Reviewed by Tony Smith 2021
This is a hugely enjoyable album. There is plenty of variety in the 27 tracks – 12 of which pair a couple of tunes as happens for a dance. Under the directorship of Warren Fahey, the Australian Bush Orchestra produces a broad sample of the music that country people enjoyed in the days before mass media homogenised outputs and fast transport brought the neglect of many little bush halls.
There is a debate among musicians who consider themselves purists of the Australian tradition. Some think that they have discovered authentic bush music outside urban areas and re-produced it on lager phone, tea chest bass and banjo. Others are more sceptical and think that ‘bush music’ as we know it is an invention of city based researchers catering for urban nostalgia. They suggest instead that often bush dances featured pianos, violins and drums, possibly even saxophones. Others of course do not care and just enjoy the lot!
The Australian Bush Orchestra makes a great contribution to these discussions. On this album the splendid musicians play various instruments from the piano to the button accordion and from fiddle to banjo. If songs appear on this album, you can be sure they have not been plucked from the modern salon but were actually sung by the ‘folk’. Let’s not open that can of worms!
Many tunes and songs played at dances and around campfires such as ‘Donkey Riding’ were indeed imported. Fahey’s comprehensive sleeve notes always acknowledge provenance. So we learn that ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ is an English nursery rhyme, that actor Walter Brennan recited a popular version of ‘Life Gets Tedious’ and that ‘Old Dan Tucker’ was possibly composed by minstrel Dan Emmet who was a major influence on Bill Monroe, founder of bluegrass music.
Of course, Australian collectors, researchers and composers are responsible for most of the A.B.O.’s material. The list includes Rob Willis, John Meredith, Bill Harney, Harry Cotter, George Strong, Steve and Marjorie Gadd, Eddie and Paddy Dawson, Ebb Wren, George Kyle, Basil Cosgrove and Dave de Hugard. Dave Johnson’s work collecting dance tunes is mentioned - for example ‘Australian Jim’ – as are Eileen McCoy for her varsovienne, and Ray Schloeffel and Sally Sloane for their compositions and personal renditions.
It is delightful that this album includes conversations with a few people who ‘were there’. Several tracks feature the resilient Susan Colley. It was an excellent decision to put Fahey’s conversations with Colley into the audio rather than just describe them in the sleeve notes. Colley would probably be described in the old parlance as a ‘trick’ as she describes dancing all night and even playing concertina while partnering the blokes.
The Orchestra includes assistant producer Marcus Holden (stroh violin, banjo, mandolin, national steel guitar, cittern), Clare O’Meara (fiddle, accordion, piano, vocals), Garry Steel (piano, accordion), Mark Oats (fiddle, vocals), Ian ‘The Pump’ MacIntosh (melodeon, vocals), Elsen Price (bass), Peter Kennard (percussion, drums, bodhran, jingling Johnny, piano), George Washingmachine (guitar) and Warren Fahey (vocals, jaw harp, concertina, bones).
Many tunes are instantly recognisable, even to the casual listener. Most Australians must know ‘The Springtime It Brings On The Shearing’ and The Bullocky’s Ball’, while others will recognise almost every tune without being able to put a name to them.
As there is such a good balance in the tracks, it is not likely any listener will lack a favourite. And there is such good ensemble at work that it might seem rather pointless to single out some performers, but personally, I find it easy to admire Ian Macintosh’s rendition of ‘The Banks of the Condamine’ on melodeon. Similarly, Marcus Holden’s stroh violin with its trumpet resonator adds an immediate atmosphere of the ‘old time’ to several tunes.
Visually the CD is attractive. Bill Wood’s caricatures are a feature and pictures of sheet music covers make perfect background for the composed and published pieces. Specialists of dance will find enough polka, schottische, waltz and barn dance tunes to satisfy the most critical while the casual listener will be convinced that the music of the bush was rich and enjoyable and worth preserving.
The arrangements are exceptionally fine with a clear emphasis on getting the feet tapping and the face smiling. Because the musicians each play several instruments, Fahey and Holden had impeccable resources at their fingertips. Indeed, they are all well known to one another under the banner of the Larrikins bush band. Happily they settled on superb versions of each tune, giving vitality to well known pieces such as the ‘Galopede’, ‘Jenny Lind’, ‘Starry Night for a Ramble’, ‘Davy Davy Knick Knack’ and ‘The Rakes of Mallow’.
The Australian Bush Orchestra benefits from Warren Fahey’s research in the New South Wales State Library and postings to his online Australian Folklore Unit. Seldom are sources acknowledged and arrangements explained so well as in his sleeve notes. Listening again to this album recorded in 2011 and released by ABC Music in 2012 reminds me that this is a superb contribution to bush music. While there are other excellent albums of settler songs and tunes, if overseas listeners wanted one CD to serve as an authentic introduction to the best of bush dance music, they could not go past the work of Warren Fahey’s Australian Bush Orchestra, now re-released through Rouseabout Records.
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