Australian hip hop
Australian hip hop traces its origins to the early 1980s and is inspired by hip hop and other predominantly African-American musical genres from the United States. As the form matured, Australian hip hop has become a commercially viable style of music, no longer restricted to the creative underground, with artists such as 1200 Techniques, Manu Crooks, Baker Boy, Hilltop Hoods and Bliss n Eso achieving notable fame. Australian hip-hop is still released through independent record labels, which are owned and operated by the artists themselves. Despite its genesis as an offshoot of American hip hop, Australian hip hop has developed a distinct personality that reflects its evolution as an Australian musical style. In 1982, the music video for Malcolm McLaren's track, "Buffalo Gals", was shown on the Australian television music show Sound Unlimited; the music show was broadcast on Network Seven. The clip was staged in a Manhattan basketball court and featured images of graffiti and break dancers; the video left an impression on Australian teenagers.
The first Australian hip hop record released was "16 Tons" / "Humber Mania Time" by Mighty Big Crime via Virgin Records and Criteria Productions in 1987. The Melbourne-based duo soon disbanded, in 1991 both were members of flower power group, Freaked Out Flower Children. Gerry Bloustein wrote in the book, Musical Visions, that Blaze claimed the first "true hip hop" release was, "Combined Talent" / "My Destiny" in 1988 by Just Us. In 1988 the first compilation of Australian rap, Down Under by Law, was released, it included tracks by Westside Posse, Mighty Big Crime, Swoop and Fly Girl 3. Two Western Australian hip hop bands, Def Threat and Gangstarr, both released recordings in 1987; the Def Threat EP, reached # 4 in the WA Independent music charts. Def Threat played a number of gigs over the next 12 months, disbanded. Gangstarr survived for a few more years. In the late 1980s, Sound Unlimited Posse joined Sony BMG, thereby becoming the first Australian hip hop group signed on to a major record label.
In 1992, they released the first major-label Australian rap album titled, A Postcard from the Edge of the Under-side. In 1991, a 16-year-old Sydney-based solo artist named, his first single, "Bring Me On", was popular in Australia and Hong Kong. In 1992, independent label company Random Records released Def Wish Cast's album Knights of the Underground Table. After 1992, independent CDs and tapes were released by various artists from the Western Suburbs of Sydney, a immigrant-populated area known as a working class and crime-ridden area. MC Opi was an underground hip hop and dancehall artist who rose to national success after her performance on Christine Anu and Paul Kelly's 1994 ARIA-nominated single "Last Train", released by Mushroom/EMI. Prior to this, MC Opi co-produced Women on the Rhyme, the first national radio documentary about Australian female hip hop artists, created at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. MC Opi contributed to Anu's debut album Stylin' Up, which attained platinum status in Australia and won the ARIA Award for Best Indigenous Album.
Following the winning of the award, Anu invited MC Opi to perform with her on the first'Australian Jail Tour' as part of NAIDOC Week in 1993 in order to raise awareness about indigenous deaths in custody. The Melbourne hip hop group 1200 Techniques was formed in 1997 by "old-school" 1980s B-boy/aerosol artist DJ Peril; the group consisted of DJ Peril on production and percussion, his brother Kem on guitar and N'fa on vocals. They released an EP in 2001 called Infinite Styles with the independent label company Rubber Records. 1200 Techniques released one of the first hip hop crossover hits, a track called "Karma". The song spawned the first ARIA Award for a hip hop act in Australia before there was a hip hop category. Additionally "Karma" won Michael Gracey an ARIA in the same year for Best Video. In 2003, the band released the first Australian hip hop DVD titled One Time Live, which featured the band's music videos, live footage and two short documentaries, their second album, Consistency Theory, was released in 2004.
