UKRAINIAN VERANDAH MUSIC

Here's how Ukrainians look after their musical traditions. It's an interactive project that brings high tech together with fieldwork and research to make the riches of Ukrainian folk music available to all, as they describe it:

The mission of the Polyphony Project is to explore, preserve and present the living musical folklore of Ukrainian villages. In addition to recording the intangible cultural treasures of the Ukrainian peasantry using state-of-the-art technology, our priority is to make this heritage of unparalleled value accessible to contemporary society. Having accumulated over centuries, this legacy is finally available online in an organised form.

They're on Youtube as well, of course.

Thanks Rob and Ollie Willis.

OH NO, RAIN PREDICTING CACTUS A NOXIOUS WEED!

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-24/cactus-flowers-in-bloom-may-be-pretty-but-they-are-pests/10423794

VERANDAH MUSIC ITALIAN STYLE

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2018 National Folk Fellow Presentation

SONU

Songs from the Homeland

2018 National Folk Fellow Salvatore Rossano presents ‘Sonu’, a project that explores themes of migration using field recordings taken from the National Library’s Oral History collection. Join us as Salvatore and his band, Santa Taranta, present this research and original compositions inspired by these recordings.

In association with the National Folk Festival

Thursday 29 November | 6pm
Theatre | free
Book here or 02 6262 1111

Salvatore Rossano

MORE RAIN LORE

Further on weather lore - it seems that in Central Queensland they can tell when it's going to rain by

looking at the cactus flowers - the more there are blooming, the more it rains. Look at that sucker!

CORN COBS AND CUDDLES...

Our old mate Ed Sorenson again provides some eyewitness insight into the way bush folk made and played their own music in the nineteenth century. In his Life in the Australian Backblocks (1911), he describes the farming custom of ‘corn-husking’, which is exactly what it sounds like, plus music and the opportunity for young couples to do some courting. At corn-husking concerts, or parties:

‘A farmer takes his family to a neighbour's tonight, and spends the evening (a farmer's evening runs to midnight) husking his corn. Next night the neighbour and his family return the visit, and on the following night, probably, some other farmer's barn is visited. This is the farmer's "at home" night, and for entertainment all the gossip of the district is ventilated, yarns are told, and songs are sung—while working; Sarah Jones's engagement with Jim Smith is announced, and all the remarkable and unremarkable incidents in the lives of the old people are aired—an interesting jumble of gold-digging, blacks, and bushrangers.’

Amongst all this gossiping, yarning and music-making:

‘The young folks enjoy these parties; the work is much more pleasant, and time doesn't drag. But the system is not followed to any great extent. There is too much talking for the average farmer (a lot of people can't work and talk, and some can't work and listen), and too much time is lost tramping to and fro, while the young people get playing and giggling. Many a courtship has started at those husking parties, and many a union could be traced back to the sly hand-clasps and squeezes when fumbling for cobs.’

As far as the courting and cuddling opportunities went, according to Sorenson, ‘a husking party offers many advantages over the bush dance.’ 

Surely, people were listening to the music, weren’t they?

Graham Seal

WAITING FOR THE RAIN - STILL

Drought has always been a feature of Australian life and is a topic with an extensive folklore surrounding it. Following on from our recent look at weatherlore, Rob has put together a short but evocative YouTube clip that says it all through a little field recorded folksong, some recitation, together with a few well-chosen images and – a nursery rhyme!

HUEY, THE RAIN GOD

Near Young, NSW

Here’s a post from Rob about the drought devastating large parts of rural Australia, and a related project on the folklore of weather forecasting.

I live in Forbes, Central West NSW and we are really copping the drought. Over the years we have been collecting weather folklore for the NLA and I want to bring this all together and would love some help, please. Maybe we can work out a way to bring on some rain? I know that sailors reckon that whistling brings on a storm ....  everyone whistle, please. So, old sayings (Red sky at night...), songs, comparisons ('dry as a dead dingo's donger', etc), animal and bird habits, ANYTHING to do with weather. Send them to our Facebook page. We will whack them all together and put them up on our blogsite. Will also publish them locally and maybe take the farmers minds off their current circumstance.  

Thanks heaps.

