ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Funny you should mention the "Portraits of Australian Women" album by The Cobbers. I was thrilled to pick it up a few weeks ago at a garage sale for $1, and it is in the play stack. I just have not got around to playing it yet. But now you have recommended it, I look forward to listening to it!!

Yes Murrumbidgee was an excellent album. I play it occasionally when I am in a Bush Music mood! Powerful largerphone playing.

I used to have pretty strong connections to the Bush Music scene in Melbourne, but alas moving to Queensland leaves one with only happy memories of all that, and even those are fading.

Ned Kelly's "Farewell to Greta" is on that album, from memory. Beautiful song. I have read - I think - that Ned sang it in his cell every evening prior to his death.

"Lachlan Tigers" is on Murrumbidgee, isn't it? Fabulous song.

The other band I really liked was "Paradiddle". I still see Mark Leehy from time to time. Also "Captain Moonlight" - especially "Bonny Ship the Diamond".

Stephen, Don't tell me Paradiddle is still going!! haha

We used to almost alternate with them at the Green Man Coffee Lounge in Melbourne, as I recall. Paradiddle would remember the Black Velvet Band, and then The Shearer's Tally. I thumped the lagerphone so hard that plaster came off the ceiling downstairs and diners complained! We were paid in pancakes in those days.. as many as you could eat....which when you saw the chef, was not many.

Captain Moonlight... Pete Dwyer, a good friend and his wife Shirl, and I have played in a band with Mandolin Pete early on, on odd occasions in various lineups. Including the dance at night at Nariel Creek Folk Festival.... I know Noel Murphy, but never met (the late) Joe Paolacci.

Captain Moonlight Album really grows on you, and as Noel Murphy said to me recently.. that was on 78 wasn't it? Are we that old!?

Hags Reel/Longford Collector is the best track on their album. Especially at 10,000db.

Don't start me off into the bush music scene again... so many funny stories.

Did you ever come across a band called The Squatters, Gary?

Stephen, The Squatters... not that I recall, but I believe I have an album by The Settlers (folk group)... that's about the closest I can get to it. My memory is fading a bit..... except for the funny things, of course.

The Settlers songbook has just been re-released. I wouldn't mind getting a copy.

The Bush Music/Folk Music scene in Melbourne was fantastic in those days.

I used to do bush poetry recitations which was ok, but really most folkies want to hear jigs and reels and Australian folk songs etc... music... and they wanted you to really rock on!!

But the audience were always polite... thankfully! No tomatoes thrown etc.

The reciting bush-ified things ... sort of.

Plus it gave the other band members time to recuperate/regroup, especially Barry on the flute. My reciting performances would probably be considered poor to indifferent these days by practitioners... but it got us by then.

One job at a wedding the father of the bride in his speech said "Twenty two years ago I put my daughter to bed with a dummy, and now today I am doing the same thing"... we in the band rolled around in stitches laughing after that, and we could barely play without laughing !!! crazy stuff.

One dance in the bush where the hay bales were spread around, an attractive girl sidled up to me and suggested that I might like to spend the night at her place... because Melbourne was so far to travel back to. Geez.... I might have given her offer serious consideration except the other members overheard her, and well... that was that.

At the Green Man in High St Malvern, it was easier to throw the carpet roll out the window of the upstairs onto the footpath rather than struggle downstairs with it. Out it went and landed behind a midnight courting couple who leapt three feet in the air when a huge carpet roll landed behind them with a mighty bang!!

As I was single, the band members took great delight in pointing out to me all the attractive ladies who came dancing past... all this with nods and winks while the music was being played in apparent earnest.

Yeah, good times... we all know them. As a lagerphone player I never considered myself "a musician" and still don't. A very necessary adjunct at best I suppose.

The people I encountered were Real Musicians... to hear them on flute, mandolin, mandola, fiddle, guitar, banjo ... I mean it was a humbling experience.

Oh, well, it hasn't died completely, Gary.