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 Songs From My Swag© Warren FaheyFirst published in Australian Folklore Journal No. 20 November 2005. There is an accompanying 'appreciation' of Fahey's work by Robert James Smith (Southern Cross University) in same issue.) Australian Folklore is a yearly journal of Folklife Studies published for the Australian Folklore association, Inc. by the University of New England, Armidale, NSW Editor John Ryan.
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I have never claimed to be an academic and I find it difficult to attach myself to the word folklorist with its implication of having graduated from a course in, or related to, folklore. It is true that I have spent many years collecting, teaching, writing about and performing folklore, and I can only surmise that my history qualifies me to put 'folklorist' as a job description. I prefer to say I am a graduate of the Dingo University and the School of Hard Knocks. I left school with the Leaving Certificate but, being a complete nong in mathematics and science, I didn't matriculate and therefore was ineligible for university. I always thought of myself as a 'clever Dick' and would have liked to have undertaken higher education but, in retrospect, I now think it would have been my downfall; becoming an even stranger bird. I most probably would not have spent a lifetime chasing songs and folklore. At a recent gathering of like-minded souls assembled by the National Library at the 2005 National Folk Festival I explained that I felt uncomfortable with the moniker of folklorist, and that I preferred folklore-recycling unit. I was joking but it made me think about titles and the development of folklore studies in Australia. One by one each of the panel explained how they came to folklore: some had been attracted by the music, some by a particular interest such as dance and some were academics. I was still scratching my head because I came to folklore for a number of reasons but primarily because of a desire to see what makes the average Australian tick. I was searching for the nuts and bolts of the Australian identity; I still am. There was also a political motivation and although I never joined a political party I continue to think of myself as a political animal of the left. Albeit a disillusioned one! One thing I know is that I am capable of undertaking several things at the one time, I have that sort of brain. After having had to work for a living for most of my life I now have the luxury of working on folklore full time. This for me is a joy and I still push my brain and body (both raddled) to chase several paths at once. Folklore-recycling unit is not a very glamorous description but that's essentially how I feel about much of my work. I collect, I research and I try to put my findings into some acceptable form and then I reintroduce it back into the community. I do this through my books, writings, broadcasts, website and, for the sake of this essay, my performing. I guess I am fortunate that I am able to hold a tune, tell a story or recite verse. The performance of traditional material has always fascinated me and I still find this the most enjoyable aspect of my work. I am not saying I have tickets on myself as a performer but I know I am more than capable of delivering a program that inspires and excites an audience. Having an extensive and unique repertoire has been the strongpoint of my performance side and, in truth, I feel like I am only now going into overdrive. It is my repertoire that identifies me and allows me to relate to audiences. Many of the songs I sing are those I have collected or offer a personal point of reference. The same can be said for much of my recitations and yarns. If I had been blessed with a better voice maybe I would have had a less interesting repertoire? I say this in full knowledge that I set out to learn songs that would suit the limits of my voice and challenge my interests as a student of traditional music. With this essay I am attempting to track the why's, how's, when's and where's of my performing persona. I came from a singing family. My mother, the eldest of nine children, played the piano and her mother, Polly Phillips, played piano and sang music hall songs. My father, the eldest son of a family of eighteen surviving children, always sang in the shower. Both families were relatively poor and homemade entertainment played an important role in maintaining social life. My Irish side was the political side and, understandably, sang Irish songs however they were more of the Paddy McGinty's Goat variety, or so it seemed to me. My father knew a lot of songs that he had learnt in the Army during WW2 and some, I suspect, especially the political ditties, he had from his father, John Fahey. For several reasons, mainly geographical, I was closer to my mother's side, the Jewish side of the family. It didn't take long to realise they were singers because at every possible family gathering they would sing for hours. Nearly all the Phillips children played the piano and would squabble to see who would play next. They all sang too – mostly