The Bush Music Club was founded in 1954 to collect, publish and popularise Australia’s traditional songs, dances, music, yarns, recitations and folklore and to encourage the composition of a new kind of song - one that was traditional in style but contemporary in theme.
Greetings to all! I hope everyone is keeping warm and well.
Unbelievably, this year is the TWELFTHAnnual John Dengate Memorial Get Together, marking 13 years since John left us for the great gig in the sky.
For this edition, we are back on ZOOM so please join us online on Sunday 17th August from 2pm to 5pm as we gather once again in tribute to John and his hilarious, cutting and inspirational repertoire of satirical songs and poems.
A message from Dale: The
years keep flying by but memories remain strong. Thanks again to Leyne
for organising a concert on ZOOM so that many of us can share songs,
verse and memories of John. Leyne and I felt that being on ZOOM enabled more people to share their experiences, performances and discussions. - Dale
SHARE A SONG, POEM, STORY If you would like to reserve a spot to share a song, poem or story, please contact Leyne via email ccmotions@gmail.com or phone 0433 020 127. Be sure to first check out the performer list to see what songs have already been reserved: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1or2fi5nqG0SEGazDCPXA0BMZMk9Ow1VPC5uGiLkdoCE/ As with previous years, renditions of John's poems or songs, or original works of your own are encouraged foremost, but anything you would like to share in tribute is welcome.
‘The people round know me right well – they call me Johnny Troy’. The trouble was that no-one did know a bushranger hero named ‘Johnny Troy’, not in Australia, at least. So, who was he, if he ever existed?
There were several incidental mentions of him and his deeds in historical documents and folklore. He featured briefly in a poem titled ‘The Convict’s Tour to Hell’, probably composed by ‘Frank the Poet’ (Francis McNamara), in or before 1839. The poem is a celebration of convicts and bushrangers, including the famous Jack Donohoe, shot dead in 1830. Troy is mentioned in the same breath as the now much better-known Donohoe. The poem is fantasy of a convict, Frank himself, visiting hell, where he finds all the despised overseers and gaolers writhing in eternal agony. When the devil hears that Frank was a convict in life he immediately says that he has come to the wrong place. Convicts should all go to heaven. When Frank reaches the Pearly Gates, he confronts St Peter who asks:
where’s your certificate
Or if you have not one to show
Pray who in Heaven do you know?
Frank answers;
Well I know Brave Donohue Young Troy and Jenkins too
And many others whom floggers mangled
And lastly were by Jack Ketch strangled.
Frank is allowed straight into heaven where he is made ‘a welcome guest’, along with his old convict mates.
But that was about all anyone knew of this Irish bushranger until the 1950s, when American folksong collectors began to hear a ‘Johnny Troy’ ballad – mainly among lumber jacks. It seems that while Johnny Troy’s vigorous song had faded away in Australia, it had been well received by the Americans, who often sang it together with a couple of other Australian bushranger ballads, ‘Jack Donohoe’ and ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’. It is likely that these songs reached America during the California gold rushes, which explains how they got there.[i]But there was still no news of the lost bushranger in Australia. Until some solid research by the late Stephan Williams turned up the whole true history of Johnny Troy.[ii]
John Troy, aged eighteen, was transported for burglary and felony from Dublin aboard the ship Asia in 1825. He was a weaver by trade and drew a seven-year sentence. Soon after arriving here, he was found guilty of robbery and served two years on the Phoenix‘hulk’, or prison ship. After completing this sentence, Troy’s record was one of continual ‘bolting’ from iron gangs and involvement in mutinies aboard convict ships, details of which appear in his ballad. He served time at Moreton Bay (Brisbane) and after being returned to Sydney in 1831, escaped again and took to bushranging. After a busy period of robbing travellers, in company with other fugitive convicts, Troy was betrayed and recaptured in 1832.
