11 Aussie Blue
- 4.58 [Words & Music: Gary Shearston] I
was back in Australia (from England) for ten months spanning the latter
part of 1980 on into 1981. Invited to perform at the Tasmanian Folk
Festival (held in Longford), I bought an old Holden station-wagon,
supplied it with a reconditioned engine and drove from Sydney to
Melbourne to catch a plane across Bass Strait. (The wagon baulked at
driving across.) Returning to Melbourne, I then drove across to
Adelaide, up to Peterborough, Broken Hill, Wilcannia, Nyngan, and on
back to Sydney, visiting places in which I'd done concerts over a
quarter of a century earlier and hadn't seen since. I made a few notes
along the way and took them back to London with me, where they became
'Aussie Blue'.
Track: released on the Larrikin label in 1989. Note: by Gary Shearston.
Musicians:
Gary Shearston, vocal & guitar; Mark Punch, electric guitar; Michel
Rose, pedal steel guitar; Alistair Jones, keyboard; Jim Conway,
harmonica; lan Simpson, banjo; Leon Gaer, bass; Ricky Fataar, drums;
Kirke Godfrey, programming.
12 Above Below
- 4.24 [Words & Music: Gary Shearston]
A
seasoned maxim suggests that it's no good being so heavenly focused as
to be of no earthly use. If, as Charles Wesley suggested, we are to
experience, "Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven to earth
come down", we need to get our earthly act together - because love is a
two-way fl ow. Hackneyed as it has, apparently, become to say so, I
still believe peace and love to be the ground of all being between all
people. Anything outside of that is a pose, in one way or another.
"What a mug," I hear some mutter. But there are other voices, above and
below.
Track: from the album 'Aussie Blue' released on the Larrikin label in 1989. Note: by Gary Shearston
Musicians:
Gary Shearston, vocal & guitar, mouth percussion; Mark Punch,
electric guitar; Alistair Jones, keyboard; Leon Gaer, bass; Paul
Thorne, trumpet; Sunil De Silva, percussion.
13 Shopping on a Saturday
- 4.41 [Words & Music: Gary Shearston]
Reminiscences
of a northern New England childhood in the mid 1940s. It was a
four-wheel buggy, with hood and coachlights. Back where it all began, I
can reiterate that mountain bush and southern sky are still the same as
ever, graves upon a hillside do mark the time that's passed away, and
that, whenever I come to think of it, memory has no curtain, life was
lived for certain, old and in the way. "Go, Ted. . ." The song won the
Tamworth Songwriters' Association's Bush Ballad Of The Year (1990).
Track: from the album 'Aussie Blue', released on the Larrikin label in 1989. Note: by Gary Shearston
Musicians:
Gary Shearston, vocal & guitar; Mark Punch, electric guitar; lan
Simpson, banjo; Michel Rose, pedal steel guitar; Mike Kerrin, fi ddle;
Leon Gaer, bass; Steve Fearnley, drums.
14 Irish Girls (Will Steal Your Heart Away)
- 4.22 [Words & Music: Gary Shearston]
Anyone
fortunate enough to have spent time on the west coast of Ireland will
know that no tourist brochure ever devised can adequately explain the
landscapes, time-warps, music and mystery to be found there, or why the
Guinness tastes better there than anywhere else. A treasured memory: a
fantastic night of music and singing at a Saturday night 'hooley' at
Bridget McShane's Crossways Inn, Glencolumbkille, County Donegal.
Boisterous, rowdy hubbub interspersed moments of complete, attentive
silence when anyone took a turn to sing, recite, fi ddle, strum, fl
ute, tin whistle, or whatever. Invited to participate, I sang them,
unaccompanied, the Australian version of The Wild Colonial Boy (which I
had learned from the singing of Sally Sloane of Bathurst, from a fi eld
recording made by Edgar Waters). You could have heard, not the
proverbial pin, but a feather drop, so hushed was the concentration
coming back at me from the array of faces in that room which, by the
way, had one of the best-stocked bars I've ever seen. A reverential
silence followed the end of the song, before a round of thumping
applause. That silence, I fi gured, was as much for the 'Boy' himself
as for the singer of his song. I'll never forget it. Nor, for that
matter, the Kerry daughter by Shannon's water.
Track: from the album 'Aussie Blue', released on the Larrikin label in 1989. Note: by Gary Shearston
Musicians:
Gary Shearston, vocal & guitar; Mark Punch, electric guitar; Andrew
De Teliga, fi ddle & Irish harp; Bill O'Toole, fl ute & tin
whistle; Guy Madigan, bodhran; Leon Gaer, bass; Steve Fearnley, drums.