By the early 2000s, the Australian Record Industry Association began to recognise the growing interest in hip-hop in Australia. In 2004, ARIA introduced a new category in their annual awards: Best Urban Album; the inaugural award was won by Koolism for Random Thoughts. Koolism DJ Danielsan dedicated the award to the "Australian hip-hop community" and exclaimed: "Be yourselves, keep it real, enough of that American wannabe trash". At the 2006 and 2007 ARIA Awards, the Urban award was won by Hilltop Hoods for their albums The Hard Road and The Hard Road: Restrung, respectively; the Hard Road became the first Australian hip hop album to rank number 1 on the ARIA Charts in 2006. Other artists who have won the award include Bliss n Eso, for their album Flying Colours, Melbourne artist Illy, for his album Bring it Back, released on the Obese Records label. Australian hip-hop artists have received international recognition. Australians have been featured on albums by artists from the Europe. In October 2014, Australian artist K21 appeared on a song, titled "Pas rentable", by French hip hop artist LinkRust.
Women in Australian hip-hop h
Australian country music
Australian country music is a part of the music of Australia. There is a broad range of styles, from bluegrass, to yodeling to folk to the more popular; the genre has been influenced by Celtic and English folk music, the Australian bush ballad tradition, as well as by popular American country music. Themes include: outback life, the lives of stockmen and outlaws, songs of romance and of political protest. Early pioneers included Tex Morton, Smoky Dawson, Buddy Williams, Slim Dusty and Johnny Ashcroft all members of the Australian Roll of Renown. Notable musicians include: Adam Brand, Adam Harvey, Jasmine Rae, Troy Cassar-Daley, Davidson Brothers, Slim Dusty, Steve Forde, Joy McKean, Jean Stafford, Olivia Newton-John, John Williamson, Chad Morgan, Keith Urban, O'SHEA, Lee Kernaghan, Kasey Chambers. Others influenced by the genre include Tex Perkins. Popular songs include When the Rain Tumbles Down in July, Waltzing Matilda, Pub With No Beer, Lights on the Hill, I Honestly Love You, True Blue, Boys From the Bush, Not Pretty Enough.
Australia has a long tradition of country music, which has developed a style quite distinct from its US counterpart, influenced by English and Scottish folk ballads and by the traditions of Australian bush balladeers like Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson. Country instruments, including the guitar, banjo and harmonica create the distinctive sound of country music in Australia and accompany songs with strong storyline and memorable chorus and lyrics; the style of Australian country music evolved under the influence of roll forms. While some subject matter may be constant, musical styles differ between traditional and contemporary bush ballads. Exemplars of the traditional bush ballad style include Slim Dusty's "When the Rain Tumbles Down in July" or "Leave Him in the Long yard" which have strong narrative in verses plus choruses set to a Pick n' Strum beat. Contemporary bush ballads may employ finger picking and strumming rock styles as in Lee Kernaghan's version of Leave Him in the Longyard, or in Keith Urban reworking of the Slim Dusty/Joy McKean classic "Lights on the Hill".
The distinctive themes and origins of Australia's bush music can be traced to the songs sung by the convicts who were sent to Australia during the early period of the British colonisation, beginning in 1788. Early Australian ballads sing of the harsh ways of life of the epoch and of such people and events as bushrangers, drovers and shearers. Convict and bushranger verses railed against government tyranny. Classic bush songs on such themes include: The Wild Colonial Boy, Click Go The Shears, The Eumeralla Shore, The Drover's Dream, The Queensland Drover, The Dying Stockman and Moreton Bay. Themes which endure to the present include the experiences of war, of droughts and flooding rains, of Aboriginality and of the railways and trucking routes which link Australia's vast distances. Isolation and loneliness of life in the Australian bush has been another theme. For much of its history, Australia's bush music belonged to an oral and folkloric tradition, was only published in print in volumes such as Banjo Paterson's Old Bush Songs, in the 1890s.
Waltzing Matilda regarded as Australia's unofficial National anthem, is a quintessential early Australian country song, influenced more by Celtic folk ballads than by American Country and Western music. The lyrics were composed by the poet Banjo Paterson in 1895; this strain of Australian country music, with lyrics focusing on Australian subjects, is known as "bush music" or "bush band music". Country and folk artists such as Gary Shearston, Lionel Long, Margaret Roadknight, Tex Morton, Slim Dusty, Rolf Harris, The Bushwackers, John Williamson, John Schumann of the band Redgum have continued to record and popularise the old bush ballads of Australia through the 20th and into the 21st century - and contemporary artists including Pat Drummond, Sara Storer and Lee Kernaghan draw on this heritage. Pioneers of a more Americanised popular country music in Australia included Tex Morton in the 1930s and other early stars like Buddy Williams, Shirley Thoms and Smoky Dawson. In 1932, Tex Morton arrived from New Zealand, aged 16, humped his swag around outback stations where he began to earn a name as a performer.
