas, Martin Cilia, D Henry Fenton, Cold Irons Bound, Andy Baylor, Nick Craft, Blues Arcadia, Yolanda Ingley II, John Rooney, Mark Lukas, Con Brio, Peter Howe &Tim Gaze and a special track from High Rise Hilton (John Power).

RHYTHMS SAMPLER #3 MARCH/APRIL 2019 1. Thank Me In The Morning - Ben Harper (3.38) 2. Something Blue - Alejandro Escovedo with Don Antonio (4.110 3. Just To Be With You - High Rise Hilton (John Power ) & The Skyscrapers (5.06) 4. Up Against The World - Oh Pep! (3.06) 5. Not My Lucky Day - Russell Morris (3.43) 6. The Wind Blew Hard - Stephen Cummings (3.35) 7. You Are Not Alone - The Backsliders (3.43) 8. Sugar Baby - Opelousas (5.46) 9. December Sun - Martin Cilia (2.55) 10. Wang Dang Doodle - D Henry Fenton (4.33) 11. I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine - Cold Irons Bound (3.55) 12. I Got The Blues - Linda Bull (4.09) 13. No Silver Lining - Nick Craft (3.39) 14. Good Rockin’ Guitar - Andy Baylor (3.30) 15. Seven Days A Week - Blues Arcadia (4.02) 16. Woman Got To Cry - Yolanda Ingley II (4.04) 17. Shoppingtown - Mark Lukas & The Deadsetters (4.35) 18. Don’t Give Up Now - John Rooney (3.21) 19. United States of Mind - Con Brio (4.36) 20. Wattamolla - Peter Howe &Tim Gaze (2.36) T H E R H Y T H M S R E CO R D CO M PA N Y L I M I T E D , M e l b o u r n e , A u s t ra l i a P r o d u ce r : R h y t h m s M a g a z i n e O r i g i n a l C o v e r C o n ce p t : R o b e r t B r o w n j o h n O r i g i n a l S l e e v e C o n ce p t : V i c t o r K a h n Available only to subscribers.

F o r m o r e i n f o r m a t i o n c h e c k : w w w. r h y t h m s . co m . a u Thank you to all the artists for their support.

P 2 0 1 9 R H Y T H M S M A G A Z I N E P T Y LT D

T H I S R E CO R D S H O U L D B E P L A Y E D LO U D STEREO

8. JOHN ROONEY Don’t Give Up Now From Joy. Recorded at Studio 606 in LA, home of Sound City Neve desk.

A gathering of legends worked on this: producer Don Dixon, mixer Mitch Easter, Heartbreaker Benmont Tench, drummer Jim Keltner, Don Was on bass and Spooner Oldham on keyboards!

9. CON BRIO United States of Mind From Explorer. Named for an Italian musical direction meaning with spirit, Con Brio is a San Francisco Bay Area seven-piece that plays energetic soul, psych-rock and R&B that’s as fresh and freethinking as the place they call home.

10. PETER HOWE & TIM GAZE Wattamolla From Following Tom Thumb. Courtesy of Bombora. Two of Australia’s most respected surf guitarists and song writers have created a unique and engaging musical re-enactment of the 1796 Matthew Flinders and George Bass voyage south from Sydney Harbour to the unchartered coast of Illawarra.

rhythms.com.au 11

CHRIS WILSON The Australian music community has lost another of its favourite sons.

Pancreatic cancer has claimed the life of Chris Wilson at the age of 63.

His family issued a brief statement:

peace and privacy at this time.”

12

The album he recorded with Mark ‘Diesel’ Lizotte under the collaborative name Wilson Diesel, Tall Cool Ones (1996), is a classic of Australian blues. It ranks alongside the likes of Chain’s Toward the Blues and Russell Morris’ Sharkmouth as one of the best selling local blues albums. He sang a duet with Diesel on the hit single, a cover of Ann Peebles’ ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’. By all accounts Wilson was unsure about his own singing early in the piece, but once he unleashed that booming baritone into tenor voice you knew there was a commanding presence in the house.

Sometimes he’d sing in a near whisper and he’d draw the audience in closer. Then when he weighed in with his harmonica playing the music surrounding him could take on a guttural authority and an unearthly dimension.

guitar work, it was a work of astonishing vitality. O’Mara worked with Wilson over many years, on different projects as guitarist and producer, describing him as “a ubiquitous part of the Melbourne roots music scene”.

O’Mara says, “Chris was recognised for his blues harmonica playing but he was so much more than that. He was like a music sage.

He had a huge interest in a breadth of music and an incredible knowledge, from Sun Ra to the English folk scene. He always had a way and a desire to entertain and to bring people into the moment”. O’Mara recalled that they didn’t know the Continental show was being recorded so that it captured a certain magic, free of the expectation of putting on a quality show. “That album touched a lot of people.

We need to mourn his passing but I think the most important thing is that you continue to celebrate his music.”

For Melbourne listeners Wilson was well known for his connection with community radio station Triple RRR. He was the Music Book Reviewer for Off the Record and would play harmonica for new subscribers during the all-important Radiothon season. Wise remembers him as “a gentleman, and a very calm and laid back guy”. That was certainly a unique part of Wilson’s multifaceted personality. I remember talking to him one time at his regular Cherry Blues shows, at Cherry Bar, and I somewhat gushingly suggested that he must be proud of what he’s achieved. His laconic response was “yeah, I go alright”.

As well as his solo work, Wilson was a highlyregarded session player, having toured and/ or recorded with the likes of X, Paul Kelly, Hunters & Collectors and Crowded House.

While he didn’t seem to actively pursue an international career, he was respected by many overseas visitors. Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan, whom he supported on Australian tours, admired his skills. Renowned Chicago blues harmonica master Charlie Musselwhite told Triple RRR broadcaster Brian Wise on his Off the Record show how much he enjoyed Wilson’s playing and that “he stood out in my memory as a great harmonica player”.

Triple RRR’s Max Crawdaddy (Son of Crawdaddy blues show) honours his friend by saying, “Yes, he was my friend but he was like a brother, sometimes even a father, to me.

Over the years he’d often give me advice. If I seemed to be low or struggling with things in my life, Chris would give me a clip over the ear and set me on the right path again. There were many times he helped me out. I loved what he did with Crown of Thorns and in 1988 I asked him to record ‘Crawdaddy Theme’ for Son of Crawdaddy, because I thought all the best radio shows had a cool theme to open with. I’ve used that theme ever since.”

One of Wilson’s finest interpretations is that of the Booker T. Jones/William Bell song ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’ – most famously recorded by Albert King – which he included as a bonus track on his 1992 single ‘Alimony Blues’. Backed by Shane O’Mara’s blistering

And he’s kicked off every show since 1992 with Wilson’s version of ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’. “I couldn’t imagine using anything else, it always puts me in the mood,” Crawdaddy says. That’s the greatest tribute to the man and his music right there.

Farewell to Chris Wilson, a musical giant of a man.

By Ian McFarlane

“Chris Wilson passed away early on Wednesday 16 January, peacefully at home in the arms of his loving family.

He was incredibly courageous and strong until the end.

His family thank you for your support, love and good wishes and ask for

A

s well as touring internationally, Wilson had been a prominent fixture on the Melbourne music scene since the 1980s when he started out playing in The Sole Twisters and Harem Scarem. He predominantly played in the blues idiom with added folksy country elements. He established a reputation as a passionate performer and gifted songwriter. He fronted Crown of Thorns (three albums released on Crawdaddy Records) and pursued a prodigious solo career with seven albums to his credit. These included his debut Landlocked (1992), the landmark Live at the Continental (1994), the double set The Long Weekend (1999) and his last album, a selftitled release from 2018.

1956 - 2019

CHRIS WILSON

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ANTHONY O’GRADY (1947 – 2018) Eventually I quit. O’Grady called me over to his desk that morning and handed me two freshly rolled joints. “One for now, one for later, good luck dear boy.” O’Grady called pretty much every male in his life – regardless of age – “dear boy.”

O’Grady – who died on December 19 – taught not only me but a generation of Australian music and pop culture commentators how to write – and in the process created with RAM a magazine that even after he left became the nurturing and stepping stone publication of choice for those who came after.

Highly respected journalists such as Bruce Elder and Richard Guilliatt acknowledge that O’Grady was the first person to pay them for their writing.

Like Guilliatt, the late Andrew McMillan was still in school at Brisbane when he became a writer for RAM, subsequently going on to write the acclaimed Strict Rules book about Midnight Oil and other books of political and social observation.

Well known political writer Dennis Atkins was a RAM writer. So was author and journalist Clinton Walker. O’Grady nurtured the careers of pioneering female writers such as Jen Jewel Brown, Annie Burton and Karen Hughes.

By Stuart Coupe

We fought. It was heated.

t says much about Anthony O’Grady’s ability to incite intense passion in his writers that he and I came to have a massive confrontation over a review of Redgum’s debut album If You Don’t Fight You Lose in 1978.

It spoke volumes for his editorial skills and foresight that a week later I picked up the new RAM (it stood for Rock Australia Magazine) and there was the review – at length and at the top of the page. I’m sure he still didn’t agree with the significance I placed on the album. But he respected the argument I’d mounted, one that I’d been in a position to present because of the critical thinking and writing skills he’d instilled in me.

I

Having gone to university with the band members I was partial to their album, considered it an important milestone in contemporary politicised Australian folk music and argued with O’Grady that it deserved a substantial lead review in RAM magazine.

Less familiar with the band and even less inclined towards politicised folk, O’Grady’s view was “small review – 100 words at best.”

14

During the period I worked with him at RAM O’Grady and I locked horns and argued a lot. I was an impetuous and reluctant student. It was only in later years that I grew to appreciate the writing and journalistic skills he’d drilled into me.

In so many ways O’Grady was the Australian equivalent of Jann Wenner who founded Rolling Stone magazine in San Francisco in 1967. Both took writing about music and culture extremely seriously. Both had exacting and demanding requirements of their writers and believed their readership expected that quality of insight and observation.

As Dennis Atkins observes, “There had been writing about that before in Australian publications like Digger but that was a broader brief. I’d read in depth 2,000 – 3,000 pieces that placed music in a social context in Rolling Stone but had wanted to see that in Australia. RAM was the first to do it.”

O’Grady was born in 1947, and educated at St Ignatius College, Riverview before

attending the University of Sydney where he studied Arts Law, contributed to the student newspaper Honi Soit and wrote two plays for the Sydney University Dramatic Society (SUDS).

Keenan he launched The Music Network, an ‘insiders’ business tip sheet and information publication, the likes of which had not existed in Australia before.

O’Grady married Linda Campbell in 1987 and they had two children – Cordelia and Troy – before later divorcing.

Following his university stint, O’Grady joined Lintas Advertising Agency as a trainee copywriter. At his funeral old school friend, the composer and former Justice of the NSW Supreme Court, George Palmer told people how O’Grady’s nickname at school was Goldilocks and that during his advertising stint he reportedly coined the name Golden Gaytime for the rebranding of the ice cream flavour in 1970. “Somehow, it seems appropriate that Goldilocks should have invented ‘Golden Gaytime,’” he said.

After leaving the advertising industry, O’Grady wrote articles for the music magazine Go Set, edited the short lived Ear For Music and then started RAM. The first issue appeared on March 18, 1975 with Mick Jagger on the cover. The second, a fortnight later, featured Skyhooks on the front. Right from the start O’Grady believed that Australian artists should receive the same attention and gravitas as the international superstars.

O’Grady championed many diverse artists – Radio Birdman, Dragon, Cold Chisel (about

In later years, O’Grady also co-wrote the programs for the early ARIA Awards with one of Australia’s most successful and respected music managers John Watson, who was then a music writer and had been mentored by O’Grady.

O’Grady also played a lot of golf – a pursuit at which he excelled - much to the chagrin of his non golf-playing friends. whom he later penned The Pure Stuff book), Skyhooks, AC/DC, Sherbet and Roxy Music’s singer were amongst his favourites and he even persuaded Roxy’s Music’s singer Bryan Ferry to edit an issue of the magazine during an Australian tour.

Having parted ways with RAM and its publishers in the early 1980s, O’Grady continued writing as a columnist for a Sydney newspaper and editing various publications such as the Brash’s chain inhouse magazine, and later along with music industry figures John Woodruff and Danny

In later years O’Grady contributed many in-depth interviews with important Australian music figures for the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) along with contributing to the Sydney Morning Herald and other mastheads.

O’Grady had a kidney transplant nine years ago after some years on dialysis. His health ultimately failed and a variety of melanomas eventually led to his death.

O’Grady is survived by children Troy and Cordelia and sisters Sharyn and Suellen.

BRIAN CADD IN SILVER CITY

W

hen I call Brian Cadd on the phone, I can hear delighted chatter and laughter in the background. At 72, the renowned singer songwriter is one of the veterans of the Australian music scene, still touring and recording. He’s also a dedicated family man. Just before launching into a national tour he’s on the Gold Coast visiting his daughter and grandchild.

Caddie’s on the line to talk about his brilliant new album, Silver City, which may well be the most distinctive recording of his long-storied career. It’s a real statement of intent. He came to prominence in the 1960s with The Groop and Axiom before pursuing a highly successful and prominent solo career in the ‘70s. He moved to the US to pursue his song writing, then joining country rock / bluegrass / Americana pioneers The Flying Burrito Bros in the 1990s.

For his current tour, Caddie’s still got his old Bootleg Family Band muckers Tony Naylor (guitar) and Geoff Cox (drums) in the line-up, plus younger country rock players. He’ll be doing his hits and many of the songs from the new album.

The silver haired troubadour recorded the album in Nashville with expat Aussie producer Mark Moffat, aided and abetted by a stellar cast of session players led by revered steel guitarist Dan Dugmore (Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor). He describes it as his “Americana inspired” album. He outlines the story in his liner notes, describing how he’d heard The Band’s Music From Big Pink in 1968 in The Easybeats’ flat in London and how he’s been working towards that ideal ever since.

By Ian McFarlane

He writes, “This album is the result of finally arriving where I had always wanted to be musically”.

Congratulations on the new album. Can you tell us how the album came about?

I lived in Nashville from 1990 to 1996 and I loved it so I kept going back. Mark Moffat had moved there right around the time I left, so we maintained our friendship. Recently he said, ‘you know this Americana thing is not new, you guys helped invent that. I reckon you should do an album in that style’.

I needed a place to start, so he picked the songs, assembled the session players and was really influential all the way. He said, ‘the first thing we’ll do is take you away from the piano and you’ll just be the singer’. That was a very wise thing to do.

As long as I was playing the piano it would be too easy for the musicians to follow that, it would be an enormous crutch.

You’ve revisited several songs, ‘Eye of the Hurricane’ from the Burritos plus ‘Silver City Birthday Celebration Day’ and ‘A Little Ray of Sunshine’ but you haven’t played around too much with the arrangements so they slot in nicely.

Yes, they were allowed to, so we got that right. We recorded 12 songs in two days. We recorded all the music on the

16

floor of the studio, exactly like doing it live. Then we had another session to finish the vocals. Mark played the guys ‘A Little Ray of Sunshine’, like ‘this is the song Caddie’s best known for’ and they said ‘let’s do that’. So we recorded that as an afterthought. The drummer, Tommy Harden, even said, ‘I don’t think it needs the whole band, it should just be steel and acoustic guitar and your voice’. We cut it in one take, just like that.

It’s a smooth and melodic recording but there’s a lot of grit and grime in the delivery. Was that deliberate?

I think it’s just because the players weren’t pure Nashville session players, they’ve played with so many great people. They’re not the same country session players who’ve played on everything and play it perfect and slick. One of the clever things Mark did was steer the composition of the band and thus the music away from the central line. This is gritty Americana, getting that basic down to earth feeling. It has that edginess to it, everyone dug in. It has the same feeling I get when I listen to guys like John Hiatt and John Prine.

Is there any one song that captured Brian Cadd the songwriter?

Gee! They represent different periods along the same line. The song that I most enjoy playing live is ‘Slow Walk’ which I co-wrote with

John Beland in the Flying Burritos.

That’s such a fun song to do, and that’s how it works for the audience. We did a warm up show in Gundagai recently and by the end of ‘Slow Walk’ the audience were singing the chorus even though they had never heard it before.

I also really like one of the new songs I wrote, ‘Just Because She Can’.

Between those two songs I like ‘In a Little While’.

I’m so glad you like that one. It wouldn’t seem to be an obvious one.

I’m really happy with that song and how it was recorded. I co-wrote that one with one of my oldest friends in Nashville, Austin Roberts. He’s retired now but when I met him in 1991 he’d had 35 top 10 country singles. I felt like I was meeting God but he’s the most down to earth, rustic fellow. We always had a lot of fun together.

We wrote that song recently and it was one of the first songs Mark picked. We’re definitely doing that one live.

What or where is Silver City? Is it an ideal, a metaphor or an actual location?

Hah! It’s probably all of the above. For the original version, I just dreamt it up, Silver City, it was just out of a carnival or something.

Then when I got to Broken Hill on tour I got off the plane and there’s a red carpet and the mayor gave me a key to the city. I didn’t know it but Broken Hill is known as ‘Silver City’.

Fast forward to about three years ago and I’m living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I got to go to the original Silver City which was one the great Wild West towns. It was most famous for Billy the Kid. They’ve preserved a lot of the Western gunfighter feel. It’s like you go back 150 years when you walk down the streets. So, I’ve stood in the main streets of Silver City in Australia and Silver City in New Mexico. And when we came to the debate about what to call the album everyone voted for Silver City. Then some smart alec said, ‘well, you only have to look at you with all that silver hair!’ Haha.

For this national tour, you’ve set a punishing schedule ... are you up for it?

Yep. If I had known I’d still be doing this at 72 I might have taken better care of myself. But the audience and the adrenaline get you through. Halfway through the first song and I’m 28 again. It can be exhausting but you don’t notice that because it’s so much fun and the audience react to that. I’ll be doing the hits, I wouldn’t feel right without doing …‘Sunshine’ or ‘Ginger Man’ or ‘Don’t You Know It’s Magic.’ And we’ll be doing a big slab of the new songs from the album.

Silver City is our now through Ambition Entertainment/Fanfare Records.

17

JOAN OF ART

Songwriter, performer, multi-instrumentalist, producer and recording artist.

Joan As Police Woman has it all.

By Megan Crawford

Raw. Honest. Brilliant. Brooklyn based songwriter, performer, multi-instrumentalist, producer and recording artist Joan as Police Woman is heading back to our shores for a tour this May. It’s been quite a journey from the teenager who studied violin and played in orchestras, to a strong woman who has played with the best in the business and built an international reputation as a renowned alt-rock songwriter and performer.

Joan Wasser began her music career young, gaining early admittance to the College of Fine Arts at Boston University at age eighteen. In those early days she favoured new classical compositions with her fiddle and bow but, in 1994, after listening to the likes of Hendrix, Siouxie and the Banshees, Bad Brains and Nina Simone, she left her classical roots behind and moved to New York. Keen to create and play, she jumped into the studio working as a session musician with a broad range of artists, including indie, jazz, pop, Haitian, soul and R&B genres. She joined various alt-rock bands in the 1990s, playing with The Dambuilders, Those Bastard Souls and Helium. In 2002 Joan as Police Woman was born, as she stepped to the forefront and claimed the attention of music lovers everywhere, releasing her first EP in 2004.

Anne McCue reports in from the home of country music

NASHVILLE SKYLINE

I

was lucky to see a smokin’ performance

by Richard Thompson and his band (Taras Prodaniuk on bass and Michael Jerome on drums) at 3rd & Lindsley. He has a new album out - 13 Rivers -which includes some gloriously angular songs. I went down into the mosh pit and stood in front of his amp and found myself among a bunch of Nashville guitar players - nerdy, I know. I was close enough to see the smoke coming off Richard’s red stratocaster and got to see those double bends up close. I asked him afterward about those strings - he uses light gauge strings but has a high action, a la Jimi Hendrix. Good to know! I interviewed him a few days later.

Richard Thompson was blessed with a family who had good taste in music. His father liked Django Reinhardt and Les Paul.

Combine those guitarists with his sister’s rock’n’roll record collection and you have the perfect blend for a budding guitar player to learn his craft. He also grew up in London at one of the most exciting times in English musical history. “I used to go to the Marquee Club quite a lot and see people like The Who or The Yardbirds who’d play every week…”

Thompson developed a guitar style that is very particular to him and quite unusual - a blend of finger style and flat pick. “I learned on a classical guitar for a couple of years and that got my fingers working…

I’d already been playing plectrum guitar.

Without really thinking about it, I’d be sitting watching TV or something and I’d just be practicing the guitar and I’d be too lazy to put the pick down.”

“When I was like 11 or 12 years old, I was in bands playing instrumental stuff…

Shadows, Duane Eddy… and from there I

18

went into more vocal bands where we were doing rhythm’n’blues covers. I met up with the guys who became Fairport [Convention] when I was about 16.”

When producer Joe Boyd heard Fairport he was mostly impressed by Thompson’s ‘sophisticated’ guitar playing and Boyd decided to produce their first album. “Joe was probably the one person in Britain who would’ve kind of got who Fairport were and what we were trying to do because his background was so involved in roots music,” Thompson says. “He was the stage manager at Newport Folk Festival when Dylan went electric. He’d already recorded the Incredible String Band. It was a really fruitful relationship from the very beginning.”

If you are a Nick Drake fan, you have heard Thompson’s lead guitar on those records Bryter Layter for example. “Extraordinary records…” Thompson says. “They still sound extraordinary which is a great tribute to Nick and to his arrangers, engineers and producers because the records are kind of timeless.” Fairport and Nick Drake shared a management team at that time. “We used to smile at each other, but he was a very shy person and I was very shy as well, so a conversation between myself and Nick in 1969 would have been not particularly interesting, to say the least.”

The new album, 13 Rivers is a record with two very distinctive sides. The first half is tough, angular, modally electric and striking - some of Thompson’s strongest work ever.

It starts out with The Storm Won’t Come, a deep and brooding song. “Well you know,” Thompson says, “It’s a song of something impending, or it’s a longing for change but if you go seeking change, sometimes

it doesn’t work. You also have to wait for it to happen to you.” On the intriguing musical change from verse to chorus: “I wanted something that wasn’t predictable.

Sometimes to go from one minor key to another minor key for the key change is a bit more unusual.”

Thompson and band opened the show with Bones of Gilead (13 Rivers) and the effect was immediate and compelling. The song has an experimental feel to it, hard to describe but ‘English folk punk modality’ may give you some idea.

The song Rattle Within opens with a distorted and ominous drum stomp. “It’s about the voice of doubt that’s inside you,” Thompson says. “For me it comes from my parents saying, ‘Oh, the music you’re playing is a waste of time. You should do something more profitable… of more benefit to you in life. And you start to doubt yourself. You have to kind of find that voice and kill it.” He sings, ‘Who’s gonna save you from the rattle within?’

For someone who seems to have had a very successful musical career based very much on his own terms, the struggle for integrity seems a surprising topic. The song is Trying.

“Well that’s career,” he says, “but there’s also one’s personal life where you try and do the right thing and sometimes relationships go wrong and you act impulsively or stupidly and you think, ‘Oh gosh, I really regret that. What was I thinking?’”

It’s hard to be a good human isn’t it?

“It’s the hardest thing in the world, yeah,” Thompson says.

The new album is 13 Rivers on New West Records. Go to https://rhythms.com.au/ for the full interview.

It would be easy to look at Joan’s six-album back catalogue, profess that she is an acclaimed songwriter, and leave it at that. But her love of creating music extends far beyond simple album sales; you might say she is obsessed. “I say yes to almost everything” she admits. “I just want to be making music all the time.”

Joan has said yes to a lot in recent years, with musical collaborators spanning Lou Reed, Beck, Toshi Reagon, Sparklehorse, Laurie Anderson, Damon Albarn, Sufjan Stevens, John Cale, Aldous Harding, RZA, Norah Jones, Daniel Johnston and more. Her ability to work with such diverse artists is a reflection of her training and love of a broad range of genres.

She’s tried her hand at radio broadcasting, filling in for Guy Garvey on his 6Music show in the UK, enjoying the experience of sharing the music of other people rather than her own. She also co-wrote a film score with pianist Thomas Bartlett (Doveman) for a Brian Crano movie called Permission that stars Dan Stevens, Rebecca Hall and Jason Sudeikis.

Branching out from strictly musical collaborations, she also has an ongoing longtime collaboration with Dutch fashion designers Viktor & Rolf, writing and performing music for their fashion shows.

Joan comes to Australia this May with new music in tow, last touring here in 2014, long before her latest album Damned Devotion was released. Her rawest album yet, it strips the songs down to their core, baring all. It is that raw honesty that draws in listeners and lovers of Joan As Police Woman.

Her shows across Australia on this tour are varied, from intimate rooms like the Northcote Social Club to the exquisite extravagance of the Spiegeltent in Wollongong and the Gold Coast. The love for Joan At Police Woman is evident, with her first Northcote Social Club selling out in less than a week, after only a post on her Facebook page to spread the word - no publicist needed!

This prompted a special encore performance at the venue, with true fans gaining the opportunity to see her in a rare solo experience on this tour.

For the rest of the shows, she brings with her a new band, comprised of Parker Kindred, Eric Lane and Jacob Silver, who have been recently touring together across Europe as Damned Devotion launches there.

But it’s Joan’s voice that is truly the champion of both her albums and live shows, showcasing the depth of emotion that is intrinsic in her music. She has experienced some challenging times across the years, including the death of her boyfriend Jeff Buckley in 1997, the suicide of her friend Elliot Smith in 2003, and her mother’s death 4 years later. But even from these dark and seemingly hopeless places, there is always hope embedded in her songs and their delivery. The latest album is her most powerful demonstration yet that hope doesn’t have to be naive, and to see the album performed on Australian stages will be a true treat.

Music is definitely a calling for Joan As Police Woman, and it feels like there won’t be a moment in her life that she’s not doing it. “Today”, she discloses, “I can comfortably say that music has saved my life and continues to save my life. I am a devotee. It’s not something I can even choose or not choose, it’s just what it is.”

Joan as Police Woman tours Australia in May. 19

NOOSA

27 FEB THE J

SUNSHINE COAST 1 MAR VENUE 114 BRISBANE

2 MAR PRINCESS THEATRE

BYRON BAY

5 MAR BYRON THEATRE

PORT MACQUARIE 6 MAR GLASSHOUSE NEWCASTLE

7 MAR LIZOTTE’S

PORT FAIRY

9-10 MAR FOLK FESTIVAL

CANBERRA

12 MAR THE BASEMENT

BLUE MOUNTAINS 16-17 MAR MUSIC FESTIVAL

THE

REFUGE TOUR

SYDNEY

20 MAR THE FACTORY

MILTON

22 MAR MILTON THEATRE

MEENIYAN

24 MAR TOWN HALL

MELBOURNE

27 MAR THE SPOTTED MALLARD

MELBOURNE

29 MAR CARAVAN MUSIC CLUB

MELBOURNE

30 MAR MEMO MUSIC HALL

ADELAIDE

3 APR THE GOV

PERTH

5 APR THE CHARLES HOTEL

ON TOUR

L L E T c M H P L A R L L A S L L E T Why the septuagenarian English troubadour is full of beans as he prepares to tour down under again.

By Tony Hillier Ralph McTell’s last visit to our shores, seven years ago, was billed as his ‘Final Australian Farewell Tour’, so the mere fact that he’s returning this month for another string of dates might take many of his antipodean followers by surprise.

NATIONAL FOLK FESTIVAL Australia’s Home and Heart of Folk for over 50 years EASTER | 18 - 22 APRIL, 2019 | CANBERRA | FOLKFESTIVAL.ORG.AU

180+ ACTS INCLUDING John Schumann + Shane Howard and The Red Rockin’ Dirt Band Irish Mythen (CAN) • Bob Fox (UK) • Darol Anger And The Republic Of Strings (USA) Nancy Kerr & James Fagan (UK) • John John Festival (JAP) • The Homelands Tour Ft Glenn Skuthorpe (AUS x CAN) Fanny Lumsden • Lloyd Spiegel • Freya Josephine Hollick • JigJam (IRE) • Mouldy Lovers 19-Twenty • Melisand [Electrotrad] (CAN) • The Once (CAN) & many more!

The affable singer-songwriter who penned the anthemic ‘Streets Of London’ swears he had no intention to deceive or mislead with that tour title or that he has any aspirations to “out-farewell” the legendary Dame Nellie Melba.

“I truly thought it was sadly to be my last visit, but my son Tom has now taken over my management and he knows how fond I am of Oz and my friends down under, so he contacted a promoter … and I’m coming back again and really looking forward to my trip.”

It’s particularly apposite that this enduringly popular performer, who has more than 50 albums to his name, should choose to return in 2019 because this year marks not only his fiftieth anniversary as a professional musician but also sees the launch of a brand new long-player — his first studio recording since 2012’s Somewhere Down The Road, which he showcased on his previous visit.

Hill of Beans is McTell’s third collaboration with the distinguished American producer and musician Tony Visconti, who worked with him on his debut release Eight Frames a Second way back in 1968 and on Not Til Tomorrow four years later. For the new album, Visconti, who produced David Bowie’s swansong Blackstar, pulled in

some old friends from decades before, including his ex-wife Mary Hopkin and their daughter on backing vocals, and the legendary Danny Thompson on double bass. “I gave Tony fourteen new songs and he chose the repertoire and wrote some string arrangements, and played bass and recorders,” McTell explains.

The affable artist plans to play a couple of songs from Hill of Beans on his upcoming fourteenth Australian tour, alongside “a selection from 50 years of song writing”.

He’ll also be spinning what he hopes will be some illuminating stories of how they were written and why. “I would love to say I’ll be playing ‘Hill of Beans’ on tour — if there is a piano available — but it’s a difficult piece for me as it’s still new and emotional.” McTell says the title song alludes to Humphrey Bogart’s farewell speech in Casablanca, when the great actor, discussing the impossibility of holding on to a relationship, said ‘the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans’. “I took that speech and made it rhyme and then wrote a melody,” he reveals.

Coming from a man responsible for more than 360 compositions, it’s a surprise to hear the troubadour say he has always found song writing hard. “Very occasionally a song comes quickly but usually they take me ages. There was one song that took twenty years to finish.” McTell maintains that if a song is worth writing it should have some spark of originality, stand on its own with just a guitar accompaniment and be brief. “I’m still working on that last point,” he quips.

McTell has an ambivalent relationship with his most famous song. While he appreciates

that ‘Streets of London’ has been the passport to a marvellous career, the artist, who’ll turn 75 later this year, acknowledges that he’s been performing it for most of his working life. “I was 21 or 22 when I wrote the song — I wasn’t even sure I wanted it on my first album.” Now, as he points out, there are some 200 recorded cover versions and in excess of 1000 amateur renditions on YouTube. His maiden Australian tour in 1976, which started with a concert at the Sydney Opera House, came on the back of the song. When he made his debut at England’s Cambridge Folk Festival 50 years ago — an event that he’s booked to play again this year — he was amazed to realise that ‘Streets of London’, then a relatively new number, was known by the entire audience.

Performing, he avers, is still a joy. “I love to play. I play every day, anyway. I tour the UK twice a year and have just completed 32-dates in the UK and Ireland.”

Another tour of the UK later this year will culminate in his 75th birthday concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall. There’s also the possibility of a USA tour. So, Ralph McTell has no intention of hanging up his guitar just yet. “Music is my life and work and I love it, especially sharing it with live audiences. At my age, there’s a full realisation that this is what I’ve done with my life and so, to coin a phrase uttered by the great Barney McKenna of Dubliners’ fame, it’s too late to stop now!”

Ralph McTell performs at Port Fairy Folk Festival (March 8 & 9) and the Blue Mountains Festival (March 15, 16 & 17).

For other tour dates, consult the Rhythms Gig Guide.

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BASEMENTDISCS [

NEW FOR MARCH many releases available on vinyl LP

L IV E IN -S T O R E

Live on!!

Stage!GIGS IN-STORE

• DENNIS COFFEY ‘Live At Baker’s’ H ¯ WOODLAND HUNTERS FRI 1ST MARC • DOMINIC MILLER ‘Absinthe’ • JOEY DEFRANCESCO ‘In The Key Of The ¯ MIA DYSON WEDNESDAY 6TH MARCH Universe’ • JOHN HARTFORD ‘Backroads, Rivers & ¯ SOUL MOVERS FRIDAY 29TH MARCH Memories: The Rare & Unreleased’ • MANU KATCHÉ ‘The Scope’ store at 12.45 (lunchtime) NTH!! ins ow sh ll A • TOMMY CASTRO & THE PAINKILLERS & OUR 25TH BIRTHDAY MO ‘Killin’ It Live’ SAT APRIL 13TH *RECORD STORE DAY OTHER DATES IN APRIL TBA • ANOUSHKA SHANKAR ‘Reflections’ * CHECK WEBSITE FOR LINE-UP AS LOCKED IN, PLUS • CHATHAM COUNTY LINE ‘Sharing The Covers’ * • FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS ‘Live In London’ • PATTY GRIFFIN ‘Patty Griffin’ • PAUL WELLER ‘Other Aspects: Live At The Royal Festival Hall’ SNARKY PUPPY • THE UNTHANKS ‘Lines – Parts 1, 2 & 3’ (3CDs) ‘Immigrance' • V/A ‘Joni 75’ (feat. Los Lobos, Chaka Khan, Brooklyn based fusion-influenced jam band who combine

BASEMENT DISCS HIGHLY RECOMMEND

Diana Krall, James Taylor, Glen Hansard, Graham Nash, Emmylou Harris, Brandi Carlisle, Norah Jones, etc) • OVER THE RHINE ‘Love And Revelation’ • OZ NOY ‘Booga Looga Loo’ • TAL WILKENFELD ‘Love Remains’ • THE CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA ‘To Believe’ • ANDREW BIRD ‘My Finest Work Yet’ • LAMBCHOP ‘This Is What I Wanted To Tell You’ • TERRY ALLEN & THE PANHANDLE MYSTERY BAND ‘Pedal Steel + Four Corners’ (3CD, LP, DL, 28pg book) • THE YARDBIRDS ‘Live & Rare’ (4CD, DVD ltd. edition box w 36pg booklet)

MORE MARCH & APRIL

• FRANK ZAPPA ‘Zappa In New York (40th Anniversary)’ (5CDs) • KEITH RICHARDS ‘Talk Is Cheap’ (30th Anniversary). (2CD Dlxe Ed).

• SON VOLT ‘Union’ • STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES ‘Guy’ • V/A ‘Aaron Neville’s 75th Birthday Celebration Live At The Brooklyn Bowl (inc. Dr. John, Ivan Neville, Eric Krasno) (BLURAY) • ELI “PAPERBOY” REED ‘99c Dreams’ • BIG DADDY WILSON ‘Deep In My Soul’ • JENNY LEWIS ‘On The Line’ • THE SEARCHERS ‘When You Walk In The Room: The Complete PYE Recordings ’63-’67 (6CDs) • RODRIGO Y GABRIELA ‘Mettavolution’ • V/A ‘Strangers In The Room: A Journey Through The British Folk Rock Scene ’67-‘73’ (3CDs) • ROBIN TROWER ‘Coming Closer To The Day’ • THE CRANBERRIES ‘In The End’ • JACK BRUCE ‘Live At Rockpalast ’80, ’83 & ‘90’ (5CDs + 2DVDs) • NUCLEUS ‘Torrid Zone: The Vertigo Recs. ’70-‘75’ (6CDs) • SNARKY PUPPY ‘Immigrance’ • GLEN HANSARD ‘This Wild Willing’ • GARY CLARK JR. ‘This Land’ • RYAN ADAMS ‘Big Colours’ • ROLLING STONES ‘Voodoo Lounge Tokyo ‘95’ (BLURAY)

jazz, rock & funk. Featuring a collective of up to 30 musicians led by bassist, composer & producer MICHAEL LEAGUE. This band are AMAZING & so exciting in live performance – get along to see them in Oz in April.

ROBERT ELLIS ‘Texas Piano Man’

In an ever shifting & evolving stylistic approach to his music making, this album sees Robert putting a little GRAM PARSONS style honky-tonk into the bedazzled piano pop of ELTON JOHN (circa mid 70's). It's a cool combo!

V/A ‘JONI 75: A Birthday Celebration’

Live recording of the all-star tribute to Joni that was staged (& filmed) in L.A. last November. A suitably stellar cast including JAMES TAYLOR, GRAHAM NASH, CHAKA KHAN, LOS LOBOS, EMMYLOU HARRIS etc.etc. perform songs from Joni’s amazing & timeless canon of work.

JENNY LEWIS ‘On The Line’

Her 4th ‘solo’ album & first since 2014's ‘The Voyager’.

Feat. guests BECK, DON WAS, JIM KELTNER, RINGO STARR & RYAN ADAMS. This multi-talented singer/songwriter, musician & sometime actress, clearly has friends in all the right places!

VAN MORRISON ‘Healing Game’ Deluxe 3CD

A deluxe 3CD edition of Van’s critically acclaimed 1997 release. Generously expanded with 30 bonus tracks from the period – out takes, rare tracks & a complete live recording.

CHECK OUR WEBSITE FOR EXPANDED NEW RELEASES LISTS!

OPEN 7 DAYS

24 Block Place Melbourne 3000 MAIL ORDER WELCOME PHONE 9654 1110 EMAIL info@basementdiscs.com.au WEB www.basementdiscs.com.au

A Chat With Hugh Cornwell The former Strangler’s latest recording is a concept album about 20th century icons.

By Christopher Hollow

I

f Hugh Cornwell had his way, he’d talk cricket all night. Calling in from Wiltshire, he’s keen to talk about the upcoming Ashes, the recent Indian series and the plight of disgraced batsmen Steve Smith and David Warner. If it’s not cricket, it’s films.

I’m happy to talk cricket and films, too, but I’ve been squiring away some music queries for some time. Both Australia and I have had a long association with the music of Cornwell and the Stranglers. ‘Golden Brown’ dominated many people’s fave compilation of all-time, 1982 With a Bullet, while songs like ‘Skin Deep’ and ‘Always the Sun’ were bigger hits here than in Hugh’s native UK. Hugh’s latest record, Monster, is interesting too – a concept album of sorts that sees Cornwell singing about a variety of 20th Century icons like daredevil Evel Knievel, Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr, fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and the King of Chutzpah, comedian Phil Silvers aka Sgt. Bilko.

I’ve been wanting to ask you this for a long time: when I say ‘Golden Brown’ is the best song Arthur Lee and Love never wrote, are my ears hearing correctly?

Oh, really, I hadn’t even thought of that. That’s the first time I’ve heard those two things – Arthur Lee and ‘Golden Brown’ – together at the same time. That’s pretty interesting.

I just realised that, you’re right, there could be something there.

Obviously, the harpsichord and the time signature is very Love.

You’re absolutely correct. You’ve just given me something to think about, that’s amazing. I’ve never made that connection before but, honestly, that’s remarkable.

Normally, I’m always writing a song and saying, ‘Shit, does this sound too much like a song by Love?’ Forever Changes was always being played when I was a student.

But I wasn’t familiar with the other albums that they’d made, I came to them later.

