Hi Helen, you're in luck, I knew Mulga Bill's extremely well and were a great stage act. They were mostly members of the Melbourne Uni Folk Club and formed Mulga Bill's circa 1972. They played to packed houses at the Polaris Inn in Melbourne, before embarking on two national tours sponsored by the Australian Arts Councils where they visited scores of rural towns. While on their first tour ABC TV filmed an episode of the ground breaking Big Country series, probably in B&W (1973?).

The other bands that were prominent at Polaris at the time were The Bushwackers, Mic Conway's Captain Matchbox and later on The Cobbers.

Mulga Bill's had a great influence on me as well. I performed one of my first paid gigs at one of their concerts, played with them as a fill-in on a few occasions and then went on to form a new band with Peter McDonald and Marsh Robinson plus Dave Kidd from The Bushwackers and the late Chris Wendte from the fabulous but defunct Colonials and did about 400 gigs together until 1976.

I don't know what has happened to the other members of Mulga Bill. Peter and I later formed the Jeff Kennet Blues Band. Marsh Robinson is a truly superb jazz double bass player and apart from credits on recordings I'd be very surprised if he wasn't still playing. The others - I don't know.

Regards, John