In 1936 he cut his first commercial records in Australia. He went on to establish a distinctly Australian bush ballad style, shifting from American songs to songs about Australia, he attained national popularity in the 1930s and formed a traveling "Rodeo and Wildwest Show" in the 1940s. In 1949 he travelled to North America and Europe enjoying great success as a stage hypnotist, working in film and with artists such as Hank Williams, he returned to Australia in the early 1960s, by which time a generation of performers had carved a place for the Australian themed country music he pioneered. Smoky Dawson cut his first recording in 1941: “I’m a Happy Go Lucky Cowhand”. In 1952, Dawson began a radio show, went on to national stardom as a yodelling, whip cracking, knife throwing, singing cowboy of radio, TV and film. Known as "Canada's Yodelling Cowboy", Donn Reynolds began a 40-year international career upon cutting several popular sides in 1947 on the Regal Zonophone label including "Old Bush Shanty Of Mine" and "Stockman's Lullaby".
He toured with Willard Ferrier's Famous Hillbillies in what was Sydney's first all-country format variety shows and became the voice of Australia's iconic Peters Ice Cream as the "Peter's Singing Cowboy". Reynolds achieved notoriety through song and
Rock music in Australia
Australian rock called Oz rock, is rock music from Australia. The nation has a rich history of rock music and an appreciation of the roots of various rock genres originating in the United States or Britain, but continental Europe, more the musical styles of Africa. Australian rock has contributed to the development of some of these genres, as well as having its own unique Australiana sound with pub rock and its indigenous music. From 1955 to 1975 three distinct "waves" of Australian rock occurred; the first wave was from 1955 to 1963 and was influenced by American and British styles with local variants provided by artists such as Johnny O'Keefe, who had a hit with "Wild One", which appeared in July 1958. Late in that stage, clean-cut acts, which featured on TV's Bandstand and toured as the "Bandstand family", were representing local music on the record charts; the second wave from 1964 to 1969 was directly influenced by The Beatles and their tour of the country in June 1964. Two major acts from that era are The Easybeats and Bee Gees.
A weekly magazine, Go-Set, published from 1966 to 1974, aimed at teenagers and twenty-year-olds became the most influential and popular music-related publication of the period. The third wave from 1970 to 1975, with the advent of pub rock, was typified by early exponents, Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and Buffalo. Internationally, AC/DC, which had started as a pub rock group in November 1973 has come to be the most well-known Australian rock band, with more than 71 million sales in the US alone by 2014. Beginning in that era was Countdown, a popular music TV program on national broadcaster, ABC, ran from November 1974 until July 1987. After 1975 Australian rock began to diversify including local contributors to punk and indie rock styles. By the 1980s baby boomer acts were prominent, which included John Farnham, whose album, Whispering Jack peaked at number one on the Australian charts for 25 weeks and was certified 24x platinum indicating shipment of over 1.68 million copies – the highest by any Australian artist.
In that decade, indigenous rock groups, Yothu Yindi and Warumpi Band, achieved wider recognition. In the mid-1950s American rockabilly and rock and roll music was taken up by local rock musicians and it soon caught on with Australian teens, through films and from 1956, television. Although issued in 1954, "Rock Around the Clock", a single by United States group Bill Haley and His Comets, did not chart in Australia until 1956. Considered a novelty song, the track and the related film of the same name: "was like a beginner's guide to rock and roll, inspired legions of local copyists". In July 1956 Frankie Davidson's cover version of another Haley single, "Rock-A-Beatin' Boogie", was released and is the first charting example of Australian recorded rock and roll, albeit as a minor hit. Other early recorded examples by Australians include non-charting singles: "Saturday Night Fish Fry" by Les Welch, "Rock Around the Clock" by Vic Sabrino and "Washboard Rock'n' Roll" by the Schneider Sisters. Back in September 1953 US entrepreneur, Lee Gordon, arrived in Sydney and soon established himself nationally by organising a record-breaking tour by US singer Johnnie Ray in August 1954.
Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, described Gordon as "the'midwife' of Australian rock'n' roll, cut an imposing figure in his role as label manager, tour promoter and all-round music entrepreneur". From 1954 to 1962 Gordon's Big Show promotions brought to Australia — in many cases for the first or only time — dozens of US jazz and popular stars, including Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Artie Shaw, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Bill Haley & The Comets, Little Richard, Buddy Holly & The Crickets, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, he promoted local talent by using Australian acts as supports on those tours. In 1956 the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers was established to regulate the music industry's releases. United Kingdom's EMI had dominated the Australasian record market since the end of WWII, they made UK music a powerful force in the late 1950s and 1960s with signings like Cliff Richard and The Shadows, The Beatles, The Hollies and Cilla Black. EMI locally distributed Decca as well as the US Capitol label.
During this period, however, a number of local companies in Australia expanded into the growing Australian music market, which grew after the emergence of the first wave of American rock'n' roll. In 1952 merchant bank, Mainguard took over a struggling Sydney engineering firm and relaunched it as Festival Records, its main local competition was ARC, a former radio production and disc transcription service that established the successful Pacific and Coronet labels and competed with Festival as a manufacturer and distributor in New South Wales. Although most of the major labels were Sydney-based, Melbourne's vibrant dance and concert scene powered a local boom in rock'n' roll and pop music and it became Australia's pop capital in the 1960s. During the 1950s luthier Bill May expanded his Maton guitar company, becoming one of the first local manufacturers of the new electric guitars and amplifiers. In 1953 precision engineering company White & Gillespie established a custom recording division, which their company history claims was the first in Australia to press records in the new vinyl microgroove format.
The new division soon included the W&G label and studio, which arguably had its biggest success with the earlier Australian releases of Melbourne band based in London, The Seekers. In 1960 Melbourne consumer electronics company, Astor Elec
Classical music in Australia
The earliest western musical influences in Australia can be traced to two distinct sources: in the first settlements, the large body of convicts and sailors who brought the traditional folk music of England, Wales and Ireland. An example of original music by a convict would be an 1861 tune dedicated to settler James Gordon by fiddler constable Alexander Laing. Little music has survived from this early period, although there are samples of music originating from Sydney and Hobart that date back to the early 19th century. Musical publications from this period preserved in Australian libraries include works by Charles Edward Horsley, William Stanley, Isaac Nathan, Charles Sandys Packer, Frederick Augustus Packer, Carl Linger, Francis Hartwell Henslowe, Frederick Ellard, Raimund Pechotsch and Julius Siede. Isaac Nathan's 1847 Don John of Austria was the first opera to be written and produced in Australia; the establishment of choral societies and symphony orchestras led to increased compositional activity, although most Australian classical composers of this period worked within European models and many undertook their training in composition in Europe or the United Kingdom.
One of the earliest known composers was George Tolhurst, whose oratorio Ruth was the first composed in the colony of Victoria in 1864. Some works leading up to the first part of the 20th century were influenced by folk music. An estimated 10,000 Australians and New Zealanders traveled to Britain each year from the late 1880s to the early 20th century, the number doubled between the World Wars. A majority was female a musician. Success in London was seen as a prerequisite for fame in Australia for singers such as Nellie Melba, Amy Sherwin, Ada Crossley. Australian composers who published classical music during the late nineteenth century include Hugo Alpen, Hooper Brewster-Jones, Thomas Bulch, Alice Charbonnet-Kellermann, George H. Clutsam, Herbert De Pinna, John Albert Delany Guglielmo Enrico Lardelli, Louis Lavater, George Marshall-Hall, Stephen Moreno, George William Torrance, Cesare Cutolo, Christian Helleman and Augustus Juncker Even for composers, a trip abroad could make a career: George Frederick Boyle, born in New South Wales in 1886, had a great career in Australia as a piano prodigy but did not meet with international success as a composer until he traveled to Europe and the United States.