What’s the best way one of your songs has been used in a film?

The one that blew me off my chair was ‘Peaches’ at the beginning of Sexy Beast.

For some reason I wasn’t aware of the fact that it’d been used. I went to the cinema to see it with a girlfriend and it came on.

She said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’ and my jaw dropped. In the end, I was relieved because it was a great film. There’s nothing worse than having your music in a turkey.

If I said that ‘Always the Sun’ sounds very Australian, would you take that as a compliment?

of that investigation of those acoustic tours.

Every time I go into the catalogue, I find something else that’s a surprise.

On your latest record, Monster, you’ve chosen to write about some heroes of yesteryear. There’s a theory that millennials don’t know who Marlon Brando is. What chance do they have of knowing Hedy Lamarr or Phil Silvers?

Well, I don’t really care. Maybe there’ll be some younger people pick up the record and enjoy it and it might stimulate a desire to find out who these people are. The thing is: it doesn’t matter how gifted a fiction writer you are, you couldn’t come up with more interesting stories than these people lived. I mean, Hedy Lamarr’s life? She was an inventor and involved in the technology that later led to Bluetooth and wifi. She also hosted dinners for Adolph Hitler when she was married to Austria’s richest man, an arms dealer. She was also the first woman to take her clothes off in a film in the early 30s, a German film called Ecstasy.

What about Evel Knievel, a daredevil who every boy in the 70s idolised.

I deliberately wrote ‘Pure Evel’ as if I was him, which made it more interesting and personal.

I came across him via a film with George Hamilton playing him, a biopic from 1971, and it’s pretty good. He just seemed like an obvious choice thinking of classic motorbiking films like Easy Rider. He was a pretty amazing guy, larger-than-life.

What’s the weirdest place you’ve heard one of your songs being played for you?

Yeah, sure. I’d say that was serendipity.

What’s in the newer version of ‘Always the Sun’ that might’ve been missing on the original?

There’s no acoustic guitar on the original.

It’s one of the songs that works well, acoustically. It’s funny, some of the big, obvious Stranglers songs don’t work at all as acoustic versions. I get bored playing them, I think, that hasn’t turned me on at all and I avoid them. Whereas, some of the more obscure ones do work well and I did an album, Restoration, that was a product

I tell you what, we had just finished playing a festival last year and we went back to our designated dressing room and I heard these familiar sounds outside. I looked and playing in a little tent was a covers band and they were playing, ‘No More Heroes’.

Did you go down and show them, this is the way you play it?

(Laughing) No, I was chuffed. Listen, if someone is prepared to play it, they can play it anyway they want.

Hugh Cornwell is touring Australia in May. Check rhythms.com.au for dates.

23

YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN

Claire Anne Taylor turned to her Tasmanian home to inspire her second album

By Martin Jones

A

s we sit down to discuss Claire Anne Taylor’s amazing second album, All the Words, bushfires are raging near her home in Tasmania’s Huon Valley. And there, right in the middle of the album, is a song called ‘The Fire’!

“I know!” Taylor laughs. “It’s really strange how these things happen. And in a way my songs celebrating fire and almost like it’s been an old friend to us. In Tasmania the fire can be everything in winter. So many people still live their lives around their fires. But in summer it’s the opposite!”

After releasing and touring her debut album, Elemental, Taylor decided it was time to return to her roots in Tasmania, to warm her soul, as she sings in new song ‘I’m Going Home’.

“I think it was so crucial for this album,” she says of her return to Tassie. “I just feel like when I’m home I’m really comfortable in my own skin and I think that comes out in my songwriting. I feel like Tasmania is a very conducive place to creativity and when I’m out in the bush I feel more compelled to write. So I think that journey home was really important and I also feel that because I recorded in the Huon Valley and most of it was recorded in our home, I just think of that as being a really important feeling in the album. I feel like you can almost imagine that warmth of the home when you hear the album. I remember when we were recording it looking out over the bush and then looking back into the backyard of our little creek, and a few times catching myself

going, ‘How lucky am I to be recording in my home and in this beautiful environment?

And I just hope it feeds itself into the songs.’”

It does. Taylor sounds more comfortable with her own voice (and what a voice!) than ever before, enabling her to focus on delivering the song and the emotion.

Studio recording can be an intimidating thing, being in an unfamiliar place, being so concerned with getting a good performance within a time limit. It’s so rare for a musician to be able to capture a mood of wellbeing and comfort.

“That’s exactly right,” Taylor agrees.

“Because I did think about my options and when I was back in Tassie I thought, ‘Alright, maybe I should go back to Byron and stay at a friend’s house or maybe I should go to Melbourne…’ and every time I thought about that option I thought, ‘How am I going to feel comfortable and settled?’ And I think to deliver an emotional performance to really get into the heart of the emotion of the song, you need to be able to feel comfortable.

“I feel really lucky that I was able to wake up in my own home every day and get into that headspace and just totally get lost in the song, rather than thinking about all the other uncertainties of my environment.”

The results, Taylor concurs, pay homage to the classic soul singers, who knew how to do just enough to serve the song. Listening to songs like ‘Hold Me, Darling’ and ‘Nothing On You’ have you focused entirely on the lyrics and the sentiment.

“Yeah, I think if anything I’ve become more relaxed and I just want to serve the song,” says Taylor. “I certainly don’t want to show off. I think that you could call it understated at times. And I think that depending on what that song requires… to me those songs are about a really intimate and almost fragile moment, so being able to feel like I could just get into that space, I just feel really fortunate that I was able to record in that environment that allowed me to.

“I think it’s also really special, too, because there aren’t many albums that are recorded in Tasmania. I got to work with an incredible sound engineer and producer. Like Chris Townend has done some incredible amazing work.”

Townend surely looks like an interesting character having worked with everyone from Tim Finn and Portishead to the HardOns and Augie March.

“I just connected with him from the moment we first shared our thoughts on music and recording,” Taylor enthuses.

“And a big part of that was we both believe in capturing songs as live as possible. And as true to the song as possible. So for instance, no click tracks. We don’t want to computerise anything, we don’t take out that human pulse from the song so if the songs have their own rhythm and ebb and flow that’s okay and that’s beautiful. So I just think we connected on so many levels and that helped to bring the album to the place that I wanted to take it.”

All the Words is an independent release.

25

EASTER WEEKEND

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Artist Bios • Bluesfest Memories • Features

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30 YEARS ON ...

2019

By Michael Smith “This year sees Bluesfest celebrating its 30th

Peter Noble This year sees Bluesfest celebrating its 30th anniversary, which is an impressive milestone in anyone’s book, but it’s just another for a remarkable festival that has to be the most awarded in Australian music history.

And not only in Australia. In 2017 Bluesfest received a Keeping the Blues Alive award from the Blues Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee. It’s been nominated eight times in the International Festival of the Year category in the US Pollstar Awards, and has won the NSW Tourism Awards eight times in the Major Festivals and Events category, six times in the same category in the North Coast Tourism Awards and can boast four Helpmann Awards among others.

For all that, it’s the music offered at Bluesfest every year that has made it the essential music event in the annual calendar.

The man behind programming that music is Peter Noble, who is on the line from the Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles, where he was gearing up for this year’s Grammys, having just been a judge at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. So, how does he program a Bluesfest celebrating its 30th anniversary you might ask? Well, for starters, there are the favourites…

“I think among our five or six most requested artists every year are Jack Johnson, Ben Harper and Paul Kelly,” he explains, “so I was pretty happy to get them. But I just have to challenge myself. I can’t do the same festival twice. I’ve got to get a buzz out of it. If I’m gonna to be treading the boards, as I have been for a bloody long time, and I’m gonna keep doing it, well, I just need to find something that excites me and exhilarates me, that when it actually rolls out, people are gonna go, ‘Wow! This was a pretty good one.’ For me, it’s also got to say something about what I’m trying to do with music – and I am trying to say something in music. I mean, I’ve learned a lot about music in the years I’ve been in the business. And I have been a pro musician and I’ve been an agent and I’ve put up posters – I’ve actually made them – God, I can’t think what I haven’t done in this business. I’ve been a roadie, I’ve worked security; I’ve been a tour manager… Ha! There’s not much I haven’t done.”

He forgot to mention running a record company – Aim Records, which in February 2008 became the first Australian independent label ever to win a Grammy, for Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album award for Live! Worldwide, by Louisiana zydeco act Terrance Simien & The Zydeco Experience. But that’s a whole other story, and Noble has a lot of them. You could say his entrepreneurial side was in evidence very early in his career. When Noble was about 17, he was playing bass in a band called Clapham Junction and, along with the band’s original singer Dennis Loughlin, who sadly passed away this past January, succumbing to cancer, set up their own “disco”, The Union Jack.

After Clapham Junction, Noble scored the gig as Marcia Hines’ MD, but in 1974 he decided to try his luck in America and played professionally around the US for four years before he and the band parted ways and necessity prompted his becoming a booking agent – he’d been booking the band’s gigs after all. That led to a job as the house booker for legendary Portland, Oregon venue The Earth, which led to setting up that city’s first International Jazz Festival.

Returning to Australia at the end of the ‘70s, he quickly established himself as one of Australia’s most successful promoters of black American artists, covering everything from jazz to blues to reggae. By 1981, he was based in Byron Bay and by the end of the decade was booking international acts for what was then called the East Coast Blues Festival. In 1993 he became a director of the festival, rebranding it Blues & Roots rather than simply Blues, and by 2008 owned the festival outright. In January 2016, Noble was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to live and recorded music, to tourism and to the community.

“I’m still sharp as a tack and loving it,” Noble quips with pride and a chuckle. This year I just wanted to put a lot of younger acts on that are really doing it. Blues and roots music has such a big future – what I’m seeing and hearing right now are artists that are blowing me away, like the Fantastic Negrito. Look at Samantha Fish. She’s just won artist of the year in Louisiana, and I think, ‘Shit, my ears still work!’ You’ve got to be on the pulse.

So I got a buzz out of it. Some years I go, ‘could’ve been better’, but this year there’s something about it that feels good, feels right – and that’s not promoter-speak, that’s from beyond promoter-speak. I don’t have to hype it anymore. If you don’t like it you won’t come, it’s that simple.

“I’m very excited about having Baker Boy on the bill. He’s representing something new. You know, it’s hip hop, but it’s

Indigenous and the dancing is just incredible.’ I get the same buzz from Indigenous music these days as I did back in the ‘60s going round to Clive Shakespeare’s place or Doug Rae’s place (both original members of Sherbet) to hear the latest imported Atlantic or Stax album.

“On the other hand, I always wanted to work with Jack White. His solo album – not the blues one he did last year but the one before that some people say was his homage to Led Zeppelin – I thought it was brilliant. So it was years of work and all of a sudden it’s ‘tour’s off’, then four weeks later the tour’s back on, it’s just not Jack anymore – he’s put the Raconteurs back together! The business we work in. You’d have to be crazy… and I am!

“I was never a great Iggy Pop fan, and then he went and played Bluesfest five or six years ago and I went to the show – and I had Robert Plant on the other stage at the same time – so I went over and watched Robert for a while but I was touring him so… ‘I’ve got to go back – Iggy’s too good! I’m not gonna see Iggy again.’ I wasn’t really aware of him for all those years and when I saw him it was like an epiphany. He’s great. To work an audience and work that hard at that age is just brilliant.

“There are so many others. It’s always a pleasure to work with Ben Harper because of our long history, and Jack Johnson, Mavis Staples – my God! Pinch me, I’m dreaming.

I mean, I actually get to do something in life that… I always wanted to be a musician at that level but that didn’t work out, but I get to work with these people who are at an amazing level and I get to work with people at the emerging level too, like Melody Angel, who to me is going to be huge; just people haven’t realised it yet. And we’ve got a bunch of those acts this year. The one piece of hype I will do – Anderson East is up for a Grammy Award this year (for Best American Roots Performance on his song ‘All On My Mind’). Now that’s a good Bluesfest year – the depth of the bill, where all the artists are hot. That’s what I’ve gone out and done this year. I guess that’s what I do, that’s my job. Nobody else can have it – I love it! It’s about having the honour and the pleasure of working with the best musicians, in my opinion, and having a team around me that supports me in that.

“I’m not really in it for the money,” he admits. “I’m in it for the music. That’s why Bluesfest is what it is. Maybe that’s what makes us a bit different. You’ve got to be good to be on Bluesfest – you’ve got to be better than good!”

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2019

Boomerang Indigenous Festival

COVER HISTORY

COVER HISTORY

By Michael Smith Welcome to Country – Bundjalung of Byron Bay – Arakwal Bumberlin people. Welcome to music, dance, theatre, comedy, film, visual arts, cultural knowledge exchanges, thoughtprovoking conversations, workshops… an independent event sited within the East Coast Blues Festival – Bluesfest – a festival within a festival. Welcome to the Boomerang Indigenous Festival and welcome to its new Producer, Jane Fuller.

A great mate and colleague of Rhoda Roberts AO, arts administrator, broadcaster and the founder and Artistic Director of Boomerang, Jane was invited to “take care of business” as it were while Rhoda concentrated on her latest project, Parrtjima – A Festival in Light, up in Alice Springs. “I’m very much taking care of it,” Jane admits, “cradling it for Rhoda. She’s done a lot of the programming for 2019, so it’s about kind of taking care of it for her. I’m not the Director of Boomerang – I’m more the Producer,” she suggests with a chuckle, “and giving it light touches here and there, but not really changing the shape overall.”

Baker Boy (aka Danzal Baker); rapper and MC Dallas Woods, hip-hop artist Dobby, Benny Walker, Brotherhood of the Blues, Mission Songs, Yothu Yindi & The Treaty Project and songman Tenzin Choegyal representing the Tibetan First Nations people, while on the dance side of things, there are the Muggera Dancers and the Rako Dancers from the Pacific among others. The cultural talks will include the Bundjalung local artisans and weavers and the Te Kopere Maori Healers, and there’ll be a sand circle, to which everyone can contribute.

“In that kind of blackfella way,” Jane reminds us, “dance is story, is language, using dance and song to deliver traditional stories and passing down the wisdom. What’s so great about Boomerang being part of Bluesfest is that it brings this performance side to a music festival. First Nations work is always so expressive – through costuming or sand circles or through weaving. That all goes along with the performance. That’s the sort of stuff that I love, when all the art forms come together.”

Rhoda was, of course, the founder and director of the Festival of Dreaming, which she ran as part of the Woodford Festival from 1995 until 2009, with Boomerang becoming part of Bluesfest in 2014. Jane’s background is in dance and performance, having spent the past five years as General Manager of BlakDance, Australia’s peak body for Indigenous dance, and among other things has curated three seasons of performance, dance cabaret, comedy, theatre and music for NORPA in Lismore, NSW, and delivered, as Executive Producer, the inaugural 2014 Brisbane edition of the Australian Performing Arts Market, “so I’ve got a lot of dance background in terms of working with traditional, contemporary, emerging and established artists in dance. That’s where it all sort of came together.”

Jane admits though that it wasn’t always about dance for her. “I actually come from a visual arts background, and set design in theatre. My father was a lighting designer, so when I was at uni I got a part-time job with him in the theatre painting sets. I loved it and started getting involved and it became my full-time job.

I ended up doing scenery work with the Sydney Theatre Company in the late ‘90s, and ended up doing set design for a whole lot of independent companies around Sydney. Then I did a lot of it for dance companies. So that’s where I started working with dance, integrating that form of expression with the scenery, the space within which they were performing – providing backdrops… I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to make it rain inside a theatre! My part-time job supporting me through uni became my full-time career.”

This year’s Boomerang lineup features, among the musicians, the inimitable Archie Roach; Mojo Juju; rapper, dancer, artist, actor and 2019 recipient of the Young Australian of the Year Award

In 2010 she also worked as a Business Arts developer in Central Java, was an AsiaLink arts management resident in Hong Kong, a Creative Producer for Vitalstatistix in Adelaide and was even a Creative

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Producer with the Adelaide Fringe for five years, working with its First Nations festival, the Spirit Festival. She now lives in Bundjalung Country on the NSW northern coast.

“It’s not off to the side,” Jane emphasises.

“Boomerang is deeper. It provides a deeper experience for an audience, and I guess that’s what I did in my time with the Adelaide Fringe as well. When people come to these festivals and they get up in the morning for breakfast, and they’ve had a big night, seen some amazing acts, Boomerang is a paced-out morning where you can go and have a talk with an elder, you can listen to stories. It’s kind of a solid grounding for the rest of the day. It allows a bit of reflection on what you’ve seen for the day, so it’s not just all about watching something. With the sand mandala, you can join in making that; you can weave, you can listen, in the circle, to the Aunties, the stories, and you can take those with you throughout the day, and it deepens your experience of other performances on the main stages.”

In that sense, Boomerang is bringing the heart and soul of Australia as it has always been understood and passed down through countless generations of its Indigenous people to contemporary audiences. And why not? Bluesfest is, after all, celebrating the heart and soul of the various musical forms spawned in the black American experience, so loves and gloriously reinterpreted by artists and musicians from around Australia and the world. Boomerang is bringing to Bluesfest audiences a sense of place, providing them with a real sense of what Byron is, what Bundjalung is, the Country they’re sharing through the days of the festival.

“It’s that whole idea of you come on Country, you’re welcomed on Country.

Take care of your footprint on this Land.”

Playing times can be found at the Bluesfest website (bluesfest.com. au) and on the APP. There will also be a display board notifying changes. For all other up to date information please check with the Information booth.

Festival information can be found at the Bluesfest website and APP FAQs section. But here is a brief summary.

PLAYING TIMES THURSDAY APRIL 18 Gates Open 2pm-12am FRIDAY APRIL 19 Gates Open 11am-12am SATURDAY APRIL 20 Gates Open 11am-12am SUNDAY APRIL 21 Gates Open 11am-12am MONDAY APRIL 22 Gates Open 11am-12am

GETTING THERE The home of Bluesfest is Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm: Lot 103105, Pacific Highway, Tyagarah, NSW. It is between Byron Bay and Brunswick Heads.

Please make allowances for the heavy traffic during the Easter period.

Please take care when driving and allow extra travel time.

CARS & PARKING Travel time to Byron: 15 min Ballina: 35 min Coolangatta/Gold Coast Airport: 50 min Brisbane Airport: Allow 2 hours Mullumbimby: 5 minutes Coffs Harbour: 3 hours 20 minutes Surfers Paradise: 1 hour 10 minutes There Is Ample Parking Available On Site. Ticket Holders $25 Per Car Per Day. If you have not prepurchased a ticket the cost will be $50. (Motorcycles are free).

CAMPING Overnight camping is not permitted in the carparks.

Campervans are not permitted to park in carparks. To camp on site you must have the appropriate tickets. Please check you have the correct passes prior to your arrival to save time and avoid disappointment. All ticketing information is available on the website

34 31

CHAIRS

ESSENTIALS

You can bring your own portable chairs. There will be some fixed seating in the Mojo and Crossroads areas. You can use your own portable seating to view these stages provided it’s outside the tents. Under no circumstances are portable chairs allowed inside the tents or within 3 metres of the tent’s peg lines (where the tent is affixed to the ground).

For the safety of festival patrons, please do not leave your chair unattended.

CAMERAS All still cameras are allowed into Bluesfest. No video or recording devices allowed.

BUS The Bluesfest bus services are a reliable and inexpensive way of getting to and from the festival.

Bus services will be operating for the duration of the festival, servicing Byron Bay, Suffolk Park, Lennox Head, Ballina, Bangalow, Brunswick Heads, Ocean Shores, Mullumbimby & Billinudgel.

Byron Bay to Bluesfest and return

WRISTBANDS

ENVIRONMENT

Wristbands are non-replaceable and non-transferable. They are invalid once removed.

Tyagarah is home to many native animals, including koalas. These animals need to be catered for to ensure their safety and the preservation of their habitat.

Should you encounter any of these animals, please respect their space. Do not approach or touch. Please notify a member of staff so all precautions can be taken for both the animal and patrons. As you will see, Tyagarah has an abundance of flora and fauna. Please dispose of rubbish correctly and help us preserve the magical home of Bluesfest.

PASSOUTS Patrons are free to come in and out of the festival at any time.

ENTRY GATES NORTH GATE ENTRY: People arriving by car from the north will be directed to north car park SOUTH GATE ENTRY: If you are camping, or arriving by bus or taxi, south gate is your entry to the festival. There is also car parking in the south, so you may be directed to park there.

STAGES Five long-standing stages MOJO, CROSSROADS, JAMBALAYA, JUKE JOINT and DELTA plus the BOOMERANG Stage.

DISABILITIES Bluesfest supplies disabled parking and viewing platforms for patrons confined to wheelchairs.

Disabled toilets are located at all locations.

SMOKING In accordance with NSW smoking laws, cigarettes will not be sold inside the festival. Please consider the environment and fellow patrons when disposing of your cigarette butt. Please refrain from smoking inside the tents.

DRUGS Drug possession, use and/or supply are strictly not tolerated at Bluesfest.

Drug detection dogs will be onsite; those caught will be charged. RBT & RDT patrols will be active on the surrounding roads and highway for the duration of the festival period.

8am - 12.30am - $5each way.

CLOAKROOM

BARGAIN OF THE YEAR!

Ballina and Lennox - $10 each way.

The cloakroom offers safe storage of items for a small fee, as well as phone charging services. All care; no responsibility taken by Bluesfest.

2020 early bird tickets will be on sale prior to the end of the festival. Keep checking the APP for details.

Opening Hours: Thurs 11am- 12:30am Fri – Mon 2pm-12.30am

Grab your S$$ from the onsite ATMS, located near the CROSSROADS and MOJO stages.

Pick up from Byron Bay (Jonson St Bus zone/tourist info centre) running approx every 20 minutes (subject to traffic).

Limited services will also be operating on Wednesday April 17 and Tuesday April 23.

Please visit the Bluesfest website for bus timetables and more information.

SAVE TIME: PLEASE HAVE CORRECT FARE

AGE Patrons under the age of 15 must be accompanied by an adult at all times.

Children under 6 are free, and those between 6-14 years must have a child’s ticket to enter.

Alcohol is strictly permitted only to patrons over the age of 18 who can supply a valid 18+ photo ID.

MERCHANDISE Grab your iconic Bluesfest merch between the hours of 12pm — 12am.

INFO AND SAFETY Onsite safety Hotline: The safety Hotline number is printed on your wristband and at all First Aid marker points throughout the festival site. This number is strictly for emergencies only. First Aid crews are onsite and ready to attend to your medical needs.

General information Hotline: 02 6639 9899

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2019

BLUESFEST MEMORIES

– WHAT WE DID ON OUR BLUESFEST HOLIDAYS

Rhythms readers recall their favourite Bluesfest moments.

Photos by Bill Bachman (except Steve Carr photo).

is 2006. It ar since e e y h T h . c a F with B family e e involved xtended g r e e la b d n r a u to In o iate tinues evening . y immed hms con w copy on of an ers of m at Rhyt o b but a ne h m m t r, e g e d m h in te t r is e o la r f g e e to g h am in t k r I e stuc ards e music. nual gath metimes east tow en an an c and th pages so looking e s a h t F It has be e surf; the crai e B r u g. S part of ; th n had to et readin integral the vibe and Susa d dard toil been as n n a a s h a st in h g s . a e pickin as good r it w he gate magazin is finger ever be ble at t h er Easte n la v l d ay o ai il e d r n av d w u n ju s u er S at we compo rek in s alway her East time De ience th g ving wa ingling e n ud r a m h ti t se n e u e t, t a u h u pr o t fl for taples gig . B anging ales in S h m s: y r s is ie e e r IY v h as av o e D am m M n e eak. shes suc all the g big TTB Some m lves a br nds. Cla t. Seein onsoling Harlem. ie h c se r fr ig u in g o e g t ld a w e h o r B the so giv with Midnig s. Billy in her in to YES ur dads, hard bit greats ent as o age to jo ll of the lyrics st tm r n play the o pa ing the e o h d ll a e uc k o st g r o T ht o in , C g iw Elvis rpiece nd sin sday nig the hand wildly a ean’s hai op. Thur P L elcoming g c w y in d; g M c n d n a n Ig n a b a o d his Fire. d boys, acts. D k in D present Wind n olland an The blin got stuc H g other h , he t t in y t ls a r u h o h a n o t G tc o E J a h and w Buddy ash vs e mot anglin; he bus, rnest R arty, Th ing on t lls and N ir actsg E g e ti o h in S F y t b S y n g h d sb o in e Cro dur llow night. ket J ytalls fo hursday audience ning Jac The Ma uld be T hru the o & t My Mor s sh d t e o t r o h e T on. y nig re’s meand expectati rs. Ever est; the as they Eve: all y the B t Brothe t pl s a e v im knowns. m A S X n ; e w e e o h is lik d by t the kn s in Lov e E e w o m ll k o o c . f uc e n h u Fin hen b 3; C Matisyah which t after Tim letter 2 e. nownsawberry k see Red r n I u t S n to , w in way hom o ss ng unkn lbatro et erupti ns, the owns: A The toil n unknow ore nown kn k w o n e h k t e gs: …th any m The son re hills; e’s to m art. Her hem the t st in a ’s ld t o a g th now, but Must go ullivan Mark S

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36

he see t ter to liant) and nd h g u a il her a 5yo d nt,br my 1 nt,brillia urning to rrupted g n i a k t i till Ta inte ing,it e ten rs (br eing Waile g out of th shit....(b you’re jok f o s ‘ n comi - “that wa er saying r the rest s a v g o e o n C i h o . y t r . ’ . a g s t” dn other it-ho s 15!! he di by an shit’)... s at was sh hen I wa t w ’ h wasn mment “t ed to say s o my c what we u ’s t a th ey!!!

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Mojo

My mos t memo rable B You alw luesfest ays kno momen w at Blu someon t es e gob sm amazing you h fest you are go acking in ave nev for me er hear g to see I never was do th did my ought a banjo Bela Fleck and f. The most he was a re the Flec a k Wooten ad in with his playing l instrument, b tones. on bass . ut Bela Then th , amazin weird p ere was er g or wh Vic a closer t cussive I have now see t!!! Futureman tor o under standin o n membe n some a fe w tim g it ro he start f the quartet . In all other ba es but no wo sp nd noticing laying two sa uld be very no s the fourth xes at o t I was glu iceable nce wh ed on th Robin E e other but I nearly m en ynaud s. issed

Tent

Byron Bay Blu esfest nothin g like it in th The feeling e world of joy, happin ess and togeth when you wal erness k in the gate The variety of music, person alities, fashio ages are a tr n and easure to beho ld It’s a holiday, It’s hard wor k, it’s emotion friendship and al, it’s it is the joy of discoverin unknown g the Thank you Debra Littler

a great Just thought of y. or em m t Bluesfes the crowd te one night as la rk d Pa il ev D n rain, the crow Back at Red drenching Byro in t ne ou eo g m in So fil . l were al in and mud ing up in the ra ing stopped, bank ead and was be ah up ed ps lla co d ha apparently tended to. than becoming t spirit, rather began to sing In true Bluesfes ted, the crowd ita ies. ag or nt tie impa gospel harmon - complete with e’ M By nd ta ’S indeed!

Very Bluesfest I’ve always loved th Marnee Wills at there’s somethin g for everyone at Bluesfe st.

One of my favourite memories was seein g War followed by KC and the Sunshine Band . It was a warm and sunny Ea ster Monday afternoo n and on the Mojo stage there was psyched elic rock followed by disco.

I thought that I’d en tered a parallel universe wh ere Cisco Kid meet s Disco Duck. Only at Blue sfest!!

Barry Moore

Peter Ga from M rrett idnigh t Oil

Mavi s Sta ples

mon Solo

Femi Kuti

So many m as a you emories of Blu ng girl, esfests Ja pas Jones, J ack Joh nis Ian, Buffy S t – Missy Hig t Marie g nson and days and , Grace ins Michael ah the m F r ig a n h ti ty Bob D But one ylan to n in their early o ame a f band I r f my greatest ew. eally did memorie n’t even s is unexp raining hard (as want to ected – usual!) a see…. It late afte a nd rn h on and w oon to a beautif the sum came ad been out in th ul e e the suns all went wild evening . The band cam et. It w - dancin as Kasey g and s e would h ing ave thoug and the Sunshine ing into ht!

Robin B Band! W ooth ho

e Burk

Robe

rt R ando lph

Hi Brian & Fiona Boy crew, es Memories are wonde rful Rain ,mud ,camping ,s thing,but for me Blu e oaked ,co Then the re nstantly da sfest 1999 ,10th Ann ason ( as a iversary,Re mp ,hungo n a ver ...what m d ateur guita Seeing ma a magnifice Devil Park. r player ) th tes like Jeff n t weekend e w L orld class M world’s be ang, Chris !!! st made be Wilson(R.I USIC!!! .P A ), u ss H ie proud. at fitz mixin Up close to g it on stag so many g es with the uitarists w more.Wou here do I st ld take up a th rt .. e .. w R hole page. obben Ford Then watc ,Keb’ Mo”, hin Taj Mahal was Mr R.L g ,maybe 3 ft from th & much e human fo Burnside o ut of the w rce of natu moment fo indow of th re!! Massiv r me. e, sweatin e clubroom Watching g hu s ( Crossro pure prima a d s ?) was a li lk that l ,gut blues, fe changin Then a ligh so real it was g ter scary!!! & don’t forg moment watching C andye Kan et the rain ep & humidity. !!!!! No bee r or Bundy ...who doe lay a piano solo with & coke wa sn bo ’t enjoy slu To the tea s spilt !! dging arou th of her “assets”, m @ Rhyth nd in 60cm m s. .. .. deep mud keep up th I am so loo e awesom king forwa e jo rd b th y ou guy’s d is years 30 Big Fat Ch o. th version eers, Keep ,it will be m music “LIV y 6th or 7t Bill van Pa E ”, h time ,me rreren mories..... ...

37

2019

BLUESFEST MEMORIES Rhythms readers recall their favourite Bluesfest moments.

to monthly I have ho meet r a beer w s k a att e e ecord fr the record ov 1 r l’ 999. A ended Blues y in v e ld o v f a r h a 0 ye y we memor mongst many est since nch of 6 story behind wh ron ie u y b b rilliant B s a , e o is h n t e th Paul Sim e to which is the on playin at stands out more tim ical festival. ord Club discuss what e c n e o R l e h C av ag g to a ig is rossroa nd would tr tunes a Byron’s m he Oakle singing ds with the packed ber of t cords, play the reed we n only get from g m a e ll m a a w e e S w h ca ounds o dr lub I am hat one i Trucks f Silen ole crowd ecord C ur belove Mike Tedesch nce the highs t first”. ce!!! discuss o two. kleigh R to the lads. As m a o fr “O A g d “ s in ie pland er esse om as a out xper /wine or newly pr latest off eters fr ers it w on and e ted him ut on our horty, and poin eschi and only m spired by ring the r heroes in acti fore but for oth p a e , s h r r e e e b S d Aft e ou s be g band in Susan Te Trombone ad a few t and se ious time irport, h first I noticed to the beautiful ave a huge tourin the band!!

A Bluesfes us had been var e n r u o t h f o elb .A next desire to Some of members ure gate at the M tanding ’s leg at arrived for the depart noticed I was s , spoke of their d several other e Thorpey w h d uc e d n ly n to a e e pi d p h to a a k t Excit h e e I g r h s ryin r luck s” and aged u s to De ain and t T-Shirt and relished ou ucks!! She eng nd introduced u rs old ag a e r a d y T e r o 6 u o k 1 c e to e en Der we e we wer Englishm and only hours!! W gled like karma!! the one Mad Dogs and ig g e w or three nd the n f d e ’s n s a ld r o e s ip g u k r t a ite Coc our bug en joy of joys hey met n ng oppos h start to ere sitti children, how t and Derek liste w k e What a e Green. But t r e D ir g e in d h n y t a la g p t n e u nd abo Susa i’s pr the Villa singing a y told us ur seats Tedesch e took o f them and the why she started f the boys ate w n e h o o W hen one n told us ’t fuss. the shit because annoyed they liked. Susa topped it off w polite and didn night to y e r o booked ers who s e W n v im ia t.

L s ic lo a s a u w a m in e k d o h e n s il lo o n m t ti o s u -b nd second ical t moda quietly a ch by mistake our acco at Byron by quiz the festival tha to d e n d lu hea eir d to eted booked airport, after th e heade ere gre d at the available and w e Staus Quo. W big time when te r pa e W ’t lik ed bus wasn y lunch”. ld band all chuff our mini e were some o dies and were plane who ate m w thought ero travelling bud guys from the se h see our said. “ Hi to tho e. om ther e h s h g n n o w ill fr s Stev o d o g e Ca uld only rr an Byron co h ig d fri le k a O r, ends r a C e v Ste I still R He K emember new I was it clearly 12 of . My a hug u s H G e e We A a rrive ding nort Scott He ood Mate d Th h for ron F town John ur an and t S t James Brown he pu sday Afte he 7th An . I said w tark tell Frida ing m b . It rnoon i n t u hout a y the l 1 s e 9 a w n H 9 G d e as so 6 Thund c exciti pitched t Bluesfes sitation L il Scott H erbird oncerts st t. ng to he te et’s g e arted s. Wo This n o. By ron. Was be in ts th . Not w th was t e B t e h s n y y u e tim going to ron B re he fir cramm were All fa e we ay.

P st tim ed ev HOT who was ntasti left S lay Bluesf e ! e o n wh rybod Gil S I had c. Es est y Gil S dney a y p t c s e e o i c d nto J tt He en Li ially t c there . ohns ttle C ron P ay but Had he Pa to me ott Heron was Komb layed ladins harlie . I re . to see i. And . In f 2 memb a n s B h d Ther i o ll act I headi ws S the N er se e ng to aturd y Thorpe thoug eing ight on th was a ma ay and ht th and t Chain Cats e spo r h e k a e S e o n P n t d u a F n t la a S i . d Cand n bu dins w ay nig aturd Londo every ye Ka ay and n Hoo the town hts, T lous ere t time ne an ligan and I he be he B r e we w t d u Mond r S passed st on ning est. the P oul by ere i ay mo t t a o la h a t n c h e dins. s amp w e Bal the c r Johnn week listic mall music amp t e ie Jo ning to mu e r nd. J e eve Broth o the s h c not k ust be rybod ers w hop. A pie now a nson, Li’l F h laughter exten hind y sang tler u c t h B . b e a i i o , c I c m n u of mu tually h wa the H t him did n y batt h a Joh ppy B s s o s i e ip t a c a t r t n p h irthd y in m s o d he w c rashe ay as so on the gr it may h s and Loui ee all the d fro aught me y car ass in ave b s Kin m my popula acts ear. I went On th g e r fr o . e . c f cou b fl n his a ont of But t o r a u e trip t g c ht th and h d play rse fir he him a doing up we e CD ad to er nd w st visit to re was on but Mana were be pu g a e Line 80KMH t e A c d a u h s ct th stralia h doing ed hi t o as we up in s t c arted at a m pla 10 an Idy on y. A but we k t just ama ch The B I have llic T were so r 0/110KP couple new zed u o n been H own. d e la i Cig a b xed a s b e o . o f c to oth u B a t a y Jeff us e r ears nd ca er Bl Maho later him after n Harper. s, lm. It e we coul uesfe ney you c this w dn’t I did was s sts bu o w u ee uch a ld not ai t I al wond t to get t even kend. We ways erful here get c think w bu lose eeke 1996 nd. G t going h was t ome w reat he be Weat st.

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2019

The Early Days ‘The Colonel’, as he is known, was there from the start.

By Mark Doherty

W

ow! Thirty years huh? I’ve missed a few over the past decade, but for the first 20 years, I knew where I would be every Easter, and when I look at the posters on the Bluesfest website Archive page, I am immediately transported back in time and place, and can remember each performance that I witnessed.

In the early days, you could actually see EVERY artist on the bill. Now you would need several clones to achieve that feat.

That’s a good thing – something for all tastes, but it can make for tough choices.

The Bluesfest team got it right from day one, with most of the 1990 headliners proving their worth by returning over the years, either coming back to Bluesfest or touring in their own right. Canned Heat toured Australia annually through the 90s, with singer James T marrying and settling in the Byron Shire.

West Coast roots-rockers The Paladins astonished that first festival audience with their energy and power and were rewarded by regular return visits. Big Jay McNeely, Charlie Musselwhite and Lynwood Slim also established a loyal fanbase here.

One of the secrets to the success of Bluesfest has been its willingness to change, to improve, and to keep moving forward. Old hands like myself can reminisce about the ‘good old days’ at the Arts Factory, the four years from ’93 to ’96 at the swamp (Belongil Fields), or the

40

long run from ’97 to ’07 at the increasingly cramped Red Devil Park, but current festival owner Peter Noble’s visionary move out of Byron Bay to nearby Tyagarah in 2010 has allowed the festival to breathe and expand.

OK, time for this old fart to re-live some magic moments. 1992 was the last indoor festival, and the first to be filmed for ABCTV series “Blues Moon Over Byron” (some of this is on YouTube, particularly the ’93 performances). Two of California’s hottest touring acts entertained the substantial crowd – Rod Piazza & the Mighty Flyers, and Little Charlie & the Nightcats. This was a feast for blues harmonica fans, but then the sight of jump blues guitar killers Alex

Schultz and Charlie Baty trading blows at the finale was too much. Also, on that bill were Sydney party-starters the Mighty Reapers, and we got our first taste of Bluesfest’s spiritual fathers, the Blind Boys of Alabama.

One principle that was established early at Bluesfest was equal representation for Australian acts. Another was to champion female artists, with Margie Evans, Sue Foley and Candye Kane among the early US contingent.

One downside of an outdoor festival is the weather, and during the first 20 years of the festival, it regularly rained at Easter.

In ’95 I was asked to drive John Hammond

to the backstage area, so he didn’t have to traipse through the mud. When the van got bogged 100m from its destination, Hammond had no choice but to trudge through the sludge. At least he was wearing cowboy boots.

I think it was about ’96 that local community radio got involved with Bluesfest. Joe Louis Walker, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and Little Charlie & the Nightcats were among the headliners.

Brian Wise (3RRR/ Rhythms) was coordinating, and 2NCR Lismore supplied technical support including an OB caravan.

All interviews and live music were recorded on cassette!

It was primitive but exciting. In later years a national broadcast was organised through CBAA and the community radio network, again coordinated by Mr Wise, with Bay-FM personnel and myself helping. This went on for some ten years, allowing community radio listeners all over the country to have a taste of Bluesfest magic.

This sounds romantic, but the reality is we missed much of the festival, sitting in our little donga behind the main stage, headphones on, editing mini-disc recordings. On the other hand, I had backstage access, and a reason to harass my heroes with interview requests.

I have always thought that one of the strengths of a major music festival is that it can present to us not only major headline acts, but also those that would otherwise be unable to tour Australia, due to promoters being unwilling to take a financial risk.

It seems that Bluesfest has always felt an obligation to present new, untried or

unknown acts that they believed in. I’m not alone in being thankful to Bluesfest for a staggering performance from someone I barely knew, or thought I would not be interested in. These would include Fred Eaglesmith, Ruthie Foster, Rodrigo e Gabriela, Harry Manx, Ben Harper, the Music Maker Foundation… and if you think some of these acts are pretty well known, well they weren’t until they played Bluesfest.

