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Summary
The
Early Days of the Bush Music Club as illustrated by Singabout - the
Journal of Australian Folksong, 1956 to 1967.
from the Editorial
in Singabout 1(1) - aims of the Bush Music Club - to popularise
Australian folk song and to encourage the composition of a new kind
of song - one that is traditional in style but contemporary in
theme.
Scanning these issues revealed a lot of fascinating
information about the birth of bush music: print-runs of 1000 copies
for the first & second issues, subscribers & contributors
from many states & overseas (Pete Seeger!), a member in Antarctica in 1958,
contributions from Sydney's famous left wing artists, formation of
interstate Bush Music Clubs, first publication of many old & new
songs still sung today, even a couple of Dengate songs unpublished elsewhere. (Ballad of the Schooner Eclipse, Lawson Centenary Song & Malaysia Song)
Sandra Nixon with contributions from early BMC members Frank Maher (joined 1955 or 56), Ann Maher (1960), Dale Dengate (1960), Chris Woodland (c1960)
Retired librarian, Secretary of
the Bush Music Club, fascinated by history, folklore & ephemera.
..............................................................................................…
The
first meeting of the Bush Music Club was held on Thurs 24th October
1954. The founders were the members of The Bushwhackers
Australia's first bush band & stars of
the musical play, Reedy River which was about the after-effects of
the 1891 shearers strike. The popularity of the show led to many
requests to join the group, so starting a club was a logical way of
spreading their songs & tunes & creating new bands.
12
month later the club issued it's first newsletter which mentioned the
forthcoming magazine, Singabout
Newsletter 1(1),
p.1 Oct 55
The Bushwhackers were Communists, as
were many of the early members & friends of BMC. Check out Keith
McKenry's biography of John Meredith, founder of the Bushwhackers to
find more information about the communist influence on the early
days.
from
Dale -
Just a reminder that the people who joined the Communist
Party of Australia did so as post-war anti-fascists supporting a
Marxist philosophy of intellectual global unity & equality.
from
the Editorial in Singabout 1(1) January 1956 -
Aims of the Bush Music Club - to
popularise Australian folk song and to encourage the composition of a
new kind of song - one that is traditional in style but contemporary
in theme.
Volume 1, 1956, Summer, Autumn, Winter & Spring
Volume 2, April, September & December 1957, May 1958
Volume 3, Summer, Autumn, Winter/Spring 1958 + n.d.
Volume 4, 1960, 1961, 1961, 1962
Volume 5, 1963, October 1964, July 1965, December 1965.
Volume 6, 1966 + 1967 (final issue)
As
the members believed in collective action they didn't always include
names of office bearers so it can be a tough job finding office
bearers. We started an Office Bearers
spreadsheet in 2014 & by scanning every issue of Singabout, &
starting to scan the newsletters (1955 onwards) I've recently managed
to fill a few gaps from the early days, including a complete
committee elected in April 1962 - the first where women outnumbered
men!
Newsletter, April 1962, p.1
Pam Loughlin, Marietta Stratton, Alan Scott, Barbara Strain (later Gibbons), Gay Scott, Jan Jones, Jamie Carlin, Ann Banks (later Maher), Frank Maher
comment
from Dale -
... yes we weren't so efficiently organised in the
1960-70s and there was a reluctance to put ones name to any thing as
it went against the ideal of collectivism ... It was seen as the
individual showing off ...
Brian
Loughin first President, 1956
Singabout 1(3), p.12-13
The Editorial in 1(2) said
they would print 1000 copies again. Today we publish 250 copies of Mulga Wire which includes
a Singabout insert & the current one features TROVE.
Singabout 1(2), p.2
The
back cover of Singabout 1(1)
listed publications that were released by the Bushwhackers before
they formed BMC plus those that were published in the 15 months before
Singabout was released in January 1956.
Singabout 1(1) p20
By
then BMC had a number of groups - Sydney People's Choir, the South
Coast group led by Lola Troy, later known as Lola Wright, who created
the second bush band in Australia, Melbourne's Billabong Band, which started 3 years before Melbourne Bush Music Club was
formed, & is still going strong, & the Newcastle group which wanted 5 dozen more
Singabouts.
Singabout 1(1) p18
Naturally
there were controversies, Singabout was a left wing publication, not
the place for protest songs!
Singabout1(3)-p14 If we examine the contents of issue no.2 we find
there is a strong left-wing political slant ... I am not against the
left wing having it's say. The point is, is "Singabout' the
appropriate place? My feelings are that the trade union journals are
the place for the songs mentioned above.
from Dale - & who would know them or sing them if they were in individual Trade Union journals?
The other big controversy was harmony vs. unison which led to the breakup of the
Bushwhackers in 1957.
Singabout 1(2), p.18
The harmony singers left to form
the Rambleers, BMC sang in unison & were still doing so in 1960
when Dale joined.
Concert Party formed after the
Bushwhackers disbanded & will be 60 next year.
Singabout 3(1), p.20
It was BMC's performance group &
membership was by invitation only. John Dengate had to wait till the
guitarist was unable to continue before he got the gig!
In
1958 a BMC member, Eric Burnett went to Antarctica
Singabout, 2(4) p.2
................
The
artists
The artists who did most of the illustrations in Singabout were Gil Small,
Clem Millward, Ron Shaw & John Dengate
blog
- Extracts from Singabout - The artists, 1956-1967
http://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/extracts-from-singabout-artists-1956.html
...........................
Gil
Small was credited as the first illustrator of Singabout 1(1), and
the only information I have about him came from Jamie Carlin. He
apparently was not a full time artist, unlike most of the others.