He was tried with three others for highway robbery. The court heard from numerous witnesses and policemen and eventually the judge ‘summed up at considerable length’, sending the jury to consider their verdict at 7pm. No doubt anxious to be off home or to the pub, the jury came back a few minutes later with a guilty verdict for three of the defendants. John Troy, Tom Smith and Michael Anderson were, unusually, sentenced to hang immediately. The judge was clearly not in a good mood as the legislation for capital punishment clearly provided for a three-day break before execution.
In the event, there was a respite of a week but on August 18, 1832, Troy and Smith (Anderson was reprieved) were led out to be hanged in Sydney Gaol. ‘Great crowds assembled to view the awful termination of their lives’. Troy accepted his sentence saying, ‘he had committed many offences, and deserved to suffer death.’ He preferred death to a lifetime in a penal settlement. He also claimed, in proper outlaw hero style, that Smith was innocent. After some words from the clergy present, the executioners fiddled with the ropes ‘in their usual bungling manner’. The condemned men, both carrying red handkerchiefs, were finally put out of their misery and ‘after some convulsive struggling, were ushered into eternity.’[iii]
And Johnny Troy did, however undeservedly, achieve an immortality of sorts. Hanged criminals were usually thrown into cheap coffins and carted off for burial in the ‘Public Nuisance’ cart used to collect dead animals from the streets. But in this case the bodies of Troy and Smith were given into the care of a cousin of Troy’s. There was an Irish wake around the bodies that night and a subscription taken up for good quality coffins. Next day, the coffins were taken out and laid in front of the house of the bushrangers’ betrayer, a man named Donohoe. The red handkerchief Troy had been holding at his death was thrown ominously at the traitor’s door. The police had to break up the crowd, which gave ‘three groans’ for Donohoe and a long procession followed the dead men to their final burying place.
Troy was a convict hero. The ballad that celebrated his real and imagined activities is much like those romanticising other bushranger heroes, real and mythic. Troy is born in Dublin, ‘brought up by honest parents’ but is transported to NSW after robbing a widow. He escapes and with three companions takes to the bush – ‘Four of the bravest heroes who ever handled gun.’ Robbing on the highway, they come across an old man and demand his gold watch and money – on pain of having his brains blown out. The man pleads that he has none of these and also has a wife and family ‘daily to provide.’ On hearing this, Troy refuses to rob the man, gets back on his horse and throws the man fifty pounds ‘to help you on your way.’ The song concludes in proper Robin Hood style with the verse:
The poor I’ll serve both night and day,
The rich I will annoy;
The people round know me right well;
They call me Johnny Troy.
In another American version, the story includes Troy’s death ‘on his scaffold high’ as ‘a brave young hero.’
Why Troy was forgotten in the place where he committed his crimes and died for them is a mystery. Perhaps there were enough bushranger ballads and legends around to satisfy the demand. People are still singing many of these in Australia, where they are a strong element of folk tradition. Johnny Troy lives on only in America, though he is in good company, or bad, there. The tradition of the outlaw hero that runs from Robin Hood includes American badmen as well as our bushrangers. Jesse James and Billy the Kid, among many others, are celebrated in the same Robin Hood style, and just as controversially, as Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner and Ned Kelly.[iv].
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Information about another variant collected in New York State was posted on Mudcat Cafe by George Ward & is posted here with George's permission -21 Jul 25 - 07:46 PM - Years ago, I found a text of "Johnny Troy", collected from an Erie Canal family here in upstate New York. It was in an issue of The New York Folklore Quarterlynot all of which is indexed. I've not searched exhaustively, but years of backtracking, by myself and others, haven't turned it up yet. It's there somewhere. By the time I found it, I'd somehow forgotten about Ellen's recording and put it to another tune (name escaping my 86-year-old brain at the moment). I've done it - mainly in programs about the Erie Canal- for years. So...two occurrences in rural NY. Makes me wonder if it might have been in one or more of the songsters that proliferated in the 19th century. Wouldn't have had to be. Fits well in the old tradition here. Would have been easy to pass around orally. and 22 Jul 25 - 10:01 PM Sandra, you certainly may. I love it that the journey of the ballad is taking shape.