Happy 30th Birthday, Bluesfest. You’ve been an important part of my life.

Mark Doherty is an institution on the Australian blues scene. Mark broadcast the program Nothin’ But The Blues for 40 years on Brisbane’s 4ZZZ, edited the Blues On Air newsletter and hosts Brisbane’s longest running weekly blues jam at the Morrison Hotel where he sings and plays harmonica.

2019

63 41

BACKSLIDING AT BLUESFEST The Backsliders’ Dom Turner was also there at the genesis of what was to become Australia’s most awarded music festival.

By Dom Turner

A

fter a flight from Sydney to Byron to perform at the then named East Coast Blues Festival, I arrived at the Oxford Arts Factory, an old slaughterhouse repurposed as an indoor performance space and suitably nicknamed ‘The Piggery’. It was a hot April day and I remember seeing crowds gathering outside and there was a sense of anticipation and excitement filling the humid air. I wondered if these folks had any real knowledge of the international and local blues artists, they were seemingly so keen to see and hear. I couldn’t tell you how many times in those days, when asked about the type of music I play, on answering “blues”, got the response

Dom Turner at Bluesfest.

Photo by Bill Bachman.

42

“oh..I love jazz!”. That was the level of understanding.

The ‘Piggery’ doors opened, and the crowd rushed into the high ceilinged two-tiered rectangular venue. It felt like about a thousand congregating in the hot and sweaty indoor ‘juke-joint’ like structure.

There was a feeling of being swept up in the feel of live blues and the crowds seem to completely bond with the music. The day, for me, marked the beginning of a musical re-education for Australia as the audience lapped up the sonic experience of raw live blues in various ensemble forms.

The first few years at the Oxford Arts Factory were a humble yet successful beginning in what was early days of festival history in Australia.

Australia had music festivals but certainly not on the scale I’d experienced in America at that time, nor that of the festival scene in today’s Australia. Having been obsessed with blues since I was a teenager it was an enormous thrill to see a festival dedicated to presenting what was then a relatively obscure music form in terms of the broader public in Australia.

This wasn’t a rock or jazz festival with a handful of blues-based acts on the bill, but a dedicated bluesgenre-based event.

Although there had been occasional tours

by American blues acts, probably since the 1960s, Bluesfest meant more reasons for such international acts to include Australia as a viable destination, opening up listening opportunities musicgoers here. It also led to an additional sense of credibility in terms of audience perceptions of local Australian blues and roots acts simply by them

appearing alongside internationals on the same bill. And then there’s the musical comradeship between artists, international and local, that developed and continues to develop backstage at each year’s event.

I’ve played the majority of Bluesfests and seen it grow immensely in both audience numbers and scheduled acts, evolving into a multi-genre event yet maintaining a core of blues and traditionally based music forms. It is the tapestry of acts, including the obscure, lesser known and often heavily influential, that make the festival great. Sure there are the larger crowdpulling headliners, a necessary component in the mix, yet it is how the underlying thread of talent weaves throughout the fabric that make this festival unique. Every year brings more tradition-bearing artists to Australian audiences, educating us in the intricacies of regional blues genres, as well as soul, gospel, funk, dub, reggae, rap, hip-hop, country and old timey to name a few. Mississippi hill country acts such as R.L. Burnside and Robert Belfour mesmerised audiences a third the age of both men; Sly and Robbie showing how rhythmically complex and compelling Jamaican music can get; The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Dixie Hummingbirds and Mavis Staples all transporting crowds to a southern US revival meeting. Bluesfest also championed the Weissenborn lap-slide guitar roots artists beginning with Ben Harper, now a Bluesfest regular, followed soon after by arguably the father of this style of lap-slide laying, David Lindley.

In 2019, the tapestry is rich with artists, again a multi-genre event yet with rich and varied blues roots. Everyone has their Bluesfest favourites, often striving to find an act more obscure and unique than the next. It pushes people to think outside of the musical-square and to seek out unique music that touches the soul. It encourages a walk to a different stage to see an act you don’t know in the hope that you’ll find even more gold than you did the previous year.

Dom Turner 2019 Backsliders, The Turner Brown Band, Phil Wiggins & Dom Turner, Angry Tradesmen,

2019

RocKwiz At Bluesfest!

Photos by Steve Ford

T

he RocKwiz Team is pleased to be back at Bluesfest performing two shows (Saturday and Sunday) in the Jambalaya tent around 1 pm.

As usual Brian Nankervis will be loitering up the back of the tent before the show, looking for audience members keen to take part in the preshow quiz and maybe make it through.

Rhythms asked Brian Nankervis for some memories of past RocKwiz shows at Bluesfest … and to dig into the archives and put together twenty curly questions from the fifteen shows they’ve done in the Jambalaya tent since 2010.

Brian: I’ve missed our Byron adventures.

Long autumnal days that begin with frisbee and body surfing at Clarkes Beach and end in tents seeing amazing artists that have inspired, shaped lives and, in a very real way, informed RocKwiz. I’ll never forget working my way down the front to watch a frail but determined B. B. King, a typically inscrutable (but nonetheless wonderful) Bob Dylan and Dr John and his voodoo rhythms. Bonnie Raitt singing ‘Angel from Montgomery’ transporting me to my suburban bedroom and a copy of Bonnie’s 1974 album, ‘Streetlights’. Lyle Lovett, Mavis Staples, Buddy Guy, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Elvis Costello, Booker T Jones!

I have other, indelible memories away from the tents. Riding in a golf cart with Tony Joe White to a Rhythms interview and trying to work out what I could possibly say to him. Nothing, as it turned out … it was a quick ride. Shoveling tan bark to cover vast puddles in front of the stage after a classic northern NSW downpour, discovering the Byron Bay organic donuts, running into old and new friends at the dining tables opposite the Indian food stall. Visiting Mullumbimby and Brunswick Heads. Standing in the surf with Steve Earle, his long hair all wet and salty and strangely combed over by the ocean, board shorts slipping dangerously south, wearing a manic grin. “Just got dumped! Man, I love it here. I always buy a boogie board, use it every morning and afternoon if I can, then before I leave, I find a kid who looks like he could use a new boogie board. Oh yeah.”

A BLUESFEST ROCKWIZ 1. Cold Chisel’s ‘Flame Trees’ was based on Don Walker’s memories of what town?

One of my most vivid memories is watching the RocKwiz Orkestra rehearse with artists in our ‘donga’. The donga (a small relocatable tin building, often found on construction sites or at music festivals) was where we changed, ate, made up, brushed teeth, had last minute meetings and, most importantly, held rehearsals with artists who we often met minutes before the show. The Orkestra would have a minimal set up and away they’d go. I loved watching the artists when they realized how good the band was, how prepared they were, how adept at playing what sounded like fully realized versions of the songs. Singers like Michael Franti, Ruthie Foster and The Flatlanders would invariably begin tentatively, feeling their way into a song. Very quickly they’d relax, smile and take the whole thing up a level. Suddenly the cramped room is crackling with electric energy. You could feel everyone’s exhilaration, mixed with relief and a whole lotta excitement about the show that was about to start. Such joy … and such pride in our hard working, brilliant band.

Unforgettable watching Steve Earle lead The Orkestra through ‘Copperhead Road’ … and when it finished he laughed and shook their hands, saying “I don’t know why we don’t have a show like this in America!”

In front of the red velvet curtains the show unfolds much like the television version, with Julia working her special magic, Dugald hoisting the score cards and tuning and changing guitars and our fabulous contestants furiously hitting buzzers, sharing their first concerts and records, demonstrating their incredible knowledge, singing with the band and nearly stealing the shows from a wide range of artists. I can’t name them all here, but personal highlights would have to include Garland Jeffreys and Continental Robert Suez performing ’96 Tears’, Beth Hart singing a passionate version of ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ (five million views and counting on YouTube!), Irma Thomas, Tim Rogers playing guitar while Broderick Smith improvised lyrics about the festival, Trombone Shorty, Vika and Linda Bull, Tex Perkins doing ‘Run Through the Jungle, Barrence Whitfield and Marcia Hines doing ‘Jumping Jack Flash’, Warren Storm and Jon Cleary trading lyrics on a Fats Domino song from the desks while the band fell in behind them. So many great moments … and we can’t wait to do it again this year! In the meantime … here are some questions to get you in the mood.

2. In the Paul Kelly song ‘To Her Door’, where in the north coast did the man “spend about a year”?

3. Complete these classic blues lyrics:

I got the key …

They call it Stormy Monday …

I asked her for water …

4. True or false: Aussie TV Naturalist Harry Butler wrote a song recorded by Alice Cooper on his 1971 LP, ‘Love It To Death’.

5. What was the iconic ballroom at Bowen Hills in Brisbane that was illegally demolished overnight in 1982?

6. Who said “you won’t need no harem, honey, when I’m by your side. And you won’t need no camel, when I take you for a ride”?

7. Who sang … ‘I heard Leadbelly and Blind Lemon, on the street where I was born, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Muddy Waters singing ‘I’m a Rolling Stone’ 8. What sort of windows did Tina Turner sing about?

9. According to The Doors, what hissed by the window?

10. Who sang … ‘Go away from my window, leave at your own chosen speed

I’m not the one you want, babe, I’m not the one you need’

11. Which of the following are not Thrash Metal bands … Crumbsuckers, Municipal Waste, Cryptic Slaughter and Human Nature 12. During their 1964 Australian tour, The Beatles were pelted by eggs in Brisbane.

Who later admitted his involvement, calling it “an intellectual reaction against Beatlemania”? … Bob Dyer, Bob Menzies or Bob Katter?

13. Which Talking Head was a founding member of The Modern Lovers, alongside Jonathon Richman?

14. Which of the following is NOT a blues musician … Blind Willie McTell, Big Mama Thornton, Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Jamie Redfern 15. Which of the following is NOT a Viking Metal band? Doom Ship, Enslaved, Brain Splitter, Air Supply.

16. Which flamboyant rocker with a toothy smile and a pompadour was the preacher at the weddings of both Tom Petty and Cindy Lauper?

17. If you catch the Rockin’ Pneumonia, what other condition are you likely to have?

18. Which British singer recorded with Duane Allman at Muscle Shoals, represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest and married a Bee Gee? 19. Who was the house band at Stax Records, playing on hits by Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Sam and Dave?

20. Who had hits with songs like ‘I’ll Take You There’, ‘Touch A Hand, Make A Friend’ and ‘I’ll Take You There’?

For the answers go to rhythms.com.au 44

63 45

2019

THE ‘MESSIAH’ RETURNS! Ben Harper’s debut at Bluesfest in 1996 was a watershed moment in the festival’s history

By Brian Wise

T

he name Ben Harper will always be associated with the history of Bluesfest in the same way that the name Professor Longhair or Mahalia Jackson is always associated with the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. It might seem to be drawing a long bow, but the names have been inextricably linked since Harper’s Bluesfest debut way back in 1996 at Belongil Fields.

Not only did Bluesfest help to make the relatively unknown Harper a star in Australia – he had only released two albums at that stage – he helped put Bluesfest on the map as more than just a blues festival. The year prior to Harper’s appearance the festival was headlined by Mick Taylor’s Blues Allstars, Michelle Shocked, John Hammond, Margie Evans, along with Roy Rogers & Norton Buffalo and another three dozen or so international and local mainly blues acts.

But the festival landscape was changing rapidly – as it was in America. The Big Day Out was in full swing with a diverse contemporary line-up. If the future of music festivals was in attracting and building a younger audience then Bluesfest needed to adapt and Harper’s appearance marked a watershed in the festival’s history. Here was an artist whose music linked the past with the future. He played the quaint Weissenborn guitar just like one of his idols David Lindley sometimes did and his music was based in the blues but took it so much further. [Lindley, by the way, appeared in 1999, the year of Harper’s third appearance].

In 1996 Ben Harper was on the fourth line of the poster behind The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Johnnie Johnson and Gill Scott-Heron & The Amnesia Express. In 1997 he was there again behind The Neville Brothers, Taj Mahal and Tony Joe White. Two years later Harper was sharing the top rung

46

with Dr John. In the intervening years the festival added acts such as Steve Earle, Iris DeMent, Spearhead (with Michael Franti, who also has a special place in Byron Bay), Southern Culture on the Skids, Jon Spencer, Jimmy Webb and dozens more ‘roots’ acts.

It went from labelling itself a ‘blues’ festival to a ‘blues & roots’ festival. By 2018 it was just Bluesfest – and we all know what that means. In contrast, the San Francisco Blues Festival, which had an even more spectacular (if much colder) setting, refused to change and saw its demise in 2008.

While Ben Harper would never take credit for the reinvigoration of Bluesfest, it was a combination of his appeal and the foresight of the festival directors at the time, that ensured not only did the event survive but that it became the premier event of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

“It was a teeny little festival then,” says Harper, “and in turn, the festival helped promote me throughout Australia as a springboard in a way that nothing else ever could’ve. The synergy, timing wise, was rare.

“Because it represented an English-speaking territory, an English-speaking contingent, en masse, that understood the music I was making - and that, somehow, started it,” said Harper when reminded him of that Bluesfest debut.

We have caught up at the famous Ryman Auditorium in Nashville where Harper is appearing with Charlie Musselwhite on the final leg of their world tour promoting No Mercy in This Land, their second album together.

“Now, mind you, there were heads in the States all the while,” he continues, “but what happened in Australia reverberated around the world in a way that other parts of Europe couldn’t even do.”

I mention how blues historian Dick Waterman once told me that the blues is a large tent and once you get people into the tent you can convert them. Harper has been doing proselytising in his work with Musselwhite, who got one of the biggest standing ovations I have ever seen at the Ryman.

“If I get to play a role in the contribution to a genre that has in large part made me, then I’m fulfilling my role,” he noted. “Once they’re in the tent, they close the curtains.

Yeah. Well put, Dick. That’s the truth, man.

Once it hits you, once it bites you, you’re in.

You’re in. There’s no going back. There’s no turning back. There’s no wanting out. You’re a card-carrying member. Once you’ve heard, I don’t know, you can say anything, but I’ll just go to the obvious. Once you’ve heard Robert Johnson, you’re done. You’re done.”

But while his early Bluesfest appearances have become legendary, Harper didn’t forget his fellow musicians and friends in spreading the love. Martin Jones recently spoke to Jack Johnson who recalled the role Harper had in helping him out at Bluesfest.

“I was a huge fan but at the same time they were fans of the surf films we were making so Byron Bay is actually a perfect example of a spot where Ben got me that gig,” recalled Johnson, “he basically brought me down and I got a better slot than I should have because Ben had been praising me so much, he played on my album, people turned out for me.”

Harper’s career trajectory over the past 25 years has taken him along a fascinating musical journey that has so far garnered him three Grammy Awards. There are 11 studio albums and four live albums – recorded solo or with the Innocent Criminals, The Relentless 7 or as Fistful of Mercy (with Dhani Harrison and Joseph Arthur). There are three studio albums made with the Blind Boys of Alabama and Charlie Musselwhite (including a Grammy nomination this year for No Mercy in This Land) plus a live album with the latter. Then there’s Childhood Home, the album he made with his mother Ellen (who has since gone onto to release another solo album, Light Has A Life of Its Own). There’s even a 1992 album he recorded with his friend, multiinstrumentalist Tom Freund.

“Once it hits you, once it bites you, you’re in. There’s no going back. There’s no turning back. There’s no wanting out. You’re a card-carrying member.

Once you’ve heard Robert Johnson, you’re done.”

– Ben Harper There is also Ben Harper’s activism and support of causes such as the New Light Boys Home, the Tony Hawke Foundation, Lift (a movement to combat poverty), Living Lands and Waters (conservation), Feeding America, the Surfrider Foundation and more.

Many of his songs are inspired by current events - especially on No Mercy in This Land which paints a harsh portrait at times of the

Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite situation in the USA - but here is a musician who doesn’t just sing about issues but does something about it.

No one will ever accuse Ben Harper of resting on his laurels. Was he serious when he suggested a few years ago that he could retire and run the record store in his local town?

When we meet in Nashville he is planning to produce a new album for Mavis Staples. They have worked before. In 2016 Mavis invited him to appear on Livin’ On A High Note and recorded his sing ‘Love & Trust’ (also included on No Mercy in This Land).

Harper had already written some songs for the album and was hoping to finish production and have the whole project wrapped up earlier this year.

“When you talk to her, mention ‘The Grease on Grandma’s Stove’,” he said. “Because we’re going to open up that can for that record.”

Like most musicians, Harper is a little bit reticent to talk about the project until it is finished – it is a long running superstition that many seem to share but I managed to prise out some details. How did the project come about?

“Just a lot of talking,” he responds. “Just a lot of conversing and throwing ideas back and forth with Mavis. I think it’s what I’m born to do. I think this is my highest calling, right here. This is it for me. This is the highest calling I’ve had yet Is that putting a little bit of pressure on?

“Yes, yes,” he replied. “But I say it with wide eyes because the material’s coming together.

And the material is fitting the confidence level. I’m going into overdrive, idea-wise, on that.”

The other project harper is working on is a new recording with the Innocent Criminals that he is hoping to release prior to Bluesfest.

“I’m at least going to have a new song out,” he explained.

“I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to. This has been a year like none other. From Lebanon to Calgary, Canada, Rome, Australia. I mean, there’s almost nowhere I haven’t been this year. And that was all with Charlie, for the most part. A handful of shows with the Innocent Criminals.

So, next year I really want to get back on stage with the Innocent Criminals. I’d love to record as well. I’d love to make a record with them as well. I just don’t know.”

“That’s my life’s work at the moment. I’m not sure if I can do a complete Innocent Criminals record. I’m not sure. However, I can’t wait to get back on stage with the Innocent Criminals. I am going to at least get in the studio to record an EP with the Innocent Criminals to have out into the world.”

It’s less than an hour before Harper goes on stage at the Ryman and it is difficult to believe that he is so calm prior to what turns out to be a triumphant show. It is his seventh time at the holy Church of country music, so he is like a welcome friend nowadays.

“It’s the first time since they’ve taken down the Confederate gallery sign that used to be out there, an ode to the confederacy,” he says excitedly when I mention the historical importance of the building.

“I’ve been knocking on their door, diplomatically, for a while to get that down,” he notes. Some old habits die hard, particularly in the South. “But I don’t want to pigeonhole the South unfairly as >> 47

2019

THE ‘MESSIAH’ RETURNS! >> if to say that once you get out LA, Sacramento is not similar to the South. No offense to Sacramento. You know what I mean.”

“We’re sitting in the legendary Ryman Auditorium,” says Harper who scans the room. “It’s incredible to think of the people who have played here. There are some of the photos on the wall right now that we’re looking at: Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline…..I mean, it just goes on and on. The place is one-part museum, one-part venue.”

And now, Ben Harper. “Now that I’ve got the confederacy sign down, I’ll have to fight to get my photo up,” he laughs. “I don’t know if you can be alive and have your photo up in here.”

Ben has recently played the Newport Folk Festival with Charlie and is well aware of the history of some of the venues in which he is appearing. It was at Newport in 1965 that Dylan went electric, audience booed, and Pete Seeger allegedly tried to cut the power cable with an axe.

“So, it’s pretty heavy with history,” acknowledges Harper, “and here we are, heavy with history again.”

Speaking of history, I ask Harper what was the first thing that he heard that really struck him and inspired his interest in music.

“Mississippi John Hurt,” he shoots back straight away. “Mississippi John Hurt right away and I was done. I asked my grandmother, who was, rest her soul, the reigning matriarch of music in my family.

She put on John Hurt and I said, ‘Who are the two guitar players?’ and she said, ‘No, no, no.

That’s one guy.’ I went, ‘Well, that’s a modern miracle. I have to learn that.’

“I think this is my highest calling, right here. This is it for me. this is the highest calling I’ve had yet.”

– Ben Harper on producing Mavis Staples.

“Listen, I was the only one in my senior class, graduating class, that had a Mississippi John Hurt record and a Run-DMC record.

The only one. Well, it was game on: because from Mississippi John Hurt comes Reverend Gary Davis. And from Reverend Gary Davis comes Mississippi Fred McDowell. And from Mississippi Fred McDowell you find Blind Willie McTell. It’s only a matter of time…. blues, Roscoe Holcomb, Peter Seeger, Woody Guthrie. I mean, it all becomes roots 48

MAVIS! Ben Harper @ The Ryman Auditorium.

Photo by Brian Wise.

American ... It becomes the Renaissance that was the 1930s….whenever Charlie Patton stepped into the public forum.

“So, say, 1930s to the rediscovery of Skip James at Newport Folk Festival, to come full circle in 1964, I think? I mean, so if you’re talking 1924, 34, 44, 54, 64, that’s 40 years when blues and jazz ... That’s the Renaissance. They’ll look back, musically, on that period in the same way that they look back on classical music, in the same way they look back on the art of DaVinci and Michelangelo and all that ... I mean, that’s the most important period in American music - in music period.”

Harper had the advantage at the start of his career of immediately having a very distinctive sound using the Weissenborn guitar.

“That did make the difference,” he agrees.

“That was the difference maker. I was listening to all this traditional blues music but the component of David Lindley being family ... David was like a surrogate father to me growing up. He would come in the store [where he worked]. I could’ve been drawn towards a thousand things, but I truly feel that your instrument chooses you. I heard Lindley while simultaneously investing my childhood in the blues. The combination of blues and Lindley and that was it for me.

That was it. I didn’t want to learn to play like Stevie Ray Vaughan. I didn’t want to learn to play like anybody else but Lindley. Then it’s a stone’s throw from Lindley to Taj Majal to Ry Cooder. At that point, you’re dealing in a tight knit group of the sort of second-generation inheritors of the tradition.

“David bought his first Weissenborn from my grandfather. It was always the sound that just drew me in. David would come in and he’d allow me to sit at his heels ... because David was very standoffish and very isolating about what made his tone. He very specifically let me watch what he was doing very closely.

No David Lindley, no me. He’s a genius. He’s a genius and multi-instrumentalist. He’s as versed on the violin and the Greek bouzouki and the oud and all that stuff.”

The other indelible influence on Harper’s life – and perhaps the most important one is that of

Bluefest is blessed again by the Queen of Gospel and one of the greatest singers of all time.

Ben and Mavis in The Studio.

Photo courtesy of David Bartlett. his mother Ellen. A few years ago, he helped her fulfil one of her ambitions to record an album, Childhood Home, and last year she put out her own solo album.

“She was a local legend. I mean, she played music and was a local person on the music scene where we grew up and had her sights set on being a professional musician. I think ‘til my youngest brother surprised her and she ended up with three boys. No Dad around. It was too much for her to be touring ... I mean, she tried. She hauled us around to clubs in the area, but I think she got tired of seeing us wake up under beer-soaked pinball machines.

And that was too much so she had to put it on hold to raise the kids.

“Once I started getting some traction in music, I made it my life’s goal to bring that back into her life at that level. Because I always felt that her voice was as worthy as Emmylou Harris or Dolly Parton as far as being on the world stage. That takes something else to be able to do that. Never mind gender, it’s tough but it’s even harder for a single mother of three. So, to be able to make a record with her, that was the fulfillment of a dream of mine for her.”

“My mom’s record and the records I’ve made with Charlie are my greatest life accomplishments,” he continues. “I can’t say it any more clear. I just feel like they’ve been a part of my calling. And the record with the Blind Boys. Records like that firmly plant you in tradition in a way that nothing else does.”

Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals are appearing exclusively at Bluesfest.

Ben Harper, Mavis Staples & Trombone Shorty. Photo courtesy of David Bartlett.

By Brian Wise

There is no doubt that Mavis Staples has had an amazing career. From the Civil Rights era with her family in The Staple Singers through to her recent recordings produced by Prince, Ry Cooder, Jeff Tweedy and now Ben Harper, Mavis has found a way to reinvent herself while maintaining her absolute musical integrity.

Nearing the age of 80, Staples shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, recent events in America, including the election of the man she called an ‘old fool’ when I saw her late last year, have made her music more relevant then ever.

“I’m still working on the building. I’m still at it and I intend to as long as the Lord gives me my voice.” – Mavis Staples.

“Pops always instilled in us that family is the strongest unit in the world,” said Mavis when I asked her about her biggest influence in life. It is brought home powerfully in the documentary Mavis! , Jessica Edwards marvellous film about the singer.

“Stay close to your family. As long as you were close to your sisters and brothers, nobody can break you.”

Last year Mavis lost her sister Yvonne, her constant companion for most of her career and member of the family group.

“When we started singing, Yvonne didn’t want to sing,” explained Mavis. “What happened was that my brother went to the

Army, and Pop said, ‘Yvonne, you have to sing. Pervis is in the Army now.’ Then another time, my oldest sister, Cleotha, her husband pulled her off the road. Yvonne had to sing, she would sing in everybody’s place. This last time she was just stuck. She couldn’t go, she couldn’t leave, so she started loving it.

“We’re going to sing, children. We’re going to sing.” He just started giving us voices. He gave us voices to sing, that he and his sisters and brothers would sing when they were in Mississippi. He was teaching us all these older songs, when people heard us on record they thought we were old people.”

Of course, the foundation upon which the Staple Singers was founded was Pops, who passed away in 2000, aged 85. It is difficult for Mavis to talk about him without getting emotional and, even on the phone line, that comes through.

One of the most unusual stories in Greg Kot’s 2014 biography of Mavis (I’ll Take You There: Mavis Staples, the Staples Singers and the Music That Shaped the Civil Rights Era) is her relationship with Bob Dylan.

“I miss Pops so much,” she said. “I miss him, but I’m so grateful to have the footage and his music and I can listen to him anytime I want. I still talk to him. I just start talking, ‘Pops, I’m going to be doing this tomorrow, and I’m going to be doing that….. I could just see him tickled, laughing with it, gleam in his eye. I know he knows that I’m still working on the building. I’m still at it, and I intend to as long as the Lord gives me my voice, because I want to leave my father’s legacy. Pops, he started this all. He started it, and us children, Pops too, we weren’t singing for a career. We were singing to amuse ourselves.

“We were home in the evening, my mother worked nights. Pops was singing with an all-male group. These guys wouldn’t come to rehearsal and Pops would come home. There was six of them, he would go to rehearsal, there might be two there, might be three the next time. Pops came home and went straight to the closet, pulled out a little guitar he’d bought at the pawn shop and he called us children into the living room, set us on the floor in a circle, and he told us, he said,

“He did,” agreed Mavis when I mentioned that Dylan had wanted to marry her. “He said, ‘Mavis, I want to get married.’ We were courting - and I was so young. The fact of marriage frightened me, because I didn’t know anything, I was a kid. I didn’t know how to cook. I didn’t know how to be married. I told him, I said, ‘Bobby, I’m too young.’ ‘Oh Mavis, I’m young too,’ he said. I said, ‘Yeah, we’d be like two little lost cubs out there in the world.’ We courted a good while and one day he told Pops, he just yelled out ‘want to marry Mavis!’ Pops said, ‘Man, don’t tell me, tell Mavis.’ Everybody started laughing, that was in front of a lot of bluegrass and folk singers.

We were doing a television show.”

Imagine the greatest contemporary gospel singer and the greatest contemporary song writer together? They have both been to Bluesfest and this year Mavis will return to continue her legacy.

Don’t miss her.

49 45

2019

A REAL POP STAR! GLEN HANSARD This Wild Willing

The Godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop, returns to show us how to rock!

By Stuart Coupe “You look like shit,” I said to Iggy Pop. It was a couple of days before Christmas 1995 and I was having breakfast with Iggy in his room at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.

‘This Wild Willing ’ is Glen Hansard’s fourth solo album, showcasing the inventiveness of his work in The Frames along with the discipline he has found as a solo songwriter.

Grammy Award winner Patty Griffin releases her long-awaited 10th studio album and first-ever eponymous LP. OUT MARCH 8

MAVIS STAPLES

OUT APRIL 12

CASS McCOMBS

Live In London

RYAN BINGHAM

Tip of the Sphere

American Love Song

It being Iggy and us being in this rock ‘n’ roll caper, breakfast was mid morning.

There was no food on the table. Just my tape recorder and a packet of Marlboro cigarettes. My next appointment was a lunch with Neil Diamond so food for me could wait till then. Iggy looked like eating anything was close to the furthest thing from his mind.

By this stage I’d interviewed Iggy a few times and we’d always got on well. He’s easy to talk to. Smart. Funny. Articulate. I felt comfortable looking him in the eye and telling him he looked like he’d been hit by a truck that had then reversed and done it again.

“I was at Lemmy’s 50th birthday party last night,” he laughed before proceeding engage in conversation for the next hour.

OUT NOW

OUT NOW

THE WAR AND TREATY

JOHN PAUL WHITE

Healing Tide

OUT NOW

OUT NOW

JOSH RITTER

The Hurting Kind

APRIL 12

Fever Breaks

APRIL 25

The first time I’d interviewed Iggy I hadn’t been nearly as relaxed. It was 1979 and he was in Australia to promote his New Values album. This was the time he appeared on Countdown. The ‘dog face’ show with a visibly shaken Molly Meldrum. I was new to this interviewing rock stars caper and Iggy was right up there in the intimidating stakes. Mind you, he turned out to be heaps of fun then too, and a great raconteur.

So, over the years there’s been a bunch of Iggy interviews and shows. The last concert I saw by the Iggster was at the Hordern Pavilion in 2013 with the Beasts of Bourbon opening. It reminded me once again that Iggy remains one of the most astonishingly intense performers still treading the

boards. His voice is holding up and despite the odds so is his physicality. This was a Stooges show and it was nothing short of mind blowing.

And there’s no reason to suspect that his Bluesfest and sideshow performances will be anything other than phenomenal live experiences. How could it not be? There is nothing half measured about Iggy. Never has been and almost certainly never will be casual and indifferent about anything. He’s not wired that way.

That was evidenced more recently when I was completing the writing of Tex Perkins’ memoir. The publishers decided it’d be kinda neat to get a quote from Iggy for the book jacket. Perkins ‘n’ Pop know each other reasonably well and have shared bills together over the years.

Perkins tells a terrific story about how after meeting Iggy and The Beasts of Bourbon playing with him at the Big Day Out and some sideshows in 1993, he found himself a a few months later with The Cruel Sea in New York and playing a record company organised show at CBGB’s. An afternoon show of all things. It was not a good day.

The PA had stopped working, there were no monitors – all was turning to shit.

Tex takes up the story: “Then, just before we were meant to go onstage, someone from the venue comes back and asks if I can come to the front door. They need me to come and see if I know ‘a dude’ who’s turned up and asked to get in even though they’re not on the guest list. So, I go out the front and there at the door looking

meek and mild with hopeful puppy dog eyes is IGGY POP and his wife.

“Iggy F***ing Pop! Just let that sink in.

“I’m still staggered that Iggy would come to a place like CBGB and no one working there recognises him, let alone that they’re actually questioning whether they should let IGGY POP in or not!”

This is all well and good but still, asking Iggy Pop to endorse a book is a tall order.

I spent a good eight months emailing his manager asking if Iggy would give a quote.

The manager kept responding. Iggy was busy. Iggy was on holidays. But never was I told that Iggy wouldn’t do it. He just hadn’t done it and the months ticked by.

Eventually the publisher came up with a quote and it was sent to Iggy’s manager with the suggestion that if he was OK with the wording then that would be good enough.

“Iggy writes his own quotes,” came back the abrupt response from the manager.

We’d all but given up hope of a quote ever appearing – and then out of the blue, early on a Saturday morning, there it was, sitting in my In Box: “Tex is the realist dude out there. He is a born stone stud-symbol. The guy is super nice, and he works hard too. There should be more bands like Beasts of Bourbon.

I wish I was more like Tex.” Note: Iggy Pop is also the executive producer on a new TV documentary series about punk, which will feature interviews with a host of big names from the original punk scene of the 1970s.

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When Kasey Met Paul The Lachy Doley Group Make Or Break ATS007

Colin Linden & Luther Dickinson &The Tennessee Valentines

Amour SPCD 1405 + LP

Hat Fitz & Cara Hand It Over HFAC 005

2019

Kasey Chambers celebrates the twentieth anniversary of The Captain at Bluesfest and last year she was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame by none other than Paul Kelly.

Blues Arcadia Carnival Of Fools BA 003

By Stuart Coupe

K Reese Wynams Sweet Release JRA61072 + LP

Ina Forsman Been Meaning To Tell You RUF 1262

Pete Cornelius Doing Me Good PCM 2018 + LP

The Ragtime Rumours Rag ‘N Roll RUF 1264

Steve Poltz Shine On RHRCD 310 + LP

Mike Zito Blue Room RUF 1265

Dale Watson Call Me Lucky RHRCD 308 + LP

The Kentucky Headhunters Live At The Ramblin’ Man Fair ALCD 4988 CD + VINYL

Tommy Castro + The Painkillers Killin’ It - Live ALCD 4989

Eric Bibb Global Griot SPCD 1402

Appleseed’s 21st Anniversary Roots And Branches APRCD 1142

Joe Bonamassa Redemption CD-JRA61069 LP-JRA61070

CD or DOUBLE RED VINYL

Joe Bonamassa British Blues Explosion - Live JRA58241, 58242, 58243, 58244

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asey Chambers is in the midst of an astonishing creative and work cycle.

In the past few years there’s been a real lot of touring and two superb albums – Dragonfly from 2017 and last year’s Campfire with the Fireside Disciples.

Towards the end of last year Chambers was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame very lovingly by Paul Kelly.

During January Chambers was typically everywhere at the Tamworth Country Music Festival and then in a blink of an eye she was posting social media photos of her and her band in what looked to be – 60F degree temperatures on the east coast of America as she started a run of dates in that country.

Then Chambers is back for a headlining performance at Bluesfest where there’s all sorts of speculation that her set will include a performance of her 1998 debut album, The Captain, in its entirety.

For this humble fan easily the most interesting aspect of the past few years has been the pairing of Chambers with Paul Kelly who produced the first disc of the double Dragonfly set – as well as singing and playing on parts of it.

Obviously Chambers and Kelly had crossed paths over the years. During that period Chambers had in her mind that she’d like Kelly to produce something for her.

“He’d never actually said no to producing something with me,” Chambers laughs.

“But he also never committed to it. I think that honestly, I just wore him down. I kept asking and asking and I suspect that eventually he realised the only way I was going to stop was if he agreed.”

These days Chambers could have picked just about anyone she desired to work with her – both in this country and overseas.

So why Kelly, who’s not exactly renown as someone who produces records for other artists?

“I’ve always been influenced by Paul’s music. I’ve been inspired by the way he handles his career and the way he approaches making records. He’s very different from me personality wise. We have very opposite personalities, but we really clicked in the studio.

“It was amazing watching him bring my songs to life and bring his flavour to them.”

Kelly was on board as a producer for Dragonfly, so it was a surprise to Chambers that he also contributed performances to the record. OK, she was secretly hoping that he would.

“I didn’t want to ask and I didn’t want to push my luck – but then he suggested it,” she says. “He sent me a message one day saying that he’d been listening to all the songs and was it OK if he tried a few of the harmonies and some of the music on it.

And I thought that was awesome – and he didn’t charge me any extra for it.”

It’s rather endearing listening to Chambers talk about the moment when Kelly asked her if she had any more songs for the record and she sent him a bunch that were maybe not initially her first choices.

I mean Chambers is one very, very fine songwriter – but she makes it sound as if the experience was like being hauled into the headmaster’s office and told to turn over all the recent songs she’d been writing in class.

“It was honestly one of the most nervewracking things that I’ve ever had to do in my life,” she says. “Initially Paul had heard a couple of songs I was already paying live – ‘Behind the Eyes of Henri Young’ and ‘Ain’t No Little Girl’ – and that’s when he decided he’d like to produce those two songs particularly. And then he asked if I’d send him more songs and that’s when I went ‘Oh God, I have to send these songs that no-one has heard to one of my favourite songwriters in the whole world and get his opinion on them. He’s actually going to be going through them with a fine-tooth comb and going ‘n, this is crap, OK, this one needs work.’ I was thinking that this was like the best and worst moment of my life.”

Chambers says that Kelly has also been an influence on the recent evolution of her song writing in so far that she been attempting to write more songs from the perspective of characters rather than them all being directly from her personal experiences.

“I’ve tried to do a lot more of that in recent years,” she says. “Paul Kelly is the king of being able to do that and being so convincing about it. So, I guess I’m influenced by that in some way.

“But my biggest female role model in music is Lucinda Williams who is 100% heart on sleeve. So much of everything she does is all her and that’s been my biggest influence.

“But I have tried writing more from a character’s perspective lately and I like that. To be honest part of the reason I like doing that now is because my life isn’t that interesting that I feel I can write about myself all the time. No-one’s life is. I’m up to album 12, I’m over 40 and much of my life is taken up with touring and looking after three kids. You don’t want to hear my whole life in a song. It’s making school lunches and swimming lessons. No-one needs to hear all that. It’s boring.

“So, I need to step outside the box every so often and write character songs – or get a divorce every now and then so I can write about that. But even that gets pretty boring after a while.”

I venture that as far as I know the world doesn’t have a great song about school lunches and maybe she’s the person to write it. Chambers laughs.

“Is that a challenge. I reckon Paul Kelly could do that.”

(Maybe) coming soon – School Lunches Never Run on Time, a new collaborative song from Kasey Chambers and Paul Kelly.

You heard about it first here.

Photo courtesy of Stuart Coupe.

53

2019 AUSTRALIAN

AUSTRALIAN

LEGENDS

LEGENDS

THE REAL RUSSELL MORRIS Fifty years on from his famous single ‘The Real Thing,’ this legend is still making new and vital music - and he’ll play it at Bluesfest for you.

By Jeff Jenkins 1969. Man walks on the Moon, The Beatles do their last public performance, Woodstock happens in the US, and Russell Morris releases ‘The Real Thing’.

1969 was also the year Bernard Fanning was born. The Powderfinger singer’s most recent studio adventure has been in Byron Bay, producing Russell Morris’ new album. In some ways, it’s an unlikely pairing, though Morris has influenced many Australian artists.

Fun fact #1: Midnight Oil released just one cover as a single – their version of ‘The Real Thing’ in 2000.

Fun fact #2: Morris’ blues trilogy inspired Rick Springfield to do his own blues album, 2018’s The Snake King.

“I am the real thing,” Springfield sings in the title track, referencing Morris’ biggest hit.

The new album – Black & Blue Heart – Morris’ first after the blues trilogy (2012’s Sharkmouth, 2014’s Van Diemen’s Land and 2015’s Red Dirt – Red Heart) – has been called a contemporary rock record, though Morris is not a fan of labels. “Ray Charles once said there is only two types of music – good and bad.

There is no such thing as genres to me.

I just like to change and keep people interested.”

The blues trilogy saw a remarkable career renaissance for Morris, whose musical story started in Melbourne in 1966, singing with a band called Somebody’s Image. They were 54

discovered at the Anglesea Surf Lifesaving Club by Ian Meldrum, who became their producer. “A complete stranger with no experience and no qualifications,” Morris recalls. “And what are the odds he would turn out to be one of the greatest record producers this country has seen?”

