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RARE BOOKS LIB. Jl,l The University of Sydney Copyright and use of this thesis This thesis must be used in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Reproduction of material protected by copyright. may be an infringement of copyright and copyright owners may be entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Section 51 (2) of the Copyright Act permits an authorized officer of a university library or archives to provide a copy (by communication or otherwise) of an unpublished thesis kept in the library or archives, to a person who satisfies the authorized officer that he or she requires the reproduction for the purposes of research or study. The Copyright Act grants the creator of a work a number of moral rights, specifically the right of attribution, the right against false attribution and the right of integrity. You may infringe the author's mora/ rights if you: • fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work • attribute this thesis to another author • subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author's reputation For further information contact the University's Director of Copyright Services Telephone: 02 9351 2991 e-mail: [email protected] Yodelling Boundary Riders: Country Music In Australia, 1936-2010 Toby Martin PhD Thesis Department of History University of Sydney 2011 SID: 199608146 Supervisor: Richard White Table of Contents ' ',, Abstract i Introduction 1 Chapter One 24 Tex Morton: The Sentimental Cowboy Chapter Two 68 Sleepy Valleys and Lonesome Plains: The Boundary Rider in the Landscape Chapter Three 108 'Give It A Name': Making Hillbillies Respectable Chapter Four 157 From New South Wales to Nashville: Australian Performers and Fans in America Chapter Five 206 Country Music Capital: The Past In Tamworth Conclusion 252 Bibliography 260 Abstract Yodelling Boundary Riders: Country Music In Australia, 1936-2010 Country music has been recorded, performed and listened to in Australia since the early 1930s. It has proven to be a musical form with considerable longevity, popularity and resonance. For two decades, from the mid 1930s to the mid 1950s, country music (commonly known then as hillbilly music) matched, or in some cases, outsold other forms of popular music, attracted large audiences in cities, suburbs and rural towns and galvanised a burgeoning, youthful audience into hillbilly fans. Much of the historiography of country music in Australia has tended to see it in the context of the 'Americanisation' of popular culture or as an example of an Australian folkloric tradition. Both approaches assume that cultural significance is synonymous with Australianness. This thesis will move beyond nationalistic readings and will instead place country music in its historical context. It will argue that country music in Australia can be understood as a response to and a critique of modernity. On the one hand, hillbilly music in the 1930s was an exciting, modem form with glamorous American origins; on the other, its songs sounded nostalgic and were often arcadian visions of the bush. Country music in Australia has frequently communicated a sense of sentimental authenticity. Increasingly, this has been combined with patriotic sentiment, to the degree that country music's self-image in the early twenty-first century is of a uniquely Australian cultural form. Introduction 'Lights On The Hill': Slim Dusty and the Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL The suburb of Canterbury lies on the outer edge of Sydney's inner west. It's the area that marks the beginning of the city or, depending on your point of view, the beginning of the western suburbs. Heading west, its the place where the terraced houses start to peter out, to be replaced by free-standing Californian bungalows, back yards, bowling clubs, 'village-style' shopping centres and Catholic schools. Beyond Canterbury, out west, the rest of Sydney spreads for some I 00 kilometres - the flat plains of chicken wire, freeways, empty blocks, the place where the city hasn't quite got to yet, but the country's 'up and gone' 1 -all the way to the hazy climb of the Blue Mountains. Canterbury is also the place where the city comes to the country. The Canterbury Hurlstone Park Returned Services League (RSL) Club claims to be 'one of Sydney's premier entertainment venues', 2 hosting cabaret, comedy, professional wrestling, ABBA covers bands and country artists. Indeed, in 20 I 0, it is as close to the inner city of Sydney that most country singers get when on tour. In the 1930s, 40s and 50s, it was possible to see country music -hillbilly or cowboy music as it was called then - in the clubs, town halls and show grounds of Australian inner cities. From the 1960s onwards, the country music touring circuit retreated to coastal, hinterland and rural towns, fulfilling its destiny as 'country music'. For inner-city dwellers who crave a bit of country, in 2010 the Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL is one of the few places to find it. In April 2002 a 'Jiving legend' of Australian country, Slim Dusty, performed at the Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL. Dusty's achievements are notable: he has been recording and touring since the 1940s; in 1957 he had an international hit song with 'The Pub With No Beer'; he is Australia's highest-selling recording artist; he has spent a large part of his professional life touring remote parts of the country and collecting songs from 1 David Foster, Mates Of Mars, Penguin, 1991, p 4. 