OBIT - Death of Frank Maher, one of our earliest members

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Blog articles about Frank 

Frank was an early member of the Bush Music Club, Australia's first & oldest folk club, est Nov 1954, joining within the first year. He was a singer, and musician (bones, lagerphone & bush bass) and a Life Member of BMC. He served on the committee from 1959-1974, and was one of the people who were instrumental in forming the Folk Federation of NSW in 1970. In 2010 the Folk Federation awarded Life Membership to Frank and the other members of that first committee

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From Dave Johnson 

At the Bush Music Club Beer and Cheese Nights in a hall at Burwood about 1972 I met an amazing array of talent with a profound passion for our Australian songs. Figured among them was a quiet chap by the name of Frank Maher. He sang confidently and with no put on voice, you could say a clean honest sound. And his bush bass rythmn was spot on as was his lagerphone. When he played the bones it was best to not be too close as they were very load. It was legend that when doing a recording in a studio, Frank was sent to an adjoining toilet to get the sound level right for his bones.

The songs tunes and dances had me hooked, and I was soon on the committee as a rookie, organising, with RalphPride and Bob Bolton, some new initiatives, tune Broadsides and workshop nights. As I completed my apprenticeship with the Bush Music Club was invited to join the Reedy River Bushmen. At that time it was made up of Jamie Carlin (concertina), Barry Collerson (banjo, guitar and MC), Mary Williams (guitar), Frank Maher (bush bass, lagerphone and bones) and Ralph Pride (fiddle). All shared the vocals and most songs in the repertoire could be lead by any of the band.

We played for many functions over the the next five years - bush dances, Australia Day concerts, and such. All of us were Musician’s Union members and payments for jobs (never called gigs!) was divided according to egalitarian principles. A regular Sunday show at Australiana Village had four of the six band members each week, with Barry and Jamie being regular and the rest of us taking it in turns. So on occasions I was there with Frank and less commonly we might have had our Ann(e)s in tow. There was time to chat over lunch while Edgar Penzig’s troupe did a bushranger re-enactment with guns loudly firing blanks and the villains inevitably caught/ shot/ punished.

The singing from the verandah of one of the buildings was without amplification so we had to project our voices to the crowd of as many as sixty. Frank’s voice rang out clearly when it was his turn.

Our lives were not close as we had children at very different stages of their lives, but I recall being taught the Vasovienna by Sally Sloane at Frank and Ann's in North Sydney after a BMC concert at Sydney Tech. There was some merriment as this rather bossy old lady pushed me around the room, but I did get the dance well and truly learnt.

In more recent times at folk festivals and Bush Traditions Gatherings it was always a pleasure to challenge Frank to give us Goorianawa or Drover’s Dream. songs that I knew that he sang particularly well. There was always his deferential refusal which gave way to encouragement and resultant applause for his renditions.

Thanks Frank, your quiet confidence and clear enjoyment of the old bush songs was truly inspiring.

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from Dale Dengate - 

Frank Maher was one of the early members of the Bush music club concert party. In 1955, he was working at the Postmaster General with Alan Scott who invited him to come along to the BMC. Over the years, his clear singing voice and memory for words made him a valued member of the concert party. He also had a fine sense of rhythm and played the bush bass, lagerphone and the bones better than most. Frank had a gentle sense of humour when recounting yarns about events, members or characters in the BMC.

He was a devoted husband to Ann, whom he met at the BMC , and later to his daughters and grandchildren.

One anecdote that I remember from the 1970s, when the concert party was invited to play for a bush dance Commemorating the arrival of Captain Cook, with the landing at Kurnell. John had driven Frank to Kurnell, where it had rained all night. When they came out of the hall to go home, the car wouldn’t start because some water had got into the petrol. They pushed the car to a garage, where they had to wait till it opened, before being able to change the petrol & start it ; then continue on the journey home. Well, by this time it was early in the following morning. In the meantime, Ann had rung the local police. When Ann explained she was worried about her husband who had not yet returned from playing at the bush dance in Kurnell. The police officer said to her don’t worry it won’t happen for another hundred years! I can still hear Frank chuckle as he retold the story.