After three singles with Somebody’s Image, including a hit cover of ‘Hush’, Morris went solo, kicking things off with the classic ‘The Real Thing’, produced by Meldrum.

When Meldrum heard Johnny Young playing ‘The Real Thing’ on an acoustic guitar in the Uptight dressing room at Channel O in Melbourne, he knew he’d found the song to launch Morris’ solo career. They turned it into an epic – the first Australian single to run longer than six minutes. ‘The Real Thing’ took four weeks to make – at a time when artists would take just two days to make an entire album. The record company hated the result, declaring they’d release it only in Melbourne, Morris’ hometown. But Meldrum and Morris jumped in Morris’ old Ford Fairlane and drove to Sydney to meet with radio programmers. It worked. ‘The Real Thing’ hit number one nationally on May 31, 1969, knocking Peter Sarstedt’s ‘Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?’ off top spot.

Meldrum jokes that “ooh ma ma ma mow” will be his epitaph. The line was never intended to be a lyric. When Meldrum was explaining to Morris where the Hendrix-like guitar line would go, guitarist Don Mudie was not at the studio, so Meldrum imitated a guitar: “Ooh ma ma ma mow”.

The late Ed Nimmervoll was the first to write about ‘The Real Thing’, stating in Go-Set’s March 19, 1969 issue: “Out

of a dismal local record scene emerges the best produced and performed local single of all time. There’ll be no more excuses for inferior local stuff now. We have our yardstick.”

Morris followed ‘The Real Thing’ with some more unforgettable hits, including ‘Part Three Into Paper Walls’, ‘The Girl That I Love’, ‘Sweet, Sweet Love’ and ‘Wings Of An Eagle’. He then relocated to the US. “I hope you like me as much as I like you,” Morris had sung in his 1970 single, ‘Mr America’. But he struggled to get a green card and was forced to service fire extinguishers and sell subscriptions to The Los Angeles Examiner to survive.

Morris never stopped making music, but he didn’t score his first Top 10 album until he was 64 – when Sharkmouth hit number six in 2012. His good mate Glenn Shorrock called him and quipped, “Mate, what are you doing? We’re hasbeens, we’re not meant to be in the Top 10!”

When Morris accepted his first ARIA Award, for Best Blues and Roots Album in 2013, he joked, “I know how Moses felt after he came out of the wilderness after 40 years.”

Morris says the Sharkmouth success was even sweeter because he did it with a distinctly Australian album. “It showed me that people want music that tells them a story and moves them.”

But Morris, who is now 70, is not one to look back or trade on past glories. He’s excited about his Bluesfest appearance and his new album – to be released by Michael Gudinski’s Bloodlines label.

Remarkably, he sounds as fresh as he did 50 years ago.

Ooh ma ma ma mow.

Black & Blue Heart is available now via Bloodlines.

THE BEST YEARS OF HIS LIFE Richard Clapton is in the ARIA Hall of Fame and counts Bob Dylan amongst his many high profile fans.

By Jeff Jenkins ABC radio was recently doing a talkback segment on the songs that make you think of Australia as soon as you hear them. Renowned bass player Joe Creighton, who has played with John Farnham, The Black Sorrows, Olivia Newton-John and Kylie Minogue, nominated Richard Clapton’s ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’. “That song sounds distinctly Australian,” Creighton said.

‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ – which also became the title of Clapton’s 2014 autobiography – started out as a letter to Clapton’s bass player Michael Hegerty after Hegerty moved to England. “Whatever happened to the days way back, the Bondi Lifesaver was always ragin’?” Clapton pondered, nostalgically, before concluding, “I say don’t waste time, these are the best years of our lives.”

Richard Clapton – known as Ralph to his mates – has certainly packed a lot into his eventful musical life, from his 1973 debut, Prussian Blue, to his most recent album, 2016’s The House of Orange, which he made in Nashville with Australian producer Mark Moffatt.

“If Richard was born in America he would have been Steve Earle or Jackson Browne – both of whom are fans,” Moffatt says.

Bob Dylan is also a fan, and Clapton heard he was keen to attend one of his gigs, at Selina’s in Sydney, when Dylan was touring Australia with Tom Petty in 1986.

“A friend of mine who knew Dylan well had introduced him to my music, from Goodbye Tiger onwards,” Clapton explains. “The word went out that Dylan would come to see me play. I had a full house and the gig was going really well, but I kept running over to the side of the stage to ask if anyone had spotted Dylan.”

The misconception led to a funny post-gig meeting. “When the song hit number one in Adelaide, we met a group of women backstage. They said, ‘We love you – about time someone wrote an anthem for us!’

After a few encores, the show ended, and Clapton still wasn’t sure if Dylan had turned up. He didn’t discover the truth until after the show.

Clapton is pleased the song is so loved, particularly after its shaky start. “Not only did I not feel it was the perfect song, but Festival Records rejected it six times. They’d say to me, ‘What’s the chorus: is it ‘Don’t you slip’, or ‘Friday night …’?”

“Dylan had, in fact, turned up at the front door, with an entourage of a dozen people. Some genius bouncer said to Dylan: ‘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!’

“Another golden opportunity blown – and not through any fault of mine.”

Inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1999, Clapton also saw his 1977 album Goodbye Tiger listed at number 15 in the book The 100 Best Australian Albums. Then there’s the iconic ‘Girls on The Avenue’, which was wildly successful – and widely misunderstood.

Clapton wants to point out he didn’t write the song about prostitutes.

“When you’re the writer of a song you tend to have a different point of view to the listener,” he says. “It’s like a twoway mirror – the listener is hearing it one way, and you’re hearing it another.

“A lot of people think ‘Girls on The Avenue’ is about ladies of the night, but I can honestly say that was not the inspiration. It was simply about these beautiful girls who lived on The Avenue in Rose Bay.”

“I had no idea what they were talking about, until one of the guys in my band whispered, ‘They’re hookers.’”

The label initially issued ‘Girls on The Avenue’ as the B-side of ‘Travelling Down the Castlereagh’, but after strong airplay it became a Top 5 hit.

Clapton was also instrumental in the success of INXS, producing their second album, Underneath the Colours. “I wanted his songwriting skills to rub off on the guys,” INXS manager Chris Murphy says.

“We were so fortunate to be associated with Richard,” drummer Jon Farriss adds. “He took us under his wing, and the fact that an Australian legend embraced us gave us confidence.”

INXS’s official autobiography also noted that “Clapton was known to party like the Eagles wrapped up in one man”.

Clapton is looking forward to returning to Bluesfest, though he’s fortunate that the event is in Byron Bay and not Kempsey – Clapton has not been welcomed back to that NSW town since he and INXS were “asked to leave” after a naked encore in 1981.

55

2019

2019 AUSTRALIAN

WE ARE WITH THEM Meet the trio that is an Americana ‘supergroup’.

LEGENDS

CITIZEN JOE You’d be forgiven for assuming that a bona fide music legend like Joe Camilleri would have the album making process down pat by now, immune to the pressures of creative and commercial expectations that comes inherently with the concept.

By Steve Bell The new album Citizen John by his longterm band The Black Sorrows is not just their 18th album but the 49th album of his long and storied career – taking into account the immeasurable other bands he’s been in like Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, The Revelators and Bakelite Radio, to name but a few – and he’s still having doubts about not just his own new collection, but the album-making process itself.

“I don’t know if it’s a great record,” he offers honestly. “It’s really a strange thing putting a collection of songs together. I used to be able to do it easy – I didn’t give a shit, you’d say ‘That’s in, that’s out, that’s in, that’s out’ – but the more you do it, the harder it becomes.

So, a record can go in a certain direction and you can leave all the good stuff out.

“I found it very difficult this record in many ways: not so much writing the songs and performing the songs, but ‘where am I going?’ All of a sudden, all that shit comes into play, like, ‘does it hang together?’ Honestly, I don’t know, is it weird to say that? I personally love all the things on it, but it’s this search for the seamless record – I’ll never make it, I’ll never do it, but the quest is still there.

“And they play well – the only thing I know is that something like ‘Wednesday’s Child’ plays well, something like ‘Brother Moses Sister Mae’ plays well. Some songs are difficult 56

By Brian Wise Joe Camilleri. Photo by Tania Jovanovic

to get inside, or you’re trying to do something which for you is uncharted: maybe for someone else it might have been just a walk in the park.

“And also bringing a bunch of guys together to play the songs – they’re in the band, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they like playing the music!

There’s a lot of issues.”

Citizen John finds Camilleri returning to the Mushroom stable – it’s being released on their Bloodlines label, who are also soon reissuing The Black Sorrows’ entire catalogue – making it his first label album in almost 20 years.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity that I’m on my old label – I’ve known the people behind the record label since they were children, they’re almost as old as me,” he laughs. “I haven’t had a label record for a long time, and strangely enough this is the record they chose to give me a release in Europe as well.

“So, there’s a lot going on and I wonder whether I’ve short-changed them, or whether I tapped into something a little stranger than normal. It feels like I’ve still got a long way to go, but I’m getting there.”

Camilleri shouldn’t be overly concerned about Citizen John, as the album is assured and confident, as strong as anything his ARIA-winning band have concocted in their 35-year career. And while it’s steeped in The Black Sorrows’ trademark blues-soul sophistication, there’s a pleasing diversity which echoes the many disparate musical styles and sources Camilleri has explored over his long and winding journey.

“I kind of like it all, which is my Achilles heel I guess, but not a bad one to have,” he smiles. “I was born in 1948 so let’s say I’m a child of the Sixties, and on a lot of the records from that time all the

songs were different. For instance, take a Beatles record, there’s all kinds of different things going on but they just had great songs that you could relate to regardless of your age.

“I would hear those records in a certain way and that leads you to other elements of things, but I ended up just believing that a great song is a great song, it doesn’t matter what genre it is – if you’re open to everything then everything will come your way, and you can discover a whole bunch of different things.

One of the first places he and the band are going to share the tracks from Citizen John with their fans is when they return to Byron Bay Bluesfest, an event Camilleri has been playing since its humble beginnings back in the ‘90s.

“It’s a great festival, although for performers it’s kind of like the gladiators isn’t it?” he chuckles. “All of this, ‘We’re better than them!’ and people highfiving and being competitive, and some do better than others: it’s like a massive cockfight!

“I’m really looking forward to it and looking forward to putting on a good show. Sometimes it’s not just about the song it’s about the event, and Bluesfest is very much like that – it offers so much on so many fronts. When I used to first play it the event was really tiny, and it was still really focussed on the blues and roots music – it was like a small one-day festival – and now it’s this awesome circus with so much diversity.

“But in saying that it’s one of the best events on any calendar around the world – it’s got that reputation – and you gotta want to play, you gotta be there to play.”

Citizen John is available now through Bloodlines.

B

y any measure, I’m With Her is an Americana supergroup. Each one of the trio has their own accomplished solo career and are popular in their own right. Together, it is a magical trio with the sort of harmonies that remind you of the famous brilliant veteran trio: Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Rondstadt.

Not that we should be making comparisons at this stage, I’m With Her – Aiofe O’Donovan, Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz - still have a hundred years of experience to catch up with but, while the music leans more to bluegrass, they share the same sort of magnificent harmonies that come from singers that sound as if they all belong to the same family. Not only that, they have some serious musical credentials in their playing: Watkins on fiddle (she is in Nickel Creek) and Jarosz (who has won a Grammy for Best Folk Album) on mandolin and banjo.

A chance meeting and impromptu performance together for a festival jam nearly five years ago at the Sheridan Opera House in Colorado, led to the recording of their stunning debut album, See You Around, (superbly produced by Ethan Johns) in February 2018. Even more impressive is the fact that almost all the songs (apart from Gillian Welch’s ‘Hundred Miles’) are originals! The music is so steeped in tradition that a song such as ‘Overland’ that story of travelling across America, sounds as though it comes from the Dust Bowl era.

Last year, the trio played at the City Winery in Nashville during the Americana Festival and had the task of following a brilliant show by John Prine and

his colleagues who opened the evening.

Undaunted, they gave their own superb show, singing around a single microphone, and won over an enthusiastic audience.

“We’re all massive fans of John,” admits Sarah Jarosz. “Sara Watkins and I have both had the chance over the years to open for John solo. He’s just so supportive, and such a great believer in young artists. He’s really been very generous to us, and so it was funny to have it flipped around the other way and follow him that night. But it was really special.

“I think his ability to write the most simple yet profound songs is truly astounding.

It’s the kind of thing that on first listen, someone, if they’re just hearing him for the first time, they might think it’s overly simple. But you dive in, and it’ll just blow you right out of the water. He can make you laugh, and he can make you cry. What he’s doing, is the goal I think in terms of song writing and also just the longevity of his career. The fact that he’s still out there doing it is really inspiring.”

“It was a really, really special night,” says Sara Watkins when I catch up with a few days after talking to her colleague. “We thought everyone was going to leave after John’s set, but it ended up feeling like the room was really excited….and we were delighted to get to be there. It had a really good energy.”

While they might have only got together as a trio five years ago, Jarosz – who like Watkins learned to play as a child - explains that the history goes back a lot further.

“Our story goes back a long way,” she explains. “I had met Sara Watkins when I was only nine years old, believe it or not. Nickel Creek was playing at a festival outside of Boston, Texas, which is where I grew up. I saw them do a little workshop before their main stage set.

I remember meeting her that day and getting her autograph. I would continue to see Nickel Creek and see Sara over the years whenever they would come through Austin, and then at different music festivals around the country.

But honestly, I was always closer with Chris Thile - I think mostly because of the mandolin connection. He really became a close mentor of mine from the early years, I think just as a mandolin influence. So, I had crossed paths with Sara, but never really had the opportunity to get super close with her or spend a lot of time with her, so it’s really been fun over the course of this band to get to know each other better and become really close friends.

“Aoife, I knew a bit better, because we had had some opportunities where we were at some camps together. There’s this camp in Mount Shasta, California, where she was actually my teacher back when I was about 15 years old. We were friends, and I had spent more times with Aoife, but the vibe of all three of us musically and personally really just clicked, I feel like, when all three of us were in the same vicinity together, realizing what our music could be.”

“At the time that we made this record, we were all getting ready to jump onto the tour behind our respective solo projects and solo records,” says Sara Watkins. “We had a couple weeks to write. We wanted to write, and record, and that’s why we sat on the record for two years, because we didn’t have time. But we all had it in our minds that we wanted to set aside our solo projects for the period of this album cycle.

And I think that, at this point, all of us are involved in many projects. And so, that’s very lucky. A very fortunate situation to be in.”

I’m With Her are playing in Melbourne and Sydney as well as Bluesfest, April 19-22.

57

LAND OF THE BRAVE

2019

Gary Clark Jr’s new album tackling politics in modern America and pulls no punches.

MOJO WORKING!

2019

By Brian Wise

The acclaimed album Native Tongue, addresses important contemporary social issues.

By Meg Crawford

B

y any measure, 2018 was one a hell of a year for acclaimed Aussie artist Mojo Juju. In particular, the release of her third solo album Native Tongue and killer title track pushed her into the awareness of a much broader audience – hell, even that conservative twat Andrew Bolt was talking about her.

By her own admission, the year was marked by some “serious highs”, but there were also some notable lows, mostly stemming from the Australian media’s response to her poignant exploration of her own cultural identity spanning Wiradjuri and Filipino heritage. That said, those lows formed the bedrock for overdue discussions about identity and belonging.

Also, when it came to detractors, Juju set a new standard for meaningful dialogue by responding in a way that was thoughtful, honest, firm and the very embodiment of grace: see for instance, her measured missive to Bolt, which concludes with her thanking him for highlighting the issue and including her in the conversation.

“I guess I’ve had a lifetime preparing for those types of interactions,” she explains.

“In everyday scenarios you kind of have different interactions like that, obviously to varying degrees, but you just learn how to deal with it. It’s unfortunate, but you have to be good at it.”

On the flip side was the heartfelt response from industry and audience alike to– Juju’s just been peer nominated for the APRA song of the year and has genuinely connected Native Tongue with a new legion of fans.

58

“The most common response was people reaching out to tell me about their family histories and their experience and journey with identity,” Juju confirms. All of which happily flies in the face of initial feedback.

“Prior to releasing the song I’d had people from within the industry I’d worked with expressing to me, ‘Oh look, it’s good, I just don’t know if anyone’s going to be able to relate to it’. That was their concern.

Ironically, more than ever, people are reaching out to tell me how much they related to it, and I guess that reinforced to me that the Australian identity is way more complex than what we’ve always been told it is.”

As a queer person of colour, the issues Juju address on Native Tongue were nothing new. “I’m talking about experiences that I’ve had repeatedly throughout my life,” she confirms. It does seem like a particularly apposite time in history to lay them on the table though. For instance, just prior to the interview news breaks about the attack on US actor Jussie Smollett.

“Racists and homophobes have always existed, but they’ve become emboldened,” Juju rues. “You can filter that stuff out, but I got to a point where I was like, ‘No, that needs to be addressed’.”

It was also a year for some whopping new lessons. “I guess the biggest one for me was about the value of authenticity,” Juju says.

“I feel like I’ve always been authentic to myself, but I guess that record was the first time I really opened up in such a personal

way. It was very transparent, and I hadn’t allowed myself to be that vulnerable before in my music.”

Not content to rest on her laurels, Juju is already working on new material. As her fans are aware, Juju has often shifted sound over the years, spanning everything from rockabilly and R’n’B to soul and hip-hop. True to form, while she’s keeping her cards close to her chest about what’s coming next, we can expect another Juju incarnation.

“I don’t know where this idea came from that artists are meant to churn out the same stuff over and over. I think as an artist, my job is to constantly challenge myself and to grow and evolve. Otherwise, what am I doing? If you look at a visual artist over the course of their career, their style evolves and people will kind of go, ‘Oh, that was that period in the artist’s career’. But with musicians, you’re expected to just sound a certain way and just do that, but I’ve never seen myself that way. Look at artists like Prince, Michael Jackson or Bowie – they were always on their own trajectory. I guess that’s how I approach it. Whether or not that works in my favour in terms of how my career looks, I don’t know.”

Native Tongue is available through Universal.

T

here is one thing I can guarantee for 2019: Gary Clark Jr will not be invited to the White House by its current incumbent.

While President Obama was a fan there is no mistaking the sentiment behind the title track of Clark’s new album, This Land, is a stinging indictment of the racism that has always been apparent in some parts of America and resurfaced in others.

The song emerges from phased electronic sound effects as Clark sings: “Paranoid and pissed off / Now that I’ve got money / Fifty acres and a Model A / Right in the middle of Trump country….” and continues, “I remember when you used to tell me / N***a run, n***a run/ Go back where you come from.”

‘This Land’ is based on events that happened in Clark’s life but also recently to his young son. The powerful video for the song was directed by 25-year-old filmmaker Savanah Leaf, filmed around Clark’s home in rural Texas – including an old plantation - and shows a young boy surrounded by the symbols of American racism, including the Confederate flag.”

When I suggest to Clark that he probably will not get an invitation to the Trump White House he simply says, “That’s fine.”

In 2012 Clark was invited to the White House, along with BB King and Mick Jagger, as part of a tribute to the blues. He sang ‘Catfish Blues.’ President Obama sang ‘Sweet Home Chicago.’

“The guy knew how to speak in public and regardless of what you thought about his politics,” says Clark of Obama, “he represented us in a way where we were confident, dignified, well -spoken and

expressed ourselves. He expressed himself in a way that was respectable. I was proud at that moment to be walking the street saying, ‘Hey I’m from the United States of America, Barack Obama’s our President, Michelle Obama’s our first lady.” Amazing energy and positive and she’s doing all these great things. I just felt like we were moving forward, I felt like through history we’ve come forward. And so now I’m a little bit confused.”

I tell Clark that I can sense the anger in the song - and I suppose in America that’s understandable at the moment.

“Yeah, I was angry,” he agrees. “For the most part, my life is filled with love, I’m surrounded by people who are open minded from all walks of life. I’m a musician and so, we’re creators and most of the people that I’m around are open minded and accepting and have empathy and compassion. And they want to understand before they judge and push away.

“But unfortunately, growing up black in Texas - I mean it’s not just Texas - I love where I’m from but unfortunately in my childhood leading up to my adulthood, I’ve had situations that I’ve had to deal with where I was made to feel left out or not equal to the next man. I had a situation in front of my child at my house where I was felt to feel that way.”

“And my son didn’t quite understand it,” he continues, “he was asking me what was wrong, and I didn’t want to tell him because at three years old at the time I don’t him to think about these things. And at 35 years old, I don’t wanna think about these things either. Because I don’t think about it on a regular basis.

“And so, it made me angry because I had

that situation in front of him. I just had enough, it brought back to being a child and I remember these guys in a truck screaming the N word at me while they’re waving the confederate flag around and it stuck with me. I hate that it stuck with me but that’s what I went to. I didn’t want to do anything crazy so I figured the best thing I can do is use my microphone and it’s my therapy. Music is my healing and I just got in the booth and went off. With my producer, engineer Jacob said, ‘I like this but I don’t like hearing you angry.’ I said, ‘Well this is a part of my life and I hate that I feel this way and it’s sticking with me. I can’t just shake this, I’m upset.’”

The 15 tracks on This Land were recorded at Austin’s Arlyn Studios and features an array of musical styles that reflect Clark’s upbringing and his teenage years. It is Clark’s most accomplished album yet and really reflects all of the influences in Clark’s music: from blues to soul to rap. You can even hear Curtis Mayfield in there on ‘Feed the Babies.’ (“Yeah, Curtis Mayfield is a major influence in my house,” says Clark.

“My parents raised me on soul music. At a young age, we didn’t have control over the radio).

“I’d come home from playing and get on my drum machine or get on my turn tables,” he recalls, “and I’d listen to what Dr. Dre, what Lauryn Hill was doing and Outkast. I was really into that type of production.”

This Land is available now through Warner Music. You can read the full feature at www.rhythms.com.au 59

2019

SNARKY PUPPY’S TRAVELLING INSPIRATIONS The latest album, Immigrance, was inspired by the travels of the band members.

By Andra Jackson

S

narky Puppy’s latest album, Immigrance, represents yet another advancement in its musical journey, band member Shaun Martin says. “The cool thing about Immigrance is the context, is the fact that the music here has been spurred on by the travels (of the band). Everything from Moroccan to whatever.’’

Martin is referring to the American genredefying band’s performance at the Gnaoua World Music festival in Morocco’s Essaouira last June. Snarky Puppy opened with Morocco’s Hamid El Kasri, master of the guembri, a three string skin covered bass from Northern Africa. That experience is captured in the chaabi groove on the album reflecting the popular Moroccan folk music.

Another influence is the band’s bassist and co-founder Michael League’s six weeks in Turkey studying its traditional music.

“One thing about Snarky Puppy,” Martin says, “(is) if we listen to the first album and even if we listen to the Immigrance album, you can always hear a positive progression.

The positive progression is always tied back to the experiences we’ve had, the things that we’ve heard, the things that we’ve learnt.”

The long awaited Immigrance is Grammy winning instrumental jazz/fusion group’s thirteenth album. It will be released on March 15 followed by a world tour that kicks off with Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

The band is returning to Australia as one of the headline acts at the 30th Byron Bay Blues Festival running from April 18 to 22, with sideshows in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.

Snarky Puppy is a collective of up to 40 virtuoso musicians. Martin is one of 14 members touring Australia in April.

Speaking from his hometown of Dallas, Texas, Martin says the band will be playing tracks from Immigrance on the tour. But despite influences from Morocco and Turkey and other countries might have seeped into the album, he wants to reassures fans that “we are not aiming to make world music. It is still us, it is still the Snarky Puppy layer.”

The album also introduces the innovative approach of three drummers taking turns to play on each track. “These are three of the baddest drummers this side of heaven for me,” Martin says. “I think it (the idea) was the context of not just being one dimensional, but with every drummer comes a different character and so you 60

want to create these different moments.”

The overall sound, still comes together ``in one consistent body.” Playing with three alternating drummers “is great because you never know what you are going to hear,” he says.

League who wrote much of the material on the album has said it is about movement both politically with issues of mass migration but also musically.

Martin is surprised to learn that such concerns resonate in Australia. “I thought it was just in America that there was this whole immigration debate.”

Martin, a successful producer of gospel and R and B artists such as Kirk Franklin with 7 Grammys and two solo albums to his credit, joined Snarky Puppy around 2007. He started playing piano in church at five and is still director of music at his Friendship West Baptist church in Dallas.

Asked how he manages to fit in his church music duties with performing with the Brooklyn based Snarky Puppy, a rich, deep laugh booms down the phone as he says, “I guess it is the Lord’s doing, no pun intended.”

Martin could easily have settled for a career as a producer but joined Snarky Puppy because of its ‘unparalled’ energy and because he knew some of the members from college.

A question about the collective nature of Snarky Puppy brings a throaty chuckle.

“We’re still figuring that out, we just follow Mike.” However, “everybody that comes in, gets in, there’s no sticking out.”

Martin’s own excursive playing has inspired a YouTube video of one of his solos, simply titled “Shaun goes off.”

The band is characterized by long solos and a good solo according to Martin, “should always try and tell a type of story, it should always try and pull you in, hold you real close and then toss you away when it’s done.”

League will sometimes call solos. But often what happens, Martin explains is that: “Because there is a lot of musical communication and everybody’s paying attention to each other, everybody’s engaged. So a lot of the time we don’t know who is going to take the solo. We just wait for the moment.”

Fourteen Snarky Puppy members are on the Australian tour with up to ten on stage at any one time. They include bassist Michael league, drummer Jamison Ross, percussionist Keita Ogawa, guitarist Bob Lanzetti, trumpeter and keyboard player Justin Stanton, saxophonist Chris Bullock, and trumpeter Mike Maher. *Snarky Puppy performs at Byron Bay Blues Festival on Thursday April 18 and Friday April 19 and at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre, Sunday, April 21, Adelaide’s Hq on April 24 and Melbourne’s Forum on April 26.

BLUES OF THE WEST Samantha Fish is set to be one of the hits of this year’s Bluesfest. Sharing the stage with Buddy Guy is just one of her accolades.

By Meg Crawford

M

agnetic US singer-songwriter and guitarist Samantha Fish has been setting the blues world on fire since she was 18 years old – around the time she started joining local and touring blues luminaries on stage at Kansas City institution Knuckleheads.

You wouldn’t suspect it now, but the charttopping Fish had first to combat crippling shyness as a precursor to her guitar-hero, compelling front-woman status.

“That process was one of those oneday-at-a-time things,” she says of her transformation. “I think it was just the sheer desire to be a performer that got me there in the long run. The fact that I started on the drums kind of helped too, because I started out in the back of the band, and there was no need for me to be the charismatic front person. I mean, you can absolutely be a charismatic drummer, but I was definitely not one of them.

“I kept to myself, but over time I really just connected with the guitar and singing, and I just forced myself to do it. You know, every once in a while, that stage fright catches up with me just a little bit. You get a little freaked out, but the reality is that if you love what you’re doing you can overcome anything.”

Sheer tenacity and the love of a good challenge continue to drive Fish. For instance, in 2017 she released not one but two albums (the roots-y Belle of the West and the grittier Chills and Fever, which was recorded with punk-blues darlings the Detroit Cobras).

“I’m really pushing myself to work with different guitar textures,” she reflects. “I’m trying to find a way to get some common ground between the sounds on these two albums, find where they meet in the middle, because the marrying of those two styles has really become my signature sound in the last couple of years. Although, I’m pushing myself outside of that a little too.”

On top of that, Fish maintains a demon touring schedule, has co-founded her own record label (Wild Heart), produces albums for other artists and has another record of her own in the pipeline.

“I love the game,” she says, dismissing the suggestion that her schedule is a backbreaker. “That and the fact that this is my life – what I do is pretty much my social scene and my family. It’s everything. So, when it kind of takes over, it doesn’t seem like as much.”

Reflecting on her journey, Fish still credits Knuckleheads as having shaped her as a performer. “I got my first dose of what steps I could take to have a career there,” she explains. “Growing up in Kansas City, in the Midwest, I didn’t really see myself as being able to have a music career. It just seemed a little too far out of my reach – I wasn’t hooked into an L.A. or New York scene, and it just didn’t feel like it was something that was attainable. So, Knuckleheads was really the first opportunity I had to see travelling musicians coming from all over the world who were making it happen, one show and one fan at a time. I was like, ‘Okay, so this

is how you build a business, this is how you build a brand, this is how it’s actually done’.

It connected the dots for me.”

Since that time, Fish’s career has exploded and led to adventures that would have been unimaginable for her younger self.

Take that time, for instance, where she got to play with legendary bluesman Buddy Guy. Already mates with Guy’s son, Fish was invited to join him on stage.

“It was awesome and he’s a legend,” she notes. “Any time you get the opportunity to play with a legend you’re getting an invaluable education in showmanship and musicianship. I feel like I learned a lot, but I was so scared I barely remember it. I didn’t want to mess up, you know?”

Right now, Fish is buzzing about hitting Byron Bay Bluesfest, both as part of the lineup and with the opportunity to see other artists. “I love Iggy Pop,” she says.

The longer answer is that Fish has been dreaming about this for donkey’s years.

“Really, since the start of my career, Byron Bay has been a bucket-list thing for me. I’ve always watched that lineup and thought, ‘Man, that that would be such a cool thing to be a part of’.”

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2019

START THE PARTY! The Melbourne Ska Orchestra are returning to Bluesfest with a new album to get you dancing.

By Steve Bell

2019

A STAR IS ALREADY HERE! The appearance of Lukas Nelson & Promise of The Real is another chapter in an amazing story.

By Bernard Zuel

S P

arty-starting fun merchants the Melbourne Ska Orchestra have become festival favourites with their smile-inducing brand of Jamaican ska and roots music, unveiling their inimitable big band experience everywhere from WOMAD to Splendour In The Grass in Australia and Glastonbury to Montreal Jazz Festival further abroad.

But their spiritual festival home will always be Byron Bay Bluesfest, not just because they’ve been regulars on the line-up for nearly a decade but because many of their successes can be traced back to the annual Easter party.

“It’s been so important to us,” offers the band’s frontman/conductor Nicky Bomba.

“We formed in 2003 just as a bit of a joke – we didn’t take it too seriously, we thought it had legs just as a party thing once a year.

“Then when we first got the chance to play Bluesfest [in 2011] we thought, ‘Okay, we really need to define who we are, we’re going to be presenting a show on an international level so let’s step it up and see what we can do’.

“We did a couple of rehearsals and analysed what the band looked like and everything, and we thought there was a lot of beautiful things already happening and we just need to orchestrate and coordinate a couple of things a little bit and then we had a show, we had a good 90 minute show.

“Then when we played the next Bluesfest the people from ABC were there and they saw 58 62

our set and they though it was amazing, and were blown away by how much the crowd was going off. They offered us a recording contract then and there, and that’s when things really started.

“The next year we played Bluesfest again to launch the [2013 self-titled debut] album and we had Elvis Costello coming up to us and people from The English Beat like Neville Staples and Ranking Roger, all saying, ‘This is the real deal! This is fantastic!’ Getting those kudos straight away we knew we were doing something right and never looked back: we toured the country, we went overseas, we played Montreal [Jazz Festival] and it all stemmed from that performance at Bluesfest.

“It made is realise that we are actually a band on an international level, we can take an audience and whip them into a frenzy and have fun with them and they can be as much a part of the performance as the band itself.”

This year MSO arrive at Bluesfest armed with an incredible new swag of songs courtesy 2018’s ambitious 52 Selections project, which found them release a new song each week for the entire calendar year.

“Being 52 songs – a song a week – we broke it up into lots of 13, which is like an album length anyway,” Bomba continues. “The first batch was ska classics, so if you need a ska education you go to this album. It’s songs that have influenced us and were relevant in the world and there was a bit of a story behind them, and it related to the orchestra.

“So there’s ‘Message To Rudy’ obviously, ‘Simmer Down’ by Bob Marley & The Wailers and ‘Run Joe’ by Stranger Cole who’s a pioneer singer we’d already recorded with – it was important to us to start it with a bit of a bible of ska.

“Then the second batch was TV and movie themes, which is a big tradition in the ska genre. The Skatalites were really the first band to put ska on the map with the way they constructed their sound, and they would do Guns Of Navarone and Doctor Zhivago as well as lots of TV themes of the time.

“So we continued that path and picked TV and movie themes that relate to us, and the demographic in the band spans from the Hogan’s Heroes days to Game Of Thrones and Family Guy. We did Monty Python’s ‘Liberty Bells’, Pink Panther, Dr Who, Star Wars, The Flinstones even Narcos – we were continuing the genre and updating it to 2019.

“Then the next 26 were just all originals, and that’s where the fun started. At the start it was kind of smooth sailing because we’d done some preparation for it, but towards the end of the year we were just writing nonstop and I was sleeping in the studio and it was sheer mayhem.

“But it was fantastic from the perspective of how there’s such a special love within the band for the genre and what we’re trying to do, and also just the fact that the band exists in the first place.”

52 Selections is out now through ABC Music.

ometimes you have to wonder if Lukas Nelson ever gets tired of talking about other people: his father, his father’s friends, his own famous friends and collaborators. Sure, those people do have a history, a pedigree, names: Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Neil Young.

This is even before getting to new pals such as Bradley Cooper, who used Nelson’s band Promise of The Real, as his backing band for A Star Is Born, and his co-star, Lady Gaga, who came away from the film with a new song writing partner in Nelson, the soundtrack co-producer.

That’s a lot of very well charted territory before we even get to the country rock/ Americana/rock hybrid which is the stock in trade of Promise of The Real. Does he ever feel the burden of both music’s history and his own?

“No, no, no, no, no,” the genial Nelson says.

“No. I think there is an un-ending tap from a well, an infinite source of creativity in songs and an infinite number of possibilities to refine what we’ve heard before, to take what we love from our heroes and our mentors and filter it through our experiences to become who we are as songwriters.”

That’s great in theory, but harder to stand out from the crowd, or from the past, even a decade into this band’s history. When was the first time that he thought he had stepped away from his mentors and heroes and carved out something that was unequivocally Lukas Nelson?

“Well I’m not really trying to step away from it as much as I am trying to capture a feeling I get,” he says. “I grew up basically as a product of the ‘60s explosion of love, a revolution. Both of my parents were very much a part of that love revolution and the cultural

Lukas Nelson. By Myriam Santos. icons that formed through the generation became my mentors and heroes.

“So, when I write I want to continue the flowering and the spreading of that love in my own way, filtered through my history and my experiences. We’ve got a record called Turn Off the News and Build A Garden, coming out in I think May, or June, and that is an evolution, continuing the energy and the vibe that I want to perpetuate on the planet.”

and to get to a point where you start blending the zen of existence together with your expression and art and it just goes deeper and deeper and deeper,” says Nelson. “At a certain point you can’t talk about it because you don’t know what it is.

It’s kind of like the Tao.”

While being a believer in music’s ability to change your life and the duty of those who can do it to create music that might change your life, Nelson is not one for looking out for that meaning while he is writing. That’s a level of calculation he just isn’t comfortable with.

When we speak, during North America’s polar vortex/winter freak out when parts of the country were experiencing temperatures heading towards -40c, Nelson is in Alaska for a gig. If that seems like a foolish, out of the freezing pan and into the dire move, like a lot of Nelson’s life choices it turns out to be a smart one.

“You just write what comes to you: you feel more than think. For me, just because I know how songs are structured from the way I grew up, when I wrote a song like Find Yourself, I was feeling that, I was needing to say something about it, and it just came out of me poetically.”

Even if he won’t peer too deeply into the how and why, Nelson is, he insists, still learning about the what. So, what did he learn when Promise of The Real played as Neil Young’s band? The answer it turns out is in some ways more of the same.

“It’s more than a mental construct, it’s a feeling. You grow at certain levels musically

In case you think this is some way to divert conversations, Nelson doesn’t confine his less conventional thinking to trade talk.

“It’s beautiful out here,” he says cheerily.

“It’s 30 to 40° warmer in Alaska than it is in the mid-west right now.”

You get the feeling with Nelson, who argues he had a gig and “the show must go on”, that even if he had been in the polar vortex he’d have taken to the stage.

“It’s part of my deal with the cosmos: [in return] I get to play music for a living.”

Lukas Nelson & Promise of The Real play Meeniyan Town Hall, April 16; The Corner Hotel, Melbourne, April 17; Factory Theatre, April 18; Bluesfest, Byron Bay, April 20.

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LITTLE GEORGIA ON OUR MIND After three years touring Little Georgia’s Justin and Ashleigh have picked up plenty of stories.

By Michael Smith

Y APPEARING AT

OUT NOW The dynamic new album from the Grammy Award-winning maverick, bursting with rock ‘n’ roll, blues, jazz, hip-hop, reggae and punk.

ALSO TOURING AUSTRALIA IN APRIL – see livenation.com.au for details

MORE GREAT MUSIC YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS ANDERSON EAST Encore

OUT NOW

PAUL WELLER

OUT MARCH 8

A soulful, rootsy opus from the Bluesfest 2019 performer

YOLA

Walk Through Fire

OUT NOW 2019’s breakthrough soul star, produced

by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach

RIVAL SONS Feral Roots

Other Aspects, Live At The Royal Festival Hall

Featuring solo, The Jam and The Style Council classics

NEIL YOUNG Dead Man: A Film By Jim Jarmusch (Music From & Inspired By The Motion Picture)

OUT MARCH 8

Reissued on vinyl for the first time in 20 years

OUT NOW The exciting new album from the Southern California rockers

BRANDI CARLILE

By The Way, I Forgive You

OUT NOW The 6 x Grammy nominated album from one of America’s most unique songwriters

ou know the way it works, that whole Americana/American country thing, that moment when the singer looks up to the heavens and the gospel choirs intone the singer’s appreciation of, well, the Big Guy in the Sky. ‘I Don’t Pray’ is just one more reason to love the new album from Australian duo Little Georgia, with its immortal lines “Tell me Lord, why’d you let her go/Took her from my arms, you asshole”!

“It’s so weird,” laughs Justin Carter.

Ashleigh Mannix is the other half of Little Georgia, listening in on the other line and laughing as well. “Sometimes songs just come, you don’t know where from, and that was one of those songs, wrote it in ten minutes, pen to paper, bang, oh my God what is this? Who gave me this? It was floating around and I just grabbed it. Obviously, once it’s down, you put in things that have happened in your own life, to try and make it your reality.”

The same could be said of another song on All The While, Ashleigh’s ‘Rome’: “It’s funny hearing Justin talk about ‘I Don’t Pray’, because it was a really similar experience when I wrote ‘Rome’. I remember I was cooking dinner and all of a sudden, this sort of melody and lyrics just came to me all wrapped in a nice bow in my head. I don’t know how it all happened, but I was running between the frypan and the pen and the paper and the guitar, finishing it while I was cooking. It was just one of those lovely moments where it’s, like, ‘Wow, I achieved something, other than dinner tonight – I’ve written a song!’ And yeah, as Justin said, I don’t know where it came from, but it was there, and it is lovely when that happens.”

The songs on their second album are a lot more observational than personal than those on the 2016 Little Georgia debut, Bootleg.

There are obviously personal aspects in there, still, but it’s more

third- than first-person this time around.