Keith McKenry had more info about the creation of Singabout
1(1) on p.158 ... illustrations by Des Tanner, the Daily Telegraph's
cartoonist, & pages laid out by Brian Loughlin using the
Telegraph's typesetting facilities
There
were only 2 illustrations in the first tissue & both were
Bushwhackers broadsides, not free standing drawings. Who did the
cover drawings? More information is needed
............................
Rod
Shaw & Clem Millward were famous artists, & are represented in many collections. Clem is still
painting and as far as we know, the only surviving artist from the early days.
..............................
Examples
of each artist represented in Singabout - named & unknown
Gil
Small Singabout 2(1) p.15
..........................
Clem
Millward - illustrations from Songs from Lawson
Ad for Lawson book, Singabout 2(2) p.5 & 2 pages from the book
Texas Jack
Clem's was awarded BMC's 3rd Life
Membership for these illustrations.
...........................................
Gil
Small
Singabout 2(4), p.10
...........................
Benier
- a famous cartoonist
Singabout 3(2), p.4
...........................
unknown
artist
Singabout, 3(4), p.11
...........................
Unk
White, famous illustrator
Singabout 4(1), cover
...........................
unknown
artist
SIngabout 4(1), p. 5
...........................
Rod
Shaw
Singabout, 4(4) p.13
...........................
Rod
or Clem 
SIngabout 5(3)-1965 p.3
...........................
Rod
Shaw & Clem Millward illustrated these 2 issues
Singabout 5(3), 1965 - signed RMS
Singabout 5(4) p.13 not signed
...........................
RMS, (Rod Shaw)
Singabout 3(4) p.16
..........................
John Dengate
Singabout 6(1)
p.14
...........................
Blog
article - Extracts from Singabout - The artists, 1956-1967
----------------
Interstate
contributors
A worker poet somewhere in Australia could stick a
stamp on his (her?) latest poem & send it to a worker-musician in
Melbourne, who would write a tune for it. The same worker-musician,
John Arcott won BMC's first Find-a-tune competition
Singabout 1(1)
p17
______________________
Worker poets
Wharfies
- Sydneysider Dick the Singing Wharfie
Singabout1(2) p.6
...........................
seamen - Merv Lilley
Singabout 1(1) p7
Blog - Merv Lilley
http://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/extracts-from-singabout-early.html
...........................
Joe
Daly from Hungerford, station worker 
Singabout 4(3)-p.7 - (Joe continued writing songs, later with Slim Dusty)
---------------------
Families
11 year old Stephen Spain composed the music for father Ron's
Station House Boy - he hopes to be a musician or boilermaker, or perhaps
both.
Singabout, 1(2) p.14
Daughter
Beren also composed a tune for one of her father's songs
............................
Jennifer
Mann 16 yrs - wrote tunes for poems written by David Martin, Merv Lilley, Mary Gilmore
& her father Jim Mann.
Singabout 1(3)
...........................
--------------------
Interstate Bush Music Clubs
Queensland
Federation of Bush Music groups 
Singabout 3(1) p9
...........................
Melbourne's Billabong Band, 1956 
Singabout 1(1) p18
Singabout 3(1) p.9
-------------------------
A few examples of songs
& sources
Sources
Singabout, 2(4) p14
...........................
Duke Tritton
Singabout 5(3) p.14
...........................
New songs
parodies
Singabout 1(1) p10
...........................
Darling
Harbour, Merv Lilley
Ameralia
Singabout 1(3), p.18
...........................
Sleeper
cutting in Baradine Bar
Singabout 2(2) p15
...........................
...........................
Collected
songs
Hoopiron Jack Lee, John Meredith's first source of
songs, 1952 
Singabout 2(2) p6
...........................
Sally
Sloane - an amazing repository of songs & tunes.
Singabout 1(4) p3
Bob Bolton photo taken at Turner Hall Concert, 1975
This was one of a series of photos that were taken at a Turner Hall Concert in 1975 & filed with Opera House photos (corrected March 2018)
--------------------
Early
members who have helped with information
Jamie Carlin who
joined soon after the first meeting wrote an article in 1964 about
the Club's first 10 years & his article is reproduced on our
blog.
Singabout 5(2)-p.13 Concert Party 1964
blog
- The First Few Years by Jamie Carlin.
Ann
& Frank Maher
Frank worked with Alan Scott & joined BMC
in 1956, around the same time as Duke Tritton. Frank was asked to
join Concert Party in 1960. Ann came to Australia in the same year &
was a member of Concert Party by 1964 & they were featured on the
BMC LPs in the 60s. They returned to Concert Party in 2012 when we
started celebrating our 60th anniversary. Frank plays bones &
bush bass, Ann is still playing the Maher family lagerphone shown in
the 1964 photo & they are with us this weekend.
The
Maher collection of photos & ephemera gave us a lot of
information about the early days. Frank & a very young Jean Lewis
(aka The Kid as she was 18 to his 26!) were members of the Pete
Seeger welcome committee
Chris
Kempster, Frank Maher, Jan Jones meeting Pete Seeger at Sydney airport,
August,1963.
None of the members in the photo were uni students.
The collection includes a number of items relating to Pete Seeger's
visit in 1963. Pete
donated microfilms of Sing Out & another magazine which BMC later
gave to Sydney University's Fisher Library & they are still in
the collection.
Singabout 5(2), p.3
Folkies met in pubs &
when the pub closed would head for BMC as it kept later hours &
had a great supper. The photo shows Frank telling Declan Affley that he &
Colleen Burke could come in for free as they were performers, but their
mates would have to pay the entry fee of 60C. As the folkies enjoyed the supper & songs, then left all their bottle behind, they were not allowed back!
Blog - Frank's
reminiscences of the early days
Singabout 2(3)-back cover
Dale singing the Malaysia Song
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