Many  wonderful and some sad memories too, come to mind of Frank Maher.

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Photos from the  Chris & Virginia Woodland Collection,
National Folk Festival 2017
Anne, Jenny Loughlin (daughter of founders Pam & Brian Loughlin), Chris, Sandra Nixon, Frank 

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Compilation - Articles about Frank Maher

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Frank's earliest known appearance in the press with BMC - he & other members were welcoming Pete Seeger to Australia, 1963 - none of the people pictured were university students, though members of  the Sydney University Folk Club might have been present.

John Dengate & Frank Maher awarded Life Membership of Folk Federation of NSW, on the Federation's 40th Anniversary, 2010
https://blog.bushmusic.org.au/2021/02/john-dengate-frank-maher-awarded-life.html

Life Members - information on our 25 Life Members - part 4 Dave Johnson, Frank Maher, Don Richmond, Helen Romeo, Harry Kay.
https://blog.bushmusic.org.au/2020/04/life-members-information-on-our-25-life_49.html

From the Archives - Release of Railway Songs, National Folk Festival, 2010
https://blog.bushmusic.org.au/2020/04/from-archives-release-of-railway-songs.html

From the Archives - Singabout Nights in the 50s, 60s & 70s
https://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com/2019/09/from-archives-singabout-nights-in-50s.html

Visit by Steve Wixon of the Rhythm Bones Society (USA)
https://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com.au/2017/12/visit-by-steve-wixon-of-rhythm-bones.html

Bones - Part 1. How to make (1958) & play (2017) the bones. updated 2019
http://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com.au/2017/05/how-to-make-1958-play-2017-bones.html

Paper presented by Sandra Nixon at National Folklore Conference - The Early Days of the Bush Music Club as illustrated by Singabout - the Journal of Australian Folksong, 1956 to 1967.
http://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/paper-presented-by-sandra-nixon-at.html

The Ann & Frank Maher collection
http://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/the-ann-frank-maher-collection.html

Report on Concert Party @ Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival 2015
http://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/report-on-bmc-kangaroo-valley-folk.html

Chris and Virginia Woodland Collection - Wake for John Meredith, AM (1920 - 2001) - 24th March 2001

http://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/wake-for-john-meredith-am-1920-2001.html

Pete Seeger and The Bush Music Club, 1963
http://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/pete-seeger-and-bush-music-club-1963.html

Early Bush Music Club Days by Frank Maher
http://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/early-bush-music-clubdays-by-frank.html

From the Archives - Mulga Wire, no.1, June 1977
https://blog.bushmusic.org.au/2020/04/from-archives-mulga-wire-no1-june-1977.html

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Alex Hood - Storyteller in action, December 2022

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(Photos © Helen Romeo)

13th December 

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13th December 

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6th December 2022 

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VALE - Alex Hood - 1935 - 2025.

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Photos from Alex's scrapbooks 

Compilation - Articles about Alex Hood 

Alex & Annettee Hood Collection, NationalLibrary of Australia 

Alex Hood - Wikipedia 

Obit: Alex Hood (Aus) 1935-2025) - Mudcat Cafe 

Alex Hood - Storyteller in Action

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Posted by Annette on facebook with photos from the Alex & Annette Hood collection 
Thanks to Annette for permission to post the article & photos 

Alex Hood my soul mate. Here are some photographic memories of yours and our time, shared working together.  He was a vibrant, creative, and a wonderful performer. He said, he was an actor and just used his instruments for effect.  But he loved the banjo & his 12 stringed guitar made by Geoff Wills in 1969 and adapted by Don Henderson. 

His timing in his stories & songs was always perfect, a gift, it can't be taught.  He'd always told stories from the time his father propped him up on a table at the Masonic Club dinner at 4 years old.

