Currency Folk - Still a Rich Man's Land ~ Songs of Kevin Baker - Cass mid-1980s

We met The Currency Folk (Kevin and Beth Baker) in January. They were responsible for putting together, and appearing on, "Beneath the Smoke - a Gathering of Nations".  This album, which may have been issued at about the same time, featured only songs written by Kevin Baker, a political activist, of many years standing.  There are some great tracks on here backed by some very good musicians. Beth Muntz,a good singer, appears as a solist on four of the tracks and provides some vocal backing to Kevin Baker on the others.  Kevin is distinctly a better song writer than a singer but his vocal qualities are fitting for the songs he writes.  Overall an entertaining album.

This cassette rip was provided by one of our visitors along which some others soon to appear.  Many thanks for your kind assistance.  The tracks are all MP3 at CBR 192.

The tracks are:-
Smoky Steel City, Windows of our World, Security, To Absent Friends, Executive Man, Mt. Kembla Mining Disaster, Streets of our Town, Children, Men of Kamira, Seeds of Tomorrow, Let's be constructive Australia, and Come now my Companions.

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Home Rule with Günther Pösterl and Klaus Knipp "Auf nach Botany Bay" CD 1995

We have previously featured some tracks from this CD but, thanks to a friend, I have obtained the CD so as to post it with all tracks and graphics advising details of the artists involved.

As previously advised this CD was fully intended as a German language teaching aid for NSW schools.  The songs are firstly introduced in English then sung in English and then a German version is sung with the exception of the final song which is a medley of English and German.

Home Rule is the competent Australian group providing the musical backing and the Enlish language versions.  Günther Pösterl and Klaus Knipp sing the German versions.  The songs are mostly Australian traditionals with the exception of the more modern folk song of known authorship, namely "Sergeant Small", and the commercial song "Big Ben Pie".  The traditional lullaby "Little Fishes" has been adopted to include modern ecological messages.  For some unknown reason, they have absurdly substituted Charters Towers for Charleville as the starting point in Sergeant Small.  Charters Towers is on the Townsville to Mt Isa railway line and is a long, long way from being on the Brisbane to Cunnamulla railway line through Charleville, Mitchell and Roma.

Sergeant Small aka Down and Outback may not be so well known.  Sergeant Small was a well-known police officer stationed at Roma in south-west Queensland.  In the depression years, many men on the dole were obliged to travel the country searching for work as they had to collect their dole from different locations.  With virtually no money, there were really only two ways to effect this travel - by walking or jumping a freight train.  The railways tended to resent the second option and there was a constant effort by both the state police and the railway police to deter these free traveling swagmen or bagmen as they were sometimes called.  Their usual technique was to intermittently board and comprehensively search trains.  Sometimes the swagmen were arrested and other times they would be forced off the train in remote areas.

Sergeant Small developed a cunning approach.  He would kit himself out as a bagman trying to find some space on a goods train for himself and he'd surreptitiously approach each carriage and ask if there was any room inside and many a concealed bagman would answer back and thus give himself up.

The songs are:-
Botany Bay, South Australia, The Catalpa, Black Velvet Band, Sergeant Small, Little Fishes, Big Ben Pie and Wild Rover No More.

Song tracks are VBR in the 190s and the spoken introductions are at 128 - Graphics included.

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The Overlanders "songs of the Great Australian Balladists" 2LP set 1978

We have met this South Australian group The Overlanders before with their LP Tribute to Western Australia 150 (1979). This two LP set of 36 songs was released in 1978 and, instead of offering the usual top 30 of Australian folk songs, refreshingly contains many bush songs often neglected by others.

Graham Jenkin, school teacher, folklorist and author, was the moving force behind this project which also included the publication of an identically-named companion book (second edition 1983). He had previously been the co-author with Lionel Long of Favourite Australian Bush Songs in 1964.

The singing is sometimes a little ordinary but we need to be grateful that this group put together such a great collection of the more obscure Australian folk songs.

I have now fully rebuilt my home network (insurers came to the rescue albeit slowly) after the lightning strike in mid-January so the blog has become a little neglected.  I hope to soon rectify that so I am very grateful to Ian of Adelaide for kindly ripping and providing this entertaining album.  Many thanks Ian for a great rip @256kps!  Contributions are always welcome.