From the time of Australia's Federation in 1901, a growing sense of national identity began to emerge in the arts, although a patriotic attachment with the "mother country" or "Home", Britain, the Empire, continued to dominate musical taste. In the war and post-war eras, as the Australian national identity continued to build, composers looked to their surroundings for inspiration. John Antill in his ballet Corroboree, Peter Sculthorpe and others began to incorporate elements of Aboriginal music, Richard Meale drew influence from south-east Asia, while Nigel Butterley combined his penchant for International modernism with an own individual voice. By the beginning of the 1960s other strong influences emerged in Australian classical music, with composers incorporating disparate elements into their work, ranging from Aboriginal and south-east Asian music and instruments, American jazz and blues, to the belated discovery of European atonality and the avante-garde. Composers like Don Banks, Don Kay, Malcolm Williamson and Colin Brumby epitomise this period.
Others who adhered to more traditional idioms include Arthur Benjamin, George Dreyfus, Peggy Glanville-Hicks and Robert Hughes. In recent times composers including Julian Cochran, Gordon Hamilton, Liza Lim, Nigel Westlake, David Worrall, Graeme Koehne, Elena Kats-Chernin, Carl Vine, Brett Dean, Martin Wesley-Smith, Georges Lentz, Richard Mills, Ross Edwards, Stephen Leek, Matthew Hindson and Constantine Koukias have embodied the pinnacle of established Australian composers. Well-known Australian classical performers of the past and the present day include: conductors Joseph Post, Sir Bernard Heinze, Sir Charles Mackerras, Richard Bonynge, Patrick Thomas, Stuart Challender, Simone Young, Geoffrey Simon and Richard Gill.
Australian indie rock
Australian indie rock is part of the overall flow of Australian rock history but has a distinct history somewhat separate from mainstream rock in Australia from the end of the punk rock era onwards. Rock and roll in Australia got started in the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by the sounds coming from the United States and UK. Early on, the surf rock sound dominated, though in the mid-1960s, the beat genre from the UK had become established. Numerous garage bands formed in the cities and suburbs, a vibrant musical culture began. Isolated from the diversity of genres in the northern hemisphere, Australian mainstream record labels tried to replicate the success of trends imported from overseas and produce radio friendly singles by successful artists such as John Farnham and The Easybeats. In the meantime, Russell Morris enjoyed a surprise hit with singles such as "The Real Thing" http://www.poparchives.com.au/963/russell-morris/the-real-thing. Produced by music legend Ian Molly Meldrum, written by singing star Johnny Young, the single encompassed high production values and a psychedelic approach in its use of instruments such as a sitar, sampling of a children's choir, its 6-minute running time.
While released by EMI, this domestic production inspired a generation of bands and songwriters that home-grown Aussie talent could produce world-beating music. The single charted well in New York and Chicago https://web.archive.org/web/20080422074459/http://www.howlspace.com.au/en/morrisrussell/morrisrussell.htm. The punk movement began in the mid-1970s, resulted in an explosion of musical activity. Numerous bands formed, as did many independent record labels run out of bedrooms. An early band who gained a following in Australia were, The Saints, who grew out of Queensland and who recorded one of the first punk singles, releasing a single on vinyl before the Sex Pistols. Another important band who came out of Brisbane were the post-punk group, The Go-Betweens, who relocated to Britain in the early 1980s and were one of the most acclaimed bands of the decade. Sydney's Radio Birdman were inspired by acts such as the MC5 and The Stooges, the band defined the sound of the punk and post-punk movement in Sydney.
The sound of both Midnight Oil and INXS were influenced by Radio Birdman in their early albums. In 1970s Sydney, the Australian Federal Government's "youth station" Double J operated outside the mainstream radio stations and began playing various independent music from around the world. Double J turned into Triple J in the early 1980s and began broadcasting nationally in 1989. By the early 1980s Sydney had begun to eclipse the post-punk explosion of gloomy drug-addled Melbourne with its beach culture and summery pub music scene. Phantom Records, a label which grew out of a popular import record store, began to record and distribute breakthrough indie acts such as The Hoodoo Gurus, The Sunnyboys and The Cockroaches. Phantom's success would inspire others to follow, with important indie champions, such as Died Pretty signed to the fledgling Citadel Label. Other labels, such as Waterfront Records, Hot Records and RooArt soon followed expanding opportunities for bands to record and release domestically.