popular and comic songs from the early part of the twentieth century. One of the sons, Charlie, would do a great impersonation of Al Jolson and then Eddie Cantor whilst the younger brother, Clive, would play stride style piano recalling Fats Waller. Polly, the matriarch, played honky-tonk and would sing Sophie Tucker songs and music hall favourites and sentimental popular ballads that she had learnt as a child in London. My mother's eldest brother, Mossy, was an excellent ukulele player who had married into the Brandon family of Bondi, which introduced Sid Brandon. Sid was an exuberant pianist and had actually played for the silent movies in London. Whenever the Fahey's and the Phillip's got together the songs rolled out and there I was singing along like a bird. Of course, such a story is not uncommon for families that grew up in the Great Depression and WW2, for these were the years of homemade entertainment and especially the singalong. I now look back on these evenings with a certain amount of nostalgia. In the early 1970s I tape recorded my father singing some of the songs and parodies I had heard for so many years (usually in the shower). They were a mixed bag of political ditties about Billy Hughes and Jack Lang, some standard Irish songs like 'I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen' and 'Harrigan', music hall numbers and several British traditional songs including 'The Keys of Canterbury', 'An Old Man Came Courting Me' which he called 'His Old Grey Noddle Kept Shaking', 'Who Killed Cock Robin?' and some verses of the 'The Golden Vanity'. He also knew several army songs and a wonderful bawdy song called 'Whollop It Home' with a chorus that ended with 'put your belly close to mine and wriggle your bum'. I am a product of the time in as much as I was born the year after the war, a post war baby rather than a baby boomer. Growing up in the fifties and early sixties I discovered folk music, well, what I was told was 'folk music'. When I left school I became a keen youth hosteller and bushwalker and, once again, came across folk music. I toyed with learning the guitar and the harmonica but never really made any headway. I was certainly learning songs but only to sing around the campfire, and usually in a terrified state of anxiety lest I hit a bum note. I kept going to folk clubs even after the 'folk boom' bubble had burst. These were formative years for I was already narrowing my interest to bush songs, even though they were rarely to be heard. I was fortunate I tumbled into the group who reverently carried the remains of the folk revival from the coffee shops to the hotels. This change of venue was important to the survival and revival of the music for it allowed a more 'adult' approach to the performance of the music. Mostly conducted in the upstairs lounge of old hotels these new folk clubs were modelled on the British clubs where people actually listened to the singer. I became part of the group organising the main Sydney club, The Elizabeth Hotel, – namely Mike and Carol Wilkinson, Mike Ball, Harvey Green, Derek Chetwyn and Mike Eves. These people, especially the Wilkinson's and Mike Ball, were extremely important to how I saw folk music. We talked about the songs, learnt songs together and took an active roll in organising the club. At the same time I started attending the weekly meetings of the Bush Music Club and, once again, I absorbed what I could. It was a balancing act for the BMC, especially its executive including John Meredith, were extremely antagonistic towards the British 'folk club organisers' who, they believed, were all 'right wingers' and 'had no interest in real Australian music.' This was also the time of the A L Lloyd debate with the BMC, particularly Meredith, dismissing Lloyd's place as a singer and especially as an interpreter of bush song. (That debate continues to this day). I had started to sing a little but would no more have called myself a 'singer' than fly to the moon. I guess I had read every book about Australian folk music – apart from Hugh Anderson, Ron Edwards, John Manifold and Russel Ward there weren't that many! – and had started buying books on British and American folklore. I also started to run folk clubs: firstly the Elizabeth, then the Edinburgh Castle then the Royal George. By then I had a mixed repertoire of British traditional songs, ballads, sea songs and, of course, bush songs. I've kept the notebooks where I wrote down each song I learned around this time – mostly songs learned from listening to recordings of traditional singers including the outstanding series on Caedmon Records 'Folk Songs of Britain and Ireland'. I was also learning the songs on the Wattle LP 'Traditional Singers and Musicians of Victoria'. I recall being completely captivated by the singing of Simon McDonald, Captain Watson, etc. This certainly was a landmark recording for me as a singer. I must admit to also being mesmerized by both A.L.Lloyd and Ewan MacColl's singing styles. Their breadth of repertoire also fascinated me. I consider myself fortunate to have been lucky enough to meet some of the best traditional singers: