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Abstract
Australian folk song and music have been created as unified genres by activists, enthusiasts and performers. Various commentators have discussed ways in which the genre is the product of unacknowledged selectiveness, conflations and exclusions of historically-situated genres. While acknowledging the strategic selection by which folk collectors created the genre, this article describes the vernacular musics from which Australian folk was assembled. It is argued that behind processes of genre construction was a body of songs created and performed in an objectively identifiable musical style. The melodic structures and performance styles of these songs are discussed, with reference to typical melodic families, the adaptation of popular tunes and the singing styles of the most prolific informants. While this song style is now little practiced by singers in domestic vernacular social contexts, its adoption by performers in folk movement contexts is discussed.
Notes
1 ‘Australian Folk Music’ (Accessed 28 October 2014), http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-folk-music
2 See, for example, Dave Harker, Fakesong: The Manufacture of British Folk Song, 1700 to the Present Day (Milton Keyes: Open University Press, 1985); Robert Cantwell, When We Were Good (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996); T.E. Livingston, ‘Music Revivals: Towards a General Theory’, Ethnomusicology 43/1 (1999), 66–85; Graeme Smith, Singing Australian: A History of Folk and Country Music (Melbourne: Pluto Press, 2005); Georgina Boyes, The Imagined Village: Culture, Ideology and the English Folk Revival (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993); and Vic Gammon, ‘Folksong Collecting in Sussex and Surrey 1843–1914’, History Workshop 10 (1980), 61–89.
3 Smith, Singing Australian, 41–71.
4 ‘Vernacular music’ is used here to describe small scale, face-to-face and unofficial music genres. See Tony Green and Michael Pickering, ‘Towards a Cartography of the Vernacular Milieu’, in Everyday Culture: Popular Song and the Vernacular Milieu, ed. Michael Pickering and Tony Green (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1987), 1–38. ‘Folk’ is understood here as the accommodation of such musical phenomena to a specific socio-musical interpreted genre, as discussed in the works cited in note 2 above.
5 For example, in song collections like: Hugh Anderson, The Story of Australian Folksong (Melbourne: Hill of Content, 1970); and Warren Fahey, Eureka: The Songs That Made Australia (North Ryde: Angus & Robertson, 1984).
6 The following studies all offer socio-biographic contextualization of the music and performers: John Meredith and Hugh Anderson, Folk Songs of Australia and the Men and Women Who Sang Them (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1967); Hugh Anderson, Time Out of Mind: Simon McDonald of Creswick (Melbourne: National Press, 1974); John Meredith and Duke Tritton, Duke of the Outback: The Adventures of ‘A Shearer Named Tritton’ (Ascot Vale: Red Rooster Press, 1983); Alan Musgrove, Greg O'Leary and Dave de Santi, Mister Joe—Songs, Tunes, & Poems of Joe Cashmere (Albion Park: Carrawobity Press, 1985); and Graham Seal and Rob Willis, Verandah Music: Roots of Australian Tradition (Fremantle: Curtin University Books, 2003).
7 Graham Davison, ‘Rethinking the Australian Legend’, Australian Historical Studies 43/3 (2012), 429–51; Smith, Singing Australian, 14–22; and Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Music and Social Movements: Mobilizing Traditions in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
8 Livingston, ‘Music Revivals’, 69–71.
9 See Dennis Coelho, ‘Australian Folksong Scholarship—Some Problems’, Folklore Forum 4/3–4 (1971), 68–84.
10 See Hugh Anderson, ‘Ballads and the Bendigo Diggings’, Melbourne University Magazine (1950), 59–66.
11 Hugh Anderson, Colonial Ballads (Ferntree Gully: Rams Skull Press, 1955).
12 Hugh Anderson, George Loyau: The Man Who Wrote Bush Ballads (Ascot Vale: Red Rooster Press, 1991), xix.
13 Cecil Sharp, English Folk Song: Some Conclusions (London: Methuen, 1954 [1907]); and ‘Resolutions’, Journal of the International Folk Music Council 7 (1955), 23.
