VERANDAH MUSIC – GERMAN STYLE

Harry Schaefer and Band

Some more additions to the historical field recording on the Verandah Music Youtube channel. Rob Willis has digitised some early films of German song and music in Australia and provides below some background to the project.

A recent chance meeting with two lovely people from Temora reminded me of the many recordings of German traditions that we have made for the NLA. 

Pioneer folklorist John Meredith had an interest in the many cultures of Australia, it was not only about the 'old bush songs'. During the 1980s John, along with myself and others, recorded and filmed a number of traditional musicians and singers performing songs and tunes handed down in their German families. We have also included some later videos that followed the tradition of John's films including Forbes local, Harry Schaefer, definitely a musician of note.

Here is a playlist from our Verandah Music channel of some of these, I will be adding to it as time permits.

Please note that John's film "A Lutheran Legacy" was shot on super 8 FILM which did not give great audio and we were restricted by the short amount of film time - at 24 fps we got 2 minutes 30 seconds per segment. John loved the old-style newsreel type doco's and the editing was very basic with no digital facilities utilised. Making do with movies.

Others involved with the project include Bruce Cameron, Jamie Carlin, Olya Willis, Forbes Shire Council.

Please share the link https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeh_9si3jFvI

Readers might also be interested in other collections of German traditions in Australia, including:

Schuster Collection NLA https://www.library.gov.au/research/guides-and-resources/guides-selected-collections/schuster-collection. Includes stories and customs, as well as music and song. Also contains some Scandinavian traditions.

Mark Schuster’s website, Germany Downunder

The National Library of Australia also has significant other collections of German lore, oral history and culture at https://www.library.gov.au/term/germany

German Australia (also good education materials + links to other resources) 

Institutions like the State Library of South Australia and the State Library of Queensland maintain extensive regional immigrant papers, church and choir records (such as documentation of the historic Liedertafel singing groups in Adelaide and the Barossa Valley), shipping indexes, and early German-language Australian newspapers

Regional repositories like the Tatura Irrigation & Wartime Camps Museum in Victoria and holdings via Museums Victoria contain localized artifacts, community songbooks, and folk traditions related to waves of European migration.

Opening the Multilingual Archive of Australia (OMAA) This is a comprehensive research and educational resource out of Sydney University with connections to many other multicultural projects in other universities and institutions. It is not specifically folkloric in orientation but includes much that is, as well as valuable contextual information (also photographs) about the many ethnic groups covered, including German.

And, of course, you can always take yourself off to the Barossa and elsewhere in South Australia where many of these traditions are alive and well.

 

VERANDAH MUSIC AT THE NATIONAL FOLK FESTIVAL 2026

(l-r) Matt Nightingale, Jac Bradley, Kev Bradley, Chloe Roweth, Jason Roweth, Graham Seal, Ollie Willis, Rob Willis

This year, Rob Willis and Olya Willis received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National Folk Festival, recognising their sustained collection and documentation of Australian folklore and oral history. Under the banner of Sharing the Harvest we presented an hour- long selection of traditional song and music collected from many thousands of recordings of Australians from different cultures, countries, locations and occupations all around the country. See previous post on the collection at. 

We had plenty of help from the band in the picture above. Christina Mimmocchi, Gemma Turner and Clarita Derwent (The Third Voice) were also due to join us but were prevented by a virus from attending the festival. Like all the band members, they have taken part in festival performances organised by Rob and Olya over the past thirty or so years, completing the link between collecting, archiving and sharing the folklore harvest.

Graham, Rob and Olya

Sounds Like Australia

 https://www.outbackmag.com.au/sounds-like-australia/

Article about the collecting odyssey of Rob and Ollie Willis in Outback magazine. We featured this work in a previous post at

 https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/2138391645827947224/2607229772787880325

And there is more information at

https://verandahmusic.blogspot.com/p/the-willis-collection-of-life-stories.html

Verandah Music at the 2024 National Folk Festival

 

Hairyman from Tasmania being interviewed by Rob Willis and Graham Seal in the Fitzroy. Hairyman talked about his life, philosophy, folk festivals and all manner of things - and sang a few of his powerful ballads. (Photo Ollie Willis).