Joe Heaney, Bert Lloyd, Shirley Collins, Sally Sloan, Joe Watson, Mike Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Willie Scott and Ewan MacColl. It was Peggy and Ewan who most inspired me to continue singing for they had a habit, a good habit, of looking at music from so many different angles. They made one feel responsible for the tradition and to see the carrying of traditional songs as an honour. This is a subject we discussed often and I am indebted to their sharing of wisdom. I had started collecting Australian songs and poetry around 1968. Nothing special but I was actively jotting things down as I came across them in conversation or in books. I started contributing book reviews to the ABC and then radio scripts around the same time. I had also started a bush band although I never called it a bush band. I wanted a group of musicians who could play and sing Australian traditional songs in the way I heard them in my head! This might sound strange but you must remember I had been 'balancing' between the Bush Music Club and the British-led folk revival plus I had been reading and listening to a lot of international traditional music and reading books on folklore. I had a particular sound in my head that I thought typified Australian folk music. The group was called The Larrikins and consisted of three Irishmen, Paddy McLaughlin, Jack Fallis, Ned Alexander and myself. We played together for a couple of years and recorded my first folk music series for the ABC – it was a collection of railway songs called 'Navvy on the Line'. It was an eclectic mixture of songs and the recordings were later reissued as an LP on the Larrikin label. By 1972 I had become totally fired-up with collecting Australian folklore and embarked on an ambitious field-collecting trip that lasted thirteen months. I lived in a Kombi Van and hawked the ABC's Nagra tape recorder high and low. The result was a collection of songs, poems, drinking toasts, stories and associated folklore that became the start of my collection in the National Library of Australia. The next twenty-five years blurs considerably. So many things happened including the establishment of Folkways Music and the Larrikin Record label. Somehow-or-other I maintained my interest in folklore, collecting and performing. I was a Jack-of-all-trades and, I suspect, occasional master of some. I want to concentrate on my performing side in this essay (I keep getting distracted) so it's back to the first LP that the Larrikin label released. 'Man of the Earth' was an album of songs from the coal and gold mining industry in Australia and has the distinction of being LRF001 (LRF = Larrikin record full-price). It was recorded on a shoestring budget and recorded at the end of 1973 and released in 1974. The singers included Phyl Lobl, Tony Suttor, Mike Jackson, Andy Saunders, Dave De Hugard and myself. This album mostly featured songs I had collected including 'When You Give That Tuppence Back, Charlie Dear', 'Man of the Earth', 'Pint Pot & Billy', 'Brocklebank Engineers' and 'Mines of Australia'. It became the first of several Australian themed albums that I would sing on including 'Limejuice & Vinegar' (sea songs), 'On The Steps of the Dole-office Door' (Songs of the Great Depression), 'Diggers' (WW1 & WW2 songs) and 'Game As Ned Kelly' (Kelly Gang songs). The Larrikins continued to perform for the next thirty or so years (1968 onwards) with several changes in line-up and included many of Australia's most respected interpreters of traditional music; Dave de Hugard, Jacko Kevans, Declan Affley, Cathie O'Sullivan, Bob McInnes, Tony Suttor, Chris Kempster, Gordon McIntyre, Kate Delaney, and Peter Hobson. I think I can safely say that the group provided a new benchmark for the interpretation of Australian bush song and dance music. I certainly do not take full credit for this as the sound was very much a team effort and in particular the strong musical leadership of Dave de Hugard and Jack Kevans. What I did contribute was the way we performed. I was determined the group would be as faithful to the tradition as possible and that we would introduce new material on a regular basis. I never had a thumpity thump bush band sound in my head and I always believed the group had a role to play in educating Australians to their own music. Diction was also important as we were telling stories rather than 'just singing songs'. ABC Radio was a powerful partner in my determination to introduce new songs to the folk revival and there's many the singer I persuaded to learn some tongue-twisting song for a special radio project. Anyone who has had to learn any of Charles Thatcher's goldrush songs like 'Shepherding' or 'Green New Chum' will know what I am talking about! Or try singing 'The Nugget Family' (Coxon Comic Songs) as an exercise in tongue-twisting lyrics. Anyway, over the years I scripted, presented and performed in countless hours of radio programs and this allowed me to record versions of many songs that would normally never see the light of day. I always found it exciting to record songs from the Edwards, O'Connor, Meredith or my own