14 For this debate, see Russel Ward, ‘Collectivist Notions of a Nomad Tribe’, Historical Studies 24 (1955), 459–73; Russel Ward, ‘Felons and Folksongs’, Meanjin 15/3 (1956), 282–300; John Manifold, ‘The Sung Ballad’, Meanjin 14/1 (1955), 111–14; and Anderson, Story of Australian Folksong, 247–52.
15 Keith McKenry, More Than a Life: John Meredith and the Fight for Australian Tradition (Dural: Rosenberg Publishing, 2014), 89–108.
16 A.B. Paterson, Old Bush Songs (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1905).
17 Vance Palmer and Margaret Sutherland, Old Australian Bush Ballads (Melbourne: Allan and Co., 1950). See John Manifold's comments on the collection in Who Wrote the Ballads (Sydney: Australasian Book Society, 1964), 150
18 Percy Jones, ‘Australian Folk Songs’, Twentieth Century 1/1 (1946), 37 − 43.
19 Keith McKenry, ‘Percy Jones: Australia's Reluctant Folklorist’, Overland 186 (2007), 30–1.
20 ‘Singing History’, Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW) (3 June 1952), 2; ‘Ives recorded Australian Songs’, South Coast Times and Wollongong Argus (4 August 1952), 10; McKenry, ‘Percy Jones’, 25–33; and Burl Ives and Percy Jones, Burl Ives’ Folio of Australian Folk Songs Collected and Arranged by Dr. Percy Jones (Sydney: Southern Music, 1953).
21 These include: A.L. Lloyd, Across the Western Plains (Sydney: Wattle Recordings, 1958); A.L. Lloyd, Australian Bush Songs (New York: Riverside Records, 1956); A.L. Lloyd, Banks of the Condamine and other Bush Songs (Sydney: Wattle Recordings, 1957); A.L. Lloyd and Ewan MacColl, Convicts and Currency Lads (Sydney: Wattle Recordings, 1957); and A.L. Lloyd, The Great Australian Legend, with others (London: Topic Records, 1971).
22 See Graeme Smith, ‘A.L. Lloyd and Australian Folk Revival Singing Style’, Australian Folklore Society Journal 34 (1996), 747–52; and Graham Seal, ‘A.L. Lloyd in Australia: Some Conclusions’, Folk Music Journal 9/1 (2006), 56–71.
23 John Meredith and Hugh Anderson, Folk Songs of Australia and the Men and Women who Sang Them (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1967)
24 Alan Scott, A Collectors Songbook (Sydney: Sydney Bush Music Club, 1970).
25 Ron Edwards, Australian Folk Song Index (Esk, Qld.: Rams Skull Press, 1994), 11–12.
26 Chris Sullivan, Castles in the Air: Ideology, Myth and the Australian Folk Revival (Lismore: Balgammon Music and Folklore, 2006), 49–50 and 119–20.
27 Meredith and Anderson, Folk Songs of Australia, 19.
28 McKenry, More Than a Life, 367.
29 Sullivan, Castles in the Air, 49.
30 Samuel P. Bayard, ‘Prolegomena to a Study of the Principal Melodic Families of British-American Folk Song’, Journal of American Folklore, 63/247 (1950), 1–44.
31 A.L. Lloyd, Folk Song in England (Frogmore: Paladin, 1975), 334. See also Hugh Shields, Shamrock Rose and Thistle Folk Singing in North Derry (Dundonald: Blackstaff Press, 1981), 27–9.
32 P.W. Joyce, Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (Dublin: Longmans, Green and Co., 1909), 9; and Brad Tate, ‘River Roe’, Australian Folklore Society Journal 41(1998), 933–5.
33 Shields, Shamrock, Rose and Thistle, 169.
34 See Meredith and Anderson, Folk songs of Australia, 30 and 32.
35 John Meredith, Roger Covell and Patricia Brown, Folk Songs of Australia, Vol. 2 (Sydney: University of NSW Press, 1987), 135.
36 Edgar Waters, ‘Folk song’, in The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore, ed. Gwenda Davey and Graham Seal (Melbourne: OUP, 1993), 160.