As a note: Emelyn Elizabeth Gardner, whose text from Michigan you refer to, was a very significant collector of folklore in rural New York state before she moved to Michigan. Her 1937 volume 'Folklore from the Scoharie Hills' is one of the major collections from this region
I just checked the book. Alas, though not geographically or culturally far from Ezra Barhight, she makes no mention of Johnny Troy.
In 1953, Dick Diamond wrote a play called REEDY RIVER.
At Melbourne New Theatre, John Gray was working with him to fuse naturally 10 or so traditional Australian folk songs into the book. Many were the conferences and discussions as the show grew; Dick Diamond wrote and rewrote as the rehearsals continued.
Review of Reedy River, Melbourne, The Age 12th March, 1953
Reedy River, Melbourne, 1953 (BMC Archives)
In December 1953, Sydney New Theatre produced REEDY RIVER; this has proven to be another historical event. It was received just as excitedly and enthusiastically as the Melbourne production, playing to packed houses for 9 months.
Reedy River, Sydney 1953 - Curtain Call - (BMC Archives)
Brisbane New Theatre produced the play in 1955, playing to a total audience of 5,700, and later the production was revived. The warmest praise was given to the productions of Adelaide New Theatre and Perth New Theatre. The lively Newcastle New Theatre, formed in 1956, announced it as its first production, and played to very large houses; it has had successful subsequent productions, as has Melbourne New Theatre.
Sydney New Theatre also revived REEDY RIVER, in 1960, 1963, 1969 and 1973. Its total playing period in Sydney NT is over 20 months, before audiences of over 350,000 people; over 300 people have been involved on-stage and off-stage.
Reedy River in Sydney, 1960 (BMC Archives)
REEDY RIVER has been produced in London, and all over Australia by other little theatres, high schools and tertiary institutions. Total New Theatre audiences are well over half a million. To date there has been no professional production.
This historic production was a true example of ensemble or collective theatre. When the curtain went up in March 1953, the audience saw what John Gray described as 'our first real Australian musical'.
We hear today common reference to a 'resurgence' in Australian theatre. New Theatre feels that with REEDY RIVER it has helped to lead the way, and that this play was one of the first definite statements of theatrical independence of the sugar-coated or 'successful box- office' overseas productions. In this and other ways, REEDY RIVER occupies a unique place in the history of 'little' and 'big' Australian theatre..
Dale's research in NLA - John Meredith M/S. FOLKSONGS OF
AUSTRALIA . VOL 3 - found!
Date:
Thu, 03 Nov 2011 01:41:38 +1100
From:
Sandra Nixon
================= Research for BMC 60TH - September 2011 John Meredith M/S. FOLKSONGS OF AUSTRALIA
. VOL 3 M/S in two manilla folders 1-pp1-100,
pp101- 200 [168] Checked with Kevin Bradley on the
possibility of collaboration with NLA Oral History Dept to
produce an enhanced e-book based on John Meredith's M/S FSA
vol 3, with text-stories and words of songs, tapes of music
and collected tapes, photos of Merro and links to those people
recorded and in the NLA archives. It is technically possible to have an
e-book with links that will enable a click to lead you to the
library archives where one can listen to Merro's
collection. AIM:
To make the material more accessible to Australians and
visitors to NLA who wish to hear Australian traditional music,
especially those interested in performance of traditional
Australian music and songs. John Meredith M/S FSA Vol 3, contains around 100 songs, verse
and references to taped music. The text includes interviews
with the people who performed the material and information
about how they learnt the works. The expense will be in the technological
side of things to support the text, but NLA can supply names
of people who can do the technological side of development if
we don't have anyone. (unfortunately this proposal was not carried through, SN 2025)
Notes from Boxes and a summary of MS 1007 Papers of John Meredith.