collection. Sometimes other singers picked up on these recordings and performed their own versions. I have to say that overall I am disappointed how few singers have actually taken-up and introduced traditional songs from the available resources. I know this is also a beef from Ron Edwards and Hugh Anderson. Both Hugh and Ron have delivered wonderful books chock full of early broadside and ballad treasures that cry out to be sung – most remain on the page. Whilst I have avoided singing the 'folk top 20' including 'Click Go The Shears', 'The Catalpa' and 'Botany Bay' for umpteen years I recently decided to add them to my repertoire, out of sheer perversity. My song repertoire is a study in itself. I divide my repertoire into the following categories: Transportation/Convict Bushranging & Bolters Colonial cities Gold and mining Emigration Colonial rural growth including the Land Acts Maritime Shearing Droving Drink Sport Transport Miscellaneous rural Old Bush Songs & Songsters On the Wallaby Australia at war Great Depression Political Parody British ballads and lyric songs found in Australia Children's songs Bawdry I also maintain a register of poetry, drinking toasts, ditties and yarns associated with the above song categories, plus curious lore and history that can be used to illustrate the songs. In performance I usually choose some material that I have collected as I find this provides a solid link to the audience – as I am sharing a song that someone has shared with me. Singing is a powerful experience and one that is difficult to explain to non-singers. It's strange but this is the first time that I have ever tried to explain it in writing and, I suspect, any local singer of traditional material has done so. Ewan MacColl had a theory that traditional singing is closely related to speech patterns and he developed various styles of interpretation based on the song subject and how he saw it in his head. For example, some people speak with a thrusting motion, some hold the speech in their chest whilst others seem to project the speech through the top of their head. He developed singing styles based on these and other patterns. I'm not sure if I am making sense here but it is a characterization method used by actors and it does work with songs. The trick, of course, is to pick the right style for the song subject. MacColl was a professional actor and singer and also emphatic about preparation before going on stage, especially major concerts. He would undergo deep breathing and shoulder relaxation techniques. I must admit that all these make good sense for anyone singing and I have taken many of his suggestions on board. Familiarity with ones song subject is vitally important to me. I do not see myself as 'an entertainer' in the much-abused sense of the word. I see myself as part of a continuing tradition and in a privileged position to share the songs with an audience. Truth be known, if I had to hit the stage as a popular singer I would probably die of starvation! Familiarity with the subject allows the singer to provide the background to the song's story and the song, in turn, to use a clichŽ, brings history alive. I also find it helpful to identify the song with its source if it is a song I have collected. I sing many of the songs I taped from Cyril Duncan, Joe Watson, and Susan Colley etc and can't help thinking of their original performance when I commence singing. This is a sort of channelling however it would be more appropriate to describe it as an experience. These singers certainly had characteristics of performance that cannot be dismissed. Cyril Duncan, when singing 'My Name Is Edward Kelly', became emotionally charged and, for emphasis, spoke two of the lines in two of the verses and, at the end of the song, slipped into a two-verse ditty about the police and the Kelly gang. Cyril had not sung the anti-police ditty for over twenty years and did so because of his emotional attachment with delivering the song at the time of recording. This was, understandably, a real lesson for me, and something that has stayed with me for the past 35 years or so, especially when I sing the ballad. Now, I don't recite those spoken lines but I sometimes do slip into the 'Farewell Dan and Edward Kelly' ditty providing an ongoing strong bind with the song and Cyril's performance of it. Joe Watson was a major influence on me since he sang so many songs that he had learnt when travelling as a 'picture show man' around the 1900-1920 period. Joe never considered himself a singer. A 'singer' for Joe was someone who could powerfully belt out 'Jerusalem' or 'Bless This House', although he never sang these songs himself. His repertoire, and it was large, was learnt from his 'picture show' partner, Paddy Doolin, who sang the songs to accompany the magic lantern slides. Joe had learnt them by osmosis and they were a natural part of his time in the bush. This isn't to say he didn't enjoy them, he treasured them as stories and to hear him sing 'A Bushman's Song' (aka Travelling Down The Castlereagh' or 'Tommy Corrigan' was a treat. He had a glint in his eye when he sang and that is the trigger I