37 Roly Brown, ‘Glimpses into the 19th Century Broadside Ballad Trade no 31 Willie Reilly and his Colleen Bawn 2’’ Musical Traditions MT 216, 2008 (Accessed 25 November 2014), http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles.htm
38 Percy Grainger, ‘Collecting with the Phonograph’, Journal of the Folk Song Society 12 (1908), 147–242.
39 Brad Tate, ‘Willie Reilly and Irish Molly-O’, Australian Folklore Journal 45 (1999), 1047–51.
40 Despite the great currency of this song within the Australian folk revival, it was not collected in the field. Meredith wedded the tune from Patrick Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs to an edited text given in Charles Macallister's Old Pioneering Days in the Sunny South (Goulburn: Chas Macallister Book Publishing, 1907).
41 Meredith and Anderson, Folk Songs of Australia, 63; Edgar Waters, Australian Traditional Singers and Musicians in Victoria (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2004), 39; and Meredith, Covell and Brown, Folk Songs of Australia, Vol. 2, 58.
42 Benjamin Hanby, ‘Darling Nelly Gray’ (Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1856).
43 See further discussion in Graeme Smith, ‘Australian Songsters and the Australian Folk Song Movement’, in The Nineteenth Century Songster: A Cultural History, ed. Paul Watt, Derek Scott and Patrick Spedding (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016) (in preparation); Fintan Vallely and Finbar Boyle, Sing up! Irish Comic Songs and Satires for Every Occasion (Dublin: Dedalus Press, 2008); and Ian Russell, ‘Parody and Performance’, in Everyday Culture: Popular Song and the Vernacular Milieu, ed. Michael Pickering and Tony Green (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1987), 70–104.
44 John W. Gibbons, ‘Poor Old Dad’ (New York: T.B. Harms and Co, 1885).
45 Meredith and Anderson, Folk Songs of Australia, 146 and 150.
46 Dave De Hugard, ‘Bullocky Bill and the Camooweal Races’, Australian Folklore Society Journal 46 (1999), 1067–74; and ‘ENTERTAINMENTS’, The Australasian (27 August 1887), 26 (Accessed 13 April 2015), http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article142443938
47 Meredith and Anderson, Folksongs of Australia, 25 (‘Sam Griffith’) and 117 (‘Mirabeau’); Edwards, Australian Folk Song Index, 1277 (‘The Melbourne Cup’); Thérèse Radic (ed.), Songs of Australian Working Life (Elwood: Greenhouse, 1989), 99 and 183 (‘Prison's Nothing Special’); Chester Schultz, ‘Regional Music Today’, in Our Place, Our Music, ed. Marcus Breen (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1989), 70 (Cherie Watkins); and Cherie Watkins, The First Australians. Songs by Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, LP, AAA04 (Sydney: Aboriginal Arts Agency, 1978).
48 See James R. Dow, ‘Hans Naumann's gesunkenes Kulturgut and primitive Gemeinschaftskultur’, Journal of Folklore Research 51/1 (2014), 49–100.
49 For a biography of Sally Sloane and listing of her collected repertoire, see Valda Low, ‘Who is Sally Sloane’ (Accessed 16 June 2015), http://simplyaustralia.net/article-vl-sloane.html. Recordings are available on Sharing the Harvest: Field Recordings from the Meredith Collection in the National Library of Australia (Canberra: NLA, 2001); A Garland for Sally, Larrikin, LP LRF136, 1983; and Australian Traditional Singers and Musicians, Wattle, C7, 1957, Archive Series No. 1. Text and melodies of songs are in Meredith and Anderson, Folk Songs of Australia, 161–99. John Meredith's field recordings from 1955 and 1956 are held at the National Library of Australia (Accessed 14 May 2015), http://nla.gov.au/nla.oh-vn613120, and http://nla.gov.au/nla.oh-vn321624
50 For a discussion of Sally Sloane's performance style, see: Jennifer Gall, ‘Translating the Tradition: The Many Lives of Green Bushes’, in Sounds in translation: Intersections of Music, Technology and Society, ed. Amy Chan and Alistair Noble (Canberra: ANU Press, 2009), 61–77. See also Jennifer Gall, ‘Laments in Transition: The Irish-Australian songs of Sally Sloane (1894–1982)’, Humanities Research Journal Series 19/3 (2013) (Accessed 15 January 2015), http://press.anu.edu.au/?p = 245301
51 Compare with the use of this ornament by the great Scottish traditional ballad singer Jeannie Robertson (1908–1975). See, for example, Jeannie Robertson, Scottish Ballads and Folk Songs (Prestige Records INT 13006 [1960]), and her performance of ‘An Old Man Cam’ Courtin’ Me’ (Accessed 25 November 2014), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = DdCQuyX9tKQ