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"Beneath the Smoke - A Gathering of Nations" c1984 LP

Beth and Kevin Baker (Currency Folk) of the Australian industrial city of Wollongong (hence "Beneath the Smoke") put together this LP with a view to featuring the songs of different ethnicities within the area.  The result includes Australian artists singing traditional and modern folk songs (The Billabongers and the Bakers); Chileans Fernando and Sonia Aranciba with friends performing songs and instrumentals of rebellion; An Italian immigrant, Gerardo De Liseo, performing traditional songs of his original homeland; Vince Brophy, an Irish immigrant, singing two British Isles traditionals and also one of his compositions "Tug Boat"; and an English immigrant, Val Whittaker, also performing British Isles traditionals.

Track List
1. The Sandy Maranoa (Billabongers)
2. Seeds of Tomorrow (Beth Baker)
3. Amici, Amici (De Liseo)
4. Tug Boat (Brophy)
5. Goriza (De Liseo)
6. Elegia a los Caidos (Elegy for Freedom Fighters) (Fernando Arancibia)
7. La Palummeddha Janca (De Liseo)
8. The Rabbiters (Billabongers)
9. El Calameno (Arancibia's)
10. If I was a Blackbird (Whittaker)
11. Bogies Bonnie Bell (Brophy)
12. Will You go Laddie go (Whittaker)
13. Men of Kemira (Kevin Baker)
14. Geordie (Brophy)
15. Black is the Colour (Whittaker)
16. Gracias a la Vida (Arancibia's).

It was a well-packed LP with almost an hour's music.  The recording quality is variable but I found myself really enjoying the Italian and Latin American tracks.  Other than for  El Calameno, the download includes the lyrics of the Italian and Chilean songs with English translations.

Download with Graphics and Lyrics  MP3 192-224 VBR
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Tina Lawton (Untitled Album) LP 1965

The very popular Tina Lawton, folk singer and artist, was 21 years old when this, her first album was released in December 1965.  On it she featured traditional songs of the British Isles, accompanied, amongst others by the harpist Huw Jones and Andy Sundstrom on guitar.

She went on to appear in the ABC film "The Restless Years" in 1966 and to release a further two albums "The Singing Bird" and "Fair and Tender" and also toured in Vietnam and other locations entertaining troops.  In 1968, she took up full-time art studies in Edinburgh but still performed intermittently in the UK.

In December 1968, she visited a friend in Kenya where on the 22nd December, she died in a small plane crash.  Truly a great loss to the world of music.

Sadly, I do not have access to her other two LPs which show a greater professional maturity.  Can anyone help?  This LP was very "dirty" but it has "cleaned" to a sort of listenable level.

Track List

1. Marie's Wedding

2. Spinning Wheel

3. One Morning, One Morning

4. Bonnet trimmed with Blue

5. The Lowlands of Holland

6. Mr. McQuire

7. Castle of Dramore

8. Spanish Lady

9. Trotting to the Fair

10. Lord Gregory

11. The Bird's Courting Song

12. Welsh Lament

13. Blacksmith Song

14. She moved through the Fair

15 Cuckoo Song

MP3 mono 192 VBR with Graphics

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Mike Jackson comments on Mike and Michelle Jackson postings

Mike Jackson (click here for his website) previously of Mike and Michelle Jackson has commented on the postings of their two folk albums on this blog, namely "Patchwork" and "The Roaring Days of Henry Lawson", from rips supplied by Ian of Adelaide and Paul fom Brisbane.  Mike's comment is:-

Thanks for the kind words chaps and chappesses,
So nice to see this bit of my past still freely available. No, we didn't make it with money in mind! Long live music. :)
And while I'm at it, bless Warren Fahey Larrikin Records/Folkways for making this and dozens of other projects preserving and promoting Australian Folk Music possible.

Lionel Long "The Bold Bushrangers" 1963 (2 LP Set)

The Bold Bushrangers was a two LP set issued in 1963.  All but two of the tracks were specifically penned for this project by the Australian author Kenneth Cook (best known for "Wake in Fright").  Somewhat paradoxically, whereas Long previously recorded traditional material with modern-style musical backing, this contemporary material has a very folky backing often with just Long accompanying himself on guitar.  Some tracks also feature that superb five-string banjo player, Dave Guard, an original member of the Kingston Trio who migrated to Australia in 1962 and backed several Australia performers (sometimes under other names e.g with Tina Date as Dynamite Finkelstein).