15 Riverina Drover
- 3.33 [Words & Music: Gary Shearston]
For
the latter part of 1991 and early 1992, I was living in a little
cottage on the banks of the mighty Murrumbidgee, just outside
Narrandera. During my time there, I saw many a Riverina drover on the
'long paddock'. As I had lived away from Australia for many years, the
experience reminded me of those I had witnessed on the 'long paddock'
in my New England childhood days. Norm Deen was running the Narrandera
Hotel at the time, known to one and all as 'the top end pub'.
Track:
from the album 'Only Love Survives', released on the Rouseabout label
in 2001. Note: from the original album notes by Gary Shearston.
Musicians:
Gary Shearston, vocal & guitar; March Punch, acoustic &
electric guitars & backing vocals; Mike Vidale, bass; Mark Collins,
drums.
16 Pretty Bonnie
- 3.36 [Words & Music: Gary Shearston]
Written
in anticipation of my daughter's fi rst visit to Australia. Having been
born in England, Australia loomed as a very far and different horizon.
She wasn't disappointed
Track: from the album 'Only Love
Survives', released on the Rouseabout label in 2001. Note: from the
original album notes by Gary Shearston.
Musicians: Gary
Shearston, vocal & guitar; Mark Punch, acoustic, 12-string &
electric guitars && harmonica; Mike Vidale, bass; Doug
Gallacher, drums.
17 Streets of Forbes
- 2.53 [Words: Traditional; Music: Gary Shearston]
Ben
Hall's story has stayed with me ever since visiting in 1965 what had
been his home turf. I had been preparing for the release of one of my
earliest traditional song collections, 'Bolters, Bushrangers &
Duffers'. A gaunt, ghostly, charred old chimney was all that remained
of John Walsh's 'Wheogo' homestead in the Weddin Mountains of
south-western New South Wales, where Ben worked and met Walsh's
daughter, Bridget, whom he later married. The police who killed Ben
Hall strapped his bullet-riddled carcass onto the back of his horse and
led it through the streets of Forbes. Ben Hall's brother-in-law, John
McGuire, was sitting outside a shop as the grisly procession went past.
Though it may never be proved, and though these words are usually
credited as 'traditional', there are reasons for thinking John McGuire
may well have been the original author. They are here set to a tune of
my own making.
Track: from the album 'Only Love Survives',
released on the Rouseabout label in 2001. Note: from the original album
notes by Gary Shearston.
Musicians: Gary Shearston, vocal &
guitar; Mark Punch, acoustic & electric guitars, mandolin, strings,
percussion & backing vocals; Mark Vidale, bass.
18 The Man I Might Have Been
- 3.29 [Words & Music: Gary Shearston]
"There
is nothing permanent," said Heraclitus, "except change." The Man I
Might Have Been is a song of transition, of taking stock, of coming to
terms, of refl ection on the purpose of life's journey. The title comes
from a Henry Lawson poem and is also found in one of Morris West's
novels. At an earlier date, the English poet, Adelaide Ann Procter
(1825-1864), wrote, "No star is ever lost we once have seen. We always
may be what we might have been." Heraclitus, by the way, was a Greek
philosopher who lived from 540-475 BC. "Upon those that step into the
same rivers," he said, "different and different waters flow down."
Track:
from the album 'Only Love Survives', released on the Rouseabout label
in 2001. Note: from the original album notes by Gary Shearston.
Musicians:
Gary Shearston, vocal & guitar; Mark Punch, 12-string &
electric guitars, keyboard, strings & backing vocals; Mike Vidale,
bass.
19 Love, Don't Ever Make A Fool of Me Again
- 4.28 [Words & Music: Gary Shearston]
Ah.
. .love. Best thing going, and that's a fact. But where human love is
concerned - as I'm sure you're well aware, dear reader - you can't
always predict the outcome. Nevertheless, as Robert Browning pointed
out, "Take away love and our earth is a tomb." That said, love, don't
ever make a fool of me again.
Track: from the album 'Only Love
Survives', released on the Rouseabout label in 2001. Note: from the
original album notes by Gary Shearston.
Musicians: Gary
Shearston: vocal & acoustic guitar; Mark Punch: acoustic, 12-string
& electric guitars, mandolin, Backing Vocals; M ike Vidale: bass;
Andrew Lambkin, drums; Paula Punch, backing vocals.
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