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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.
With that in mind I proposed starting a new regular concert/session night at the Hut & we have had a very successful year.
Duke's place, named after our honoured early member Harold 'Duke'
Tritton (1886-1965), is the place to go once a month for a great night
of Australian songs in concert and session. Duke was a powerful singer
who supplied BMC with many songs he had learnt in his younger days while
working as a shearer and at other bush jobs. He was also a songwriter
and poet giving us songs that have entered the tradition such as Sandy
Hollow Line and Shearing in the Bar.
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14th Feb - Ralph Pride with support act Don Brian
Ralph Pride
Don Brian
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Jim Low is a singer/songwriter and author who lives in the Blue
Mountains west of Sydney. He was born and raised in North Sydney,
leaving the district in 1970 to begin a teaching career in the country.
It is said that he creates and sings songs that get to the heart of
the story, entertain and beg to be listened to again. He has a deep
interest in Australian history having written books, articles, and
school learning materials on Australian themes. Jim has performed his
songs in clubs, restaurants, concerts and festivals. He has released a
number of CDs and his music has been played throughout Australia and
used in documentaries.
Jim’s songs deserve to be heard, folklorist and performer Warren Fahey OAM says. They
are genuine story songs that have a direct link to this land and this
precious culture of ours. In many ways the songs link us to our history
in the same way traditional songs served us in allowing us to record our
emotional history.
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11th April - Chloe & Jason Roweth
Chloë & Jason Roweth (vocals, guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, mandola)
have been researching and reinventing Australian bush music /
entertainment for over twenty years. The Roweths’ broad repertoire of
bush songs allows both the humour and surprising depth of traditional
Australian bush ballads, poetry and dance tunes to shine through.
They’ve gathered a bulging swag of new material for 2014 - songs of the
kitchen, the verandah, the shearers’ huts, the front bar of the local,
and the campfire.
The Roweth Family Band
Visiting UK/Canadian shanty singer Tom Lewis 2nd from left at the session
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9th May - Paul Spencer
Paul Spencer writes quirky comic political folk songs to entertain the
activist in you or re-energise the jaded cynic (and sometimes to indulge
the cynic, for a bit of fun). Using some folk tunes and some original
tunes, Paul’s songs come from the human experience of the social change
movement and of living in a world that’s so beautiful, so alarming and
so inspiring all at the same time.
Paul was brought up in the folk scene and also sings the old songs.
Because he has the folk tradition as his musical background, re-using
old tunes and parodying anything and everything is nothing unusual for
him. He also composes original tunes to get just the right musical
expression for his lyrics. He lists his early songwriting influences as Judy Small, John Dengate, Eric Bogle and Bernard Bolan, and he later looked to Leon Rosselson, Martin Pearson and Phil Ochs for benchmarks to aspire to.
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13th June - Dave Johnson
David energetically presents a swag of rollicking bush songs and
tunes with guitar, banjo or concertina and drives a mean fiddle for
dance tunes.
A life member of The Bush Music Club, David acknowledges the
debt we owe the collectors who have shared the fruits of their labour.
Strongly influenced in the song, dance and poetry traditions by the
likes of Jamie Carlin, Barry Collerson, Frank Maher, John Dengate, Ralph
Pride and Bob Bolton, David worked with a number of bush bands
including The Sydney Coves, The Rouseabouts, The Reedy River Bushmen and Pinchgut. He established and then led Southern Cross Bush Band for many years until the tree change to the Southern Highlands where he started his family band Paddy’s River Band. Recently he has formed FolkLines to focus on collected dance music.
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11th July - Helen & Tony Romeo
Helen and Tony were drawn into the Bush Music Club in the late 70's and early 80's.
Starting off in the BMC Concert Party, they both made the progression into working bush bands and eventually wound up in the re-vamped Southern Cross in 1982.
Over the past 30 years they have contributed their talents to many of
Sydney's bush bands, ensembles, dance groups and organised regular
poetry workshops and dinners through the 90's and are well known for
their percussion workshops for bush bands. After a recent relocation to
the South Coast they are also now proud members of No Such Thing.