“I must admit I never really thought about that actually,” Ashleigh admits, “but yes, I guess that’s right.” “Our first record was made a year after we started playing together,” adds Carter. “We wrote all these songs, got ‘em out and it was very relaxed – ‘This is who we are, at the stage we’re at as a band, Little Georgia.’

“So, it was a simple acoustic thing and I guess we’ve had three years of touring around Australia and over in the States and stuff to observe other people and pick up stories and just, I guess, take all that information in and then put it back out in a song. So maybe that’s part of the reason why it’s a bit more that third-person, looking at other people sort of thing. As well, sometimes, it’s scary to completely put yourself out there. I feel like, well, how about I hide behind someone else?”

“I’m definitely guilty of that, for sure,” Ashleigh chimes in. “Let them take all the blame,” Carter finishes with a chuckle.

As songwriters, Ashleigh and Carter still primarily write separately rather than together, living in separate states as they do, but “when we get together, Ash might do some harmonies or have some advice on some of my songs and vice versa, and then there’s the occasional opportunity where we click and write something together.” “‘Rome’ was one of those,” Ashleigh suggests. “I wrote the basis of it and then Justin was able to put a really beautiful guitar line to it that kind of brought the song to another level, brought something different to a little acoustic folk song.

“We started on the streets of Tamworth, two acoustic guitars, two harmonies and it’s been really lovely over the years we’ve been touring together. From being called an acoustic duo, people start saying, ‘Oh,

maybe they’re Americana’ or ‘maybe they’re folk grunge now?’ I don’t really know what that means but it’s really cool to have bit of a musical story and I think this album really shows that.”

For the recording of this album, Little Georgia this time opted for a professional recording studio and a Grammy Awardwinning engineer/producer, Nick DiDia. “Ash and I are, most of the time, scared of the red ‘Record’ button,” Carter admits.

“It all of a sudden puts pressure on you to perform, and that’s not what music is for us. With Nick we were hanging out, having a good time, just playing music and that made it feel comfortable and easy. We recorded live, as a band, and then added whatever we felt needed to be added.

Nick was able to make us play great and make us be ourselves. I think Nick just understood who we were.”

“We’ve found ourselves playing louder music,” adds Ashleigh, “with more instruments and progressed into playing with a band. We loved the Bootleg experience, going down to the farm, and that was what we wanted to do in that moment – those songs were acoustic, great, fun songs that were meant to be played and recorded in an evening of good times” – Bootleg was recorded live over two days on an old eight-track tape machine – “and you can really hear that in the recording. This time we decided we were ready to go into a recording studio and bring the band with us and try and showcase what we’ve been working on – a bigger sound and more happening. And what a cool experience it was.”

Little Georgia play Byron Bay Bluesfest Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 April, then start saving up to return to the US for some touring in the latter half of the year.

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2019

Jack’s Back Jack Johnson returns to his second home, Byron Bay, to help his buddy Ben Harper headline Bluesfest.

By Martin Jones

I

t was a few years after Ben Harper’s 1996 Bluesfest debut that he introduced Jack Johnson to the festival, and to Byron Bay. That started a long relationship with both the town and the festival for Johnson, who returns most years whether he’s on the bill or not.

After quitting pro surfing after a serious accident whilst competing, Johnson made some highly influential surf films, Thicker Than Water and The September Sessions and used some of his favourite musicians, G Love and Special Sauce and Ben Harper, on the soundtracks. He soon became close friends with both artists, appearing on G Love’s 1999 single ‘Rodeo Clowns’.

“I feel so lucky to have been a part of that little wave,” Johnson reflects back on that movement of young bands bringing new energy to roots music. “I think at the time I didn’t realise – when I was opening for both those bands that you mention; G Love and Special Sauce and Ben Harper were the two bands above anybody else who really gave me a shot at this whole thing.”

Though Johnson had toured the world, and many parts of Australia, surfing, his first Bluesfest show was his introduction to Byron Bay where he has spent a lot of time subsequently.

“I met a lot of Australian friends who were coming to Hawaii before I came there. But Byron Bay was one place I’d never been – I’d never even heard of it to be honest before I went over for that festival. And it’s a beautiful pocket of the world. It reminds me a lot of where I’m from, actually, the North Shore [of Oahu, Hawaii].

It’s a beautiful place, a lot of fun waves but also a lot of pressure too because it is so pretty so many people are coming there.”

Johnson’s career took off after the release of his debut Brushfire Fairytales with a run of multi-

66

Platinum albums. To the point where he is now headlining Bluesfest. Anyone who meets Johnson will appreciate what a music fan he is, so I’m interested to know how he feels when he’s put at the top of a festival bill above so many legends, many of them his own heroes.

“Yeah, it’s always such a strange deal,” he sighs. “I guess just the reality is whoever’s booking the shows they’re looking at what kind of venues you’re selling out. And then I always have that very firm grasp on who’s really the legend. So when you have them playing before you, it’s a little weird at first and then some of the best shows I’ve ever had that we’ve performed we might have felt a little insecure about the opener… like this one time we showed up in Croatia and Jimmy Cliff was opening for us and we were like, ‘What the hell?’

It’s one thing with a festival when there’s all different people at different times, it’s another when it’s just a band opening for you it just feels really weird. So, we got there and the first thing we did when we saw Jimmy Cliff backstage we just said, ‘We are so honoured to be playing with you and we would love for you to come up and close the night with us.’ And he couldn’t have been sweeter about the whole thing.

He just said, ‘Alright, yeah let’s do it. We’ll do ‘Harder They Come’ together and we’ll close the night.’ So that ended up being one of the best musical experiences of

my life that night. So, I think as long as you walk into it with humility, and even if you’re playing second on the bill it doesn’t mean anything and if you honour those people it can be a lot of fun.”

Johnson toured his latest album All the Light Above it Too in Australia in 2017 so you can bet his Bluesfest shows are going to be wide ranging.

“We usually kind of do it the day of,” he says of his Bluesfest setlists. “It’s funny, the one thing that makes the shows so great there is obviously musicians are humans where whatever kind of phase, whatever experience they had that day, rubs off on the show. So, I think the fact that people, especially a lot of musicians that maybe don’t hang at the beach that much and then all of a sudden, they’re at somewhere as beautiful as that in the world, as long as they don’t get too sunburnt they’re gonna have a great show. And that’s the same for us, a lot of the time we’re just walking around, we’ll get people saying, ‘It’s our anniversary and this song’s special to us,’ or a kid saying, ‘This one means a lot to my life.’ So, during the day everybody gets a few requests and then we put the set together.”

Jack Johnson plays Bluesfest on Sunday April 21 (and whenever someone else invites him on stage).

Tanya-Lee Davies with her gentlemen friends Andrew Baylor Rusty Berther Alex Buxton Justin Davies Steve Lucas Benny Peters Robert Susz

Peter Baylor Peter Busher Stephen Cummings Jon von Goes Dom Mariani Rob Snarski Matt Walker

The Duetting Damsel Tanya-Lee Davies was born to sing. She is a song. - Billy Baxter There’ve been some great ablums released in 2018, the one I keep coming back to is The Duetting Damsel.

An absolute delight - Brian Nankervis This is a sensational album - Brian Wise album available now CD Baby Bandcamp All the best record stores tanyaleedavies.com

2019

DEVA MAHAL

Takes Her Own Giant Step Her father might be a blues legend but this soul singer is forging her own path.

By Meg Crawford

A

fter years of providing vocals for other bands, including Fat Freddy’s Drop and The Dap Kings, New York based Deva Mahal delighted fans in 2018 by stepping into her own limelight with her debut solo album Run Deep.

Mahal describes the album as a series of letters about topics ranging from love and loss to battling your own demons and explains the method as integral to her process. “The idea of writing songs as letters to myself came about because: one, I’m a big fan of writing letters; and two, because sometimes it’s really hard to process something if you don’t put it into words, and so the idea of writing songs as letters was a way for me to communicate what I was going through in the medium that felt most comfortable,” she says.

“That way of songwriting is definitely something that will always be a part of how I write. That said, I don’t know if I was consciously trying to write letters to myself at the start, but it just kind of became clear as I was doing it.”

Coming out of last year, Mahal summed it up as a huge learning curve, pegging one of her chief lessons as being the importance of honesty in her music.

“Whenever you’re making music or with whatever you’re trying to put out into the world, have it be truthful in terms of what you’re experiencing,” Mahal urges. “By doing that you find out that you’re not the only one experiencing those things and you connect with other people. That’s 68

Photo by Xavier DeNauw been one of the most rewarding things for me. You can’t quantify that.”

When describing Mahal’s voice, the names dropped as comparators span Etta James to Amy Winehouse. However, Mahal describes herself as a genre-defying artist, which is borne out by the fact that an incredibly diverse array of people are digging on her music. Take, for instance, a recent social media post where a fan relays playing Mahal’s funk banger ‘Snakes’ to an elderly patient at his behest.

“I absolutely love that,” Mahal says, quite obviously chuffed. “I don’t really think of myself as a one genre or one influence kind of person. I always wanted to put out music that was multi genre and layered with so many different influences because that really expresses my life and how I grew up. It’s beautiful that it connects to young kids as well as contemporaries. I guess the age range [of fans] is somewhere between 18 and 60 something, which is so cool, and I like that because I believe in inclusivity.”

In getting to this point, Mahal describes her folks as having been hugely influential, as well as supportive of her career. In context, that makes perfect sense – her old man is blues legend Taj Mahal and her mum is dancer, educator and artist Inshirah Geter. “Some people grow up in a family of dentists or doctors and they

don’t really understand what it takes to be a musician, but I didn’t have that deficit,” she reflects. “My family always supported all of the creative choices that I made.”

Mahal’s mum in particular, made damn sure that music was the bedrock of her existence. “Mum was the one who was predominantly raising us, because dad was on the road, and she made sure to play every kind of music and make it the real foundation of our daily existence. Whether we were on road trips or doing the dishes or hanging out with friends, there was always music involved.”

That it became a career choice makes sense too, given that Mahal describes music as a lifeline. Mahal experienced bullying and racism growing up in Hawaii, on top of which she lost siblings and her parents split. Throughout everything though, music was the balm.

“Having music as something that I could turn to to find a way to express whatever I was going through really did save my existence. I have a pretty strong spirit, but there were a lot of times where it felt broken when I was growing up and in life in general. I don’t know what I would do without music. I’m not an incapable human being, so there’d be something, but there just isn’t anything else for me that feeds my soul in the same way.”

“songs that tell stories and touch hearts” eastbourne herald

Hill of Beans (World) Tour

Australia 1 march 3 march 5 march 12 march 13 march 14 march

thornbury theatre old museum city recital hall state theatre centre of wa trinity sessions trinity sessions

melbourne brisbane sydney perth adelaide adelaide

also appearing at port fairy folkFfestival & blue mountains folk festival

tickets from troubadour-music.com

2019

2019

Boomerang Artists Archie Roach

Archie Roach is one of Australia’s most treasured performers. He has been recording award winning albums for nearly 30 years. In that time, he has gifted us with a songbook of incredible import. From his debut album, Charcoal Lane, released in 1990 to his latest album, Dancing with My Spirit, released in 2018, and featuring the sublime vocals of Tiddas, Archie continues to write songs that get to the heart of what it means to be human. And what he sees at the heart of humanity is love.

When his debut album Charcoal Lane was released in 1990, the impact was immediate. The album’s centrepiece, ‘Took the Children Away’, won an international Human Rights Achievement Award (the first time ever awarded for a song), while the album was certified gold and won two ARIA Awards.

Looking for Butter Boy (1997) went on to win the 1998 ARIA Award for Best Adult Contemporary Album and the ARIA Award for Best Indigenous Release.

Over the many years of his successful career he has shared the stage with some of the world’s most iconic artists including the late Leonard Cohen, Rodriguez, Bob Dylan, Tracy Chapman and Patti Smith. His music speaks the stories of his people, of this land and of the human condition.

Newest Release: Dancing with My Spirit (2018) 70

Yothu Yindi & The Treaty Project

Initially launched in 2017, Yothu Yindi & The Treaty Project aim to raise awareness around the need for treaty with Australia’s First Nations people. In this exciting new, electronica-driven formation, founding members of Yothu Yindi – Witiyana Marika, Stu Kellaway and Kevin Malngay Yunupingu are joined onstage by former band members and popular Indigenous singer/ songwriters including Yirrimal who will be singing lead at Boomerang 2019. The group also features cabaret artist Kamahi Djordon King and emerging Yolngu singers, Yirrnga Yunupingu and Yimila Gurruwiwi.

As evidenced by Yothu Yindi’s success in the 1990’s, Indigenous music, song and dance are powerful tools of protest. Their powerful performance of ‘Treaty’ at the Closing Ceremony of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games is one to remember!

Baker Boy

In Arnhem Land, they call Baker Boy the ‘fresh new prince’! Raised in the remote NT communities of Yurrwi and Maningrida, Danzal Baker has reached huge success of late having won Young Australian of the Year along with a string of other accolades including The Age Music Victoria Awards, National Live Music Awards, National Indigenous Music Awards and Dreamtime Awards. The strikingly talented artist, on an undeniable rise is now playing Boomerang and Bluesfest 2019 and we’re all super excited to welcome the young Yolngu hiphop talent to Byron Bay.

Brotherhood of The Blues

Fronted by three talented, young, Aboriginal men, Brotherhood of the Blues is a 10-piece band built on friendship, passion, and of course, a shared love of music. Luke Murray, John Cieslak and Zac Paden met at RED Inc, a local disability service provider in Lismore and started writing songs together based on their own life experiences. Later this year, the incredible Brotherhood of the Blues are releasing a documentary detailing some of the challenge’s artists living with a disability face in everyday life. After a hugely successful performance in 2016, we are stoked to welcome Brotherhood of the Blues back to Boomerang and Bluesfest 2019.

Latest release: Right Back Home

Boomerang Artists Bungalung Weavers

in India as his family fled the repression in Tibet. As a child, Tenzin would listen to his mother singing in the nomadic style and he attributes much of his passion for that genre to her early influence. Tenzin channels the wisdom and traditions of his ancestors through his songs. Tenzin has a successful international career as a musician, playing at such prestigious events as WOMAD as well as several Concerts for Tibet House at Carnegie Hall, New York. Tenzin is an avid collaborator with musicians from diverse cultures, traditions and genres.

Dobby Re-discovering a lost art of their ancestors has been a great joy for a group of Bundjalung women in Casino. The Wake-Up Time weaving group established 10 years ago and auspiced by the Buttery’s Outreach program INTRA has, with the help of photos from the British Museum, re-learnt how to weave baskets and bags as their forebears did using native grasses and reeds. Many of their works have been sold at exhibitions in Sydney and they were also involved with International fashion week down there in 2014. They also teach students from Casino how to weave. The weaving workshops offer a unique opportunity for participants to engage and meet with both Bundjalung and Kunwinjku women, to share their culture and wisdom and learn the respective techniques of each group.

Tenzin Choegyal

initiative to revive contemporary Australian Indigenous songs from 1900 to 1999, focusing on the Christian missions, state run settlements and native camps where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were relocated. Searching for the secular songs that were sung after church, Mission Songs Project looks to explore the day to day life of the mission days, from cultural identity to love and loss. These unique songs consist of almost forgotten stories that can now shed light into the history of our Indigenous elders, families and communities.

Latest release: The Songs Back Home

Malu Kiai Mura Buai

Dobby is a rapper, drummer, speaker and workshop facilitator and aged just 24, he proudly identifies as a Filipino and Aboriginal musician, whose family is from Brewarrina on Ngemba land, and is a member of the Murrawarri Republic in Weilmoringle, NSW. Dobby is also a skilled composer and is the 2017 recipient for the bi-annual Peter Sculthorpe Fellowship. This multi-instrumentalist is sure to entertain the crowds this Easter as he jumps between the drums, mic and piano.

Mission Songs

Tenzin Choegyal is a Tibetan artist, composer, activist, musical director and cultural ambassador. Born to a family of Tibetan nomads, he was forced into exile

Torres Strait Islander traditional dance group, Malu Kiai Mura Buai will be performing at Boomerang 2019. Now Brisbane based but originally from the top Western part of the Torres Strait and the most northerly inhabited island of Australia separating Cape York Peninsula from the island of New Guinea, the performers share their traditional songs and dances that have been passed down from generation to generation based on the everyday life of island stories.

Jessie Lloyd’s Mission Songs Project is an 71

2019

2019

Boomerang Artists Mojo Juju

Mojo has never felt comfortable with being categorised and is increasingly deliberate in avoiding labels and defying genres. The 2012 solo debut was an offering of lyrical blues and noir soundscapes. The 2015 release ‘seeing red / feeling blue’ contained strong throwbacks to Soul, R’n’B and Funk.

Both albums were met with critical acclaim and industry accolades.

Regardless of genre, it is evident that at the core of Mojo Juju’s songwriting is a raw emotional honesty, which is juxtaposed by a razor-sharp wit and a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour.

Muggera In 2015 Darren Compton and Jacqui Cornforth founded Muggera Dancers, a family group who prides themselves on their cultural knowledge and professionalism. The members for Muggera come from a long line of cultural leaders, song men, world-class dancers and didgeridoo players with a formidable respect for culture. All members of Muggera have been performing and sharing their culture for many years and have been guided by their Elders over many decades.

Muggera has ongoing support from community and family Elders, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities to share culture.

Rako

Boomerang Artists Te Kopere Maori Healers

Yirrmal

Recent offerings SAVE and Oh No You Don’t shot to No. 1 on the AMRAP charts; the latter earning him four NIMA 2016 nominations and the award for “Best Aboriginal Talent” at The Age Music Victoria Awards.

Rako dance encompasses traditional Rotuman dance, Polysesian and Melanesian dance as well as modern dance forms such as Hip Hop, Crump, B-Boy and Break. Rediscovering Myths and Legends and drawing from traditional animals, plants and trees, the Rako Dance group now incorporate elements unique to the Rotuman Culture and Island and have an extensive collection of Chants, Dances as part of their production titled ‘Armea’.

Saltwater Dubay

Newest Release: Native Tongue (2018)

Boomerang is welcoming back the incredible Te Kopere Maori Healers under the guidance of healer Christine Bullock. New Zealand’s Rongoa Maori is the traditional healing system of Maori.

It focuses on the oral transmission of knowledge, diversity of practice and the spiritual dimension of health. Rongoa Maori encompasses herbal remedies, physical therapies and spiritual healing. Experience the real art of Rongoa Maori Healing at Boomerang. Maori are Indigenous to Aotearoa New Zealand and at Boomerang Festival you will have the opportunity to take part in some very special workshops that will have you walk away feeling focused and centred.

Benny Walker

The Saltwater Dubay women’s weaving groups continue the art of weaving as an important cultural practice for both men and women. The Bundjalung Women’s Weavers will share the long and Intricate practice of weaving using traditional methods and materials, a truly special and rewarding experience for all; adults and kids alike.

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Hailing from regional Victoria, Indigenous singer/songwriter Benny Walker is the real deal.

Benny has performed alongside Archie Roach, Blue King Brown, Tim Rogers and Vika and Linda Bull, and was awarded Victorian Indigenous Performing Arts Award for Best New Talent in 2012. He has performed at festivals including Moomba, Woodford, St Kilda Festival, Blue Mountains Music Festival and more.

Newest Release: ‘I Don’t Blame You,’ SINGLE (2019), Undercover (2017)

Dallas Woods

Dallas Woods has the ability to find humour in unlikely places. Abuses of all kinds are common themes throughout his life. Dallas writes with a wealth of humility, knowledge and humour; it’s how he copes. In 2007 the Indigenous Hip Hop Projects [IHHP] came into his town and spotted his knack for clever word play. In 2009 he won E.K. Young Achiever Award at the age of 15. In 2016 he co-wrote the NIMA awarded track Break the Silence. Woods has performed at St Jerome’s Laneway Festival, Groovin’ the Moo, internationally at Riddu Riđđu in Norway and more.

New gen Indigenous Australian artist Yirrmal Marika is from North-East Arnhem Land. Inspired by his Grandfather, Dr M Yunupingu, former lead singer of Yothu Yindi (his father, Witiyana Marika, was a singer and dancer in Yothu Yindi). He fuses tradition and contemporary with class and passion. Yirrmal is an inspiring songwriter and guitarist with a beautiful voice, singing songs about his homeland and culture with feeling and depth beyond his years.

He has extensive knowledge of traditional Yolngu ‘Manikay’ songs, and he is also an excellent dancer and didgeridoo ‘yidaki’ player. Yirrmal has also worked with songwriting mentors Neil Murray, Shane Howard and released his debut EP ‘Youngblood’ in November 2016.

Newest Release: Hoodlum ft Jerome Farah (2018)

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2019

Amaru Tribe

2019 contributed songs to both Brandi Carlile’s Cover Stories LP and the Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack.

of the group. In 2004, Dom was voted Songwriter of the Year’ at the Australian Blues Awards in Goulburn, NSW.

East’s forthcoming album (made with producer Dave Cobb at Nashville’s RCA Studio A) has a single on the way and East is hitting the road this summer with Chris Stapleton.

Drum and percussion virtuoso and songwriter Rob Hirst (Midnight Oil), is an acclaimed name synonymous with the best of Australian music, and has been with Backsliders for 16 years.

Newest Release: Encore (2018)

Joining Dom and Rob are some of Australia’s most innovative and dynamic harmonica players; the legendary Brod Smith (Dingoes, Brod Smith’s Big Combo), ARIA award winning harmonica genius Ian Collard (Collard, Greens & Gravy) as well as young prodigy, Joe Glover.

Melody Angel Strings, skin and waves hold together this global tribe produced by a group of Melbourne based artists from Australia, Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela. Vibrating charangos, electronic sounds with afro-latin beats and powerful vocal harmonies align with the Australian land, creating a portal which connects the southern hemisphere and gives birth to an unknown genre called “Cumbia Oceanica”.

Led by Oscar Jimenez (AKA Watussi’s frontman) and Katherine Gailer (Rapper & Visual artist), a talented couple who, inspired by their journey, began to share the stage to sing their migrant stories together.

Newest Release: Amaru Tribe (2017)

Anderson East (Exclusive)

Melody Angel is from the south side of Chicago. Rock N Roll took over her life at age 7. Melody blames the following artists for her obsession: Prince, Jimi Hendrix, and Chuck Berry. With a microphone at her lips and a Fender Strat in her hand Melody Angel has played all over the world. Currently touring to promote her 2nd full length album, Angels & Melodies, featuring her single, Wild Child.

The Backsliders

Backsliders album, ‘Hanoi’, was voted ‘Rhythms’ Magazine Readers Poll Blues Album of the Year for 2002.

Backsliders have also appeared on a number of compilation albums, including the Byron Bay International Blues and Roots Festival and Live at the Basement Sydney.

Backsliders have made numerous television appearances in Australia and are regulars at major Australian festivals.

Newest Release: Heathen Songbook (2016)

Caiti Baker

Additionally, East has lent his talents to several notable projects. He’s been featured on Dave Cobb’s Southern Family compilation, 76

As a member of Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons, Joe was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2007.

Newest Release: ZINC (2017)

The California Honeydrops have a reputation as being among the most exciting and dynamic live bands on the planet. The Honeydrops have spent a decade playing everywhere from subway stations in their native Oakland, California to sold-out shows in theatres and at festivals all across the globe. 2016 and 2017 saw them honoured to support Bonnie Raitt on her extensive North American tour, following past support slots with such icons as B.B. King, Allen Toussaint, Buddy Guy and Dr. John. More like parties than traditional concerts, their shows feature extensive off-stage jamming and crowd interaction.

Black Sorrows

The latest release (August 2016) ‘Heathen Songbook’, is a varied and eclectic mix of 21st Century original blues as well as a number of versions of songs by artists as diverse as Robert Johnson, Dock Boggs and John Fogerty.

Newest Release: A Woman’s Blues (2018)

East has served as support for artists including Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell and sold out his own headline shows.

He’s also appeared on Daryl Hall’s Live from Daryl’s House and Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Performer in the NT in the National Live Music Awards and was the AU Awards’ R&B Soul Artist of 2017. Caiti has also featured on A.B. Original’s ARIA award winning debut album Reclaim Australia.

In 2018, ‘I Won’t Sleep’ won best Blues & Roots song in the NT Song of The Year.

“A Backsliders show is like no other..” Far from the Mississippi delta, they took us to the water’s edge, ‘til we felt the riverbed beneath our feet” Rhythms Magazine 2015 I-Tunes Australian Blues and Roots album of the year winners, Backsliders have been playing, touring the festival circuit and recording for over 30 years.

Dom Turner, is the founding member

Caiti Baker is a singer, songwriter and front woman inspired by the greats like Aretha Franklin, Big Mamma Thornton and Little Walter.

In 2017, not only did Caiti win The NT Song of The Year, she won Best Live

The Black Sorrows have earned the reputation as a dynamic live act. At the helm, Joe Camilleri ensures that no two performances are ever the same.

Camilleri’s mantra is simple “we come to play and leave the audience feeling exhilarated”.

Newest Release: Citizen John (2019)

California Honeydrops

Newest Release: Call It Home: Vol. 1 & 2 (2018)

Kasey Chambers

The independently released album Dear Children, represented a turning point once CBS/Sony stepped in with a world-wide deal. When radio picked up the classic track, Mystified, The Black Sorrows really took flight releasing multi-platinum sellers Hold on To Me, Harley & Rose and The Chosen Ones. The Black Sorrows have won the ARIA for Best Band, played sellout shows across Europe and sold more than two million albums worldwide.

Kasey was the first Aussie country artist to have a single and album at No.1 simultaneously.

Her third album, Wayward Angel, went straight to No.1 in Australia.

The album also won best country album at the ARIAs in 2004 and earned Kasey her second-best female artist ARIA. Kasey’s fourth album, Carnival, debuted at No.1 in August 2006. The album featured the top 10 single Nothing at All. Rattlin’ Bones was another No.1 debut on the album charts and won best country album at the ARIAs in 2008. In 2009, the album Kasey Chambers, Poppa Bill and the Little Hillbillies won best independent country album at the AIR Awards in 2010.

Chambers’ fifth solo album, Little Bird, included the single ‘Beautiful Mess‘, which won the Grand Prize at the International Song writing Competition.

The 2012 album Wreck & Ruin, debuted at No.6 on the ARIA chart and won the best duo or group Golden Guitar at the annual Country Music Awards of Australia in Tamworth in 2013.

Her newest release shows that Chambers has even more to say.

The latest incarnation of The Black Sorrows is - Claude Carranza (guitar/ vocals), Mark Gray (bass/vocals), John McAll (keyboards/vocals) and Angus Burchall (drums).

In 2014 Joe Camilleri celebrated 50 years in the music business. The release of the highly acclaimed album Certified Blue added to the 50th celebrations by giving him his first mainstream chart appearance in almost a decade. Certified Blue peaked at #2 in the ARIA Jazz and Blues Chart and remained in the chart for over 40 weeks.

2015 saw the band tour Scandinavia for the first time in twenty years in support of the release of ARIA nominated album Endless Sleep. Europe is now permanently on the touring agenda.

the pop charts in Australia with the classic single Not Pretty Enough.

Newest Release: Campfire (2018)

Richard Clapton

Kasey Chambers is a celebrated musician with countless achievements and countless more to come.

Born in Mt Gambier in South Australia, Kasey grew up in a home environment where listening to and performing country and roots music was a way of life.

She spent her childhood absorbing the music of Hank Williams, Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash and other country greats loved by her parents.

The Captain was Chambers’ debut solo album and resulted in her first ARIA Awards, for best country album and best female artist. Kasey will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of that groundbreaking album at Bluesfest.

Barricades & Brickwalls (2001), Kasey’s second album, won best album at the 2002 ARIAs and landed her at the top of

Richard Clapton is one of Australia’s foremost singer/songwriters and paved the way for three generations of songwriters to write about the experience of being Australian.

1975 saw Clapton reach #1 on the national charts with ‘Girls on the Avenue.’

Like Americans Jackson Browne and Bruce Springsteen, Richard Clapton developed a sound based on melodic rock while his lyrics were poetic musings >> on his state of mind or the state of the nation. >> 77

2019 >> Ten years after his first release, Richard Clapton was an idol to whom younger artists like Jimmy Barnes, INXS and Cold Chisel turned as a mentor.

In the 1990s Richard continued to write and record and tour and his 1990s songs reflect a hard-won maturity. Indeed, Richard counts 2003’s Diamond Mine as amongst his best albums – and the critics unanimously agreed.

Since his first album in 1974, Richard has shown no signs of slowing down.

He has released over 20 albums which have cumulatively sold over one million copies. He was the first rock artist to have received an Australia Council arts grant from the government which enabled him to travel around the world and write the songs for ‘Goodbye Tiger.’

In 1999 Richard Clapton was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.

2019 is reminiscent of Smokey Robinson, while “Ain’t Messin’ Around” recalls Sly and the Family Stone. 2014’s double disc Gary Clark Jr – Live had songs that soared and drifted from the epic, psychedelicblues of “When My Train Comes In” to his anthemic, hip-hop, rock-crunch calling card, “Bright Lights”, all the way down to the deep, dark, muddy water of “When The Sun Goes Down”.

Clark’s new album, This Land, is his most accomplished to date and its songs are sure to feature heavily in his Bluesfest sets.

Newest Release: This Land (2018)

George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic

Newest Release: The House of Orange (2016)

Elephant Sessions (Exclusive)

Charting in the French download charts and selling bucket loads across Europe, Elephant Sessions’ new album ‘All We Have is Now’ firmly established this band as completely unique.

Elephant Sessions have won BBC Scots Trad Awards album of the year in both 2017 and 2018. They then went on to be finalists for Best Group at the BBC Radio 2 awards. In May of last year Belhaven Brewery got together with the band to award the first ever Belhaven Bursary for innovation in music. In August last year, the band also found themselves shortlisted for Scottish Album of the Year!

Newest Release: All We Have Is Now (2017)

Gary Clark Jr

Tommy Emmanuel

Ever since 2010, when Gary Clark Jr. wowed audiences with electrifying live sets everywhere from the Crossroads Festival to Hollywood’s historic Hotel Café, his modus operandi has remained crystal clear: “I listen to everything… so I want to play everything.” The revelation that is the Austin-born virtuoso guitarist, vocalist and songwriter finds him just as much an amalgamation of his myriad influences and inspirations. Anyone who gravitated towards Clark’s, 2011’s Bright Lights EP, heard both the evolution of rock and roll and a saviour of blues. The following year’s full-length debut, Blak And Blu, illuminated Clark’s vast spectrum - “Please Come Home” 78

“Recording both as Parliament and Funkadelic, George Clinton revolutionised R&B during the ‘70s, twisting soul music into Funk by adding influences from several late 1960s acid heroes such as Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa and Sly Stone.

The Parliament/Funkadelic machine ruled music during the ‘70s, capturing over 40 R&B hit singles and recording three platinum albums.

The early 1990s saw the rise of funkinspired Rap and Funk Rock that reestablished the status of Clinton as one of the most important forces in the recent history of black music. Clinton’s music then became the soundtrack for the rap movement, as artists from MC Hammer to Snoop Dogg depended heavily on the infectious groove of Clinton productions as the foundation of their recordings.

Clinton’s inspiration, dedication and determination resulted in the elevation of Funk music to complete recognition and acceptance as a true genre in and of itself.

Newest Release (for George Clinton): George Clinton and His Gangsters of Love (2008)

Influenced by the Merle Travis/Chet Atkins fingerstyle of guitar picking, Tommy developed a style of solo guitar playing that encompasses the range of a whole band– covering drums, bass, rhythm and lead guitar and a vocal melody simultaneously.

While thousands of fans have spent years trying to unpack and imitate Tommy’s technique, for him it’s just the delivery system. His approach is always song and emotion first, his music the embodiment of his soulful spirit, sense of hope and his love for entertaining. Which is not to say he dismisses the CGP, the Guitar Player awards, the Grammy nominations, the numerous magazine polls naming him the greatest acoustic guitarist alive. He’s grateful for it all, and the incredible journey that’s led him to the most invigorating period of his career–six decades into it.

Newest Release: Heart Songs (with John Knowles) (2019)

Fantastic Negrito

Samantha Fish (Exclusive)

From Alive Behind The Green Door (1997) to Life Is Good (2017), this seven-piece Celtic punk band from Los Angeles, California is ready to entertain and is sure to ignite a burning passion in their upcoming shows.

Newest Release: Life Is Good (2017)

Ruthie Foster

After launching her recording career in 2009, Samantha Fish quickly established herself as a rising star in the contemporary blues world.

The New York Times called Fish “an impressive blues guitarist who sings with sweet power” and “one of the genre’s most promising young talents.”

Fish’s solo studio debut, Runaway, was named Best Artist Debut at the 2012 Blues Music Awards in Memphis.

After that, her album Wild Heart (2015) reached the top slot on Billboard’s blues chart.

More recently, Fish’s 2017 release, Chills & Fever, achieved top 10 status in the Billboard Blues charts.

Newest Release: Belle of the West (2017)

Flogging Molly

Ruthie Foster has found herself duetting with Bonnie Raitt, and standing onstage with the Allman Brothers at New York’s Beacon Theater and trading verses with Susan Tedeschi. She was also nominated for a Best Blues Album Grammy — three times in a row. Foster has also had seven Blues Music Awards, three Austin Music Awards, the Grand Prix du Disque award from the Académie Charles-Cros in France, and a Living Blues Critics’ Award for Female Blues Artist of the Year.

Drawing influence from legendary acts like Mavis Staples and Aretha Franklin, Ruthie developed a unique sound unable to be contained within a single genre.

Newest Release: Joy Comes Back (2017)

Shakey Graves Tommy Emmanuel has achieved enough musical milestones to satisfy several lifetimes. By age 30, he was a rock n’ roll lead guitarist burning up stadiums in Europe. At 44, he became one of five people ever named a Certified Guitar Player by his idol, music icon Chet Atkins.

Today, he plays hundreds of sold-out shows every year from Nashville to Sydney to London.

The late 80s saw Tommy release a string of hit albums, racking up awards, wins and nominations, and becoming a huge celebrity in his home country, culminating in an incendiary performance with his brother Phil at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Fantastic Negrito songs are born from a long hard life and delivered through black roots music. 2018 marked the release of Please Don’t Be Dead, with the The New York Times’ Jon Pareles hailing it as “a cranked-up, slow-grinding attack on addiction and consumerism.” “[Fantastic Negrito] won a GRAMMY® for the ‘Best Contemporary Blues Album’ for 2016’s The Last Days of Oakland,” declared NPR’s Bob Boilen. “[Please Don’t Be Dead], with its intense fervour, should make that two years in a row.”

Newest Release: Please Don’t Be Dead (2018)

Founded in 1997, Irish-American sevenpiece Celtic punk band Flogging Molly bring with them 20 years of performances and experiences.

Flogging Molly mixes both Punk Rock and traditional Irish music together to create something unique. Albums Within a Mile of Home (2004) and Float (2008) peaked at number one in the US independent charts.

Starting out with mostly solo odds-andends collections, 2014’s And the War Came, and centre-piece song “Dearly Departed” were what truly lifted Shakey from hard-core cultdom to the elevated status of bona fide career artist. >> 79

2019

2019

>> Up to now, he’s been categorized as an Americana singer/songwriter. Indeed, Shakey was named Best Emerging Artist award at the 2015 Americana Music Awards. But Can’t Wake Up is a righteously radical and truly new album for Graves.

figure in folk music with a distinguished and varied career spanning over fifty years. Growing up Arlo was surrounded by such renowned artists as Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott to name only a few.

Newest Release: Can’t Wake Up (2018)

Guthrie’s iconic album, Alice’s Restaurant (1967), achieved platinum status and in 1969 was made into a movie, by the esteemed director Arthur Penn, in which Arlo played himself. 1969 also brought Arlo to the rock festival of the ages – Woodstock. His appearance showcased the chart-topping song ‘Coming into Los Angeles’, which was included on the multi-platinum Woodstock soundtrack and movie.

David Gray

English singer-songwriter David Gray’s, A New Day at Midnight, followed up his successful international breakthrough in the fall of 2002, and 2005’s Life in Slow Motion debuted at the top of the charts in both Ireland and the U.K. During the span of David’s career thus far, he has had 12 million album sales, the best-selling album in Ireland ever with White Ladder, a BAFTA nomination for his soundtrack work on Amma Assante’s 2004 film A Way of Life, two Ivor Novellos, a Q award, two Brit nominations, and a Grammy nomination.

Newest Release: Mutineers (2014)

Arlo’s record label, Rising Son Records has released over twenty titles of his, including the Grammy nominated Woody’s 20 Grow Big Songs (1991) featuring Arlo and his family.

Newest Release: Tales Of ‘69 (2009)

Trevor Hall

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Hall’s songs, a blend of roots and folk music, have allowed him to complete a series of sold-out tours and collaborations with artists such as Steel Pulse, Ziggy Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Matisyahu, Michael Franti, Xavier Rudd and Nahko & Medicine for the People.

His previous full-length album releases, Chapter of the Forest (2014) and KALA (2015), debuted at #3 and #2

Colin Hay

Hussy Hicks

Trevor’s newest album, The Fruitful Darkness, premiered at #4 on the Alt Charts, the most successful of Hall’s career yet.

Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals

Almost 10 years after their debut album, Hussy Hicks are still going strong.

(Exclusive)

Scottish born singer-songwriter Colin Hay may be best known as the frontman for Australian hit makers Men at Work, but he has received renewed acclaim for his troubadour-style solo career.

Inextricably linked to the history of Bluesfest, Ben Harper reunites the Innocent Criminals for some special shows.

Known for his social consciousness and his ability to fuse genres, Harper is a multi-instrumentalist from California.

Harper has won Grammys for his work with the Blind Boys of Alabama. 1995’s Fight for Your Mind, was certified gold and further displayed musical evidence of Harper’s socio-political awareness.

Harper’s gospel influenced album, There Will Be a Light, which he recorded with the Blind Boys of Alabama, won Harper and the group a Grammy for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album, while the track ‘11th Commandment’ won Harper an award in the category of Best Pop Instrumental Performance. His next two albums, Both Sides of the Gun (2006) and Lifelines (2007), reached the top 10 of Billboard’s main albums chart.

Harper has also teamed with blues legend Charlie Musselwhite for 2013’s collaboratively released Get Up! It won the 2014 Grammy for Best Blues Album.

Newest Release: No Mercy in This Land (2018) with Charlie Musselwhite

waking, it’s the rising’ is the opening line with which Hozier opens before co-vocalist, Mavis Staples joins the socially and politicallyconscious singer. Fingers crossed they will recreate this recording together at our 30th Anniversary Celebration.

The blues guitarist and uplifting soul singer recently told Billboard ‘There is absolutely no rock and roll without Blues music.’ Amen.

Newest Release: The Fruitful Darkness (2017)

The 1972 album Hobo’s Lullaby featured a diverse body of work. Most notable is the definitive version of Steve Goodman’s ‘The City of New Orleans’ that was a hit on all major charts. Another critically acclaimed album that charted on Billboard was Amigo (1976), which includes Massachusetts, honoured in 1981 as the official State Folk Song.