Kenneth Cook's wife, Patricia Cook is the soloist on three of the tracks and performs a duet with Long on one other. I know nothing about this lady but she gives a strong performance with a distinct Irish style highly reminiscent of the legendary Delia Murphy, the "Queen of Connemara" who was very well-known in Australia as she had accompanied her husband Tom Kiernan when he was appointed as the first Irish Ambassador to Australia in the post WWII years and often performed especially on ABC radio.

There have been some difficulties in getting reasonable LPs of this set.  Finally, Ian of WA, has provided me with copies of both volumes (thanks Ian),  Volume 1 is mono whereas volume 2 is stereo and in far better condition than 1 which had three fairly worn tracks on side two (the first three) causing some minor distortion which I can't correct.

Ian has also kindly provided text of the rears of the LPs. and these are included in the download.

The two traditional tracks are "The Wild Colonial Boy" and "Moreton Bay" and Kenneth Cook has written some really great songs for this set. My favourites are "The Drifting Smoke of the Mountain" and "Sir Frederick Pottinger" but others are also enjoyable.

MP3 @ 192-224

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Trevor Lucas "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" LP 1964

Graphics provided thanks to Luke R Davies (see later posting)

Album cover

We have previously met Trevor Lucas in this blog featuring his album "Overlander" which he did in his early days in England.  This LP was his first and was done in the year before he left Australia.

It is somewhat of an eclectic mix as you will observe from the below tracklist.  This rip was performed and provided by our first Victorian contributor so many thanks for this album.  (Notes about the album are included in the download)

Tracks (all traditional except as noted)

   1. Hey Nellie Nellie (Silverstein and Friedman)
   2. Bluey Brink
   3. John Hardy
   4. One Kind Favour
   5. World War III Talking Blues (Bob Dylan)
   6. Casey Jones
   7. The Voyager (Gary Shearston)
   8. John Henry
   9. Cocaine Blues (Gary Davis)
  10. The Flash Stockman
  11. Follow You Down

MP3s @ 160CBR
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"15 Australian Christmas Carols" LP 1960s

I have had a few requests here and elsewhere to post some genuine Australian Carols.  I'm not really into carols (my favourite Christmas song is Eric Bogle's "Santa Bloody Claus").  However, a friend had previously asked me to get him a rip of this album so I've finished it off for him and I'm posting it here as well for anyone interested.

We "down under" tend to occasionally have problems with northern hemisphere carols especially when they talk about cold and snow.  You feel pretty silly singing them in the middle of a heat wave with the sweat streaming off your brow. The one exception I recall was the one about Santa Claus riding a strawberry roan when he goes to Texas because they don't have snow but I have not heard that one since the late 1950s.  Many have attempted to rectify the problem usually with little success - "Six White Boomers" still does well though.

In terms of a serious effort, this LP is probably the best known and even then it is fairly obscure although you will often encounter some of the carols sung by choirs at Xmas.  It covers the Australian Christmas time environment while maintaining a dignified respect for the religious aspects.

The pedigree of these tracks is excellent.  Words by John Wheeler, music by William G James, Sir Bernard Heinze conducting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the New South Wales Conservatorium Choir.  I tend to find it a bit too stuffy but I'm sure it will delight those who are into carols and there are really a couple of worthy carols here.  But do listen to Bogle's "Santa Bloody Claus" as well.

I have included the lyrics for all the tracks as well as there is little point in carols if you can't sing along.

Song List (as per request in December 2011)

1. Merry Christmas

2. The Three Drovers

3. Christmas Night - Cradle Song

4. Christmas Day

5. Carol of the Birds (aka Orana)

6. Our Lady of December

7. The Little Town where Christ was born

8. Noel Time

9. Christmas Bush for his Adorning

10. The Silver Stars are in the Sky

11. The Christmas Tree

12. The Day that Christ was Born on

13, Country Carol - The Oxen

14. Golden Day

15. Sing Gloria

Download with graphics -  MP3 @192-224VBR Mono

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1967 Film - "The Restless Years" and Best Wishes

For those interested in a video version of the original award-winning 1967 TV show "The Restless Years", The blogsite Folk for All has a copy available for download.

Make sure you all have a great holiday (or that work is not too hard).  Many thanks to all those who kindly contributed during the year.  We all hope that we have done a little to preserve some of this great music and that you enjoy listening to our offerings.