Both Helen and Tony have a strong passion and affinity for Australian
bush songs, music, dance and poetry and performing as a duo gives them
the opportunity to present some of the favourite material they have
gathered over the years.
session - Sam O'Brien, Don Brien, Chloe & Jason Roweth
session - Sharyn Mattern, Gail Copley, Helen & Tony, Sam O'Brien, Chloe, Don Brian & Jason
session - Don Brian, Chloe & Jason
Helen painted our hanging sign!
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8th August - Coolfin Mac
Pam & Norm have been playing folk & bush music since the 70s
when they were involved with Newcastle Folk Club. They were foundation
members of the band Rum Culls and later members of Bush Bandicoots. They regularly play for Bush Music Club dances.The Merrigans are renowned for Irish, Australian & Celtic music, but tonight will concentrate on Australian songs.
Early members Ann & Frank Maher
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12th Sept - Launch of Keith McKenry's biography of John Meredith
notice of launch
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Margaret is one of that small but select band of members who were
here before the membership list was re-written in the early 80s!
For several years she ran the Friday night Folkus singing
sessions at the Hut and tonight will share some of her large repertoire
of Australian songs, both traditional and contemporary.
Margaret has been described as "a consummate singer of good songs of all pedigrees & persuasions".
She has been involved in the Australian folk scene for over thirty
years, as a soloist, a collaborator with songwriter John Warner (Walters & Warner), a member of the Roaring Forties and in a duo with Don Brian (Southern Cross Trawlers).
But at this concert – she’ll be performing as a soloist in her
preferred style – unaccompanied. There will be a big variety of songs
and lots of opportunity to join in. Margaret has recorded several
albums, her latest titled Steadfast.
Roy, Cathy Rytmeister, Dot Dawson
session - Alan Murray, Malcolm Menzies, Sharyn Mattern, Kathy, Margaret Walters
Great night at The Bush Music Club tonight, featuring the legendary Margaret Walters,
stalwart of the Australian folk scene and long-time sensitive
interpreter of songs. The stories accompanying the songs were just as
interesting, and the chorus sheet provided reflected Marg's orderly
(librarian) mind: the songs were in alphabetical order! And a wonderful
variety from her solo repertoire as well as reprising some of her many
musical collaborations: The Roaring Forties, Walters and Warner, The
Tolpuddle Martyrs, Yarri of Wiradjuri Sue Gee facebook
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28th November - Alex Hood (4th Friday)
In 1954 Alex joined the cast of the musical
Reedy River and he subsequently performed with
The Bushwhackers, (founders of the Bush Music Club) and when they broke up in 1957, with the
Rambleers.
From the late 1950s onwards he became a travelling musician, singing
and playing a variety of instruments at clubs, pubs and theatres, and
later at schools and on radio and television. Alex & his wife
Annette have have taken their
Australian Folk Theatre to thousands of schools over the decades.
Photo - Sharyn Mattern
Album of photos from the concert
Ralph Pride & Doug Richardson at the session
Tea break - Margaret Walters
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12th December - Peter Cahill
Peter is a late-comer to BMC and bush music, having joined at the urging
of a member in 2005. He played guitar with Concert Party at dances and
festivals, and was inspired to start writing poetry by the example of
Concert Party's resident poet, Eddie Sampson. Writing poems soon led to
writing songs, mostly with Australian inspiration, some of which have
become part of the Concert Party repertoire. As he says I am a product of the BMC for which I'm extremely grateful.
Bob Bellini, Peter, Ralph Pride
Jason Roweth reciting
Jason Roweth reciting
Jason Roweth reciting
session - Jason, Don Brian, Ralph
session - Brian, Jason Roweth
session - George Bolliger, Sharyn Mattern, Bob Vickery, Dot Dawson
photos - Sandra Nixon
Lynne Poleson, Stephanie Poleson, Sandra Nixon (John Poleson photo)
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Evening skirt (SN) 
Back view (SN)
