G'day Calach / Ian,

I live in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (you know, the place cringing as our politicians and their apparatchiks teach the rest of the world how to make the Olympic Games really look like a swine-feeding frenzy at the big trough!). I can't see my profile in Quick Links / bbc's Mudcat Resources - Mudcat Profiles yet, so I had better practice a less prolix version:
I have been mostly involved in Australian folk music / 'Bush Music' since the early 1960's and during the latter half of the '60s I worked down in the Tasmanian and the Snowy Mountains Hydro Schemes - as well as a few odd jobs and a none too successful contracting venture. I married a Tasmanian girl in 1970 and we came back to Sydney where I trained as a photographer. I had taken up button accordion in 1963 and seem to have absorbed some Tasmanian styles and habits over my time down there as well as making and playing whistles.

Back in Sydney I was active again with the Bush Music Club, having been Concert Party Leader at various times between 1965 and the present. I played in Bush Bands: The Rouseabouts from ~1974 - 1978, Selectors from ~ 1980 - 1989 and The Backblocks Musicians from 1990 - present. I've been involved with the Club's publishing for 30 years and have variously designed, edited, illustrated and got out tape and (soon) CD compilations.

Portable, improvised and makeshift instruments and there effect in shaping an Australian style are a major interest and I play (and make) [wooden playing] bones, lagerphone, bush (tea chest) bass, home-made whistles as well as mouth organ, Anglo concertina and accordions.

I sing traditionally - unaccompanied and, along with our past traditions, I seem to sing a lot of songs written by people I know ... and the odd Henry Lawson poem set by me or others. When I am playing, it is usually dance music of our colonial era.

I love Tasmania and have a particular interest in "Frank the Poet" a convict who spent some less than happy years there for opposing the British in Ireland. Many of his poems have survived as songs - including the original Wild Colonial Boy, which descends from his poem Jack Donahoe. A friend and I found a 91-year old Tasmanian, a Mr Wilson of Cygnet, who knew a version of The Siezure of the 'Cyprus' Brig, mentioned up in my first posting. We did not collect it but managed to get this one.

I had best sign off before this gets too long. There will probably be a profile in bbc's resources soon (she does depend on her almost-18-year-old son for the technical bits!).

Regards,

Bob Bolton