THE DANCE AT MITCHELL’S ISLAND HALL

 

In 1990 John Meredith and I recorded the Murray Brothers, Bert and Bob, at Burrell Creek NSW along with their sister, Kit Taylor. All were well known musicians in the area. 
Early the next year (1991) Ollie and I along with our kids had an amazing musical session at Taree with them and local fiddle and concertina player, Ernie Wells. I videoed segments of this session and it is now in our NLA collection.
We also recorded Kit’s son Peter and his wife, Dorothy doing some local variations of dances.
The people we record are not just numbers on a Library catalogue, they often become friends and this was the case with Peter and Dorothy Taylor. 
About five years ago Peter lamented that the old (unique) local dances were being forgotten and suggested that he gather a few of his dancing friends, teach them the dances and we could video them. Of course, the answer was YES. Covid and a few health issues intervened but Peter contacted me again earlier this year and the result was the dance we recorded at Mitchell’s Island Hall in August 2022.
You certainly don’t see a dance programme like this very often these days.
There’s always a story and this one is a bit long to tell here so the resulting video and complete story are up on our Verandah Music YouTube site, here
Many thanks to Peter and Dorothy for facilitating the dance, Ollie Willis and John and Maree Harpley for helping us record it for posterity.

Rob Willis

MYTHS, MEMES AND MUCH, MUCH MORE

This time in the Yarns of Oz we’re talking about urban legends, memes, factoids and conspiracy theories – all true, of course.

 

Remember – unless you heard it here - don‘t believe a thing you hear!

COLLECTING LIFE STORIES AND TRADITIONS OF AUSTRALIA

 Interviewing Cathy Hutchinson, Tasmania, 2018

Rob and Olya Willis have been collecting oral history and folklore around the country for many years. Their collection is held in various archives, libraries and other scattered locations. 

 

We have prepared a brief guide to the collection and points of access to it in a new page on the blog titled ‘The Willis Collection of Life Stories and Traditions’. From here, you can access much of the collection online and/or onsite at various institutions and locations.

CELEBRATING THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN MEREDITH

John Meredith playing the original lagerphone

This year marks the centenary of the birth of Australian folklorist, John Meredith (1920-2001). He is justly celebrated for his pioneering collections of folksong, dance and verse, enshrined in the several volumes of Folksongs of Australia (the first in conjunction with the late Hugh Anderson and the second with Roger Covell and Patricia Brown). 

His collecting work led him into the performance of the traditions he and others were collecting, notably with the Sydney Bush Music Club and the original Bushwhackers bush band. His work in this area was twice recognized through awards in the order of Australia (OAM 1986 and AM 1992)

John Meredith was a man of many interests and also made notable contributions to the documentation and understanding of Australian culture, including folk speech and cultural history, His work, which also included plays and musicals, is preserved in the books and articles he wrote about many aspects of folklore, in film, photographs and in his collected field recordings held in the Oral History and Folklore Collection of the National Library of Australia. at https://www.amw.org.au/sites/default/files/memory_of_the_world/collecting-australias-folk-culture/john-meredith-folklore-collection-1953-1994.html. The collection is recognised in the UNESCO Memory of the World Program.

A biography by Keith McKenry, More Than a Life: John Meredith,was published in 2014 and a reasonably extensive article on his life and work is available on Wikipedia. There is a John Meredith Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/365849244352767/

Particularly in the later phases of his collecting, John Meredith worked with many other folklorists who were inspired by his example and have gone on to make significant contributions to the field. One of these was Rob Willis who penned the following reminiscence of his relationship with John Meredith for Trad & Now in 1992, slightly edited for Verandah Music:

John was born at Holbrook in 1920 and from an early age became interested in the songs, tunes and poetry of our country. John purchased a very bulky tape recorder and commenced recording the older performers in the 1950’s. As a result of this John published prolifically on folkloric and other topics, perhaps his best-known works were "Folk Songs of Australia" volumes 1 and 2. Meredith continued this work throughout the rest of his life John Meredith’s folkloric and photographic collection is housed in The National Library of Australia. This brief glimpse into the life of this man will hopefully encourage people to investigate his work further.

I was fortunate to be one of a small band of people who became involved with John, assisting with his collecting. My time on the track spanned the years 1984 until he retired in 1994. So what was it like spending a large amount of time travelling with a man who had become a legend in his own lifetime?

John was a very forthright man and yet during all the time we spent on the road we did not have one argument. He had a broad knowledge on many subjects including botany, photography, history, Australian literature, herbalism and others too numerous to mention and yet would impart this knowledge in a very interesting and inspiring way. So often I would return from a lengthy field trip and tell my wife Olya that my head was just about to explode with all the information that Merro had passed on. He was never restrictive or closed about his work and gladly passed on tunes, songs and information from his personal collection. It was very important to John that his work be spread to as wide an audience as possible.