The number of venues exploded, fueled by the expansion of FM radio and a prosperous economy, Sydney begun to prove that independent bands could make a healthy living on the amazing pub music circuit at home, without having to first strike out to tour overseas and release internationally acclaimed albums. Other legendary live indie bands from the 80's era include The Hard-Ons, Celibate Rifles, New Christs, GANGgajang and The Rockmelons. A vibrant and interesting punk and post-punk scene developed in Perth, Western Australia. Bands such as The Victims and Cheap Nasties, spawned icons of the Australian music scene such as Dave Faulkner and James Baker, who formed one of the most popular Australian bands of the 1980s, the power-pop band Hoodoo Gurus, the legendary Kim Salmon, who formed the Scientists, an influence on bands such as Mudhoney and The Jesus Lizard. Kim Salmon claims to have been the first person to use the term grunge to describe music. Kim Salmon and James Baker once again collaborated in the underground rock supergroup Beasts of Bourbon featuring Tex Perkins and Spencer P. Jones.
Perth spawned the critically acclaimed indie-rock band The Triffids. Melbourne's post-punk scene was much more experimental than any of the other capital cities; the city spawned a lot of experimental and gothic rock, of which Nick Cave's band, the Boys Next Door was the most notable and influential. Soon the raw energy of punk evolved into post punk, which combined the DIY ethos of punk with rule-breaking, genre-defying artistic experimentation; the profusion of small, defiantly non-commercial and unhesitatingly experimental bands became known as the "little band scene". Throughout the 1980s, it flourished in most Australian major cities, evolving around venues and community radio stations such as 3RRR. A few bands, like Models, crossed over to the mainstream; this era can be said to have ended in the 1990s, when in the wake of the explosion of grunge, alternative music became mainstream. Major labels signed three-chord grunge/punk-style rock bands, commercial radio played them and the'alternative' sound soon became ubiquitous culminating in manufactured pop groups, styled to sound raucously'alternative' and appearing on television commercials for mobile phones.
In this way, this process of mainstreaming echoes what happened in the USA and UK.'Wet Dog' from Newtown
Australian folk music
Australian folk music is the traditional music from the large variety of immigrant cultures and those of the original Australian inhabitants. Celtic, English and Scandinavian folk traditions predominated in the first wave of European immigrant music; the Australian tradition is, in this sense, related to the traditions of other countries with similar ethnic and political origins, such as New Zealand and the United States. For much of its history, Australia's bush music belonged to an oral and folkloric tradition, was only published in print in volumes such as Banjo Paterson's Old Bush Songs, in the 1890s. More than 70 of Banjo Paterson's poems have been set to music by Wallis & Matilda since 1980; the distinctive themes and origins of Australia's "bush music" or "bush band music" can be traced to the sea shanties of 18th and 19th century Europe and other songs sung by the convicts who were sent to Australia during the early period of the British colonisation, beginning in 1788. Early Australian ballads sing of the harsh ways of life of the epoch and of such people and events as bushrangers, drovers and shearers.
Convict and bushranger verses railed against government tyranny. Classic bush songs on such themes include: The Wild Colonial Boy, Click Go The Shears, The Eumeralla Shore, The Drover's Dream, The Queensland Drover, The Dying Stockman and Moreton Bay. Themes which endure to the present include the experiences of war, of droughts and flooding rains, of Aboriginality and of the railways and trucking routes which link Australia's vast distances. Isolation and loneliness of life in the Australian bush has been another theme. Waltzing Matilda regarded as Australia's unofficial national anthem, is a quintessential Australian folk song, influenced by Celtic folk ballads. Country and folk artists such as Gary Shearston, Marian Henderson, Margaret Roadknight, Tex Morton, Slim Dusty, The Bushwackers, John Williamson, John Schumann of the band Redgum have continued to record and popularise the old bush ballads of Australia through the 20th and into the 21st century – and contemporary artists including Sara Storer and Lee Kernaghan draw on this heritage.
