Merro's instruments

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John Meredith, The Bush Music Club & The Australian Folk Song Revival (1950’s) 
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Email from Rob Willis 9/4/13

1. Merro & Rob (Rob Willis collection) 

2.  Mezon similar to one owned by Merro's father (Rob Willis collection)

3. Image taken in Holbrook Museum of John playing Pop Craythorn’saccordion similar to one that John played in early days. (Rob Willis Collection)

Pop Craythorne was a local musician who had a large impact on Merro’s music as he let him play the extras at dances and sit in with him when he was a kid. Meredith played this accordion on numerous occasions at dances.

So this accordion is one of the first John played.

A friend of John's in th Hunter region has John’s Hohner that he used in the Bushwhackers and early days.

John’s father’s Mezon was held together with gum and was very battered according to John. So it would not have survived.

The Mezon pictured (above) is mine and is similar to John’s fathers. It was given to me by Merro as a gift – he had been given it by John McKinnon of Ecklin. His comment on many occasions was I have had my enjoyment with this so I give it to you to enjoy – when you have finished pass it on to someone else. Many treasures were given to me with this comment.

John gave Sally Sloane a couple of accordions. So the one pictured is probably his.

The two accordions that Merro and I are playing are our ‘travelling’ accordions that we took on many field trips. Busilachio in the key of C. Both were obtained from people we recorded – mine from Jack Smith of Forbes his from Ollie Moore of Swan Hill. I still have mine with the original case and a Holbrook sticker pasted on it.

I have in my private collection the book he wrote about his bicycle trip complete with photo’s – no accordion there.

He did not have an accordion when he went to Melbourne but after coming back to Sydney and going to EYL camps in Springwood where they sang – yes, sang the tunes to dances (the beginnings of what is known as bush dance) - he purchased a squeaky little Italian accordion which he may have used in the early Bushwhackers as Hood always said they had to sing high. Then came the Hohner mentioned above.

All the above information from my various sporadic field recordings of John and our lengthy discussions while on the track.

Cheers
Rob

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Merro's Accordion With Piano Keys 

 Chris Woodland photos

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Emails from Bob Bolton & Chris Woodland 19/2/13

G'day Chris, (Sandra & Sharyn),

It's interesting to see that Merro had one of those 9-key (... instead of 'button' ...) Chinese 'Hero' accordions. These would have been made in the mouth-organ / accordion factory left behind by Hohner when WW2 interrupted their Oriental expansion ... and which was used, post-war, by the Chinese government to produce a number of rather odd 'Oriental' interpretations of inexpensive instruments for Chinese patriotic polyphony! The first I noticed wasn't too cheap in its day: a 7-key melodion ... smaller than John's 9-key job and similarly clad ( ... and held together by ...) shrink-fit plastic cladding.

Although I already had the 10 key German-made button accordion my parents gave me for my 18th birthday, in September 1963 ... having lugged it in my pack on camping trips ... I was attracted to the very small (7 anodised alloy) key Chinese 'Hero' box that could be slipped into the outer pocket of my pack ... but cost me (from a music shop in Padstow) three pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence ... a couple of weeks disposable income - for a junior bank clerk! That was quite limited in its range of tunes ... but good fun out in the wilds!

That little box, as well as the German one-row birthday gift, were my introduction to the joys of button boxes ... and, when I moved down to Tasmania in 1965 ... and was working as jackhammerman/offsider on Tasmanian hydro dams. I used my first pay ... in the new "Dollars & Cents" to buy a really nice 2nd hand Hohner Erica in G / C ... for about twelve of the new 'dollars' - $12. (I also then picked up a nice Erica in C / F, second hand again - in Queanbeyan - for about the same sum the next year, while I was working on Corrin Dam, in the ACT. I got a lot of playing in with these two boxes after I moved back to Tasmania in 1967. (All of this also dovetailed into my mouth-organ playing ... since the instruments share the same note arrangement that fosters a surprising amount of harmony ... at the cost of needing to understand optimum playing patterns.)

Anyway, after I came back to Sydney, after Patricia and I were married in Hobart, I was involved in BMC meetings in Building 38 of the Tech College (the old Marcus Clark building ..) but we needed a bigger area for meeting ... with dancing space. Through contacts made at Tech, I was able to book the Burwood Council Hall on a monthly basis ... and one of the activities this allowed for was various musical instrument / playing / dancing / workshops. Around that period, I noticed that Franklins Supermarket tended to bring in various "Christmas lines" ... including inexpensive instruments made in China. One of these was the same 7-key "Hero" brand melodeon ... for something like $7 ... nominally about the same as my 1963 purchase ... but much cheaper in 1970s terms.

Each year that a suitable button box was featured, I would buy enough to sell on, at cost, to BMC members ... and arrange workshops at Burwood. The 7-key small box was very limited, but in other years they might have the 9-key version, the same as Merro passed on to Chris. Another really weird one was this one - also with 9 keys ... but a very low efficiency bellows - made using a "camera bellows" fold - not a 'pressure generating' accordion pleat! (I suppose that one advantage was that learners could not play very loudly ... and - if they did persist - they could be inspired to buy a decent German box .. eventually!

 Anyway, I do still have examples of all these Chinese 'Hero' brand boxes ... as well as their tremolo-tuned mouthorgans, for which we also ran work shops.

I know that we also ran some mouthorgan workshops at Burwood ... but these weren't driven by Chinese (ex-Hohner factory ...) instruments. In this case, Kurt Jacob - the Australian concessionaire for Hohner products found himself with a crate of "Hohner International" (i.e. ... not German production, but Hohner-associated plants in other countries ...) Brazilian mouth organs (with red(-dyed ...) wood to commemorate the origins of the name Brazil ... and a bundle of introductory booklets. I was able to buy those for something like 50 cents per mouthorgan ... and the booklets thrown in. However, I see from my records that we produced (assisted much by Ralph Pride ..) our own small book with a selection basic Aussie songs and tunes - annotated with the same Hohner mouth-organ notation ( ... and still sitting on my computer - having been an early exercise in computer-setting from existing material)!

 Another inexpensive starter instrument / workshop in the same period was the "Bones" workshop, led by Frank Maher. I had noticed, down the Central end of Pitt Street, that a strange little music ( ... and musical junk ...) shop was selling sets of "playing bones": 'Rhythm Bones' brand, moulded in black plastic. These were only 50 cents a pair ... and I bought a couple of dozen sets. They lack some of the 'refinement' of hand-made rib-bone sets ... or, even more so, of really well hand-crafted wooden bones as described in Singabout magazine, by 'Dud' Mills, who favoured making them from Tasmanian Bluegum ... or the vast quantity of sets made from the really great 'bones wood' Brush Box by my Dad, Ken Bolton, who turned out hundreds of sets to hand out ... and teach bones-playing ... to scouts at Jamborees and regional 'Area' camps over the years!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

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On 19/02/13 11:47 AM, Virginia & Chris Woodland wrote:

‘Day Bob,

What a great piece for the Mulga Wire! I found your reminiscences  very interesting and I believe others would as well.

Merro gave me a little Hero accordion, then another years later. I gave the first one to my daughter Kelly and the other I gave to the local yearly Kioloa Fair, where they raise money for the local sport groups etc. That was about three years ago. I never liked the little Hero accordions as their bellows did not have enough movement for me. If you could master that problem they were quite an acceptable little instrument.

Don’t forget mate, archive those memories and definitely publish them.

Regards,

Chris/Woody

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