Subject: RE: Eric Bogle in Maine
From:
Bob Bolton
Date: 20 Nov 05 - 05:08 PM
G'day Sinsull,
Alan (ad1943) nagged me into answering your request. (I hadn't really bothered looking at this thread ... Maine being just about as far away from me as possible, on this globe!)
The three performers you ask about were all great assets to the Australian music scene ... in quite different ways.
Louis McManus brought strong Irish (and family) musical traditions to folk music ... and was involved with such folk/rock "fusion" groups as the "Bushwackers" ... not the original, very traditional, "Bushwhackers", who broke the ground for the Australian Folk Revival of 20 years before ... but rock-background musicians who discovered our folk traditions and injected "rock" drive and promotion - after the model of such British bands as Pentangle and Fairport Convention. Louis died a year or two back ... much too early (like lots of musicians ...).
Jacko Kevans was also of Irish traditions, the son of an Irish-Australian wharf-labourer ("wharfie") ~ = stevedore / longshoreman. He was a fine player of all types of squeezeboxes, a mine of information, songs and tunes and a keen (if strict) teacher of traditional styles and tunes - and performed with bands that started to 'rev up' the pace and energy of the Irish/Australian music scene even before better known folk/rock bands like the "Bushwackers". Jack (as he preferred, in later years) died of cancer, early this year.
Jack's (older?) brother Denis, was a marvellously cheeky poet, particularly on political and environmental issues ... affectionately referred to as Australia's "Poet Lorikeet". Many of his poems became songs, from the early days of the Folk Boom and were sung by a wide range of local performers. Denis died of heart failure, only a few months after Jack.
Slim Dusty was, of course, the 'Grand Old Man' of the Country Music scene, with an astonishing output over nearly 60 years of performing. One reason so many Australians loved Slim's work was that he always kept an Australian voice - unlike many "Country" singers, who seem to think that a faux-American accent is compulsory.
Songs like Slim's first recording success: When the Rains Tumble Down in July - recorded back around 1946 - will turn up as happily in the repertoire of a diehard Australian "traditional" Bush Band as that of a bunch of good old boys in fancy curly white hats, embroidered shirts and Texan ties!
Regards,
Bob
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sj
