Country-Rock Against Racism Rock and racism are avowed enemies.
The series of Rock Against Racism concerts in Australia in the early eighties stand testament to the fact. Folk-rock, country-rock and rock-reggae are the strains most likely to be heard expressing solidarity.
When the Twilights became the first Australian group to use a didgeridoo on record in 1968, it was largely an attempt to emulate Sergeant Pepper.
Australian rock matured immensely in the seventies, however, and in the eighties Aboriginal themes became pervasive.
The 'Aboriginal question' first entered the charts in 1976, when Ross 'The Boss' Wilson released the single 'Livin' in the Land of Oz': "And I'm livin' here because," its lyric went on,
"200 hundred years ago ..."
Also released in '76 was LA-based expatriot Australian Ray Rivamonte's remarkable country-rock concept album about his homeland,
Birth of the Sun. With a loping sound not unlike
Waylon Jennings, Birth of the Sun is a song cycle in which Rivamonte (a former roadie with Delaney Et Bonnie) paints a fond picture of his long-lost past on the edge of Aboriginal Australia.
In the eighties, with multiculturalism becoming a buzz word, artists interested in what it means to be Australian could not avoid Aboriginality.
Today Paul Kelly is our virtual songwriter laureate, and he's done much to build bridges - but then he's Black Irish, after all, and a country-folkie at root too!
In 1988, a number of years before he would co-write Yothu Yindi's 'Treaty',
Kelly's 'Bicentennial was the perfect riposte to any would-be anthem John Farnham might have trumpeted.
"I have got no mind for dancing," he sang quietly, "on someone else's grave." Paul has subsequently produced Archie Roach, co-written 'From Little Things', covered Key Carmody and Joe Geia, been covered by Key Carmody and remixed by Christine Anu: this is the crisscrossing of modern songlines that so enriches Australian music.
Cinton Walker BURIED COUNTRY P. 220
The series of Rock Against Racism concerts in Australia in the early eighties stand testament to the fact. Folk-rock, country-rock and rock-reggae are the strains most likely to be heard expressing solidarity.
When the Twilights became the first Australian group to use a didgeridoo on record in 1968, it was largely an attempt to emulate Sergeant Pepper.
Australian rock matured immensely in the seventies, however, and in the eighties Aboriginal themes became pervasive.
The 'Aboriginal question' first entered the charts in 1976, when Ross 'The Boss' Wilson released the single 'Livin' in the Land of Oz': "And I'm livin' here because," its lyric went on,
"200 hundred years ago ..."
Also released in '76 was LA-based expatriot Australian Ray Rivamonte's remarkable country-rock concept album about his homeland,
Birth of the Sun. With a loping sound not unlike
Waylon Jennings, Birth of the Sun is a song cycle in which Rivamonte (a former roadie with Delaney Et Bonnie) paints a fond picture of his long-lost past on the edge of Aboriginal Australia.
In the eighties, with multiculturalism becoming a buzz word, artists interested in what it means to be Australian could not avoid Aboriginality.
Today Paul Kelly is our virtual songwriter laureate, and he's done much to build bridges - but then he's Black Irish, after all, and a country-folkie at root too!
In 1988, a number of years before he would co-write Yothu Yindi's 'Treaty',
Kelly's 'Bicentennial was the perfect riposte to any would-be anthem John Farnham might have trumpeted.
"I have got no mind for dancing," he sang quietly, "on someone else's grave." Paul has subsequently produced Archie Roach, co-written 'From Little Things', covered Key Carmody and Joe Geia, been covered by Key Carmody and remixed by Christine Anu: this is the crisscrossing of modern songlines that so enriches Australian music.
Cinton Walker BURIED COUNTRY P. 220
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