After I started to make a summary of what boxes contained, I
found a catalogue in Journal of Folklore Studies. No. 15. P23J.S.Ryan
and Keith McKenry
BOX Contents 1. Field
recording notes 1955-56 Complete history of Jack the Ripper. P/C.
Harry Morant- A horseman who made history. Letter Language. Will bring
me down to Sydney like a brumby buck down Kosciusko.
Merv Lilley - Gatton Man - he claimed his father [ an aggressive
schizo] was the murderer The brothers Meredith. I] The Brothers Oh, the
fruit was sweet on the apple tree when my brothers and I were
young J.Dengate. Sheet metalworker. Photographs. Part 3 Brother
Jack. Vi] Australian Folklore
FS Journal 15. Peter Parkhill JM FSA and selected Biography. 2 manilla folders - M/S FSA Vol3. Initial quote; The link with the past
is not twisted. It has been broken and we shall have to
relearn our lessons It is helpful, therefore to go and
observe the way and practices of those who have not been
seduced away from tradition.
Philip Oyler. The
Generous Earth.
Another quote which sums up Merro's attitude: from the Preface
of Real Folk 1994-5, JM. The
Real Folk exhibition of photographs. Some folk revival performers have
become very commercially minded It was to distinguish between these
people and its pioneer performers, who have given freely of
their time. To me. these kind-hearted, hospitable and
friendly people have come to represent the Real Folk of
Australia. J.M. Dec 1994.
Unpublished FSA vol 3 ref FS Journal 1990. 1986-1994 folio
catalogue. Contents of FSA VOL 3.PP1-168.
Performers and their music. Typed
music and songs nos. given in M/S. 100approx
Steve Power Wollar 1984-1987 -interview, ref Jimmy Governor. 60 items including well known songs or
variations of songs from previous books, Including Neumerella
Shore, learnt from my father who was a good singer
unfortunately I am not. Black Velvet Band The chicken without a bone The Derby Town Ram The white man let me go The Bright shades of Blue The Gum Tree canoe [Not Aust- Nth Amer
gum tree!} The British Soldiers Grave The Tall girl dressed in Blue [ forged
note ] The Old Arm Chair. Simon Stick The little Rat that died Starry Night for a ramble and 6 more Jenny GOVERNON and Doris Lynch Biddon. Dec 1986 who had a book
with many verses. 10 items included P61. Harry PECKMAN b.1846 Blue Mountains
Poet, Hartley [Anon] Tambaroora Gold Bright Shades of Blue Where the Mountains are Blue. Boys of Hartley Vale Old Keg of Rum.
P.73 Frank DRINKWATER b.1923 Waggaï] [introd by Rob Willis] Met unemployed under the bridge. The
Dole-O Mob The Spider and the Fly The Old Rig a-doo Sergeant Small Under the Bridge.
P84 Doris ROTH b1980s Mudgee. Reg Kurtz recorded DR on her
death bed The Wreck of the Titanic.
P87 Frank LETTb.1909 The Ghost of Cullenbone The Broken down drifter The Silvermine Fell Goorianawa variant Mademoiselle from Armentiers The Colonial Boy
P97 Roy McCLELLAND Shearing and bushsongs.
P101 [SECOND FOLDER] contd. Walter Stores b. 1880s. contd
Working for Jacksons [Omeo] Oh a leg of a duck diff version Bert Cook b.1914 one of Billy's boys Tune; Copped a Daisy Toni SEIDEL b1914 grand parents from Silesia.