2 http://www .chprsl.com.au/ 10110/08 1 amateur songwriters in these areas; and he was closely involved with the development and popularity of the Tamworth country music festival. Dusty has become synonymous, not just with Australian country music, but with Australian culture in general, as his appearance at the 2000 Sydney Olympic closing ceremony demonstrates. As it turned out, 2002 would be Dusty's last tour as he passed away seventeen months later. In many ways, Slim Dusty's concert was a performance of history. Even when it was not re-creating a historical detail, it felt old-fashioned. Several elements- including the physical environment, Dusty's persona, the stories he told, the sense of family and tradition and the structure of the show - all contributed to this sense of re-enactment. Firstly, there was the theatre itself. The 'Starlight Auditorium' was an expansive, low roofed, softly-lit theatre. Its semi-circular wooden stage and velvet curtains seemed to be from a different era to the rest of the club. Its atmosphere of a wood-panelled 1940s was contrasted with the 1980s concrete spray and glass of the building's exterior. It appeared as if the theatre was built in another era and the exterior shell wrapped around it recently, almost as if to protect it. Secondly, there was Slim Dusty's persona. This was most clearly expressed in the sound of his voice. It belied his age. It was strong, direct, laconic, warm and humorous. He sang as if he was speaking, yet never sounded out of tune. The conversational style of his delivery immediately drew in the audience, seemingly unmediated by technique or style. The stories sounded like they really happened to him. Its feeling of authenticity immediately distinguished him from the popular cliches of showbusiness. Further, he was dressed in his 'real' clothes- a waistcoat and Akubra hat (an iconic symbol of Australia) that, as photographs and film footage would suggest, he wore offstage as well as on. Of course the sense of realness was itself a performance style that contributed to the sense of historic timelessness. 2 On the other hand, the performance style of Dusty's band was slick. They played an electrified honky-tonk style- bass, drums, guitar, steel guitar. It was a minimal style of country rock, providing plenty of space for Dusty's voice to sit in the mix. They were dressed in matching red country shirts and black pants, a cowboy image that contrasted in complex ways with Slim's iconic Australian dress. The presentation of Dusty and his band was part of a process- as ethno-musicologist Aaron Fox would have it- of 'denaturalising and renaturalising'. 3 In this case, reality was denaturalised via the flashy, overtly cowboy clothing of the band and the clearly honky-tonk style of their musical performance, and renaturalised by Slim's voice, clothes and conversational stage persona. He was the comforting, reassuringly human part of the professional show. Dusty's actual conversation also focussed on the past. Much of his stage banter was made up of stories about his early life on the touring circuit of circuses and rodeos; about his love of 1920s blue yodeller Jimmie Rodgers; about seeing early Australian hillbilly singers like Tex Morton; about working with rough-riding families like the Gills and the Skuthorpes. It was both a personal history and a history of a part of Australian popular culture that has been largely unrecorded. Fourthly, a sense of family and tradition permeated the performance. Part of this came from the fact that there was actual family on stage. Dusty's wife Joy McKean and his daughter Anne Kirkpatrick regularly joined him at the microphone to sing songs on their own, or as a family. Joy has been Slim's musical collaborator since the early 1950s and has written several of his best-known songs. An accomplished piano-accordion player, she provided a strong musical presence on stage. In the middle of the show Joy McKean was joined by her sister Heather and together they sang several numbers from their pre Slim Dusty Show days when they performed as a singing cowgirl duo known as The McKean Sisters.