Folk music in Australia
Folk music is alive and staggering along like the rest of the isolating world. COVID-19 struck the arts hard in Australia and folk music in particular. The horrific bushfires of January/February caused chaos, especially across the east-coast. Considering the main festival season runs from February onwards the timing was dreadful. One-by-one the festivals fell over and were cancelled. The country’s main festivals, the National (Easter) and Woodford (New Year weekend) were amongst the casualties. At last count something like seventy folk-related festivals were cancelled, and quick arithmetic suggests this amounts to a staggering one hundred million dollar loss to the arts and the communities where our festivals are staged.
Brave souls staged online festivals with some success, but we all know the real life of folk festivals is the spontaneity of performance, the roar of the crowd, the smell of the … oh well, you get the idea. Artists rely on folk festivals for a large percentage of their income. This is where they receive performance fees, sell merchandise and, most importantly, garner contacts to plan tours and other performances. The government announced ‘rescue packages’ for sectors of the arts, - you guessed it: the major high-end arts organisations like opera, ballet and theatre companies. Most folk performers are self-employed and, frankly, ‘invisible’, and this equates to very little support. One suspects that folk artists are ‘invisible’ in most western countries and have the same problem. At best, the isolation has seen artists writing songs, honing instrumental skills, and exploring new possibilities for when the sun shines once more.
Folk music in Australia is many things to many people. It is a confusing stewpot of styles and the festivals have grown to represent the many old and new genres, traditional and contemporary. You are just as likely to see a group of Morris dancers as a kora and drum playing African ensemble. Australian bush traditions typically get a look in and, of course, the pesky Scots, Irish and Poms are always to be heard, especially in the late-night session bars.
Australia, of course, has long celebrated its Scottish connections. Of our 162,000 transported convicts only 5% were Scottish (the majority were English). However, the Scots came over in their thousands from the 1950s goldrush onwards. Mind you, because of strict religious backgrounds in Methodism, many preferred the non-convict New Zealand. The old timers used to say, “you had to be a McKenzie to get a job in the New Zealand shearing industry”. The early Scots left a mark on our tradition with many old tunes being used to anchor bush songs. Likewise, Scots tunes were used in social dancing and, like all folk music, evolved to have a more Australian feel. Our natural environment was always challenging and somewhat harsh and this is reflected in our traditional music. The intricate musical ornamentation was often left behind in favour.
As the great land down-under, Australia welcomes a steady flow of international guest artists. It is a big country and domestic travel is expensive and not easy. That said, there is a viable network of regional towns and cities where artists manage to create a circuit. Guest appearances at folk festival were the mainstay of such tours. If you want to look at bad timing look no further than 2020 being ‘The Year of Scotland’ in Australia. Ouch! Scottish artists were scheduled to perform at over 35 festivals and in special performances including the Sydney Opera House. Cancelled! Archie Fisher and Capercaille both had their Australian tours cancelled
Looking back there have been many Scottish performers who have enriched our musical shores over the years, including Dick Gaughan, Shooglenifty, McCalman’s and, my own contribution, a 1978 visit by the late ‘border shepherd’, Willie Scott. Scots-Aussies, like the late (and greatly missed) John Munro, songwriter Eric Bogle, fiddlers Chris Duncan and Catherine Strutt, and pie driven Claymore continue their contributions to wave the Scottish banners here.