The other important lesson that I learnt during this time was our ongoing relationship with the people we interviewed. We were never short of a bed in a town where Merro had been previously, as the people he had spoken with became friends. They were never just numbers on a Library catalogue. We had musical sessions all over the country with the traditional players and singers, each of us contributing and learning from the other. Following in John’s footsteps I have continued to do this and look forward to the ongoing contact with performers.

John was meticulous and very professional with his work, contacting his informants and making sure they understood what we required. In the days before mobile phones and emails we spent more time in telephone boxes than Clark Kent.

Accommodation was also very interesting in those early days as we were on a very limited budget for fuel and other expenses, which we shared. A tent was the usual format and we would camp in National Parks or on the side of the road. John had a love of the rivers and many a campsite was set up on the banks of the Murray. I think we both ended up with a dose of Ross River virus after camping in a mosquito-infested forest on the river near Swan Hill. In later years we shared on site vans and basic cabins in camping grounds.

The National Library of Australia were, and still are, most supportive with the supply of equipment and allocation of funds from their limited budget. John and I both agreed however that if we scrimped a bit on each individual journey we might be able to get many more field trips out of the available funding. There was and still is so much to be done.

To be in close contact for long periods of time and often under quite stressful circumstances requires a good rapport between people. John and I both shared a similar sense of humour and a love of music. Many an hour was spent around a campfire yarning and playing the two identical small Busilacchio button accordions we both took with us on trips. I still have memories of learning tunes from him whilst we were camped on the Devils Pinch near Nerriga while searching for stories of Frank the Poet.

Also, the morning it was discovered that I had forgotten to pack the food after a freezing night camped near Wilkerboon station near Mt Hope in NSW. The photo on this page shows Merro cooking an apple over the fire, we also had some soymilk thank goodness – John is still smiling, I don’t know why.

We also would take early morning walks (John was not one to stay in bed) where we would traipse along and my head would again be filled with his knowledge.

The highlights of my years with John were many and we kept in close contact and shared our excitements until his death in 2001. The inability to make a phone call to seek information or share an enthusiasm is to me the hardest part of his not being here in person.

On the track of Australian folksong, 1984

I called him John during our first meeting and I remember him saying a short time later, "My good mates call me Merro, Rob, and I would like you to call me Merro"

Thanks for everything Merro.

*

A TOUCH OF THE IRISH IN BILPIN

Taia de Burca was recently recorded by Rob and Olya Willis in Bilpin, NSW, singing a few Irish songs from her family tradition. Here she is on Youtube with a good rebel song, ‘The Tri Coloured Ribbon’.

And again, with a lovely version of ‘If I Were a Blackbird’ learned from her mother.

Rob writes:

Taia de Burca learnt many songs from her Irish mother both as a child and in later years. The family were involved in The Irish War of Independence, her Grandfather being one of the railway engine drivers who refused to carry British troops. Singing was important with the family in Ireland and the 'rebel' songs were a strong part of the repertoire. I find it interesting the way Taia sings this song, really putting her heart in to it… I am amazed we are still finding these songs passed down in the family, aural tradition.

Thanks Taia

AWARD FOR ROB AND OLYA WILLIS

Rob and Ollie have just been awarded the Australasian Sound Recording Association (ASRA) award 

for 2019 for ‘Their Outstanding Contribution to Oral History Collecting and Recording’.

 The Association is made up of private record collectors, professional sound archivists, radio broadcasters and social historians, consisting of individuals and institutions with a strong interest in sound recording history, its development and all related activities.

 Previous winners include academics, June Bronhill, Slim Dusty and John Meredith.

 This is a great recognition of the dedicated work Rob and Ollie have done over many years in documenting and preserving oral history, folklore and the culture of everyday life.

 Congratulations Rob and Ollie and watch out for more of their work on the Verandah Music blog and Youtube channel.

SHARING THE HARVEST – THE JAMBEROO RECORDINGS NOW ONLINE

Gay Charmers at Jamberoo

In 2001, the Jamberoo Folk Festival featured two concerts by traditional performers, including Bill Case, Lola Wright, Eileen McCoy and many more. Long sleeping in the National Library’s Oral History and Folklore Collection, the full recordings, together with interviews and talks by Edgar Waters, Mark Cranfield and Robyn Holmes are now available online at

https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1664097

Edgar Waters, Mark Cranfield and Robyn Holmes, National Library of Australia

Click on the link above, then click on this logo"

 This will take you to a user agreement, at the bottom of which is a green ‘I accept’ button, click that and it takes you straight to the list of the sessions, starting with the first one. Just click on the arrow at the right-hand side of each item to hear the riches within.

Bill Case and Rob Willis