Germanic songs from the Barossa. Translated with insights by Renate Yates, Spritzen und Baender /Lace and Ribbons Ich bin der Doktor Eisenbart Doctor who fix everything So Leben Wer / The way we live Kleiner Mann und grosse Frau. Little man
and large woman Hamburg is a beautiful city. 23 songs include. Chorus songs with
friends singing, drinking and party songs. Elsie SCHULTZ . Walla Walla. Der Christbaum is der Schoenste Baum/ The
Christmas tree is the prettiest tree of all. A grace and a prayer: Do you know how
many clouds there are in Heaven? Pop Arthue NOONA Gilgandra . b1885 His notebooks of songs and recitations
was lost in 1955 Gilgandra floods as were most photographs.
[pp142-153[Verse The Flood at Gilgandra is 11 pages long /22
verses about many of the locals. [p154-159] Gilbert, Hall and
O'Meally .[not flattering to Hall] My First Shed. P160. Sally SLOANE. She sang slowly, [ Irish
ballads that Alan Musgrove sings] .Young Pat McGuire .The Maid of Sweet Gauteen [ learnt from
grand mother] .Squire Scoble / a murder ballad popular
in broadsides; sometimes known as The Old Oak Tree p168 Last page. . .x
2.Letters 1955-85
Russel Ward
54-55, Duke Tritton ms.
5. Autobiography More than a life and that's only half of it. Brother
Jack. The Last
Kooradgie.
6. Oedipus
Rocks a ballad opera. King
of the Dance Hall. M/S
The Pure Merino Fandango
7.Gallant Peter Clark
8 M/S5.Titles
9.M/S Folk Song of Aust. Vol 1
and Vol 2
10 M/S
The Wild Colonial Boy. JM
AND John Dengate Here's Luck; a bush ballad opera.
11.Notes Brian Loughlin
Bushwhackers band. Tune books and transcriptions of recordings
of Ted Valance
12. Scrapbook cuttings
13.7 volumes of field
notes
14.Green folder of songs,
verse, letters and music
15.Letters1990-1994
16.Letters, postcards,
programs related to folklore.
17.folklore notes
18. folklore
19.ï Folios of letters
with red folder of songs, stories, music and dance
instructions. Black folder. Sundry traditional texts songs
etc. Diaries and notebooks. White folder Folklore drafts and
notes.
20.5 folders: I] The
Householder's compendium corrections [ publ Night Owl,1986.i]
Home Ecs, Recipes, iii] Cookery. Green folder MORANT & SERIAL
KILLERS.
The success of New Theatre play Reedy River in its early days had a
profound effect on the early Folk Song Revival in Australia. The
Bush Music Club in Sydney and the Victorian Folklore Society in
Melbourne were both set up in its wake. The Cold War at the time
meant that for 17 years the Sydney Morning Herald refused to
advertise productions of the play or allow any journalist to report
on its success. This policy came to an end when the legendry WWF
Secretary Jim Healy rang the editor and pointed out that the
Herald's newsprint originated in Tasmania and Waterside Workers
there might take steps to break the Herald boycott.
Reedy River (1954)
Showing at WWF Hall
REEDY RIVER continues its great extended season. It opens again on Saturday, May 22, at the Waterside Workers' Federation Hall, 60 Sussex Street, Sydney, under the auspices of the Cultural Committee of the Sydney Branch of the WWF after which it will be showing every Friday and Saturday night.
This fine Australian musical is well into its sixth month of showing. Already 16,000 people in Sydney have seen Reedy River.
Last week-end the May Day Committee of the Trades and Labor Council, Newcastle, sponsored a showing of Reedy River in that great industrial centre.
On the Friday night 1000 people enthusiastically watched the production and on the Saturday night 500 people were entertained with excerpts and songs.
So keen were the people who saw the show that there is now a move afoot in Newcastle to set up a New Theatre of their own.
- - - - -
REEDY RIVER has been touring most successfully in the suburbs. New Theatre will be pleased to arrange for Reedy River to come to your suburb. You can contact the theatre every day at XB2601, and in future every Friday and Saturday at the Waterside Workers' Federation Hall for an extended season.
Notes From the NSW Newspaper The Tribune Wed 19 May 1954 p. 7.