think about whenever I sing one of his songs. It is interesting how a repertoire evolves. I was certainly fortunate in having a close relationship with ABC radio for so many decades in as much as I was in a position to have a reason for learning, or at least styling, so many songs that one simply would not normally take on board. Some of my program subjects like 'Animal Songs' and 'Australian Sporting Songs' provided song-learning opportunities and, of course, there were the extended series like the 16 programs 'The Australian Legend' (1970s) which demanded a mass of material. The preparation of books also provides an opportunity to add new songs to one's repertoire. I have two new publications being published by ABC Books this year: 'Old Bush Songs' (the centenary edition co-edited with Graham Seal) and 'Tucker Track' (the curious history and folklore of food). 'Old Bush Songs' has about 80 songs and I can sing just about all of them however not all from memory. 'Tucker Track', like my previous book related to this subject, 'How Mabel Laid The Table' (State Library of NSW Press), has several songs, most of which I sing. Singing songs in a new book has proven to be a great promotional tool and I also structure performances around the book. For example, this year I am presenting a six-week course on A.B.Paterson's work on Old Bush Songs for the School of Continuing Education (Sydney University) and this will require the performance of a wide range of songs. My current program to survey the folklore associated with the city of Sydney has also provided an incentive to learn particular songs. I am working under grants from the City of Sydney and the Music Board of the Australia Council for the Arts. Both have 'outcome requirements' that further encourage me to take on new songs. The City grant specifies that I provide three public performances of the material and the Music Board is particularly interested in the music component of the survey. In undertaking this work I have become aware of a large number of songs that could loosely be described as comic song, music hall and early popular song. I am particularly interested in the large number of songs that were influenced by visiting American minstrel troupes like Christy's – there are some interesting local parodies. I already know several 'city songs' about Sydney like 'Take Me Up The Harbour' and will be learning more. Admittedly with so many new songs in my collection this is becoming a daunting task. Special events also provide an opportunity to learn new material. This year is the 150th anniversary of rail in New South Wales and I have been involved in assembling a group to perform rail-related material. The Rattling Navvies sing songs from 'Navvy on the Line' plus other train songs and I link the programs together with railway folklore, especially humour and curious history. I am delighted to acknowledge the support of the Rail, Tram & Bus Union (NSW) in this program. There are some songs I would dearly love to learn but as always, there are time restraints. In particular I would like to learn more of the early broadside ballads in the collections published by Hugh Anderson and Ron Edwards. I am steadily chipping away but they are hard work. One major obstacle is the fact I no longer do ABC series. This is simply because the ABC has no space for such programs – more a comment on their continuing shift to so called 'popular music'. They find space for overseas productions like 'The History of Popular Music' but not for Australian music. Without such a platform there is no real incentive to learn these wonderful ballads. If they are to be learnt they should be recorded for posterity. They are usually lengthy beasts and that is another consideration for a performer. I have recently learnt 'I've Been To Australia-o' and now I will have to find somewhere to sing it! Ballads are the big guns of traditional music. I am referring to the older ballads as collected and edited by (notably) Francis Child and Cecil Sharp. I learnt several ballads when I first started singing and whilst most have slipped from mind I still sing 'Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford', 'Long Lamkin', 'Six Dukes Went a Fishing' and some others. This will probably sound crazy but I rarely sing them in public. I certainly sing them whenever I am on a car trip and enjoy them very much. I stopped singing these ballads somewhere around 1970, when I stopped singing most British songs in my repertoire. It's odd but I made the decision to concentrate my energy on Australian songs to the exclusion of all others. Maybe I was trying to make a point. Maybe Meredith and some of the other BMC zealots had verbally mauled me for my support of Bert Lloyd? I certainly knew a lot of his songs at the time. Anyway, a few evenings with Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger gave me a new perception regarding the place of the great ballads in the Australian tradition. They believed that singers had a responsibility to propagate the ballads – stating adamantly that the ballads are the great works of people's literature. They belong to all