52 John Greenway, ‘Sammelreferat: Australian Folk Song’, Western Folklore 19/4 (1960), 298.
53 Hugh Anderson, ‘Simon McDonald. A Singer and his Songs’, in Verandah Music: Roots of Australian Tradition, ed. Graham Seal and Rob Willis (Perth: Curtin University Books, 2003), 107.
54 Simon McDonald's singing is available on Traditional Singers of Victoria (Wattle F1, 1962) [reissued Victorian Folk Music Club and National Library of Australia, 2004] and in the accompanying CD to Hugh McDonald's Two Axe Mac. The Story of Simon McDonald (Hotham Hill: Red Rooster Press, 2011). Amongst ten recorded collection tapes held in the National Library of Australia, one is available online (Accessed 25 November 2014), http://nla.gov.au/nla.oh-vn1769745
55 All examples are available on Traditional Singers of Victoria (Wattle F1, 1962).
56 Meredith, Covell and Brown, Folksongs of Australia, Vol. 2.
57 National Library of Australia, ORAL TRC 2590/62–63, ORAL TRC 3042, ORAL TRC 3388/3 and ORAL TRC 2608/15–16.
58 ‘Barbary Allen’ [accompanying CD] in McKenry, More Than a Life. See also ‘John Meredith recording Carrie Milliner’ (Accessed 20 November 2014), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = g9c1P5MFeAI
59 Quoted in McKenry, More Than a Life, 374.
60 Seal and Willis, Verandah Music, passim.
61 Gary Shearston, The Springtime it Brings on the Shearing (Sydney: CBS BP 233226 [1965]); and Edgar Waters, sleeve notes to Gary Shearston, Bolters, Bushrangers and Duffers (Sydney: CBS BP 233288 [1965]).
62 Mick Counihan, ‘Review: ‘The Springtime it brings on the Shearing’, Australian Tradition (November 1965), 26.
63 See Graeme Smith, ‘Irish Meets Folk: The Genesis of the Bush Band’, in Music-Cultures in Contact: Convergences and Collisions, ed. Margaret Kartomi and Stephen Blum (Sydney: Currency Press, 1994), 186–203.
64 See, for example, Sullivan, Castles in the Air, passim, esp. i–ii and 120–34; and Barry McDonald, ‘Tradition as Personal Relationship’, Journal of American Folklore 110/435 (1997), 47–67.
65 Chris Sullivan and Mark Rummery, ‘Charlie Batchelor: An Australian Fiddler’, Musical Traditions (2000) (Accessed 25 November 2014), http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/charlie.htm; and Smith, Singing Australian, 57–61.
66 Kate Burke and Ruth Hazleton Burke, Swapping Seasons (Dickson, KR003 [2002]).
67 Barry McDonald, ‘Review: Jenny Gall, Cantara’ (Accessed 27 November 2014), http://folkstream.com/reviews/cantara.html
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Graeme Smith
Graeme Smith has written extensively on Australian folk and traditional music, Irish traditional music, Australian country music and other popular music styles. He was an active performer in the Australian folk movement. He lectured in Ethnomusicology in the School of Music, Monash University, where he is now an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow. He worked with Thérèse Radic in the 1980s on the research for and compilation of her collections A Treasury of Australian Folk Song (1983) and Songs of Australian Working Life (1989). Email: [email protected]