Bush Music Club


Sydney's Bush Music Club is the oldest and longest running folk music performance and education organisation in Australia, and is believed to be the second oldest such club still in existence in the English speaking world. Founded in 1954, and still extant as at 2020, it exists to further "the collection and research of folklore traditions and folk music and to encourage the performance of traditional bush music, song and dance, spoken word, bush poetry and yarns". It hosts regular events and has published a range of folklore related materials, including the magazine "Singabout" from 1956 to 1967, which continues as a section within a subsequent publication "Mulga Wire".

History

The Club was founded in October 1954 by the Australian folklorist and performer John Meredith, together with colleagues from Australia's first "bush band" The Bushwhackers, as a social and teaching club with the aim of popularising the style of bush singing and dancing promoted by the band and encouraging others to form their own performing groups; the band would participate by teaching up-and-coming members songs and giving them instruction on playing bush instruments. An announcement of the proposed formation of the club, in the form of a leaflet available to interested parties, ran as follows:
THE BUSH MUSIC CLUB
We have been approached by many singers and instrumentalists who wished to join the "Bushwhackers", but we consider that the optimum number for an ensemble such as ours is six. We have been refusing engagements at the rate of three or four a week for several months, not because we want to, but simply for the reasons that we need time to rehearse, we have to work for our living and because we have to get some sleep occasionally.
We don’t like disappointing people so we have decided to form a club, where in return for a nominal membership fee we will give away our secrets. The "Bushwhackers" will help you to learn the accordeon, harmonica, bones, bush bass, lager phone and lots more. We will provide the words and music of our songs and show you how we sing them.
The inaugural meeting and first rehearsal of the BUSH MUSIC CLUB will take place at the Realist Theatrette, 1st Floor, 188 George Street, on Thursday October 14th, at 7 p.m. sharp.
Further details may be had from John Meredith, 5 Henry Street, Lewisham, or from any of the "Bushwhackers".

Initial office bearers were Brian Loughlin as chair, Alan Scott as secretary/treasurer, Harry Kay as master of ceremonies and Meredith as "publicity officer" and future editor of the club's planned publications.
With Meredith's interest in collecting Australian folksongs, the club's journal "Singabout" was started in 1956 as a route to publish and promote a selection of these songs for singing by others, in addition to being an outlet for newly composed songs on Australian themes.. While Meredith and his colleagues had Australian Communist Party affiliations, in reality this manifested itself as a general predisposition to sympathy to the concerns of the Australian working class and not to specific furtherance of official Communist Party objectives, although the American folklorist John Greenway, reviewing "Singabout" in 1958, lamented that "folksong collecting and publishing today is in the hands of the Communists". Meredith's involvement as an office bearer with the club lasted until at least 1968, where he is listed as assistant editor, having previously been president for 1961 and vice president for 1966.
Life members included the Australian traditional singers Sally Sloane and Duke Tritton; the latter assisted Meredith with his song collecting and also served as club vice president for several terms. Other persons awarded life membership included founder members and original Bushwhackers John Meredith, Jack Barrie, Alan Scott, Brian Loughlin and Harry Kay, resident topical/humorous songwriter John Dengate, and more.
A selection of performers from the Club, including Meredith and several other of the original Bushwhackers in the early years, performed at festivals and public gatherings as the "Bush Music Club Concert Party" and made a number of appearances on record between the mid 1950s and 1960s ; for David Jones "Wool Week" in 1959 they also appeared as "The Shearer's Band". Members of these bands, who tended to vary, were amateur performers who performed for the love of the music, with proceeds of performances going back to support the Club and its other activities. From the 1970s and onwards, many performers who had received their "apprenticeships" with the Concert Party went on to form bands of their own, examples being "The Rouseabouts", "Ryebuck", "Pinchgut", "Selectors", "Southern Cross", "Sydney Coves", "Currawong" and "Barangaroo".
The Club rode out the downturn in popular interest in folk music in the 1980s and 1990s; a 1987 review noted that the Club at that time had over 400 members. In 2014 the Club celebrated its 60th birthday with a series of concerts, new publications and festival performances, and in 2020 was still offering a regular program of bush dances, dance and music workshops, and Irish traditional music, singing, and poetry sessions at a range of Sydney venues.

Publications

Similar clubs began to appear in the other Australian States, notably the Victorian Bush Music Club and the Queensland Bush Music Club. Especially in its early years, the club acted as a catalyst for the formation of "bush bands" in other Australian cities and towns, while its Concert Party trained a number of musicians who subsequently went on to form their own bands in the 1970s and beyond.

Recordings

The following list of recordings by the Bush Music Club Concert Party was put together by Bob Bolton in 1983 :