A number of British singers have spent periods in Australia and have included Australian material in their repertoires, e.g. A. L. Lloyd, Martin Wyndham-Read, Eric Bogle. In adapted forms Indigenous Australian music influenced the development of Australian country music and after the folk revival, Australian folk music; the Australian indigenous tradition brought to this mix novel elements, including new instruments, some of which are now internationally familiar, such as the didgeridoo of Northern Australia. Notable Australian exponents of the folk revival movement included both European immigrants such as Eric Bogle, noted for his sad lament to the battle of Gallipoli "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda", indigenous Australians like Archie Roach and many others. In the 1970s, Australian Folk Rock brought both familiar and less familiar traditional songs, as well as new compositions, to live venues and the airwaves. Notable artists include The Bushwacker Redgum. Redgum are known for their 1983 anti-war protest song "I Was Only Nineteen", which peaked at #1 on the National singles charts.
The 1990s brought Australian Indigenous Folk Rock to the world, led by bands including Yothu Yindi. Australia's long and continuous folk tradition continues to this day, with elements of folk music still present in many contemporary artists including those thought of as Rock, Heavy metal and Alternative Music. European settlement of Australia began with the transportation of convicts from Great Britain; these convicts brought songs with them which were adapted to Australian conditions. Songs such as Moreton Bay based on the Irish song Boolavogue described the sufferings of the convicts; the most notable songwriter of this era was Frank Macnamara, better known as Frank the Poet, author of such well known songs as Bold Jack Donahue, which developed into The Wild Colonial Boy. The convict tradition came to include songs popular in the English music halls, such as Botany Bay, broadsheet ballads such as The Black Velvet Band. In the century following European settlement of Australia, a musical tradition developed in the bush among itinerant workers such as shearers.
As in the convict era, most bush music was made by setting new words to well-known traditional or popular songs. The Bulletin, known as the'Bushman's bible' played a prominent role in publishing and popularising new songs; as in other countries, the spread of recorded music and the arrival of radio spelt the end of Australian bush music in its traditional form. American country music displaced traditional Australian music in the bush. However, traditional dance music proved more durable in this period. Folk music in the 1950s onwards lost popularity in mainstream culture with the creation of rock music and its popularity among the younger generations of the time. However, bush bands, as formulated, experienced a revival in 1953 with the musical play Reedy River, first produced and published by the New Theatre and most produced in 2002. Written by Dick Diamond, the musical featured twelve or so Australian songs, which included Doreen Jacobs' setting of Helen Palmer's "Ballad of 1891", as well as the title song, Chris Kempster's setting of Lawson's "Reedy River".
The backing band for this popular stage production was "The Bushwhackers", who had formed a year earlier in 1952. As the musical was performed in Brisbane and other Australian cities, local "bush bands" modeled on the Sydney group, such as Brisbane's "The Moreton Bay Bushwhackers" featuring Stan Arthur and Bill Scott, spra
Australian pop music awards
Australian pop music awards are a series of inter-related national awards that gave recognition to popular musical artists and have included the Go-Set pop poll. Early awards were based on popular voting from readers of teenage pop music newspaper Go-Set and television program guide TV Week, they were followed by responses from viewers of Countdown, a TV pop music series on national broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Some of the award ceremonies incorporated listed nominees and peer-voted awards. From 1987 the Australian Recording Industry Association instituted its own peer-voted ARIA Music Awards. Teen-oriented pop music newspaper, Go-Set was established in February 1966 and conducted an annual poll during 1966 to 1972 of its readers to determine the most popular personalities. Readers were provided with coupons to vote for their choice, with initial categories of'Male Vocal','Female Vocal' and'Group' for both Australian and International acts – in years new categories were introduced and old categories renamed or retired.
