The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #61341   Message #986531
Posted By: cobber
19-Jul-03 - 09:59 AM
Thread Name: 1960's Australian Folk Albums
Subject: RE: 1960's Australian Folk Albums
Oh the memories that cover note evokes. I used to "live" at Frank Traynors when these guys were playing there. Being around five years younger, I idolised them and learnt an enormous amount from them about how to present a song so that the audience took ownership of it and wanted to sing along. Traynors on those days had regular singer's nights. By that I mean Mondays would be Declan Affley (now there was an artist, Tuseday would be someone else etc. This made it hard for new singers to get on, though there were often floor spots. There was a back lane behind the old Traynors (as distinct from the new one that they moved to a few doors up the road around 1970 (I think). In the summer it got incredibly hot and smoky in there and the windows would be open to the street. I remember one night, Danny and Gordon were doing their usual session and a group of idiots passing along the lane started cat-calling and being pretty offensive. Danny and Gordon put down their guitars, went out the back and gave these blokes a lesson in manners, then came back and continued playing as if nothing was amiss. Apart from the music, which was Folk till midnight then jazz, Traynors was famous for brewing the worst coffee in Melbourne. They simply threw a packet of ground coffee into a big cauldron of water and boiled it all night. You could drink it if you added whisky, but you got thrown out if you were caught, though looking back, they must have been pretty tolerant as the smell of our clandestine flasks must have filled the place. I digitised my copy of Soldiers and Sailors last year. It was pretty well worn and it took me hours to get the worst of the scratches out with Cool Edit. It was a work of love though and that album still sounds good.