Arlo Guthrie

Arlo Guthrie has been known to generations as a prolific songwriter, social commentator, master storyteller, actor and activist.

Born in Coney Island, New York in 1947, Arlo has become an iconic

on the iTunes singer/songwriter chart respectively and were supported by extensive tours around the US and Australia.

Alongside the thoughtful storytelling in his songs, Hay’s shows are peppered with hilarious anecdotes from his, often surreal, experiences in the world of rock music.

“Hay masterfully attaches shimmering diamonds of hope and happiness to a backdrop of omnipotent bleakness, a combination familiar throughout his extensive body of work.” —Nashville Scene The last 2 years have been rewarding for this career artist, iincluding a tour of Europe and tours with Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band, performances on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and ABC’s Greatest Hits; sharing the stage with Of Monsters and Men, Milk Carton Kids, Choir Choir Choir! and Kings of Leon; being publicly cited as an influence by artists as distinct as James Hetfield of Metallica, Jeremiah Fraites of The Lumineers, Troy Sanders of Mastodon, and The Infamous Stringdusters; as well as the completion of a documentary film about his career entitled Waiting for My Real Life, named for one of his best known solo recordings. Now finding himself in the unprecedented place of having both ’80s fame and indie credibility.

Newest Release: Fierce Mercy (2017)

The Gold Coast based band has made a name for themselves locally and on the international stages the old-fashioned way, by playing live, one performance at a time. From boisterous blues and roots, to contemporary folk, alt country and power ballads, this groups individual songs could land in any of these genres.

Newest Release: Nina Cried Power - EP (2018)

I’m With Her

In only a few years, Julz Parker and Leesa Gentz have gained a remarkable list of festivals, venues, and dedicated fans from around the globe.

Newest Release: Lucky Joe’s Wine and Other Tales from Dog River - EP (2016)

Hozier

Irish singer, songwriter, and multiinstrumentalist, Hozier is best known for his 2013 rock single, “Take Me to Church,”. The song led him into a majorlabel contract in time for his debut and a Grammy nomination in 2015.

The album reached the Top Ten of the charts in 11 countries and was certified gold in Canada and Great Britain.

Following on from the success of “Take Me To Church”, the release of his new EP “Nina Cried Power” has been met with much critical acclaim. ‘It’s not the

The modern folk super trio, I’m With Her, are three celebrated songwriters coming together to create music that reveals something new in all of them.

Since forming in 2014, Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O’Donovan have imbued their songs with a sharply detailed lyricism, graceful musicianship, and—perhaps most powerfully— mesmerizing harmonies that endlessly reflect their extraordinary chemistry.

These multi-Grammy-Award winners have individually released nine solo efforts, co-founded two seminal bands (Nickel Creek and Crooked Still) and contributed to critically acclaimed albums from a host of esteemed artists.

Four years after their formation at an impromptu show in 2014 at the Sheridan Opera House in Telluride, CO, the band released their debut album, ‘See You Around’ (Rounder Records), in February 2018. Co-produced by Ethan Johns and recorded in Bath, England, ‘See You Around’ has garnered praise from NPR, who instantly hailed the collection as “wilfully open-hearted” and The Guardian calling their sound both “ethereal and purposeful.”

Newest Release: See You Around (2018)

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2019

Jack Johnson (Exclusive) Hawaii-based, multi-platinum-selling singer/songwriter once said “It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the things happening in the world today, especially when a reality-TV host becomes our president. When my mind goes to that place of feeling like everything’s falling apart, it’s good to remember that there’s this beautiful world and that it’s not meant only for us—we’re just part of a bigger experience, and we’re so lucky to have that.”

The follow-up to 2013’s From Here to Now to You, All the Light Above It Too finds Johnson returning to the strippedback, homegrown feel of the four-track recordings that launched his career over 17 years ago.

A rare balance of quiet introspection and thoughtful observation has driven much of Johnson’s songwriting over the years.

Born and raised in Hawaii, he grew up surfing and playing guitar, and released his debut album Brushfire Fairytales in 2001. Since then, Johnson has released 6 more studio albums and 2 live albums that have sold over 25 million copies worldwide. His Brushfire Records label and touring crew have been leaders in the greening of the music industry and his All At Once social action network connects fans with local non-profits at each tour stop.

Newest Release: All the Light Above It Too (2017)

Norah Jones

2019 sweeping the 2003 Grammy Awards and signalling a paradigm shift away from the prevailing pop music of the time. Since then, Norah has sold 50 million albums worldwide and become a 9-time Grammy-winner. She has released a series of critically acclaimed and commercially successful solo albums - Feels Like Home (2004), Not Too Late (2007), The Fall (2009), Little Broken Hearts (2012), and Day Breaks (2016)—as well as albums with her collective bands The Little Willies and Puss N Boots.

Newest Release: Day Breaks (2016)

Deva Mahal (Exclusive)

The daughter of blues legend Taj Mahal, her blues roots combined with modern R&B, indie-pop, soul, rock and gospel, make up Deva Mahal’s sound.

The wider world started to realize Deva’s song writing talents in 2008, when ‘Never Let You Go,’ a co-write with her father, gained acclaim on the Grammynominated album Maestro. She’s also collaborated with a wide-ranging array of artists, including TV on the Radio, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, and Fat Freddy’s Drop. She’s performed at such renowned festivals as Sonar, Womad, the Atlanta Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival and Montreux Jazz Festival.

engineer/artist Grammy Certificate for his track on the Hank Williams Tribute – Timeless. He has received 11 Grammy nominations, in total, including Country Song of the Year for “I Hope,” co-written with The Dixie Chicks, and 3 alone for his 2014 self-produced release, BluesAmericana including Americana Album of the Year. Keb’ has also been awarded 11 Blues Foundation Awards and 6 BMI Awards for his work in TV & Film.

His guitar playing has garnered him 2 invites to Eric Clapton’s acclaimed Crossroads Festival and has inspired leading instrument makers, Gibson Brands, to issue the Keb’ Mo’ Signature Bluesmaster and Bluesmaster Royale acoustic guitars and Martin Guitars to issue the HD-28KM Keb’ Mo’ Limited Edition Signature model.

In 2017, Keb’ Mo’ released TajMo, a collaborative album with the legendary Taj Mahal. The release earned a GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album.

Newest Release: TajMo (2017)

Paul Kelly

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Paul celebrates the anniversary of his debut Bluesfest appearance in 1999.

Newest Release: Nature (2018)

Larkin Poe

An Australian song writing legend, Paul Kelly has recorded over 23 studio albums as well as several film soundtracks (Lantana and the Cannes 2006 highlight, Jindabyne) and two live albums, in an influential career spanning more than thirty years. He was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2017, he was appointed as an officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the performing arts and to the promotion of the national identity through contributions as a singer, songwriter and musician.

Australian folk-rock duo Little Georgia have spent the last 3 years touring relentlessly and sharing their music all around the globe.

Since releasing their debut album “Bootleg” in 2016, the duo have performed at venues and festivals throughout Australia and North America including appearances at Americana Music Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival, Queenscliff Music Festival, and most recently a second consecutive appearance at Byron Bay Blues Festival.

Their time on the road has seen them open shows for Mia Dyson, Ryan Bingham (USA), Jamestown Revival (USA) and The Record Company (USA).

Newest Release: All the While (2018)

Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul

He co-Produced the seminal Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band albums The River, and Born in the U.S.A. He has also produced albums for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Gary U.S. Bonds, Ronnie Spector, Demolition 23, Majek Fashek, Lords of the New Church, Arc Angels, The Chesterfield Kings, The Cocktail Slippers, The Breakers, and more. He arranged and produced Introducing Darlene Love, the critically acclaimed new album for the legendary Darlene Love, star of the Oscar winning documentary Twenty Feet From Stardom.

After creating the Jersey Shore sound with the Asbury Jukes he became a founding member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, and went on to become a successful solo artist in his own right recording and performing solo with his band Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul. He has released 7 solo studio albums and is currently working on a box set release of all of the albums and last year released his first new album in over 15 years entitled Soulfire returning to his Rhythm and Blues roots.

Latest album: Soulfire

Rebecca & Megan Lovell of Larkin Poe are singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist sisters creating their own brand of Roots Rock ‘n’ Roll: gritty, soulful, and flavoured by their southern heritage. Originally from Atlanta and currently living in Nashville, they are descendants of tortured artist and creative genius Edgar Allan Poe. Megan and Rebecca have previously hit the road as support for Bob Seger on his arena tour, have opened for Gary Clark Jr, Queen and Keith Urban, and have been the opening and backing band for Conor Oberst, Kristian Bush (Sugarland) and Elvis Costello Newest Release: Venom & Faith (2018)

Keb’ Mo’ (Solo)

After 14 albums, Keb’ has gained 4 Grammy awards and a producer/

His new releases are still turning heads as well. Certified-gold release Life Is Fine debuted at #1 on the ARIA Charts, was the highest selling Australian album of 2017, and garnered six ARIA nominations and four ARIA awards. Nature, his latest album, repeated that success.

Keb has written music for TV shows and films such as Mike & Molly, Memphis Beat, Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Higher Ground and he played his iconic version of ‘America The Beautiful’ in the series finale of Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, as well as at the actual White House for President Obama.

Newest Release: Run Deep (2018)

Norah Jones first emerged on the world stage with the February 2002 release of Come Away with Me, her selfdescribed “moody little record” that introduced a singular new voice and grew into a global phenomenon,

He continues to cross musical boundaries, publishing his first work of prose ‘How to Make Gravy’ in 2010, a feature-length documentary ‘Paul Kelly – Stories of Me’ in 2012, the soul revue, ’The Merri Soul Sessions’ in 2014 and more.

Little Georgia

Marcus King Band You have seen him with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band and in the TV series The Sopranos and Lilyhammer but Steve Van Zandt’s career is even more. He is a musician, performer, songwriter, arranger, music producer, music supervisor, TV producer, actor, director, Broadway producer, TV and film composer, and live event producer, international DJ, activist, historian, teacher, member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and recognized internationally as one of the world’s foremost authorities on both contemporary and traditional rock and roll!

Take it from The Boss: “He’s not the only one, nor the oldest, nor the richest. But Little Stevie Van Zandt might currently be the planet’s most charismatic, dedicated and visible crusader scrapping to preserve the dirty purity of Rock ‘n Roll.”

His songs have been performed by Jackson Browne, Pearl Jam, Margo Price, Damian Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes, Gary U.S. Bonds, Darlene Love, Nancy Sinatra, Brian Setzer, Black Uhuru, and more.

Multi-talented and confident 22-year old artist Marcus King is impressive beyond his years. King’s eloquent songs, expressive guitar playing, and ecstatically soulful singing mark this gifted, thoughtful young prodigy as a force to be reckoned with.

Since he was a teenager, he’s been trading licks with famous fans and mentors Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks whenever their paths have crossed. Haynes was so blown away by the then-19-year-old’s artistic precocity that he signed King to his Evil Teen label, released the band’s debut album, Soul Insight, in 2015 and produced the band’s self-titled follow-up a year later.

Newest Release: Carolina Confessions (2018) 83

2019

Ray LaMontagne

number one in Ireland and number seven in the U.K. In 2014 May released her fourth album, Tribal, featuring the singles “It’s Good to Be Alive” and “Wild Woman.” The album hit number one in Ireland and reached number three on the U.K. albums chart.

Newest Release: Life Love Flesh Blood (2017)

After more than 10 years, Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter Ray LaMontagne is still going strong.

Ray LaMontagne has released 7 studio albums, 5 of which have reached Top 10 on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart and Billboard’s Digital Albums chart.

Additionally, Ray’s 2010 album God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise won the Grammy for Best Folk Album and was nominated in the coveted Song of The Year category for ‘Beg Steal or Borrow.’

Newest Release: Part of the Light (2018)

Imelda May

Melbourne Ska Orchestra

Formed in 2003 the Melbourne Ska Orchestra is an orchestra with a difference. Comprising up to 36 members, this juggernaut contains some of Australia’s finest musicians and performers. Lead and directed by the energetic and charismatic Nicky Bomba (John Butler Trio, Bomba, Bustamento), they are a force to be reckoned with.

The band’s debut self-titled release resulted in sell out national shows, multiple major festival appearances, three international tours and a host of awards and nominations. Their unique take on the genre of Ska has wowed audiences all over the world.

ARIA Hall of Fame inductee, #1 selling Platinum artist, King of Pop, Australian Icon!!

A few phrases commonly used when describing Aussie legend Russell Morris.

Shooting to fame in the middle 60’s with Somebody’s Image, Russell had a string of hits including Hush and the Bob Dylan classic ‘Baby Blue’.

In 1969 he and producer Molly Meldrum released ‘The Real Thing’, Australia’s only true psychedelic #1 hit and a song that is played regularly on commercial radio to this day.

Following that, Russell penned breakthrough hits such as; ‘Sweet Sweet Love’, ‘Wings of an Eagle’, ‘Rachel, Part 3 into Paper Walls’, ‘The Girl That I Love’ and many more.

Constantly in demand, Russell stills tours nationally throughout the year as well as appearances internationally. Russell has worked alongside industry heavyweights like Cher, The Bee Gees, Linda Ronstadt, The Beach Boys and toured Australia with the hugely successful Long Way to The Top in 2012.

Newest Release: Black & Blue Heart (2019)

Nahko & Medicine for the People

Newest Release: Read All About It! (2018)

Russell Morris Imelda May was born in Dublin, Ireland, and inspired by Billie Holiday and the sound and look of rockabilly.

In 2007, May scored a nomination for an award for Best Burlesque Singer.

Her third studio effort, Mayhem, arrived in September of 2010. The release landed at

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Los Angeles, California-based Nahko and Medicine for the People’s record, Dark as Night reached No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Alternative New Album, No. 6 on the Heatseekers album chart and No. 7 in Australia on Triple J’s Top 10 Roots Albums of 2013.

Critics have praised the group’s worldly blend of rock, hip-hop, and alt-folk. OC Weekly called the group “empowering” and “powerful.” The Huffington Post called Dark as Night “beautiful and stirring,” and compared Nahko to Bob Marley and a “musical prophet.”

Newest Release: HOKA (2016)

2019

Irish Mythen

2019 releases as Ain’t Nuthin’ But a She Thing and Lilith Fair.

Meshell’s cover of Bill Withers’ ‘Who Is He (And What Is He to You?)’ from her second album, Peace Beyond Passion, topped Billboard’s club chart.

Born in Ireland, Irish Mythen’s self-titled release has gained her recognition around the globe with nominations and wins coming from Music PEI, East Coast Music Association, Folk Alliance International and SOCAN. Write-ups in Australian Guitar Magazine, the Rolling Stone, and a plethora of online publications world-wide have helped plant Irish firmly on the map of ‘Must See Artists’. Irish also won Roots Album of the year at the East Coast Music Awards 2016.

Irish has three full-length albums and two EPs to her name and was on the Saturday night main stage for Bluesfest Australia in 2016 and 2017.

Newest Release: Irish Mythen (2014)

Meshell Ndegeocello

From her 1993 Maverick label debut, through her releases of the 2010s, Meshell Ndegeocello has built a discography of recordings that have defied classification, through progressive mixtures of jazz, R&B, hiphop, and rock. Ndegeocello has appeared on movie soundtracks (White Man’s Burden, Money Talks) and on such multi-artist

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Ndegeocello has returned as a leader in 2018 with Ventriloquism as she reinterprets formative R&B classics of the ‘80s and early ‘90s.

Newest Release: Ventriloquism (2018)

Lukas Nelson & Promise of The Real

Ocean Alley continue to captivate audiences around the country and across the world with their infectious melody lines and memorable blend of psychedelic-surf-rock. March 2018 saw the release of their acclaimed second album Chiaroscuro which debuted at #15 on the ARIA Charts in Australia, and was awarded the coveted triple j Feature Album spot. The album has gone on to amass over 18 million streams worldwide, coupled with over 600,000 monthly listeners. It’s a mighty impressive feat for an independent artist.

Newest Release: Chiaroscuro (2018)

Tex Perkins and The Fat Rubber Band

Pierce Brothers have taken their unique brand of folk music from busking on the streets of Melbourne to touring the world.

Comprising of twin brothers Jack and Pat Pierce, the multi-instrumentalists have been shaking dance floors and selling out rooms across UK, Europe, Canada, USA & their native Australia. 2017 EP ‘The Records Were Ours’ came in at #9 on the ARIA chart after topping the iTunes charts across the globe. This year the Pierce Brothers will release their highly anticipated full-length debut album through Warner Music.

were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Pop is still going strong in modern times as well. Post Pop Depression (2016) is often compared to Pop’s first two solo albums and was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Alternative Music Album category.

People are still raving about Iggy’s 2013 Bluesfest appearance. Do not miss him!

Newest Release: Post Pop Depression (2016)

Snarky Puppy

Newest Release: Atlas Shoulders (2018)

Newest Release: Tearing at the Seams (2018)

Lukas’ profile continued to rise when he contributed three songs and heavenly vocals to his dad Willie Nelson’s 2012 album, Heroes, their voices blending with potent DNA. Then two years later, life took another turn skyward when Neil Young decided to make Promise of the Real his touring and studio band.

Newest Release: Forget About Georgia EP (2018)

Ocean Alley

It’s probably best to take Nate Chinen of the New York Times’ advice, as stated in an online discussion about the group, to “take them for what they are, rather than judge them for what they’re not.”

“Tex has the swagger, presence and indomitable attitude that comes from years of fronting some of Australia’s most intense and spirited rock’n’roll bands. His take-no-prisoners approach to performance comes with the sensibility of an artist committed to the subtle (and often unsubtle) nuances of his craft. Throw in an astonishing voice full of power and depth, mix it with a dry and sardonic sense of humour and what emerges is the reason there is only one Tex Perkins.” (Stuart Coupe). Watch out also for the new album from one of Tex’s other projects, the legendary Beasts of Bourbon.

Newest Release [Tex Perkins solo]: Tex Perkins and the Band of Gold (2011)

Pierce Brothers Pierce Brothers have taken their unique brand of folk music from busking on the streets of Melbourne to touring the world.

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats’ 2015 self-titled debut became a massive hit and pushed them out on the road for two long years. The band blasted their way through hundreds of shows in North America, England, Ireland, and Australia, and they played Coachella, Farm Aid, Newport Folk Festival, and the Monterey Pop Festival’s 50th Anniversary.

The crowds grow larger and The Night Sweats grow tighter and more vigorous with every show they play.

Iggy Pop

Since forming 10 years ago, the buzz surrounding Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real has been quietly intensifying.

During that time, the 28-year old singer/ songwriter/guitarist and his bandmates have played hundreds of shows and major festivals all over the world – often backing Neil Young - and built a devoted underground following.

“The future of this band is to take everything we’ve ever done in the past and just do it with our own little twist,” says Nathaniel Rateliff. “I hear that in my favourite bands. They just sucked everything up.”

St. Paul & The Broken Bones (Exclusive)

Snarky Puppy is a collective of sorts with as many as 25 members in regular rotation.

There’s a reason why many consider Iggy Pop to be the godfather of punk. Every punk band of the past and present has knowingly or unknowingly borrowed a thing or two from The Stooges. Pop’s first two albums with The Stooges have been considered the beginning of Punk Rock.

While not wildly successful commercially, the Stooges influence on later punk and grunge recording artists and the punk music scene is undeniable.

Released in 1988, Instinct saw Pop try his hand at hard rock/heavy metal, joined by ex-Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones. ‘Cold Metal’ was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance.

1990’s Brick by Brick, gave Pop his first U.S. gold-certified album and Top 20 hit single, ‘Candy.’

In 2010, Pop and the rest of the Stooges

At its core, the band represents the convergence of both black and white American music culture with various accents from around the world.

Puppy already have three Grammy awards up their collective sleeves (Best R&B Performance in 2014, Best Contemporary Instrumental Album in 2016 and 2017).

Newest Release: Culcha Vulcha (2016)

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats

Birmingham, Alabama–based rock and roll soul band St. Paul & The Broken Bones formed in 2012. They released their debut album Half the City in 2014 and its follow up, 2016’s Sea of Noise, to great acclaim. Those strong efforts helped give them an international profile, and the band worked hard to prove they were no mere retro-soul band.

From touring the world relentlessly, including being selected to open for The Rolling Stones and headlining two nights at the Ryman Auditorium, to TV appearances including The Late Show with David Letterman, the band is a must-see event.

Newest Release: Young Sick Camellia (2018)

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2019

2019

Mavis Staples (Exclusive)

With a well-deserved long list of accolades, Mavis Staples is a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, a Blues Hall of Famer, a Grammy-Award winner, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award Honoree, a Kennedy Center Honoree, and holds Honorary Doctorates from Columbia College, Chicago and the Berklee College of Music, Boston. She is also the proud owner of one, of only two, Bluesfest Shining Star Awards!

Known for her work with the Staple Singers, who marched with Dr Martin Luther King Jr during the Civil Rights era Mavis Staples remains one of the great and most distinctive voices of all time.

Staples teamed up with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy as producer for 2010’s You Are Not Alone, which won the 2011 Grammy Award in the category of Best Americana Album. Recently she has been recording a new album with Ben Harper – and maybe we will get a preview of some of the songs during Bluesfest?

At the beginning of her eighth decade of singing truth, Mavis Staples has delivered If All I Was Was Black, ten songs about America today, where the present is filled with ghosts of its past. “Nothing has changed,” Mavis said in early August, just days before the world watched neo-Nazis march with swastika flags in Charlottesville, Virginia, as a young woman was murdered. “We are still in it.”

Newest Release: If All I Was Was Black (2017), Live in London (2019)

The Saboteurs

The Raconteurs (outside Australia) – Jack White, Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence & Patrick Keeler – are back with the release of their first new music in more than 10 years – and they are coming to Bluesfest.

The two new songs released by Third Man Records, ‘Now That You’re Gone’ featuring Brendan Benson on lead vocals and ‘Sunday Driver’ with Jack White singing lead. This follows the re-release of the 1998 album Consolers of The Lonely and precedes a new album this year.

“We have a vast amount of genrepushing songs that bridge the gap between Detroit and Nashville rock and roll,” White said in a recent interview.

“The album sounds like a World War.” This is exciting news since the band’s first album received Mojo magazines Album of the Year in 2006.

Newest Release: Consolers of the Lonely (2008)

SIX60

Tash Sultana

The War and Treaty

The record’s musicality marks Kurt’s departure from an electric guitar experience to include a range of instrumentation with a large group of players.

Kurt Vile & The Violators play Thursday & Saturday at Bluesfest.

Newest Release: Bottle It In (2018)

Vintage Trouble Allen Stone’s self-titled follow-up ended up earning him serious recognition.

Along with entering the top five on iTunes’ R&B/Soul chart after its digital release, Allen Stone prompted him to score appearances on such late-night talk shows like Conan. And upon partnering with ATO Records for a physical release, Stone soon turned up on the likes of the Late Show with David Letterman and landed a gig as the opening act for Al Green. He also took up a gruelling touring schedule, (nearly 600 shows in just two years).

Newest Release: Amygdala (2016)

Julia Stone

One of Australia’s fastest rising musical stars. From a GoPro in a bedroom, to selling out major theatres & arenas globally and playing at the world’s biggest festivals, that’s just part of the story of Tash Sultana.

Recent accolades include over 500M streams for her latest album, topping the iTunes chart in multiple countries, the song ‘Jungle’ coming in at #3 in triple j’s Hottest 100, achieving platinum sales for the Notion EP and platinum sales for single ‘Jungle’, winning the prestigious Unearthed J Award, multiple APRA nominations and playing a stand out set at Coachella & Lollapalooza 2018.

Tash recently took home an ARIA award for Blues and Roots Album of the Year with Flow State which also topped charts in multiple countries.

Newest Release: Flow State (2018)

When The War and Treaty stepped up to fill an ill Buddy Miller’s spot at the 2017 Americana Music Festival & Conference, jaws at the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville collectively dropped.

As The War and Treaty, Michael and Tanya serve up healing and pain robbing with freewheeling joy on a monumental new full-length album, Healing Tide.

Funky bass lines, keys, lap steel, acoustic strings, and stripped-down percussion create a swampy Southern soul bed for the couple’s transcendent vocals.

“I hope people see our hearts on this record,” Michael says. “I want them to experience freedom. To feel again.” At the Americana Awards in Nashville last year they appeared with lifetime achievement award winner Irma Thomas.

Newest Release: Healing Tide (2018)

Kurt Vile and The Violators

Since forming in 2010, Vintage Trouble have quietly become rock ‘n’ roll’s best kept secret anointed by its very gods on international tours in every corner of the globe. Distilling swaggering rock, soulful blues, R&B grooves, and pop ambition into a bold and brash brew, the quartet have logged 3,000 shows across 30 countries on tour with divinities such as The Who, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Lenny Kravitz, and Bon Jovi, to name a few.

Newest Release: Chapter II - EP I (2018)

RocKwiz Live

Thando

SIX60’s self-titled debut album was released in 2011 and debuted at #1 in the New Zealand charts and was certified gold within its first week of release and has since been certified 4-times Platinum

by RMNZ. Their second album Six60 (2) spent 104 weeks in the New Zealand Top 20 chart. SIX60 also received the Vodafone New Zealand Music Award for the most played and highest selling single with White Lines in 2015. The release was also Spotify New Zealand’s Top 5 album of most streamed album for that year.

Newest Release: Six60 (2) (2015)

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Allen Stone

Australian folk singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Julia Stone is returning to Bluesfest with her band in 2019. The sister half of Angus & Julia Stone who together have won five ARIAs, released her debut solo album The Memory Machine in 2010. She has since been working on her solo career.

Julia Stone has released two albums, multiple singles and appeared in TV and movies and was nominated in the music category of YEN Magazine’s Young Woman of the Year Awards which took place November 25, 2008.

Angus & Julia Stone’s debut album, A Book Like This, released in 2007 and charted in the Top Ten in the bandmates’ native Australia.

Newest Release [Julia Stone Solo]: By the Horns (2012)

Bluesfest welcomes Zimbabwean born and Melbourne based singer-songwriter, Thando to Byron Bay for her Bluesfest debut this Easter! The multi-dimensional performer has been extremely busy gracing stages around Australia with her electric presence and powerhouse vocals including a support slot for the sold-out Allen Stone show last October. Forging forward to solidify her status as Australia’s newest first lady of R&B, be sure to catch her powerful performance.

The former The War On Drugs lead guitarist has forged a heady solo career and released his sixth studio album ‘b’lieve I’m going down’ in 2015. In 2017, he released ‘Lotta Sea Lice’, a collaboration with Courtney Barnett and they toured together.

Multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and record producer grew up with the influences of the likes of Beck, Pavement, Neil Young, Tom Petty and John Fahey.

A man with an old soul voice in the age of digital everything becoming something else, which is why this focused, brilliantly clear and seemingly candid record is a breath of fresh air. “b’lieve I’m goin’ down” is a handshake across the country, east to west coast.

It’s been ten years since RocKwiz first broke out from the shabby chic of the Gershwin Room at the Espy and hit the road, and it’s still going strong. Having performed nearly a countless amount of shows over the years, the team have entertained thousands of audience members across the country.

In 2019 RocKwiz will make a triumphant return to the Byron Bay Blues Festival.

Long break over, they are back to celebrate the festival’s 30th anniversary.

Julia, Brian, Dugald and the mighty RocKwiz Orkestra, with a host of special guests, will be up to their old tricks once again.

Newest Release: Monday Morning (2017) 89

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The Little Willies The Little Willies. The Peter Malick Group. Peeping Tom. El Madmo.

Fangbanger. Puss N Boots. Foreverly. The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams. You, erudite music aficionado that you are, will recognise the common thread through all these projects: Norah Jones.

It is, however, surprising how many people never looked beyond Come Away With Me. People who raise incredulous eyebrows when told that Norah was a part of some of the great modern western swing albums with her band The Little Willies. Who grimace with indifference when presented with the argument that Jones has been involved in some of the most eminent moments in contemporary music. Like appearing on the momentous OutKast album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Like singing with Keith Richards on the Gram Parsons Tribute DVD. Like performing with Mike Patton on his Peeping Tom project. Like joining Herbie Hancock on his album River: The Joni Letters. Like singing with Gillian Welch on the Lost Notebooks Of Hank Williams record. And, of course, appearing as Ted’s ex-girlfriend on Ted (“You did well for a guy with no dick!”).

So, in the spirit of revelation, let’s look into a couple of the Norah releases that didn’t quite reach the same Diamond sales level as Come Away With Me. Of course, you could cheat, and go straight for the Featuring Norah Jones LP that was released in 2010. This 18-track compilations collates samples from many of the side projects Jones has been involved in over the past decade and a half, showcasing collaborations with Belle and Sebastian, M Ward, The Foo Fighters, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Outkast, Q-Tip, Ryan Adams, etc. It’s a tantalising introduction to the alternative world of Norah and should lead everyone down some interesting alleys.

Having studied as a jazz vocalist and singer, Jones moved to New York in 1999 and began performing with Charlie Hunter and Peter Malick, among others. Her work with Malick led to some of Jones’ first recordings, later released as New York City by The Peter Malick Group featuring Norah Jones. The gently tasteful tone Jones would pursue in her first solo material was already fully formed on New York City, though that release, to my knowledge, was never released on vinyl and doesn’t rank among Jones’ greatest achievements.

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MELBOURNE SYDNEY

Jones’ most important musical encounter happened at the University of North Texas when she ran into Jesse Harris and Richard Julian. Harris helped Jones with material for Come Away With Me, writing the mammoth single ‘Don’t Know Why’. Richard Julian (alongside Come Away With Me collaborator, bassist Lee Alexander) formed The Little Willies with Jones.

Formed the year after Come Away With Me was released, The Little Willies was designed to celebrate great classic Americana music.

The set-list for the self-titled debut album reads like a Rhythms hall-of-fame songlist: not surprisingly there are Willie Nelson compositions (‘I Gotta Get Drunk’ and ‘Night Life’) alongside Fred Rose’s ‘Roly Poly’, Rose and Hank Williams’ ‘I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive’, Townes Van Zandt’s ‘No Place to Fall’, Johnny Cash’s ‘Tennessee Stud’ and the Glaser/Howard classic ‘Streets of Baltimore’.

Such material nestles alongside memorable originals like Alexander’s ‘Roll On’, ‘Easy as the Rain’ (co-written by Julian and guitarist Jim Campilongo) and the hilarious ‘Lou Reed’ (“We saw Lou Reed cow tippin’”).

In the spirit of classic western swing, The Little Willies mixes irreverence and humour with killer chops. Campilongo’s Telecaster playing in particular is spectacular, even jaw-dropping on occasion (check out ‘I Gotta Get Drunk’ and ‘I’ll Never Get Out This World Alive’).

The Little Willies regrouped for a second album in 2010, mining a similar vein though with perhaps slightly more obscure song choices, ranging from Ralph Stanley’s ‘I Worship You’ to Loretta Lynn’s ‘Fist City’ to Willie Nelson’s ‘Permanently Lonely’, landing on Dolly’s ‘Jolene’ (with an inspired stop at ‘Foul Owl on the Prowl’, from the movie In the Heat of the Night, co-written by Quincy Jones! ) I don’t know how either of these albums sold, but when your debut album sells 27 million copies, subsequent album sales probably aren’t of critical concern. Regardless, it’ll be interesting to see whether Jones will break from the script and take any country/ western swing detours at Bluesfest – it sure would be the perfect setting to do it! Now to track down a copy of the Puss N Boots vinyl…

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UNDERWATER IS WHERE THE ACTION IS

By Christopher Hollow

William Tyler Goes West (Merge)

If the name John Fahey or Takoma Records means anything to you, then you’ll find plenty to love in Nashville via LA guitarist, William Tyler.

Goes West, Tyler’s fourth album, is full of unhurried, acoustic, ‘cosmic pastoral’ instrumentals. As I listen, my nostrils are filled with smoke from bushfires blowing in from the north. It adds an eeriness to the sounds but, even without that distinctive scent, it’s easy to picture long highways, tall peaks and dramatic skies.

‘Alpine Star’ is moody and magnificent; ‘Our Lady of the Desert’ is a dream-like meditation featuring guitar anti-hero, Bill Frisell, while most of the album showcases Meg Duffy, aka Hand Habits, on second guitar. If you’re looking for space or thinking time, this is the record for you.

If Harold & Maude is to be remade, it won’t be Cat Stevens soundtracking, it’ll be Jessica Pratt’s Quiet Signs. Or, maybe I’m thinking of that great Julie Christie/Leonard Cohen anti-western, McCabe and Mrs Miller? Anyhoo, the piano instrumental, ‘Opening Night’, certainly sets a cinematic tone and songs such as ‘Aeroplane’ and ‘This Time Around’ are full of intriguing chords and sparse arrangements that somehow still hint at a baroque-pop feel with strings and flute and piano.

You can tell a lot of thought has gone into the presentation to keep it stark but stimulating.

As a listener, the decision you must make is whether you like Pratt’s vocals or not. For me, they’re super-compelling in a lean-into-the-speaker-to-makeout-what-she’s-singing kinda way. One thing that intrigues me more: the fact that Quiet Signs barely makes 29 minutes.

Steve Gunn

The Unseen in Between (Matador)

Jessica Pratt Quiet Signs (Mexican Summer)

Steve Gunn made his name as a side-guy to Kurt Vile. In recent years, he’s gone out alone and released a couple good albums and one great one, 2016’s Eyes on the Lines. As a songwriter/ semi-singer, the guitar is the focus but what you hear on The Unseen in Between is a musician on a roll; the songs 92

sound natural, they also sound like progressions even if they’re ‘off-key dreams’, as Gunn sings in ‘New Moon’. I’m especially impressed by the album closer, ‘Paranoid’, with its great feel and delivery. ‘The song he sings, it’s called ‘Paranoid’. They just made it up, it’s his favourite word’. Surely Steve’s talking of Black Sabbath? It works either way. Dylan fans should know that his long-time bassist, Tony Garnier, is a collaborator on this record.

The Beach Boys The Beach Boys On Tour: Live 1968 (Capitol)

So, the BB vaults have been thrown open: this is part of a 50-year-save-copyright-frompublic-domain dump in a similar vein to Van Morrison’s Live in Boston 1968 aka The Catacombs Tapes that were recently available, digitally, for about a day. The Beach Boys Live in London LP was culled from this 1968 tour back in the day, but this release has performances from backwaters like Fargo, North Dakota; Lincoln, Nebraska and Waterloo, Iowa.

If you have that London record, you know the set but it’s such a delight to hear hits like ‘Do It Again’ and ‘Darlin’’ mixed with live scarcities such as the waltzy ‘Friends’ and the funky Dennis Wilson-led banjo ballad, ‘Little Bird’; also, Den’s rare rocker

‘All I Want to Do’. It’s official, Mike Love offers the worst stage patter of all-time, but the musical presentation is first rate – brilliant horn arrangements, basic garage instrumentation with fabulous pin-point vocals melting over the top. Also available in this treasure trove, and just as intriguing, is I Can Hear Music: The 20/20 Sessions and Wake the World: The Friends Sessions from a time when Brian Wilson was still in charge in the studio but looking to tap out.

Jacco Gardner Somnium (Polyvinyl)

Inspired by science fiction novels, Dutch musician Jacco Gardner has reached for infinity and beyond with his third album – the all-instrumental, Somnium. Conceptually, it’s based on Johannes Kepler’s 1634 tale of the same name (which means ‘The Dream’ in Latin). Musically, think Brian Eno with a touch of Tangerine Dream. It’s heady stuff especially the ambient ever-upwards track, ‘Rising’ and the moodier ‘Volva’ with plenty of bleeps and blops rushing at you. Gardner usually does 60s inspired chamber pop, but this is all about inner-space.

ON THE RADIO

WAITIN’ AROUND TO DIE

By Trevor Leeden

BY CHRIS FAMILTON

SONGS OF TRIBUTE THE EARLS OF LEICESTER

LIVE AT THE CMA THEATER (Rounder/Planet)

highlights are too numerous to fully include. A truly gifted pianist and possessed with a voice of visceral intensity like few others, Nina Simone is, quite simply, unforgettable.

THE BROTHER BROTHERS

SOME PEOPLE I KNOW (Compass/Planet)

For the last five years, Jerry Douglas and his merry band of bluegrass virtuosos have been championing the music of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs who, along with Bill Monroe, set the compass for traditional bluegrass.

Recorded at Nashville’s Country Music Hall Of Fame, the maestros focus on Flatt & Scruggs’ halcyon days from 1954 to 1965, peeling off 23 stone cold classics. Best of all, and unlike most live albums, the Earls serve up no less than 14 songs they have previously not put to record. These days, bluegrass doesn’t come any more authentic – or better – than this; hillbilly heaven.

NINA SIMONE

BIRTH OF A LEGEND (World Music Network/Planet)

ROCK ME GODDESS (Talking Elephant/Planet) Their name aside, you just know that these boys are brothers, identical twins to be precise.

Sibling harmonies have their own indefinable qualities, and Adam and David Moss have it in spades. Combining elements of traditional and Appalachian folk with hues of bluegrass, their restrained close harmonies owe a debt to the Everly Brothers, the Kingston Trio, and especially Simon & Garfunkel – ‘Colorado’ could be a ‘lost’ S&G song, and there’s some muleskinner fun to be had on tracks like ‘In The Nighttime’. Comparison to the Milk Carton Kids is inevitable, but the Moss brothers leave them in their harmonic wake.

CLOSING TIME

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latest Lemonheads incarnation, and the touchstones that have defined Dando’s music are all present – twisted, cosmic altcountry vignettes, irresistible melodies served with a soupcon of punk attitude, and his voice weathered and world-weary.

Standouts are ‘Abandoned’, ‘Now And then’, and the gorgeous ‘Speed of The Sound of Loneliness’, but when Dando gets it right there are no fillers and right now he’s at the top of his game.

JULIE FELIX

CHRIS YOULDEN & THE SLAMMERS When it comes to the High Priestess of Soul, there is no shortage of albums to choose from. Wisely, this compilation focuses on the first phase of her stellar career, drawing unforgettable performances from her 1958 debut album Little Girl Blue through to her stunning 1960 live set Nina At Newport. ‘I Love You Porgy’, ‘Summertime’, ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me’, the

boom, ultimately ending up as lead vocalist for the Savoy Brown Blues Band, not too shabby a gig to land. After departing in 1970, Youlden recorded only intermittently, and these analogue recordings are from 1987 and 1991. Amongst the hired help are the likes of ace guitarist Dave Briggs and keyboard whiz Geraint Watkins, Youlden gives a vintage performance on 18 blues and r&b standards. He has a great blues voice and it’s a shame that Savoy Brown were never the same after Youlden’s departure, and his solo career never achieved lift-off.

(Last Music Co/Planet)

NEILSON HUBBARD CUMBERLAND ISLAND (Proper/Planet) Who’d have thought the octogenarian folkie still had something to say, and with full voice it must be said. Once a ground-breaking singer who during the 60’s rubbed shoulders with British rock royalty (Kinks, Jimmy Page, Fleetwood Mac etc), Felix has adopted an eco-warrior stance on her new album, each song thematically linked and a rallying call to arms on behalf of Mother Earth. You can take onboard her heartfelt messages or simply thank the goddess and just enjoy the many beautiful moments: “I wander through this world searching for beauty, I listen to the rain, I touch each stone”; rock on Julie.