Printed in Go-Set on 5 October 1966, pages 12 & 13. Printed in Go-Set on 9 August 1967, pages 12 & 13. Categories were renamed, e.g. Male Vocal became Top Male Singer. Printed in Go-Set on 19 June 1968, pages 12 & 13. Printed in Go-Set on 28 June 1969, pages 10 & 12. Categories back to original names, e.g. Top Male Singer returns to Male Vocal. Printed in Go-Set on 11 July 1970, pages 6 & 7. New categories introduced: Guitarist, Composer. Ceremony for the Australian acts was held at Dallas Brooks Hall, East Melbourne, was broadcast on 30 June by Seven Network. Printed in Go-Set on 10 July 1971, pages 2 & 3. New categories introduced: Best Album, Best Single, Best Bass Guitarist. Printed in Go-Set on 30 December 1972, pages 5 & 6. New category introduced: Newcomer. Teen-oriented pop music newspaper, Go-Set was established in February 1966 and conducted an annual poll of its readers to determine the most popular personalities. In 1967 the most popular performer was Normie Rowe and when the results were televised on the unrelated The Go!!
Show there was a crowning of Rowe as'King of Pop'. In the following years, TV Week provided coupons for readers to vote for their choice, a similar system had been in use for TV's Logie Awards since 1960. The'King of Pop' awards ceremony was broadcast by the 0–10 Network from 1967 to 1975, from 1976 to 1978 by the Nine Network. On the 0–10 Network, from 1972, it was run by Johnny Young's production company which provided Young Talent Time. King of Pop — Normie Rowe King of Pop – Normie Rowe King of Pop — Johnny Farnham Best Female Artist — Allison DurbinDurbin is referred to as the'Queen of Pop', however: I never in fact won a queen of pop award; the award was called The King of Pop awards, so that's when it was the Go Set. And it continued on to TV week. King of Pop – Johnny Farnham Best Female Artist — Allison Durbin Guest presenter: Liberace Award winners: King of Pop — Johnny Farnham Best Female Artist — Allison Durbin Best Album – Bloodstone Best Bass Guitarist – Beeb Birtles Best Dressed Female Performer – Allison Durbin Best Dressed Male Performer – Johnny Farnham Best Drummer – Gary Young Best Group — Daddy Cool Best Lead Guitarist – Rick Springfield Best Organist – Jenny Johnson Best Songwriter – Russell Morris for "Mr America" Outstanding Newcomer — Jamie Redfern Award winners: King of Pop — Johnny Farnham Queen of Pop — Colleen Hewett Best Arranger – Geoff Hales Best Dressed Female – Judy Stone Best Dressed Male – Jeff Phillips Best New Talent – Robin Jolley Best Songwriter – Billy Thorpe Biggest Selling L.
P. – Teaser and the Firecat Biggest Selling Single – "The Rangers Waltz" Contribution to Teenage Television – Brian Henderson Most Popular Australian Album – When You Wish Upon a Star Most Popular Australian Musician – Rick Springfield Most Popular Australian Single – "Walking the Floor" Most Popular Group — Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs Most Popular Overseas Group — The Bee Gees Most Popular Overseas L. P. — American Pie Special Gold Award for'20 years service to the Industry' – Johnny O'Keefe Guest presenter: Davy Jones Award winners: King of Pop — Johnny Farnham Queen of Pop — Colleen Hewett Best New Talent — Linda George Best Songwriter – Brian Cadd Contribution to Australian Pop Industry – Brian Cadd Most Popular Australian Album – Hits 1: Magic Rock'N' Roll Most Popular Australian Group — Sherbet Most Popular Australian Musician – Brian Cadd Most Popular Australian Single – "Venus" Ceremony details: Held on 25 October 1974, guest presenters: David Cassidy, Gary Glitter. A compilation album titled King of Pop'74–'75 was released with tracks supplied by previous winners and guest presenters.
Next to the list of various artists, the cover depicts the trophy, presented to award winners. Award winners: King of Pop — Jamie Redfern Queen of Pop — Debbie Byrne Best New Talent – Benjamin Hugg Best Songwriter – Harry Vanda & George Young Contribution to Australian Pop Industry – Brian Cadd Most Popular Australian Album – My Name Means Horse Most Popular Australian Group – Sherbet Most Popular Australian Musician – Brian Cadd Most Popular Australian Single – "Hitch a Ride" Ceremony details: Held October 1975, live performance: AC/DC "High Voltage" Award winners: King of Pop — Daryl Braithwaite (Sherbe