English-speaking communities. The fact that so few of these ballads survived in the Australian tradition was more of a reason to reintroduce them. I rather like this theory and, had I more opportunities to sing them, I would enthusiastically do so. I have been playing the English concertina for a few years but have only recently started to perform with this fascinating instrument. I am not a great musician but I am getting better and can belt out a decent accompaniment for a good slab of my songs. I love this instrument and it has a noble history in Australia. I have found references to it dating back to the 1850s (earliest being in Gulgong) and it seems to suit the bush songs. I intend to write a lengthy article on its history in Australia and would be interested in hearing from any reader with thoughts on the instrument's role here. In playing the instrument it has made me more aware of the family of tunes surrounding the Australian tradition, particularly the so-called bush music tradition. When I started singing all those years ago I would regularly hear the same question asked: "But aren't they all Irish tunes?" The answer is a very short, 'No!" If anything they are a solid mix of British and Celtic but then so are the roots of our language. I then explain how the transmission of songs and tunes works, and how they were 'adopted and adapted' to suit our more 'rough and tumble' physical and social environment. My point here is that we should acknowledge our musical heritage but not fall into the trap of performing with too much of a tip to either side. Far too many 'bush bands' sing 'Irish style' and, for that matter, too bloody fast! I think I have just diverted so it's back to the matter of tune families. In playing the concertina I have become more aware of the shared tunes used for songs. Somehow this shared use is not so obvious for a singer. For example the tune 'Bow Wow Wow' is common to over 20 bush songs including 'Jog Along Till Shearing'. 'Carrier's Song' and 'Squatting In Queensland' however, when I sing them, the song takes its own form regardless of the tune and, I suggest, the tune is so secondary to the story that it is not that recognisable. The same applies to another frequently used tune, 'The Little Low Log Cabin in the Lane', where it is used for 'Freehold on the Plain' and 'Another Fall of Rain'. I do sing what are loosely described as 'contemporary' songs. These are most probably better described as contemporary songs written in a folk style. I know several Harry Robertson songs like 'Wee Pot Stove' and 'Homeless Man' and, of course, I know many of the songs I included in 'The Balls of Bob Menzies' (Angus & Robertson) and its later revision 'Ratbags & Rabblerousers' (Currency Press). The same applies to wartime songs featured in my book, 'Diggers' Songs' (Australian Military History Press). When I had The Larrikins we regularly introduced new political satires, especially from the pens of Clem Parkinson, Lyell Sayer and John Dengate, however most of these had a 'use by date' and have passed from my repertoire (although not forgotten). There are some exceptions and I still drag out 'F111', 'Colonel Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken' and 'Across The Western Suburbs I Must Wander'. I was fortunate the ABC released two retrospectives of my songs in 2004 including a number of these contemporary political songs. Readers might be interested in how I approach learning a new work. It is hard work and the older I get, I'm just about to clock up 60 years, the more difficult it becomes. Sometimes it seems to come fairly natural and at other times it is torturously slow, sometimes taking weeks before the song is entrenched in my memory bank. I also find I have to refresh my old repertoire before I sing at a concert. I suspect the hundreds of songs and ditties are swirling around in my head screaming: "Why doesn't this bloke give up!" I usually carry a written version of a song around with me for a few weeks and sing it whenever possible, especially in the car or when I am at the gym. I do the same when I learn poetry and, last year, when I decided to tackle Frank Macnamara's somewhat epic and brilliant 'A Convict's Tour of Hell' I found myself waking up at around 4am to run the verses over and over in my head. There is also the matter of song styling. Most singers of traditional song tend to fashion their songs either consciously or unconsciously. I know I am continually changing the way I sing songs including changes in the words. I can't help it and it is an integral part of the way I learn and perform such songs. I have also been known to forget songs and make them up as I go along! Sometimes the words need to be changed to make more sense to twenty-first century audiences. Sometimes I sing a song like 'Widgegowera Joe' and realise that so many of the references have disappeared from every day use and the younger the audience the less sense such songs make. I find this is happening more and more as I get older and if it keeps going along that road I envisage audiences saying: "Is he interesting or just senile?" © Warren Fahey |