THE LEMONHEADS VARSHONS 2

Chris Youlden cut his teeth during the 60’s British blues

(Fire Records) Evan Dando is a survivor. He also happens to be a mighty fine singer when he puts his mind to it. This is the tenth album for his

Having produced Mary Gauthier’s stunning Rifles & Rosary Beads last year, Hubbard turned his attention to recording his first album for 12 years. His bucolic songs, indeed his singing, bear resemblance to Springsteen in acoustic mode. Inspired by a visit as newlyweds to Cumberland Island, most of the tracks resonate with a quiet intensity, at times an earthy spirituality.

An undeniably romantic album, and with a supporting cast that includes Will Kimbrough, Ben Glover and Joshua Britt, Hubbard paints small screen vistas that speak of love both lost and found; it is a beautiful album.

For this issue, I thought I’d take a look at some of the outstanding releases in the field of tribute albums. Specifically, those that fall under the umbrella of Americana and alt-country, whether it’s in recognition of an artist’s body of work or a fundraiser to assist them in times of need.

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ack in 2004, Alejandro Escovedo was struggling under the weight of medical bills, for treatment of Hepatitis C, when fans and musicians came together to organise benefit gigs and the 2CD compilation Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo which featured Lucinda Williams, John Cale, Son Volt, Calexico, Lenny Kaye, Cowboy Junkies, The Jayhawks and others covering Escovedo’s songs. Alejandro found it to be a humbling experience, saying recently, “I think it’s a really beautiful record, some of the versions of those songs are very eye-opening for me, to hear that music done in ways I’d never imagined.” A similar album was put together to assist musician and found member of Giant Sand, Rainer Ptacek. The Inner Flame: Rainer Ptacek Tribute (1997, reissued in 2012) featuring Howe Gelb, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Emmylou Harris, Evan Dando, Victoria Williams, Mark Olson, PJ Harvey, Lucinda Williams among others.

Of course, the main reason tribute albums are put together is to honour the creative work and careers of highly respected songwriters. Some of the key architects of what has become Americana and altcountry have been honoured in this way.

Hank Williams was given the treatment by some of music’s biggest names in 2001 with the album Timeless. Bob Dylan rasped his way through a jazzy take on ‘I Can’t Get You Off My Mind’, Keith Richards got low and bluesy on ‘You Win Again’ and Johnny Cash made ‘I Dreamed About Mama Last Night’ his own.

Steve Earle has always openly discussed his love and worship of both Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, two of the towering

figures of poetic folk and country music. In 2009 Earle released ‘Townes’, fifteen tracks highlighting many of Van Zandt’s finest songs. Now, a decade later he’s about to release ‘Guy’, a similarly devotional tribute to his other greatest influence Guy Clark.

Speaking of Van Zandt, I highly recommend checking out the album Poet: A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt, released in 2001.

Again, as a sign of the level of respect his writing garners, the likes of Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver, Robert Earl Keen, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, John Prine, and Steve Earle all contribute. Williams’ ‘Nothin’’ is a particularly affecting highlight of heartbreaking poetry and delivery.

Likewise, friends, students and contemporaries of Guy Clark came together over 30 tracks on This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, four years before he passed away. Ron Sexsmith gives ‘Broken Hearted People’ a lush, melody-heavy treatment, Kris Kristofferson blends spoken word with an intimate and weary rendition of ‘Hemmingway’s Whiskey’, while fellow troubadour Jerry Jeff Walker brings the ache and pull of nostalgia to ‘My Favourite Picture Of You’.

Gram Parsons’ myth and status as one of the early influencers of what has become Americana still continues to grow. Fittingly he was honoured by the genre’s current stars on the excellent 1999 compilation Return of The Grievous Angel, an album that was notable for some of the resulting collaborations – Pretenders & Emmylou Harris on ‘She’, Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield on ‘$1,000 Wedding’ and Lucinda Williams & David Crosby on the title track. Elsewhere Wilco, Whiskeytown and Gillian Welch all paid tribute to one of their scene’s figureheads.

of the other records we’ve mentioned in that it is solely made up of contemporary and younger artists such as Justin Townes Earle, Lambchop, Deer Tick, Josh Ritter and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. Its strength lies in how great songs can transcend style and genre.

For something a little left of centre, Caroline Records put together The Bridge: A Tribute To Neil Young in 1989 and drew from outside the world of folk and country music, instead drawing on the interpretive skills of artists such as Pixies, Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and The Flaming Lips. Pixies’ take on ‘Winterlong’ becoming something of a fan favourite and a song that many of their fans took as being one of their own songs.

Most of these songwriters have left this mortal coil but one currently enjoying a late career renaissance is John Prine. He was first covered on the ten-song album Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine which had a different feel to some 95

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Other songs included ‘Funtime,’ that Bowie advised Iggy to Now in his 73rd year, the singer/songwriter/musician/ sing like Mae West, and ‘Dum Dum Boys’, a tribute to Iggy’s producer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame former Stooges band mates (the spoken intro references in 2010 with The Stooges the band he formed in 1968 after Zeke Zettner, Dave Alexander, Scott Asheton and James seeing The Doors perform the year before at the University Williamson). of Michigan.

Bowie played keyboards, synthesizer, guitar, piano, Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Iggy began his music career saxophone, xylophone while providing backing vocals. as a drummer playing behind The Four Tops, The Supremes, The polish was provided by overdubs from Bowie’s regular The Contours, The Crystals among other acts who came rhythm section of guitarist Carlos Alomar, drummer Dennis through town.

Davis and bass guitarist George Murray with lead guitar At age 18 he moved to Chicago to play with some of the from Phil Palmer.

Windy City’s most prominent blues performers that included The Lust for Life sessions took place soon after the J.B.Hutto, Big Walter Horton, Johnny Young and Little Walter. His driving ambition was to create his own music CREDITS completion of those for The Idiot. The album was 8. MISS YOU - Simon Bailey (5.36) written, recorded and mixed in eight days, Iggy prepared based on blues chords played differently.

Simon Bailey - vocals, guitars / Sean Albers - drums, Recorded & only mixed at Yikesville

by Shane fragments of lyrics beforeO’Mara singing and essentially percussion, backing vocals /Chris Wilson - harp / Shane Convinced he could emulate Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison’s Produced byimprovising Shane O’Mara with a nod & a wink from at the microphone.

O’Mara - mxr blue box, percussion / Grant Cummerford vocal style, he relocated to Detroit to put together a band all protagonists. Shane would like to sincerely thank bass. Originally on Some Girls Thesongs band consisted of Carlos Alomar and Ricky Gardner comprised of three school mates with him as the songwriter/ Brian Wise. All

by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards on guitars, Bowie on keyboards and backing vocals singer. The Stooges got a recording deal when legendary unless otherwise stated.

9.with SALT OF THE EARTH - Dan Lethbridge (6.07) Hunt and Tony Sales (future members of Bowie’s band Elektra Records talent scout Danny Fields, in town to1.check Dan Tin Lethbridge - vocals, acoustic guitar / Shane O’Mara UNDER MY THUMB - Tracy McNeil (3.53) drums and bass respectively. out the MC5, met Iggy backstage declaring him a starTracy and McNeilMachine) - guitars, bass, percussion backing vocals / Ash Davies - vocals / on Shane O’Mara - guitars, backing signing his band unheard. drums / Jethro Pickett b.v.’s. vocals / Nick Lust Barker bassis /generally Bree Hartley - drums,to be more of an for-Life considered Iggy Originally on Beggars Banquet percussion, backing vocals.

Originally on Aftermath Their first two albums The Stooges (1969) and Fun House Pop record that the Bowie dominated The Idiot. The riff on 10. SILVER (1970) now hailed as seminal punk sold only moderately. the title song was inspired by the Morse code opening to the TRAIN - Nick Barker (4.38) 2. SHAKE YOUR HIPS (Slim Harpo) Chris Wilson (4.46) Barker - vocal/ Justin Garner - guitar, backing vocals/ Dropped by Elektra the band broke up. Around this time, Forces Network News in Berlin, coming Chris Wilson American - vocal, harp / Shane O’Mara - guitar / Ash the titleNick Shane O’Mara - guitar / Chris Wilson - harp / Bruce Haymes Iggy ran into David Bowie who resolved to resurrect his from Irving Stone’s novel about Dutch painter Vincent van Davies – drums. Originally on Exile On Main Street - piano / Grant Cummerford - bass /Ash Davies - drums. new friend’s career by putting The Stooges back together Gogh that was later made into a Hollywood movie.

Its 3. HIDE YOUR LOVE - Nick Barker (3.52) Originally on Goats Head Soup and producing their new album Raw Power (1973) a critical distinctive riff inspired Australian band Jet in 2003 for their Nick Barker - vocal / Justin Garner - guitar, backing vocals success.

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LITTLE RED ROOSTER (W. Dixon) - Loretta Miller (4.03) song ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’. / Shane O’Mara - guitar, backing vocals / Bruce Haymes Loretta Miller - vocals / Shane O’Mara – guitars / Rick Plant After The Stooges’ second breakup Iggy relocated to - piano / Grant Cummerford bass / Ash Davies drums / ‘The Passenger’ with its singalong chorus was inspired by a bass / Ash Davies - drums / Darcy McNulty - baritone sax.

West Berlin, where fortuitously, Bowie was also residing.

Rebecca Barnard - backingpoem vocals.

Jim Morrison that described ‘modern life as a journey Originally on The Rolling Stones Now! Continuing to support his friend, Bowie used his influence Originally onby Goat’s Head Soup car’. The song has been performed by Nick Cave, R.E.M. to secure Iggy a recording deal with his label RCA. Sharing 12. STAR STAR - Justin Garner (4.17) Bauhaus,- Lisa Siouxsie & The Banshees and Michael Hutchence.

4. GIMME SHELTER Miller (5.15) a Berlin apartment, the two began collaborating on songs Justin Garner - vocal, guitar / Nick Barker - backing vocals / Lisa Miller - vocal, guitar / Tim Rogers vocal / Justin Garner Two songs deal with heroin addiction. ‘Turn Blue’ isShane a spoken that would come to life on The Idiot and Lust for Life, Iggy’s O’Mara - guitar, backing vocals / Grant Cummerford guitar / Shane O’Mara - guitar, percussion / Chris Wilson word composition but Iggy’s lyrics that include thebass line “I’m two most acclaimed albums as a solo artist. Released- five / Ash Davies - drums.

- harp / Bruce Haymes - organ / Grant Cummerford - bass / so far away from her, Jesus, this is Iggy” were not printed on on Goat’s Head Soup months apart in 1977, the albums benefitted from Bowie’s Originally Ash Davie - drums. Originally on Let It Bleed the album sleeve. professionalism as a producer.

13. MIDNIGHT RAMBLER (LIVE) - Nick Barker & The 5. YOU GOT THE SILVER - Raised By Eagles (4.31) The clash of guitars that prevailed on The Stooges’ albums ‘Tonight’ (minus the opening Luke Sinclair Bowie - vocal,covered guitar / Nick O’Mara - dobro, mandolin,lines Monkey Men (7.32) was replaced on The Idiot by synthesisers and electronic Nick Barker - vocal / Justin Garner - guitar / Shane O’Mara referencing drugs) withbass Tina/Turner along lap steel / Luke Richardson - double Johny Gibson beats, sounds that Bowie incorporated into his Berlin Trilogy, slide guitar / Grant Cummerford - bass / Ash Davies - drums / - drums, percussion harmony vocal / RBE oooohs. with ‘Neighbourhood Threat’ on his 1984 release Tonight.

Low, Heroes and Lodger.

Recorded live at the Caravan Music Club, Originally on Let It Bleed Most of the songs on The Idiot and Lust for LIfe were December 18, 2016. Originally on Let It Bleed All tracks on The Idiot were written by Iggy and Bowie.

6. I GOT THEperformed BLUES - Linda duringBull the(4.06) 2016 tour by Iggy and his new band ‘Nightclubbing’ described by Iggy who wrote the lyrics in ten THANKS Linda Bull - vocals / Shane O’Mara - guitars, organ, bass featuring Joshua Homme, Dean Fertita and/ Troy Van minutes about what it was like hanging out with Wise would like to thank Shane O’Mara, all the Cat Leahy - drums, percussion.

Leeuwen from Queens of the Stone Age and Matt Brian Helders Bowie every night, was successfully covered in 1981 by musicians involved in this album, Mick, Keith, Brian, Originally on Sticky Fingers from Arctic Monkeys.

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IGGY POP

Featuring unique interpretations of Stones classics by some of Melbourne’s greatest musicians.

Under My Thumb - Tracy McNeil, Hip Shake - Chris Wilson, Hide Your Love Nick Barker, Gimme Shelter - Lisa Miller, You Got The Silver - Raised By Eagles, I Got The Blues - Linda Bull, Factory Girl - Sal Kimber, Miss You - Simon Bailey, Salt Of The Earth - Dan Lethbridge, Silver Train - Nick Barker, Little Red Rooster Loretta Miller, Star Star - Justin Garner. Bonus Track: Midnight Rambler by Nick Barker, recorded live at the Caravan Music Club.

Available now at rhythms.com.au

MUSICIAN: AARON SEARLE

By Nick Charles I met Aaron at the recent Thredbo Blues Festival and was knocked out by his very fine sax and clarinet work with Hey Gringo. He’s a highly skilled and flexible musician and in great demand in a variety of genres.

It’s excellent to hear a player in the blues scene who’s also informed by great jazz.

Do you approach the genres with different philosophies?

Jazz and blues are two sides of the same coin. The harmonic component of blues is often simpler but they share a melodic and rhythmic language. My favourite jazz musicians have a bluesy perspective (Cannonball Adderley, Lou Donaldson) and many of my favourite blues musicians have a jazz player’s harmonic conception (Robben Ford, Derek Trucks). The two styles aren’t as far removed as people think.

Most brass and woodwind players are sight readers I suspect. How do you find communication with blues players who are generally “feel” only players?

Many of the gigs I do require strong reading, but I’m also an improviser, and many gigs are totally by ear. I never look down on people who can’t read because some of the greatest musicians of all time didn’t read.

But if you don’t read it means that there are certain gigs you can’t do. I’m fortunate that I can do both.

How about your top five all time sax heroes?

Some of the players who’ve had the biggest impact on me have been Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Michael Brecker, Hank Mobley, and Ronnie Cuber. I could go on and on.

How would you describe what you bring to Hey Gringo?

We play songs that are accessible and tell a story, but there’s still room for improvisation and stretching out. Sax players often find themselves playing pop where the saxophone’s role is limited, or else playing jazz where there’s plenty of opportunity to stretch out, but the audience is limited because the general population find the music inaccessible. Hey Gringo’s music is fun because it covers both bases.

So what first drew you in to music?

I started piano at age 9 and guitar at 10. I had a great guitar teacher who gave me tapes of fusion guitarists like John Scofield, Pat Metheny and Mike Stern, which got me interested in jazz. I started exploring 98

the history of the music, especially bebop from the ‘40s and ‘50s. There weren’t a lot of guitarists back then, but there were a lot of saxophonists. That sparked my interest in the saxophone, which I started playing at 14.

The music scene is such these days that a band player needs to have as many irons in the fire as possible. What are some of your other gigs and outlets?

The diversity keeps things interesting. I play blues with Hey Gringo, afrobeat with Alariiya, big band swing with the Northside Jazz Orchestra, and regularly play corporate events with the Baker Boys Band. I’ve an original jazz project called Aaron Searle’s Swing Set and an RnB band called Soul Station.

What do you have ahead as the year unfolds?

In December I put together a project with a

couple of vocalists, a string section, horns and rhythm to pay tribute to the great lyricist Ira Gershwin and we’ll be doing that again soon. I’m also planning a concert of Dave Brubeck compositions to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Time Out. I celebrated its 50th anniversary, so I figured it was time to revisit those tunes. Over the next few months I’ll be doing an album with Swing Set to showcase my original compositions and arrangements.

Tell me about your instruments.

My alto, tenor and baritone saxes are all Selmer Mark 6 models from the late 50s and 60s. My soprano is a Super Action 80 Series II from the early 90s. I also play clarinet and the flutes and a Hungarian instrument called a Tarogato. I’ve recently started playing an instrument called a EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument). It’s basically a synthesizer for sax players, and it’s a lot of fun.

CD: Feature JEFF JENKINS rally. “We have been subject to the most self-serving generation of politicians in our nation’s history. Discuss,” he says. You can’t argue with that. The song’s gentler, insistent rhythm belies its message.

‘Just So You Know,’ another Wilson song also gets what he calls a ‘Curly Harmonica Mix’ in its instrumental version. Sleepy John Estes’ ‘Floating Bridge,’ a song inspired by a near drowning, completes the album as Wilson sings, ‘memories come back to haunt me.’ His memory will live on forever in the Australian music scene.

TANYA LEE DAVIES THE DUETTING DAMSEL INDEPENDENT

BRIAN WISE FORGE

W

e lost a giant of Australian blues in January when we lost Chris Wilson at much too young an age. Not only was Wilson a fabulous harmonica player with an incredibly powerful voice, he was also a student of the blues and a great person. Many are those who have benefitted from his advice. It was always great to catch up with Wilson at music festivals and share his enthusiasm for and knowledge of music.

When I first heard Chris Wilson’s latest album I was reminded of another Chris, Louisiana musician Chris Thomas King, son of blues legend Tabby Thomas, who appeared as a blues musician in the hit film O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soon after that film came out Thomas King appeared in a jam-packed Blues Tent at New Orleans Jazz Fest playing songs from his albums such as 21st Century Blues…

From Da Hood which stretched the blues. A few of the traditionalists in the audience actually booed because they wanted him to play the acoustic blues as they had seen in the film, but he refused. Wilson loved this story when I told him. “Good on him,” he said.

Recently, Bernard Fowler of the Rolling Stones band was talking about how his friend Skip McDonald and his outfit Little Axe were taking the blues in a new direction and bringing it to a new audience and how important this is. So, throw away all your preconceptions of what the blues should sound like and even what you think a Chris Wilson album should be: this is different. This new album is totally unlike his famed and magnificent Live at The Continental album with Shane O’Mara or Short Cool Ones with Diesel (still one of the nation’s biggest-selling blues albums ever). This is Wilson in a studio by himself, singing and playing harmonica, acoustic guitar, drums and percussion (and the key to the music is the percussive rhythms that pervade every selection).

There are three original songs and four interpretations with instrumental versions of six of the songs. The album opens with Bo Diddley’s ‘Who Do You Love’ sounding as if it could have walked straight out of the desert somewhere near Uluru. ‘Worker’s Song (Handful of Earth’) is a song by County Durham songwriter Ed Pickford and recorded in the early 80s by Dick Gaughan. Here it becomes a hymn. On the other hand, Wilson’s ‘Wage Justice for The Working Poor’ is a chant that would be right at home in a workers’ protest march. Woody Guthrie’s ‘Vigilante Man,’ another song for the times (then and now) features Wilson’s powerful singing over the acoustic guitar. Woody would approve.

‘Discuss’ is another Wilson polemic that has him talking through the harmonica microphone that sounds like a megaphone at a

100

Melbourne-based singer Tanya Lee Davies has released three albums of self-penned songs but on The Duetting Damsel turns her attention to what she says is ‘a long-time love affair with the boy/ girl duet.’ (Possibly, also the Everly Brothers). So, she enlists fourteen blokes, one girl (Monique DiMattina) and some of Melbourne’s best musos to interpret songs from some of her favourite writers.

There are some real quality composer’s names here: Hank Williams, Lennon & McCartney, Lucinda Williams, Hal David & Burt Bacharach, Freddy Fender, JD Loudermilk, Jack Clement, Arthur Alexander, Boudleaux & Bryant and more.

The quality of the writing is matched by the core band – guitarist Sam Lemann, bassist Rick Plant, drummer Ash Davies and Monique Di Mattina on keyboards. This is some of the best playing you are likely to hear in Australia. It is also one of the best sounding local albums I have heard in the past year.

While some of the songs here might be obscure, they are well worth discovering along with the rediscovery of other songs that are classics from past eras. Andy Baylor, sings and plays fiddle on a marvellously melancholy ‘My Sweet Love Ain’t Around.’ Benny Peters sounds like you have never heard him before on Freddy Fender’s ‘Going Out with The Tide.’ Matt Walker guests on Lucinda Williams ‘This Old Heartache’, one of the undoubted highlights.

Rob Snarski lends his wonderfully mellow voice to David and Bacharach’s beautiful ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart.’ The reworking of The Beatles’ ‘I’ve Just Seen A Face’ performs CPR on the song, reminding you of that band’s diverse influences too. Stephen Cummings also helps reinvent Jack Clement’s ‘Just Someone I Used to Know’.

On the strength of this album, one feels that a second volume should not be far away.

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13.4.ROSS WILSON 4.5.ROB SNARSKI

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10.5.LACHY DOLEY GROUP 25.5.GEOFF ACHISON & THE SOUL DIGGERS

(25TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT)

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CD: General AT ADAU

OBA Independent

Less than a decade ago, the sapé - a wooden boat-shaped lute - was played only by a diminishing number of elders from Borneo’s ancient tribes.

The Sarawakian version has made a spectacular comeback. The six young members of At Adau studied under the remaining masters to carve an expanded palette of sounds from the sapé and other traditional instruments.

Following recording debut Journey, new album Oba (meaning ‘Love’) creates an eclectic panorama of sound.

The headhunter ways now left behind, the musicians from a range of tribal backgrounds work and play together joyously. ‘Menjong’ is inspired by a Dayak Kayan Kenyah chant, honouring the spirit of a warrior who never gives up.

It makes for a grand, resonant opening - evoking a local ‘Miring’ call of welcome. Sung in ‘language’, it provides a rare inclusion of vocals. In contrast, ‘Storm’ launches with electric guitar and rock-style rhythms.

The trickling strings of the sapé re-enter the rainforest on ‘Leto E’; As evocative of a landscape as anything I’ve heard. Based on traditional dance songlines, it’s an ode to Mother Earth and motherhood. Touches of AfroLatin and flamenco fit nicely among the tracks with conga, hulusi (gourd flute), cajon, Serutong (bamboo zither) and Hang drum incorporated. Old and new stories told in old and new ways. Respectful, exciting and full of promise.

CHRIS LAMBIE 102

RYAN BINGHAM

AMERICAN LOVE SONG Thirty Tigers/Cooking Vinyl Australia

Ryan Bingham cut his teeth as a rodeo rider, he’s an actor, but most importantly he’s an accomplished singersongwriter. On his sixth album he’s corralled his most wide reaching and rewarding collection of songs to date.

Across 15 songs, Bingham paints portraits of the American dream, its heartache and its nightmares. He does it all with that parched and raw rasp of a voice that gives his songs grit and grain, the perfect accompaniment to the stories on American Love Song.

Bingham’s approach to the longer form album succeeds so well because he doesn’t stick to one stylistic template.

The songs shift gears and musical landscapes based on the required mood and subject matter. ‘Situation Station’ is a wonderful sway and swing of a song with an effortless and bittersweet alt-country shimmer, opener ‘Jingle And Go’ stomps and struts like a celebratory night out, ‘Time For Mind’ has a New Mexico folk vibe, ‘Pontiac’ could be ZZ Top jamming with T-Rex and ‘Lover Girl’ wouldn’t sound out of place on a mid-period Wilco record.

Country music is at the root of all that Bingham does but he stretches into blues and gospel with ‘Blue,’ ‘Got Damn Blues’

CD: General and ‘Hot House’. They verge on pastiche but with the voice he possesses he can pull off songs like that, investing just the right amount of grease and sweat into their sound.

These aren’t all songs of heartache and societal struggle, Bingham doesn’t shy from taking a pointed swing at the current political climate, singing “America, unload that gun, save a daughter, save a son, our bullets dress them up in blood” and “This world is causing trouble, people judging colours of skin, people taking children from their kin”.

This album is as the title says, an American love song, but when you love someone you have to deal with both their beauty and their failings.

Bingham does just that, with a poetic grace, freewheeling musicality and that magnificent voice.

CHRIS FAMILTON

TERRY CALLIER

THE NEW FOLK SOUND OF Craft Recordings

direction he would later take.

Consisting of predominantly traditional folk tunes, many of which would generally be considered moribund, his performance showcases a fully developed musician replete with breathtaking original arrangements. Drawing inspiration from John Coltrane, bassists Terbour Attenborough and John Tweedle are his only accompanists, harmonically taking dogeared songs such as ‘Cotton Eyed Joe’ and ‘Oh Dear, What Can The Matter Be’ into hitherto uncharted waters.

‘Spin, Spin, Spin’, in particular, provides a spectacular highwater mark, with all three instruments in different time signatures (basses in 4/4 and 2/4, guitar in 6/8) and yet in complete simpatico with one another; it is sublime.

Throughout, Callier’s lilting voice is imbued with warmth and yet oddly melancholic, it is a wonderful instrument. From boyhood doo-wop with friends Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler to jazz-folk icon, Terry Callier’s musical journey often travelled under the radar, even to the point of his University Of Chicago colleagues being unaware of his ‘alternate vocation’ until his UN award.

Now is the time to revisit one of the truly great folk albums, debut or otherwise.

TREVOR J. LEEDEN

THE DELINES

This superb reissue of the late singer-songwriter and guitarist’s stunning 1968 debut serves as a timely reminder of his prodigious talents. Callier forged a formidable reputation as jazz-soul-folk fusion singer, garnering a United Nations ‘Time For Peace’ award for his 1998 album Timepeace, however his initial recording merely hinted at the

THE IMPERIAL El Cortez Records

Willy Vlautin has proven to be quite the Americana renaissance man with his time in the highly respected alt-country group Richmond Fontaine, a second career as an acclaimed novelist (Lean On Pete, Don’t Skip Out On Me) and most recently as main songwriter for The Delines.

This, their second album, would have come out a year or two ago if it hadn’t been for the terrible accident that saw singer Amy Boone hit by a car and her subsequent slow recovery from serious multiple injuries.

Thankfully they were able to complete The Imperial and the results are quite stunning, an early contender for album of the year.

The template is the same as their debut Colfax but in all areas they’ve added further depth, richness and detail to the songs. The tender heartache that permeates the album is one of tragedy, remorse, lost opportunities and a scattered trail of broken hearts in small-town America.

The band do their job perfectly, solid and soulful, effusive in their restraint. Out front, Boone is the crowning glory with her voice that is pure country soul, the soundtrack to dimly lit bars, empty streets and lonely apartments. She has an innate ability to convey the pain and optimism of The Imperial’s characters in such a way that you feel both comforted and emotionally worn by the heavyhearted impact of the album, from start to finish.

Charley, Sonny, Holly, Eddie & Polly – they’re all damaged people looking to catch a break, discouraged by their circumstances. The Delines bring them to life with vivid detail across musical vignettes soaked in country, jazz-tinged soul – a smoky, bruised beauty aesthetic that will melt even the hardened of hearts.

CHRIS FAMILTON

MIKE FARRIS

SILVER & STONE Compass Records/Planet

delivered with the conviction of a man who has found salvation.

Farris has stepped back from his gospel leanings and taken a more secular path, but his message is still vivid.

TREVOR J. LEEDEN

THE FLESH EATERS

I USED TO BE PRETTY Yep Roc/Planet Mike Farris could so easily have been just another addiction casualty, thankfully he took the harder route. Following on from his 2015 Grammy winning Shine For All The People, Silver & Stone is the third vibrant solo release from the veteran Tennessee singer on his road to redemption. Farris has the blood of a soul man and the spirit of Al Green coursing through him, exemplified by the opening track ‘Tennessee Girl’, a love letter to his wife that rides on a slinky Memphis r&b groove. ‘When Mavis Sings’, another fine original, is a paean to his confidante, Gospel great Mavis Staples. There are other originals that stand out, the doo-wop infused testifier ‘Can I Get A Witness?’ (nope, not the Marvin Gaye epic!) is sublime and ‘Movin’ Me’ features a scorching solo from Joe Bonamassa.

Some of Nashville’s finest studio musicians help maintain the vibe, notably guitar icons Doug Lancio, George Marinelli and Rob McNelly, B3 maestro Paul Brown, keyboard whiz Reese Wynans, with drum duties shared between Derrek Phillips and the legendary Gene “Memphis Boy” Chrisman; highly credentialed is an understatement. There’s a tasty cover of Bill Withers’ ‘Hope She’ll Be Happier’, and Sam Cooke’s ‘I’ll Come Running Back To You’ closes out the set,

an explosive rendition of Peter Green’s ‘The Green Manalishi’, as well as several reworkings from D’s back catalogue suggesting the project may have been hastily cobbled together. However, the album is bookended by a pair of Alvin cowrites that ignite with inventive intensity; ‘Black Temptation’ draws on the touchstones of UK punk (and a mighty Berlin sax solo) whilst ‘Ghost Cave Lament’ is a13-minute brooding epic that sounds like the Doors on steroids. Would a follow-up be too much to hope for?

TREVOR J. LEEDEN

MARTIN FRAWLEY

UNDONE AT 31 Merge Records You can be excused for not being overly familiar with the Flesh Eaters, however with the constant presence of singer Chris D they have forged a formidable reputation in L.A. punk-roots circles. By 1981 Desjardins had enlisted three members of the Blasters and two from X, and it is this celebrated line-up that takes centre stage on this blistering roots-rock album. Granted, Desjardins’ harsh vocal style may be an acquired taste, but what is beyond question is the menacing dynamics of the supporting cast. John Doe (bass), Bill Bateman (drums), and DJ Bonebreak’s insidious percussion interludes provide a thunderously incessant rhythmic base, and room for the star attractions to strut their stuff. Steve Berlin (these days of Los Lobos fame) holds nothing back, his saxophone riffs excoriating anything in his path, and with his Stratocaster set to overdrive Dave Alvin puts in a slashing shift. There are three covers amongst the 11 songs, including

Former co-leader of Melbourne’s Twerps, championed by the UK’s Uncut magazine, Martin Frawley is a master of the “spoken” vocal drawl, a little in the vein of Steve Harley if you will, and that’s very much what you get on this debut solo album, the result, inevitably, of the end of a longstanding relationship.

Where Twerps were unabashed jangly post-power pop, Undone at 31 presents a far broader musical – if not vocal – palette, with American multi-instrumentalist Stewart Bronaugh fleshing things out as well as producing the album.

Bronaugh even shot the video for the opening track and the first single, ‘You Want Me’. >> 103

CD: General >> In fact Frawley admits Undone at 31 was as much of a train wreck as he was before Bronaugh was brought on board, the non-drinking producer convincing him to put down the bottle and concentrate on what he wanted the record to say. In the event, Frawley left the instrumentation to Bronaugh and local rhythm section, bass player Gus Lord and drummer Matt Harkins, and the result is a far deeper and more intriguing record than perhaps even Frawley imagined he was making as these songs, essentially a series of diary entries documenting not merely the breakup but his own shortcomings and his coming to terms with what happened and moving on. So there’s anger and longing, pessimism and optimism, jaunty, sad, determined and questioning by turns, the full panoply of emotions we all experience as we struggle to resolve within ourselves just why stuff happens and how to get out the other end in one piece, underpinned by swirls of notes, silences, jarring chords and even the occasional slide guitar.

MICHAEL SMITH

JOHN GARCIA & THE BAND OF GOLD

Desert/stoner rock legend John Garcia (Kyuss, Unida, SloBurn, Vista Chino, etc) returns in his latest incarnation with The Band of Gold. Featuring Ehren Grober (Waxy) on guitar, Mike Pygmie (Waxy, Mondo Generator, Brant Bjork) on bass, and Greg Saenz (Excel, The Dwarves) on drums, the band sticks firmly in the heavy desert rock genre and vintage metal lovers will find plenty to enjoy in some of the Sabbath, Hendrix and Zeppelin inspired grooves.

The opening instrumental ‘Space Vato’ lures the listener into a panoramic, slo mo soundscape before erupting like a thunderstorm, and you quickly appreciate the expertise that producer Chris Goss (Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age) brings to the table. The extreme panning, the density of the overdriven guitars, the weight of the bass and drums… it’s literally awesome.

While hard and heavy dominates, there are some great variations, as in the noticeably QOTSA-like ‘Apache Junction’, and the tripped-out, floating ‘Softer Side’.

MARTIN JONES

STEVE GUNN

THE UNSEEN IN BETWEEN Matador

JOHN GARCIA & THE BAND OF GOLD Napalm Records

Steadily, across a career now spanning a dozen years, Steve Gunn has progressively moved from the abstract, experimental and collaborative to a singular 104

CD: General artistic with his own distinct sound. From American Primitive guitar beginnings where he was enthralled by the likes of John Fahey and Sandy Bull to full band workouts and a brief stint with Kurt Vile, Gunn has constantly sought to refine his playing and songwriting.

It’s the latter that most prominently comes to the fore on this excellent new album.

The Unseen In Between is the most personal of Gunn’s albums. He sounds more reflective, restrained and unburdened than he ever has, singing tributes to his recently departed father (‘Stonehurst Cowboy’), painting stories of a cat and his owner (‘Luciano’) and character portraits of society’s outsiders.

Gunn draws on the wonderful harmonies of Meg Baird and the bass playing and experience of Dylan’s musical director Tony Garnier across the album. The exquisite and light-handed production (James Elkington) and Gunn & Co’s sympathetic playing and arrangements make for an album that floats along with an ethereal, pastoral quality yet below the surface all kinds of fascinating sonic layers and details make it ripe for ongoing discovery.

Folk music of this kind has of course been explored by plenty of the genre’s past auteurs – Bert Jansch, Van Morrison, Nick Drake, Fed Neil, Tim Buckley to name a few, but Gunn’s ability lies in the way he blends different strands and bends the form. ‘New Familiar’ is an indie rock song brushed with light psychedelia, ‘Lightning Fields’ takes off into into space rock territory, while ‘Paranoid’ dissolves into fractal effects before resurrecting itself as a soulful and thoughtful look at affairs of the mind.

CHRIS FAMILTON

ANDREA KELLER & MIROSLAV BUKOVSKY THE KOMEDA PROJECT Andrea Keller Music AK004

The accidental death of Polish composer and pianist Krzysztof Komeda in 1969, at age 37, robbed the European jazz scene of one of its major figures. His music, since then, has been kept alive by his disciples, most notably the late trumpeter Tomasz Stanko, whose 1997 classic album Litania: Music of Krzysztof Komeda (ECM) re-introduced Komeda’s music to a new generation. This new Australian recording of Komeda’s music by pianist Andrea Keller and trumpeter Miroslav Bukovsky has been a long time coming. Originally commissioned for the 2014 Sydney Women’s Jazz Festival, we can thank former ABC stalwart Gerry Koster for its existence. Recognizing the significance of this music, he booked a studio and recorded the album just hours before the ensemble’s reprise performance of The Komeda Project at Bennett’s Lane. The fact that it has taken some four years to see the light of day – due to lack of funding – seems a travesty, particularly when considering how good the music is. Aside from Keller and Bukovsky,

the eight-piece ensemble includes some of Australia’s finest jazz improvisers: James Greening, Andrew Robson, Ben Hauptmann, Jonathan Zwartz, Erkki Veltheim, and Evan Mannell. Rather than playing a series of standalone Komeda compositions, The Komeda Project has been conceived as an hourlong suite of music, drawn predominantly from Komeda’s jazzy scores composed for film directors Roman Polanski and Jerzy Skolimowski.

Emphasizing composition over improvisation, the album presents a series of memorable themes from films such as Rosemary’s Baby, Knife in the Water, Le Départ and The Fearless Vampire Killers.

The sole exception is the track ‘Svantetic’, lifted from Komeda’s 1966 masterpiece Astigmatic. Unlike John Zorn’s radical deconstructions of Enio Morricone’s soundtracks (The Big Gundown, 1985), the arrangements by Keller and Bukovsky appear intent on getting inside Komeda’s music, heightening its lush beauty and starkness. As could be expected, there is a cinematic quality to this music, one that draws upon and emphasizes the rich colour palette of the musicians involved, particularly James Greening’s trombone, Erkki Veltheim’s violin and Ben Hauptmann’s guitar. It may have taken four years to reach us, but we can be thankful. The Komeda Project is an exceptional album, a testament to the ambition and international reach of contemporary Australian jazz.

DES COWLEY

MANDOLIN ORANGE

TIDES OF A TEARDROP Yep Roc/Planet

I’ve mourned long enough.

I’m ready to bring forth some happier memories now”.

Mission accomplished, it will be fascinating to see where Marlin’s song writing goes from here.

TREVOR J. LEEDEN

THE SUNSET STRIP

CRYSTAL SHIPS INFINITE ARRIVALS Greville The sixth album for the North Carolina duo is a suitably lowkey set, dripping with pathos and the sense of sadness that comes with the loss of someone close. In this instance, Andrew Marlin’s song writing draws upon the passing of his mother when he was a teenager. Far from being bogged down in self-pity and sadness, Tides Of A Teardrop exudes a spirit of letting go, of a man finally finding peace with his loss. This is an intimate listen, Marlin and Emily Frantz’s voices are coated in poignancy, and their regular touring band provide an empathetic backdrop. Like previous outings, the ten songs effortlessly span bluegrass, country and folk and whilst there is an omnipresent sense of the bittersweet, it is never cloyed nor maudlin. Cosseted in a lightly strummed guitar and mournful fiddle, ‘Golden Embers’ is the key that thematically unlocks Marlin’s shackles from his sense of entrapment. Yet ironically, it is when Frantz takes the lead on ‘Into The Sun’ that rays of hope begin to shine through; her voice is a wonderfully melancholy instrument set against intertwining mandolin and electric guitar. Says Marlin: “I’ve been holding onto the grief for a long time. I feel like

identity. Put your headphones on, turn out the lights, close your eyes and marvel at the imagery that might emerge: maybe remote desert shores, gentle ocean swells, a lonely country lane at sunset, the Crab Nebula pulsing across the light years. If you’re willing to go with it all, it sets up a spiritual connection with the listener, like music as a healing source.

It’s meditative, relaxing, a cosmic ambient odyssey of beguiling beauty.

IAN MCFARLANE

CLAIRE ANNE TAYLOR

ALL THE WORDS INDEPENDENT

Since the early country grunge / alternative rock days on the Melbourne inner-city circuit to the later acid sludge blues sound, The Sunset Strip has been my go-to local underground band. As with last year’s The Endless Sea, latest album Crystal Ships Infinite Arrivals is where guitar mainstays Warwick Brown and Andy Turner shift down a few gears and take a left turn into a mesmerising world of cosmic glide and ambient textures.

There are two 21 minute tracks, ‘Cotters Beach’ and ‘Crystal Ships’, that mix washes of rippling Moog and drifting guitar effects with percussive pulses, repetitive melodies, found sounds and tribal voices.

Obvious reference points emerge, from the German cosmic electronic tradition (think Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Popul Vuh etc) to Fripp and Eno’s explorations on Evening Star. All the same, The Sunset Strip retain their own

The first thing you notice as Claire Anne Taylor’s second album wends its way into your heart, is how understated everything is. Taylor, the possessor of a huge, powerful voice, deliberately gives a nod to the classic soul singers she grew up listening to, by singing with restraint, by focusing on the sentiment of the song.