New Theatre & The Bush Music Club played a huge role with Alex, he learned every male part in the 1st production of Reedy River in Sydney so that he could get on stage, and he waited in the wings until someone was sick. It was "Bob the Swagman, " then "Snowy".  He learned the bones as his first instrument which he played with The Bushwhackers from Sydney. Once he started, the germ grew, he couldn't stop. He learned the banjo while being a clown at an opening of an arcade in Sydney at Christmas time using Pete Seeger's "How to play the 5 stringed Banjo", a perfect combination. Other bands and groups came and went, and he did go to Margaret Barr (choreographer) to help with stage craft and movement. His mate Larry King (Clancy Dunne) and Alex sang on TV for Bill Peach doing political satire songs. It was the '60's & '70's, the folk boom. They performed in clubs, coffee shops, festivals, and concerts across Australia.  The era of smoking was everywhere!! Alex lost his voice, so in the late '60's he decided to sing for children.  Clancy & Alex toured NSW together doing school shows & clubs, they were true mates and still were until the end.

Alex started collecting songs and music from old singers and bushies around that time, and he collected for The Macquarie Dictionary (Syd Uni) on his travels. Then he started doing solo work across Australia. He wrote children's books, songs and 4 Folk Operas for the ABC radio, pre TV'S in schools. During this time, he worked on TV, John Laws Show, Aussie the Emu and Playschool.

The folk operas were on the radio and those plays travelled across the airwaves.  The farmers would come in for lunch and listen to the farm report, stay & listen to Blue Hills, and often stay & listen to the school broadcasts.  "The Wallaby Track ", "The Flying Pieman ", "Speewah ", and "Eureka Beneath the Southern Cross ", were broadcast nationally, across states & territories, radio that wonderful medium.

From "The Wallaby Track " came "Brumby Jack" and "Pumpkin Paddy " plus so many more songs and stories.  The children performed the radio plays and adapted them, they made costumes, backdrops, and props. The dreaded stick with bottle tops was in the "The Wallaby Track " with "how to make one" for the play, for percussion in their bush-bands. It went around the schools, and it and the songs, were a hit. Brumby Jack gave him and later me 50 years of employment.  What a legacy. Alex loved touring, but it's hard work and it can be lonely at times.  He worked all over Australia doing music shows in schools and workshops.

In the NT in the early 1970's Alex did a music camp at Talc Head. His offsider was then a young man, he later became head of The Northern Land Council. The boys came from 14 different communities across the north, Alex taught them guitar, rock, reggae, blues & folk. Alex travelled to remote 1st Nation destinations with different Arts Councils, as we also did, in the '80's, '90's & 2000's up until 2015.

He was unstoppable and when we first met, I was in The Sydney Dance Drama Group, for 14 years, he'd always wanted to do Folk Theatre, always an actor and presenter, so Alex as the communicator with songs & yarns, and Annette the dancer, choreographer, and maker of backdrops & life-sized puppets, we began our Folk Theatre, in 1986. The puppets I made always looked realistic and Alex with his flair was able to do ventriloquism and sing with them or tell stories. They could talk, sing, fart, and eat, and the children loved them, they thought they were real.  So, every day, we laughed along with the children, what joy it brought us and them. 

Sadly, Alex has gone, NEVER to be replaced.  He was one of a kind, explosive, honest, and forthright in his beliefs.  I will miss you my love, thanks for our time together.  We had our ups and downs, but more ups.  We had caravans that plunged into muddy cane fields, or tyres that caught on fire, or engines that blew up & brakes that failed going down steep hills, but we survived.  We travelled miles & miles over some dusty roads, over 7,500+ shows together.  YOU did over 20,000 performances.  Time for a rest, I think.  But all those that knew you always enjoyed your fascinating stories, experiences & songs.

We together worked for the National Library and collected stories and whole of life interviews, over 270+ from people from all walks of life, the tapestry of Oz the Social History. We loved all those folks that helped us, fed us, and propped us up over the years, they're never to be forgotten while the memories are left.

Lots of the yarns are in The National Library along with yours and our, archives. Goodbye my love, keep the banjo playing.  Love Annette.

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