Rob Willis

The Life of Lola

Lola Wright 1926 - 2018

We said our goodbyes to Lola Wright at the Naranderra cemetery in June 2018. She had organised the whole event including the ‘farewell’ at the Morundah Pub after the burial. In typical fashion, two songs were chosen by Lola as a send-off: ‘I Did It My Way’ and, as they lowered her down, ‘Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye’. The farewell at Morundah was full of stories, laughter and music in memory of this amazing woman.

Russel Hannah of Wollongong first introduced us to former schoolteacher, singer, musician and activist Lola Wright and remembered her parties in the Illawarra area of NSW:

“Lola's house in Oak Flats with her partner Bill Everill was a great party place and Friday nights was 'Keg and Singing Night'. Lola had a piano and also played the accordion and in true 'infants’ mistress' style she made sure that nobody had an excuse for not singing. She had an overhead projector and would project the words of the songs onto the wall. Even those of us who couldn't hold a note were obliged to bellow out the words and there are still quite a few people around the Illawarra who know all the verses of 'Solidarity Forever' and the second verse of the 'Red Flag' because of Lola's transparencies.”

During the mid 1950’s Lola and her then husband, Jack Wright, had a visit from a couple of members of the original Bushwhacker’s Band who were performing in the Australian Musical Reedy River at the New Theatre in Newtown, Sydney. As a result of this visit the South Coast Bush Band was formed, with Lola at the helm.  

“We played anywhere for any good cause and for no cost - not even petrol. Schools, surf clubs, May days, fund raising for striking wharfies, Trades and Labour Council "do's", miners' break-up parties and such. Looking around at what happens now with Australian Folk Songs, it's something of an honour to have been in on the ground floor, even if no one knows or cares."

This band was either the second or third of this type formed in Australia. The visit also rekindled Lola’s interest in the folklore that she had experienced growing up in the bush in Queensland.

Lola Wright (nee Cowling) was born in 1926 in Childers, Qld. and travelled with her parents who were railway sleeper cutters.  Music and verse were soaked up by the young Lola and the memories of this era retained.  Lola went on to train as a teacher and stayed with this profession, attaining the role of Infants’ Mistress. During her time as a teacher Lola was a strong activist for better conditions and equal wages for women teachers.

Lola and Bill left the Illawarra in the 1980s and, after a stint running the bar on Narrandera Railway Station, settled in the tiny Riverina town of Morundah, where we visited her for the first time in November 2001. She sang us songs from her days at Armidale Teachers’ College, old parlour songs, political songs, bush songs and parodies and spoke at length about her fascinating life.  It seemed to us that this forthright and committed woman of the left had found herself in on the ground floor for most of her life - a passionate life of active involvement in industrial and political issues, of working to improve gender equality, and of promoting Australia's musical identity.

On our second visit in February 2002 Lola delved more into her childhood in Queensland and remembered dance music as well as some of the games and songs from the school yard.  These included a series of songs, ‘Maggie Maggie Magpie’, ‘Oh, Cuddly Native Bear’, ‘Merry Brown Thrush’, ‘Twenty Froggies’ and others of this kind.  

We continued to record the stories, songs and poetry of Lola Wright over the years and they are now archived in the National Library of Australia Oral History and Folklore section.  Many are available online through our catalogue https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/, search ‘Lola Wright’.

A play, ‘Lola’s Keg Night’ written by award-winning playwright PP Cranney and producer/musical director Christina Mimmocchi, was produced in 2014 and was presented at many folk festivals and other venues. It created an awareness of Lola and other strong women of her generation.

More information on Lola at:

https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2600053/the-ballad-of-living-treasure-lola-wright/

Rob Willis

Pete Seeger and 'Duke' Tritton 'Shearing in a Bar'

Here's the latest on the Verandah Music Youtube channel ...

In 1963 the famous American folksinger, Pete Seeger, visited Australia. Through members of the Sydney Bush Music Club he met Harold  ‘Duke’ Tritton, bushman and outstanding performer of Australian folksong and verse. Toshi Seeger filmed an interview Pete conducted with Duke, during which he performed ‘Shearing in a Bar’. Here it is.

Further information at the Sydney Bush Music Club 

Verandah Music on Youtube

For a selection of videos and films of traditional Australian music, visit our Youtube channel. This is a colletion of rare, vintage and otherwise important field recordings and archival performances mostly unavailable elsewhere and growing all the time...