As a listener then, you find yourself also focused totally on the song – on absorbing the lyrics and the emotion, rather than being distracted by flashy performances.

Taylor credits that approach to returning home to Tasmania, where she feels most comfortable, and being >> 105

CD: General

CD: Blues AL HENSLEY

>> able to record at home with local musicians and a local engineer, Chris Townend.

At its most upbeat – ‘Drunken Choir’ and ‘Boogie River’ – this results in some seriously striking soul that is neither ostensibly vintage nor modern – think Frazey Ford at her grooviest. The more intimate moments – ‘Hold Me, Darling’, ‘Nothing On You’ – are rendered with subtle focus and are all the more powerful for it. The most striking thing is the genuine contentment that Taylor conveys in both sentiment and performance. Any singer will tell you it’s so much more difficult to make happiness affecting than sadness.

It’s all there in penultimate track, ‘I’m Going Home’ where Taylor sings of the need to return to her family and community to warm her soul.

Rarely has such a warm soul been captured on record.

MARTIN JONES

TINY RUINS

OLYMPIC GIRLS Milk! Records

“We were only inches away but still I had a long way to go” sings New Zealander Hollie Fullbrook on the opening title track of her new album. It’s a hallmark of Tiny Ruins songs, those lines that hang in the air with poetry and grace, cutting 106

to the heart of her emotional vignettes. Fullbrook is Tiny Ruins in the same way that Sam Beam is Iron & Wine. She writes the music and lyrics and a live show can be either her or with the full band.

Pulling primarily from English folk music, Fullbrook has a wonderful sense of timing and space in her music. It never feels hurried or overcrowded and yet, on close listening, there’s a plethora of detail to get lost in – the bass and glockenspiel on ‘School Of Design’, the light flurries of percussion on ‘Sparklers’ or the dancing violin on ‘One Million Flowers’. It’s a tapestry of sound in a sense, one built with great sensitivity and tasteful arrangements.

Affairs of the heart populate Fullbrook’s songs. “How much would you be willing to give, how much do you take from all of this, how much before you’re stranded” she sings on ‘How Much’. She conducts a forensic study of how people, places and experiences impact and shape one’s heart and mind, often with a sense of her being a silent observer.

This might all sound a tad heavy going but Fullbrook’s way with melody provides a mellifluous, dreamy tone across the album. It’s wistful and melancholic without ever becoming morose. On a song such as ‘Hologram’ she takes the chorus to a gorgeous high and weightless note before returning to the ground for the verses. It’s a simple yet highly effective example of her ability to shape the mood of her songs via her magical voice.

All of Tiny Ruins’ albums have been splendid affairs but Olympic Girls is the strongest manifestation of Fullbrook’s artistic vision to date.

CHRIS FAMILTON

DALE WATSON CALL ME LUCKY Red House/Ameripolitan Records\

Fairline’ with Sun Records connotations, the former featuring a duet with Celine Lee. And Carl Perkins’ (and Johnny Cash’s) drummer WS Holland makes an appearance on the same track.

Don’t make the mistake of dismissing Watson’s current prolificacy as quantity over quality – this another great album.

MARTIN JONES

“One on the right, one on the left, one is a blonde, one’s a brunette. If you don’t know my name, I bet that you can guess they call me lucky.”

So opens the latest album from bad boy Dale Watson (who has recently left his much championed home in Texas to take up residence in Memphis).

And the quips, licks and shuffles just keep coming over 12 new songs, the playing always immaculate and Watson with a perpetual glint in his eye: “I know I ain’t smarter than nearly anyone, I’m just lucky.”

Second song in, Watson goes from lucky to dumb in ‘The Dumb Song’, bemoaning all the things he shouldn’t do but does anyway, with a chorus of “Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.”

Elsewhere Watson pays tribute to a real life fan who wrote to him to tell him about his farming and truck driving in ‘David Buxhemper’, a swampy Cash-like stomp with the catchline, “He’s a farming trucker, or maybe he’s truckin’ farmer.”

And ‘Haul Off and Do It’ relives the first generation country kiss off with wit and some killer steel guitar courtesy of Don Pawlak.

Memphis permeates the album in many ways… there’s a pair of songs, ‘Johnny & June’ and ‘Tupelo Mississippi & a ’57

ROCKWIZ ANSWERS (FROM PAGE 45) 1. Grafton (hint … starts with a G and rhymes with Prafton) 2. The Buttery 3. … to the highway … but Tuesday’s just as bad … she gave me gasoline 4. True - Harry wrote ‘Sun Arise’ with Rolf Harris, who recorded it in 1962.

It was later covered by Alice Coope 5. Cloudland Ballroom (Buddy Holly played there!)

6. Maria Muldaur 7. Van Morrison (‘Cleaning Windows’) 8. Steamy Windows 9. Cars 10. Bob Dylan (‘It Ain’t Me Babe’) 11. Human Nature 12. Bob Katter.

13. Jerry Harrison 14. Little Jamie Redfern 15. Air Supply 16. Little Richard 17. The Boogie Woogie Flu 18. Lul 19. Booker T and The MGs 20. The Staple Singers

KENNY ‘BLUES BOSS’ WAYNE

INSPIRED BY THE BLUES Stony Plain/Only Blues Music Boogie-woogie keyboard master Kenny ‘Blues Boss’ Wayne returns with his fourth CD for Stony Plain Records since 2011. Paying particular tribute to two of his recently departed primary influences Ray Charles and Fats Domino, Wayne delivers 11 new original songs that harken the golden era of rhythm & blues when Joe Liggins & The Honeydrippers, Amos Milburn and others exemplified the visceral beauty of blues music. Among the extraordinary talents supporting Wayne’s two-fisted piano and organ technique and warm tenor voice are Chicago harmonica great Billy Branch, Rhode Island-based guitar veteran Duke Robillard and Russell Jackson, a long-time bass player in B.B. King’s band. A swinging horn section kicks in right after the autobiographical opener ‘I Knew I’d be Playing The Blues’ and heats up a slew of jump blues, shuffles and the funky ‘How ‘Bout That’. Reminiscent of Domino’s ‘Blue Monday’, Wayne’s ‘Mr. Blueberry Hill’ is a heartfelt ode to the New Orleans R&B legend. In conclusion Wayne serves up an earnest rendition of Charles’ reading of Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘Georgia On My Mind’ recorded live in Mexico. There’s no overkill here, just a soulfulness that puts a fresh spin on a time-honoured tradition.

LINDSAY BEAVER

TOUGH AS LOVE Alligator/Only Blues Music Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, singer-songwriter/ stand-up drummer Lindsay Beaver’s earliest musical awakening was the soul music her parents listened to.

Her journey to where she is today musically came about through a series of disparate inspirations, from hip-hop and Hendrix to punk, pop and old school rock’n’roll. It was Billie Holiday’s music however, that led Beaver to jazz and eventually to the blues. Playing drums in local blues bands, Beaver honed her vocal chops singing in jazz groups, which is rather ironic, as her take-no-prisoners voice sounds more like she could be the love child of Little Richard and Wanda Jackson. Since moving to Austin, Texas, Beaver has established a reputation as a talent brimming with attitude and confidence. She has hooked up with guitarist Brad Stivers and bassist Josh Williams, currently among the city’s elite blues musicians who form her core band

on the CD. Evoking the spirit of ‘50s/’60s-era blues, R&B and rockabilly, Beaver’s well-crafted songs fit snugly alongside enduring selections from Little Willie John, Slim Harpo, Angela Strehli and Art Neville. Added input by pianist Marcia Ball, guitarist Laura Chavez, reeds player Sax Gordon and harmonica ace Dennis Gruenling supercharge Beaver’s raw, emotive vocals and Earl Palmer-influenced less-is-more drumming.

JOE LOUIS WALKER / BRUCE KATZ / GILES ROBSON

JOURNEYS TO THE HEART OF THE BLUES Alligator/Only Blues Music Having survived for well over a century, blues music still thrives at countless worldwide blues festivals. Today however, much of what is considered blues is quite remote from what it was in the beginning. Contemporary guitar heroes such as Walter Trout, Joe Bonamassa and others have carried the music forward forging an inspired rock-infused sound. This album heads in the opposite direction, its stripped-back performances accentuating the truth-telling lyrical power and emotional impact of blues when you take a rhythm section out of the equation. Jamming with US Grammy awardwinning Blues Hall Of Fame inductee Joe Louis Walker at a Netherlands blues festival, British blues harp virtuoso Giles Robson imagined getting together with the grainy-voiced singer/ guitarist in a collaborative acoustic project celebrating the roots of their music. Walker agreed, suggesting they include his friend Bruce Katz, a piano playing wizard renowned for his work with Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters, Big Mama Thornton and John Hammond. From the songbooks of Washboard Sam, guitarists Blind Willie McTell and Smiley Lewis, harmonica players Papa Lightfoot and Sonny Boy Williamson II and pianists Sunnyland Slim, Roosevelt Sykes and Big Maceo Merriweather, this Anglo-American trio rework 11 timeless blues chestnuts.

DEB RYDER

ENJOY THE RIDE VizzTone/Planet Co.

Deb Ryder’s fourth release since her 2013 debut CD, sees the powerhouse US blues singersongwriter coming out swinging backed by an all-star band

and an array of guest musicians regarded as some of the finest in the genre. Surrounded by first-call instrumentalists like guitarist/bassist Johnny Lee Schell, keyboardist Mike Finnegan, bass players Kenny Gradney, Bob Glaub and James Hutchinson, and drummer Tony Braunagel who produced the album, Ryder consistently delivers hard-hitting vocals in the mould of Etta James or Koko Taylor. This is the ideal setting for listeners to appreciate the high quality of her outstanding all-original material.

Ryder’s music embraces a wide range of blues and gospel styles from traditional to contemporary. The funky soul-blues of ‘A Storm’s Coming’ and horn-drenched ‘Bring The Walls Down’ gives way to the bouncing shuffles of ‘Temporary Insanity’ and ‘Got To Let It Go’, the harmonica/slide guitar-driven Delta howler ‘Nothin’ To Lose’, the laid-back soulful restraint of ‘For The Last Time’, and the New Orleans R&B vibe of ‘Sweet, Sweet Love’. The added talents of blues harpist Pieter (Big Pete) van der Pluijm and guitarists Coco Montoya, Chris Cain, Kirk Fletcher and Debbie Davies take songs such as these to a whole new level.

SOUTHERN AVENUE

SOUTHERN AVENUE Stax Records /Planet Co.

Less than a year after they were formed, young Memphis-based blues and soul band Southern Avenue were signed to their prestigious hometown record label Stax. It’s hard to dispute the quintet’s worthiness of attachment to such an iconic imprint on hearing their self-titled debut CD’s nine original songs and incandescent reading of the George Jackson-penned Ann Peebles Southern soul chart buster ‘Slipped, Tripped and Fell In Love’.

Coming together from diverse backgrounds, the band members create a potent musical chemistry with their unique modern blend of gospel-tinged R&B vocals, blues-soaked guitar and soul-inspired song-writing. The band’s arresting sound is shaped by the emotioncharged voice of Tierinii Jackson, her sister Tikyra on back-up vocals and drums, Israeliborn blues disciple Ori Naftaly on guitar, Jeremy Powell on organ, Rhodes and Wurlitzer pianos, and Daniel McKee on bass. Trumpeter Marc Franklin of the Bo-Keys is among the session’s horn players, their punchy charts re-imagining the classic Memphis Horns arrangements.

Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi All-Stars metes out fiery hill country slide guitar licks on ‘Don’t Give Up’ and ‘80 Miles From Memphis’, while a three-part Jackson family vocal chorus conveys a sanctified fervour on the epic closer ‘Peace Will Come’.

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CD: World Music & Folk

CD: World Music & Folk

TONY HILLIER

ANGÉLIQUE KIDJO

REMAIN IN LIGHT Kravenworks

Angélique Kidjo’s revisionist track-by-track rendition of Remain In Light skirts closer to the spirit of Fela Kuti’s late1960s/early-1970s’ Afrobeat than the original Talking Heads’ album of nearly 40 years ago.

At the same time, teaming up with 2015 Grammy producerof-the-year Jeff Bhasker and accommodating guest artists such as Questlove, Blood Orange and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig (as well as Alicia Keys) affords the album contemporary cred. It was equally astute of Kidjo to have also snared Afrobeat’s co-architect Tony Allen for a track and harnessed the talents of the Antibalas horns throughout. Allen’s drumming lends a consummate groove to the partly spoken ‘Houses in Motion’. Yet it’s in the more heavily accented starting track ‘Born Under Punches’ that mesmerising Nigerian/Yoruban polyrhythm and Kidjo’s soaring, ultra soulful vocals prove a truly irresistible combination.

The singer’s revamped take of ‘Crosseyed and Painless’ is reinforced by equally funky horn pushes, fills and breaks and back-up response vocals, while dancing electric guitars joust with talking drums. Equally muscular, ‘The Great Curve’ leans on relentless club-land repetition hitched to speeding Afrobeat architecture and the electric guitar wizardry of Beninese jazzman Lionel Loueke, while honouring Byrne’s original stream-ofconsciousness lyrics. ‘Once in a 108

Lifetime’ is a tad cluttered and Kidjo’s voice drowned in reverb, but the choral back-up in the part-spoken ‘Seen and Not Seen’ is impressive. Unaccompanied vocal intervals, in between grungy blasts of electric guitar and talking drum, work the oracle in ‘The Overload’. Kidjo’s singing, whether in English or her native Fon, is bold and uninhibited throughout. Her voice and personality and more Africanised arrangements cast Talking Heads’ album in a luminous new light.

FATOUMATA DIAWARA

FENFO Shanachie

On her visionary sophomore international album — recorded in Paris, Barcelona, Minneapolis and Bamako and mixed and mastered in London — Fatoumata Diawara covers a wider range of styles with a greater sense of purpose and confidence than on her promising eponymous debut release of seven years before.

The self-compositions are stronger and the arrangements more experimental. Her voice is more soulful and the backing tracks engineered by hip French producer Matthieu Chedid (aka -M-) and bolstered with keyboard and programming are spot on.

Fenfo comprises a diverse tracklist of Western-tinted, Afrorooted pop — from the kora and slide guitar combo of ‘Takamba’, the calabash punctuated ‘Nterini’ and the chilled-out guitar and cello ambience of ‘Don Do’ to the slow-burning blues of ‘Kokoro’, the fiery funk

of ‘Negue Negue’ and the rock strains of ‘Bonya’. Predominantly delivered in Fatoumata’s native Bambara, with the occasional burst of English, the songs tackle everything from African identity and social issues to migration.

‘Kanou Dan Yen’, which criticises the tradition that prohibits marriage between different ethnic groups, and the stripped back lullaby-like ‘Mama’ are closer to the Wassalou style of southwest Mali championed internationally by Oumou Sangaré, who is among Diawara’s mentors.

ALBA GRIOT ENSEMBLE

THE DARKNESS BETWEEN THE LEAVES Riverboat/Planet

Since being brought to the attention of world music lovers

by Toumani Diabaté back in the late-1980s, the versatile 21-string West African harp known as kora has been utilised in a variety of settings. But it’s a tad sad to find said Malian legend on such a nondescript pop-oriented album put together by two Scottish guitarists/singers and a Belgian double bassist. Equally, to discover master Nigerian drummer and innovator Tony Allen — the progenitor of afrobeat with Fela Kuti — also involved with a somewhat bland collective operating under what is a misleading moniker. The project’s ngoni (lute) player and percussionist, Yacouba Sissoko, plays a more significant role in the Alba Griot Ensemble’s debut release.

It’s not until past halfway when Allen’s funky drumming cuts in and the guitarists, Mark

TONY HILLIER Mulholland and Craig Ward, hit a bluesy groove — as on ‘Long Way Home’ and ‘North Wind’ — and Sissoko steps forward to sing (on ‘Horonia’) that The Darkness Between The Leaves becomes mildly interesting.

Elsewhere, the great Diabaté is sadly never out of first gear; the harmony singing of the Euros is anodyne, and the lyrics blander than a white-sliced loaf. The bass playing of Hannes d’Hoine, which is mildly reminiscent of Danny Thompson’s work, is a minor redeeming facet.

SHOOGLENIFTY & DHUN DHORA WRITTEN IN WATER Shooglenifty

SIMON THACKER’S SVARA-KANTI

TRIKALA Simon Thacker’s Svara-Kanti

DEBASHISH BHATTACHARYA +

HUBERT ZEMLER & WOJTEK TRACZYK JOY!Guru Unzipped Fly Records

ANANDI BHATTACHARYA

JOYS ABOUND Riverboat/Planet

SUBHASIS BHATTACHARYA

TABLANANDA Riverboat/Planet

Some eminent players and projects precede them, but that hasn’t stopped contemporary Scottish musicians seeking transcendence in BritishIndian cross-cultural synthesis.

Following a path taken most notably by the great English jazz guitarist John McLaughlin with his legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra and group Shakti, Edinburgh-based acoustic collectives Shooglenifty and Simon Thacker’s Svara-Kanti have ventured eastwards in search of enlightenment.

Heading in the reverse direction and edging ever westwards in their lust for collaboration is the Indian family Bhattacharya.

No fewer than three members of the Kolkata clan have new fusion albums out concurrently, including slide guitar supremo (and McLaughlin associate) Debashish Bhattacharya.

First up, though, the IndoCaledonian connection. It’s no real surprise to see those self-tagged purveyors of “acidcroft” musical brave hearts

Shooglenifty trekking eastwards in their mission to marry Scottish folk with global music — albeit in the wake of the loss in quick succession of their twin lead wizards, Aussie mandolinist Luke Plumb (through illness) then fiddler Angus R Grant (through death). The Shoogles recorded collaboration with Rajasthani collective Dhun Dhora, which commemorates Grant and the latter’s late member Roshan Khan, takes their zest for fusion to new heights.

It’s entirely apposite that Written In Water — cut at the ancient Mehrangarh Fort in Rajasthan — should kick off with a short ad hoc recording of the band’s former frontman playing a self-composed air. Dhun Dhora’s singer Dayam Khan adding a two-line poem in the form of an alaap (improvised section of a raga) accentuates the track’s poignancy. Shooglenifty follow-up with a brace of bold rock-fuelled instrumentals and hybrid melodies embellished by passionate Indian singing over banjos, guitars, mandolin and kit-drum adeptly combined with bowed sarangi, harmonium, bhapang and dhol drums.

Later, the band’s Gaelic puirt a beul (mouth music) singer Kaela Rowan duets delicately with Dayam Khan on a couple of terrific tracks that unite traditional Scottish and Rajasthani numbers.

The set comes to a thundering crescendo with an exposition of Indian drumming expertise leading to a catchy song that brings both parties together. Written In Water is an intoxicating set that exceeds expectations, given Shooglenifty’s aforementioned losses and the fact that the band had to tune down a quartertone to accommodate their Rajasthani hosts.

The latest release from Simon Thacker & Svara-Kanti’s a different kettle of fish, although

it’s equally ambitious and assured. Created and recorded over three years in three locations (East Lothian, Chennai and Kolkata), the double album Trikala is the apotheosis of the classically-trained acoustic guitarist’s career to date, evoking (although by no means equalling) past recordings engineered by Indian music deities such as Hariprasad Chaurasia, Zakir Hussain and Debashsish Bhattarcharya.

The 2 hours 18 minutes duration of Trikala (the Sanskrit word for the three tenses of time) reflects Thacker’s immersion in Indian classical, folk and spiritual traditions. Featuring no fewer than 13 performers from India, Bangladesh and Europe, the album draws on north Indian Hindustani classical, southern Carnatic classical, Punjabi folk and the Bengali Baul tradition — and the inestimable expertise of a quartet of local singers and a panoply of Indian percussion.

One intriguing work is of tangential Tamil inspiration; another an interesting rendition of the Indian national song, ‘Vande Mataram’.

Debashish Bhattacharya has not only recalibrated Indian classical music on lap slide guitar, but he’s also used his instruments as a cutting-edge tool for global fusion. The maestro’s latest recording, following a 2013 workout with John McLaughlin and Jerry Douglas and a 2017 tribute to Hawaiian legend Tau Moe, has him leading leading Polish musicians from Warsaw’s alternative jazz scene.

Recorded during an all-night studio session with all the compositions created without arrangements or preparation, JOY!Guru invites comparison with VM Bhatt & Ry Cooder’s 1992 classic A Meeting By The River. The dozen or so minutes of ‘Here Comes the Moon King’ enables drummer Hubert

Zemler and double-bassist Wojtek Traczyk to establish a rapport with Bhattacharya and vice versa, which shows in the lighter and shorter ‘Night Rider’ and faster pace of ‘Chaturangui Express’. The mix of bluesy Hindustani raga and Hawaiian music with trance modal jazz is truly mesmerising.

Debashish has also been busy on the familial front, performing with Anandi and Subhasis Bhattacharya as his daughter and brother and oftaccompanists bid to elevate their solo careers. Anandi really comes into her own as a singer and cross-cultural collaborator on Joys Abound, on which her pater provides sublime backing, production and songwriting sensibilities. The opening cut, in which her wordless vocalese (konnakol) emulates percussion syllables in a duet with Uncle Subhasis, sets the bar high.

Elsewhere, Anandi explores her traditional roots within a modern setting in tandem with her dad on various slide guitars and with special guests Catalan clarinettist/singer Carola Ortiz and the globe-trotting singerflautist Naomi Jean.

With Tablananda, Subhasis Bhattacharya, a virtuoso on tabla who has played on many of Debashish’s classic albums, gets an overdue turn in the spotlight. Recorded and produced in California with a local backing crew, his ambitious debut international collaboration fuses Indian music with jazz, Bollywood, Afrobeat and African desert blues. However, it’s the more traditional Indian-oriented pieces — in duets with his brother, bansuri flautist Soumyojyoti Ghosh and sarangi player Allarakha Kalawant — that demonstrate the true brilliance of Subhasis’s percussion playing.

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So, the setting of New York’s Walter Kerr Theater is not only something that fans could only dream about – and why some of them paid thousands of dollars for a ticket – but also completely logical. (It worked so well that they gave him a special Tony Award!) The Nebraska shows used similar venues but this was a residency and a real ‘stage’ show, not a concert per se. It is also riveting and a revelation.

First a spoiler alert: Bruce Springsteen is not who you think he is!

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have seen him since I have been amazed at how he can make you feel as though you are right there with him on the stage even though you might be at the other side of the arena! There are few performers who interact with the audience as brilliantly as Springsteen. We also saw another side of him when we found out that he had gone out the festival grounds early in the day to do a sound check so the workers there could see him.

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In the early hours of the morning mid-last year my phone buzzed and work me up. It was a text message from America letting me know that I could go online and get a ticket to Springsteen on Broadway. For a few brief minutes I pondered buying a return airfare to New York, getting a hotel room for a few nights and paying over US$500 for a seat to see The Boss in what was to be a very special show. The reviews had been incredible.

What should I do? After all, I had already given myself a birthday present and used all my frequent flyer miles and savings to see The Stones in Las Vegas. Would my partner understand another spontaneous decision?

Perhaps not. Could this be interpreted as a tad selfish? Perhaps. If anyone could make me do this Springsteen could but I regretfully declined the offer. Stuart Coupe’s later reports of the show that he saw gave me a little twinge of regret, but I was there when Springsteen gave one of the greatest shows I have ever seen (New Orleans Jazz Fest 2006) and I was able to watch him now in a setting that highlights not only his talent but his undeniable charisma.

That Jazz Fest show with the Seeger Sessions Band was incredible and when I

You may have already guessed this if you have read the superb autobiography Born to Run but if you were one of those fans who thought that Bruce wrote about working in factories and driving fast cars because that was his life then you might be surprised to find out you are wrong. You would have also learned that he suffered from depression and that the stage persona is only one facet of his personality. If you read Clarence Clemmons autobiography Big Man, you will also know why they call Bruce the Boss: beneath that seemingly cheerful exterior is a man tough enough to tell his best friend to shape up or ship out.

Four minutes into this 150-minute live recording Springsteen confesses: “I come from a boardwalk town where everything is tinged with just a bit of fraud – so am I. I’ve never held an honest job in my entire life … never worked nine-to-five … I’ve never seen the inside of a factory and yet it’s all I’ve ever written about. Standing before you is a man who has become wildly and absurdly successful writing about something of which he had absolutely no experience. I made it all up.”

a nice touch and is but one of the many highlights in the story of this complex, 69-year-old legend. This is indeed a tour de force. Not just a must for Springsteen fans but also for those who want to know what the fuss is all about.

While Bruce Springsteen’s personal revelations are relatively recent, Loudon Wainwright has been unloading about himself and his family for his entire career (if you don’t count his only hit single ‘Dead Skunk’). This has had quite a profound impact on his children, leading Martha to write a song about him called ‘Bloody Mother ****ing Arsehole.’

In his one-man show Surviving Twin, the 72-year-old songwriter creates ‘a posthumous collaboration’ with his father, noted Life magazine columnist Loudon Wainwright Jr., alternating songs with his father’s essays. The show was filmed at North Hollywood’s El Portal Theater for Netflix and was directed by Christopher Guest (Spinal Tap etc) with executive producer Judd Apatow who has used Wainwright in his films (and, by the way, who also recently made the fantastic documentary The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling).

Anyone who knows Wainwright’s work knows that he can be hilarious one minute and heartbreaking the next and this is no exception. Also worth checking out is Wainwright’s recent memoir, Liner Notes: On Parents & Children, Exes & Excess, Death & Decay, & a Few of My Other Favorite Things, which provides some material for this show.

There is a lot of dialogue in this show, more than in any of Springsteen’s concert. The appearance of his wife Patti Scialfa adds 111

RHYTHMS BOOK REVIEW: MARCH 2019 Fare Thee Well: the Final Chapter of the Grateful Dead’s Long, Strange Trip

By Joel Selvin with Pamela Turley, hb, Da Capo Press In these days of risk analysis and futureproofing, it’s hard to imagine that a few decades back a financial behemoth like the Grateful Dead had no contingency plans whatsoever for a catastrophic event. That event occurred in August 1995 with the death of founder and guitarist Jerry Garcia. Though Garcia hadn’t been in great shape in previous years, he was the glue that held the band together, and the public face for its legions of fans. At the band’s first post-Garcia board meeting, noone really had a clue what to do.

While previous books about the Grateful Dead have tended to focus upon the band’s glory years, from the psychedelic days of Haight Asbury through to the monster live shows of the seventies, Selvin instead opts to explore the largely untold story of what happened after Garcia’s death. It’s a story with several strings to its bow, encompassing music, friendship (or lack thereof), finance and politics.

One of the earliest decisions the band made, after Garcia’s death, was that they would no longer use the name Grateful Dead. Given the financial pulling-power of heritage acts (think Allman Brothers at the Beacon), it seems, in hindsight, a rash decision, though ultimately honourable. Of course, the decision was probably hastened by the simple fact that several band members, and associated family, were barely on speaking terms with each other.

Selvin’s book recounts the musical saga of those Dead alumni most synonymous with keeping the flame alive: Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann. Weir’s side-project RatDog, with bassist extraordinaire Rob Wassermann, was already up and running, and he took it out on the road with a rotating cast of musicians, including legendary pianist Johnnie Johnson. Hart, meanwhile, chose to build upon his 1991 Grammy award-winning project Planet Drum, aided by Dead Lyricist Robert Hunter.

But it was Phil Lesh who truly saw the light, assembling a band – Phil and Friends – intent on re-capturing the essence of the Dead’s music.

Bizarrely, the idea came to him while watching a Grateful Dead tribute band – the first time he’d experienced this music as an audience member – and he became intent on harnessing the spirit of these enraptured fans. Given he was drawing upon members of RatDog already, it was only a short step from there to incorporating Weir and Hart (and later Kreutzmann), to form the Other Ones (later re-branded as Further, minus the drummers), a band that finally delivered to Deadheads the music they’d been holding out for.

As well as being a musical entity, the Grateful Dead was also a business.

With finances running dry after Garcia’s death, large numbers of staff were laid off, and the ‘peace and love’ ethos they’d abided by underwent a major reality check. Thankfully, remaining band members discovered they were sitting on prime musical real estate, otherwise known as The Vault, comprising over 2,000 live shows recorded off the soundboard, only two of which had been released prior to 1995. Dick’s Picks sold over a million records in the three years after Garcia’s death, and that was via mail order. Channel that through the new thing called the internet, add merchandising, and you just have to do the math!

While Phil Lesh was probably the most musically literate of surviving band members – his intricate bass lines were integral to the Dead’s sound – he comes across as a bit of an asshole in Selvin’s book. A phenomenal control freak (his wife Jill comes off even worse), Lesh 112

GIG GUIDE

demands top billing, more money, better accommodation, and woe to anyone who challenges his Machiavellian behaviour. Selvin’s Weir is a more genial character who just wants to play music, though he harbors demons within. Mickey Hart is a ball of energy headed in too many directions; and Kreutzmann errs on the brooding side, liable to vanish back to his home in Kauai, Hawaii, at the first sign of trouble.

Given the relative instability of the relationships, it is not surprising that a staggering number of musicians passed through the various bands that Lesh, Weir, Hart and Kreutzmann assembled in the post-Garcia era.

Bruce Hornsby, Robben Ford, Ryan Adams, David Murray, Stan Franks, John Scofield, Steve Kimock, Joan Osborne, Papa Mali, John Mayer, along with members of Phish and Dark Star Orchestra, all got to play the Dead’s music as part of one of its many offshoots.

GIRRAKOOL BLUES FESTIVAL

BLUESFEST

BLUES ON BROADBEACH

MARCH 1 - 3, 2019 GIRRAKOOLBLUES.COM.AU

APRIL 18 – 22, 2019 TYAGARAH, NSW BLUESFEST.COM.AU

MAY 16 - 19, 2019 BLUESONBROADBEACH.COM

Selvin’s book culminates with the Fare Thee Well concerts by a band comprising all four surviving Dead members, billed as ‘celebrating ’50 Years of the Grateful Dead’. Held at Santa Clara in California, and at Soldier’s Field in Chicago (the site of the final performance by Jerry Garcia twenty-years previously), the five concerts were attended by some 360,000 people, who flocked there from all over the country, and netted some 52 million dollars.

BRUNSWICK MUSIC FESTIVAL

If anyone questions whether the Dead remain beloved in their homeland, the Fare Thee Well concerts provided a resounding yes.

And for the rest, life goes on. Since Soldier’s Field, Phil Lesh has been focused on his Terrapin Crossroads venue, modelled on Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles; and Weir has been touring with Dead & Company, made up of Hart, Kreutzmann, John Mayer and the Allman’s Oteil Burbridge. While the entity known as the Grateful Dead may be no more, it looks as if the ‘long, strange trip’ they inaugurated might still have a bit more gas in the tank.

MARCH 8 – 11, 2019 PORTFAIRYFOLKFESTIVAL.COM

MARCH 3 – 17, 2019 BRUNSWICK, VIC BRUNSWICKMUSICFESTIVAL.COM.AU

PORT FAIRY FOLK FESTIVAL

WOMADELADE MARCH 8 – 11 ADELAIDE, SA WOMADELAIDE.COM.AU

NATIONAL FOLK FESTIVAL APRIL 18 – 22, 2019 CANBERRA, ACT FOLKFESIVAL.ORG.AU

BENDIGO MUSIC FESTIVAL APRIL 19 - 21, 2019 BENDIGO, VIC BENDIGOMUSICFESTIVAL.COM.AU

APRIL 19 – 21, TALLAROOOK, VIC BOOGIE.NET.AU

GOLDEN PLAINS

BLUE MOUNTAINS MUSIC FESTIVAL MARCH 15 – 17, 2019 KATOOMBA, NSW BMFF.ORG.AU

MAY 31 - JUNE 9, 2019 MELBOURNEJAZZ.COM

SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS JULY 19 - 21, 2019 NORTH BYRON PARKLANDS, NSW SPELNDOURINTHEGRASS.COM

ECHUCA WINTER BLUES FESTIVAL

BOOGIE

MARCH 9 - 1, 2019 MEREDITH, VIC 2019.FGOLDENPLAINS.COM.AU

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL

JULY 25 - 28, 2019 WINTERBLUES.COM.AU

THE GUMBALL

WINGHAM AKOOSTIC MUSIC FESTIVAL

APRIL 25 - 28, 2019 BELFORD, HUNTER VALLEY, NSW DASHVILLE.COM.AU/GUMBALL

OCTOBER 18-20 2019 WINGHAM, NSW AKOOSTIK.COM.AU

BENDIGO AUTUMN MUSIC FESTIVAL APRIL 25 - 28, 2019 BENDIGOAUTUMNMUSIC.COM

25-28 July 2019 www.winterblues.com

Accommodation Bookings: Echuca Moama Tourism 1800 804 446 113

Gaye Adegbalola

George Jackson

This Way North

Shane Howard

Songs From The Stations Australian War Memorial

COMPILED BY SUE BARRETT

HELLO...

Irish singer/songwriter Wallis Bird has a short Australian tour after the Port Fairy Folk Festival, with gigs in Adelaide, Melbourne, Katoomba, Brisbane and Sydney in March.

The Griot is the new album from American singer/songwriter Gaye Adegbalola. Blues guitarist Ruth Wyand has put out her 4th album, Tribe of One. And South Australian singer/songwriter Kelly Brouhaha has released her self-titled debut album.

As part of the Festival of Small Halls, Australian singer/songwriter John Flanagan and Newfoundland trio The Once are touring SA, Victoria and NSW in March and April.

Sydney University Press’s book, Songs from the Stations, covers five song sets (known as wajarra) from the NT’s Gurindji people, who did a walk-off from Wave Hill Station in 1966.

Nashville-based fiddler George Jackson (formerly of Australian bluegrass band, The Company) is releasing an album of original old time fiddle tunes, Time and Place, including the tune ‘Dorrigo’.

Corey Hart is the 2019 inductee into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

The Women in Music Festival (Melbourne, 9-10 March 2019) includes a multi-media presentation of Rachel Shields’ Yuluwurri Gaayli / Rainbow Child (narrated by Rachel in language and in English, accompanied by Rosie Westbrook on double bass); Maize Wallin’s virtual reality game, Noise Drawers; and a performance by Deborah Cheetham.

More info: www.womeninmusicfestival.net Singer Glenn Shorrock (The Twilights, Axiom, Little River Band) has a new album, Glenn Shorrock Sings Little River Band. And crowdfunding for Coldwater DFU, the new album from Mick Thomas (Weddings Parties Anything), continues until mid-March (via PledgeMusic).

Wintermoon 2019 takes place on the 1st weekend in May – 70 km from Mackay & 100 km from Airlie Beach, Queensland. Performers include: Sun Salute; Tiffany Eckhardt & Dave Steel; Little Cents; This Way North (Cat Leahy / Leisha Jungalwalla).

Info: www.wintermoonfestival.com The Australian Celtic Festival is also scheduled for the 1st weekend of May, in Glen Innes, NSW. Performers include: Gone Molly (Sally Harris / Rebecca Wright); The Gathering; Iona Fyfe.

Info: www.australiancelticfestival.com Mandolinist Simon Mayor has released an anthology of poetry and stories – Of Death and a Banana Skin. And Sara Storer’s new album (Raindance) is out in April, with support from Colin Hay and Fanny Lumsden.

At the National Folk Festival (Canberra, Easter), Australian singer/ songwriters Shane Howard & John Schumann are performing together. Whilst in Canberra, people might like to visit the Australian War Memorial, were its Roll of Honour Name Projections initiative projects the names of war dead onto the front of the Hall of Memory each night from dusk until dawn. To get the date and rough projection time for a person, find the person’s entry in the Roll of Honour, then scroll down in their entry: www.awm.gov.au/RoH New music books include: Gillian A M Mitchell, The British National Daily Press and Popular Music, c. 1956-1975; K Kevyne Baar, Broadway 114

and the Blacklist; Leslie Cavendish, The Cutting Edge – The Story of the Beatles’ Hairdresser; Benjamin Tausig, Bangkok is Ringing – Sound, Protest, and Constraint; Nettie Baker, Tales of a Rock Star’s Daughter; and (including in an Open Access ebook format) Helen Gilbert, J D Phillipson & Michelle H Raheja (eds), In the Balance – Indigeneity, Performance, Globalization.

…AND GOODBYE

American label Waterbug Records, with its lovely roster, is apparently closing down Nancy Wilson (81), multi-Grammy winning jazz singer, died California, USA (Dec) Music journalist Anthony O’Grady (71), of Go-Set, RAM and The Music Network, died New South Wales, Australia (Dec) Pete Shelley (63), of English band Buzzcocks, died Estonia (Dec) Australian musician Freddy Wieland (75), of The Strangers and The Mixtures, died in December Grammy winning Canadian-born composer Galt MacDermot (89), whose compositions included the music for Hair, died New York state, USA (Dec) Ray Sawyer (81), of Dr Hook, died Florida, USA (Dec) Scottish band Marmalade’s Dean Ford (72), who had just released a double solo album (This Scottish Heart), died in December Bassist Joe Osborn (81), who played on recordings by Simon & Garfunkel, Dory Previn, The Carpenters, Kenny Rogers, The Beach Boys, Laura Nyro, Donna Fargo and Albert Hammond, died Louisiana, USA (Dec) Honey Lantree (75), drummer with English group The Honeycombs, died Essex, England (Dec) Eric Haydock (75), bassist with The Hollies, died in January Drummer J J Hackett, of Stars and Mondo Rock, died South Australia, Australia (Jan) American musician Daryl Dragon (76), of Captain & Tennille, died Arizona, USA (Jan) Steve Ripley (69), songwriter, producer, engineer and member of The Tractors, died Oklahoma, USA (Jan) American singer Maxine Brown (87), of The Browns trio (‘The Three Bells’), died in January Australian musician Chris Wilson (62), of Coloured Girls and Crown of Thorns, died Victoria, Australia (Jan) Clydie King (75), whose vocals appear on recordings by Bob Dylan, Humble Pie, Linda Ronstadt, Ray Charles, Leonard Cohen, Rita Coolidge, Judee Sill, Joe Cocker, Thomas Jefferson Kaye, Diana Ross, Delbert McClinton, Hoyt Axton and Phil Ochs, died California, USA (Jan) American songwriter Whitey Shafer (84), of the songs ‘Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind’, ‘It’s All Over Town’, ‘I Need Someone Like Me’ and ‘All My Ex’s Live in Texas’, died Tennessee, USA (Jan) Australian musician Dennis Loughlin, of Sebastian Hardie and Sherbet, died in January

Limited-Edition Super Deluxe box set includes: • • • •

A handmade wood case built at the Fender Custom Shop in California from the same materials as Keith’s iconic Telecaster, Micawber 2 LPs and CDs with the original album plus 6 unreleased songs from the sessions An 80-page, hardcover book with never-before-seen photos & a new essay by Anthony DeCurtis Meticulously reproduced memorabilia, including 2 7-inch singles, posters, and other promotional materials

30th Anniversary Editions Available March 29th 2019 Deluxe Box • 2 CD Set • Limited-Edition & Standard Vinyl • Digital

keithrichards.com

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