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What the Media have to Say...
Country Music Capital News Review (PDF Format)
‘The Best Of All Trades’
“Gary Shearston was to folk what Johnny O’Keefe was to rock.”
Monica, 2BL listener
". . .it's a strong and beautiful thing, and several of the songs on there are already among my favourite Gary Shearston tunes, which is really saying something, as the old song would have it."
Dr Peter Mills, Senior Lecturer in Media and Popular Culture at Leeds Metropolitan University in England
“This iconic Australian folk singer-songwriter is most definitely at the top of this game if this new double album is any yardstick. There’s a whopping 24 songs on this value-packed offering from one of Australia’s most eminent folk icons. If it wasn’t for Gary Shearston and a few other like-minded souls back in the ‘60s, there may not have been a folk music industry in Australia today. A big statement – but do your research. You’ll find it’s not far from the mark.
Any Gary Shearston collection is bound to be not only tales from the prolific pen of this fine writer, but also stories of Australia and its history – and those who make Australia’s story what it is. ‘Hey, Charlie Perkins’ is another tip of the hat to one of this country’s most enigmatic characters. Gary’s own story is told at the beginning of this album with his opener ‘Another Song’. It tells of the struggle he had to gain an entry visa to the United States of America in the ‘60s, when, because of his strong political views, he was labeled an “undesirable alien”. Although he was barred entry for many years he still had the last laugh. Gary Shearston is here with us decades later – to sing yet another song – and ironically, his music is possibly better received in the US and UK than it is in his homeland.”
(Anna Rose, The Northern Daily Leader, October 2009).
Gary Shearston has been there with the world-wide hit of his version of COLE PORTER’S I Get A Kick Out Of You. These days his ecclesiastic-driven rustic lifestyle is a little at odds with the sophistication of Porter’s music, but then that was the point. The folkie in Gary has always been tempered by an embrace of the unfamiliar and on his gargantuan new 24 track, two CD release The Best Of All Trades (Rouseabout) he runs amok on themes of love for people and the land. By land I mean the planet. Gary is all inclusive as his words We Are Australia over a very familiar traditional melody ably demonstrate. There are many other examples. Shearston’s palpable affection for a flawed humanity is given full rein. Witness The Harmonica Man or Hey, Charlie Perkins. The surprising aspect is the bluesy edge to quite a few of the songs. The juxtaposition with Shearston’s wide open fog horn style of singing is quite appealing and JOHN WILLIAMSON take note, da blues does have a place in ‘Oztrailian’ music. In fact it just might be the bluest continent of all. The production by ROGER ILOTT has been kept spare. Just sometimes I wished for more musical ‘kick’ but Gary has here a document that should finally place him in the pantheon of our greatest song commentators. (Keith Glass, Capital News, August 2009)
Gary Shearston turned 70 earlier this year. He is, therefore, entitled to become a "grumpy old man" who, with great affection remembers his old radical friends ("A Song for John Baker", "Hey, Charlie Perkins") and his childhood ("Tenterfield"); is still concerned with the social and political issues of the 1960s (peace, reconciliation between the world's major religions, unionism); and who, with great effect, rails against the absurdities and excesses of the modern world ("A New Way of Life"). He does this all with his distinctive and intensely Australian vocal style setting this collection of 24 new songs against a wonderfully rich backdrop of acoustic, slide and electric guitars. Shearston has always been an authentic rural Australian performer with a flat, overtly nasal, vocal delivery and a unique ability to capture the essence of rural Australia in a few, brilliantly evocative words. In many ways this is an album of nostalgia for a simpler, more spiritual and more socially committed Australia. "Let me know when hope is in your world again," he sings at one point. What makes it remarkable is that Shearston's song writing and musical abilities have not been blunted by either age or his long stint as an Anglican clergyman. (Bruce Elder, SMH, July 2009)
All that remains for this renowned and enduring songman is to take his work on a national tour again. (Australian Options Winter 2009)
The last studio recordings made by Australian singer-songwriter Gary Shearston came out in 2001. In 2007 a selection of Gary's recorded work was released in recognition of his valuable contribution to Australian music. Now Rouseabout Records, also responsible for these previously mentioned CDs, has released a new collection of Gary's songs on two CDs. For those who have followed Gary's musical career, this has to be very exciting news. For others, it's a great chance to become familiar with the talents of an exceptional Australian songwriter.
In this song collection Gary includes new recordings of Pilgrim Man and Salvation Blues, renaming the latter Deliverance Blue. These two songs were included on his 1989 Aussie Blue album and they are full of wonderful Australian images.
The twenty four song collection begins with the blues song Another Song. It tells of Gary's disappointment when American authorities at first denied him the right to perform in America, after he left Australia in the mid 1960s to pursue his music career overseas. Although the song has a somewhat world-weary feel to it, it also possesses a very positive attitude to the whole sorry affair.
In his song writing, Gary has never shied away from the many problems that face our world. So songs like Peace Be With You, The Thorns Are Covered With Roses and A New Way of Life, with their confronting litany of frustration, avoid conclusions of despair. Instead, like another song Millennium, they find things to celebrate in life and place great value in the human potential to continue striving for ideals.
Tenterfield is a beautiful, heart-felt homage to the town where Gary spent much of his childhood and now resides. In a song like this you quickly become aware of his ability to capture the setting for events and so allow us to appreciate some sense of place.
On That Sea Which Has No End is a powerful song that laments the violent death of a friend. With just enough detail, Gary relates a story of tragedy that immediately captures the attention of the listener. I was left wondering whether the friend was present during the events related in the song Crafty Old Captain which was included on the Aussie Blue CD. I contacted Gary and he told me that, yes, his friend was one of the two sailors mentioned who kept watch and was responsible for getting their vessel safely to shore.
The poignancy of The Norwich Bells is another example of Gary's ability to tell a story in song and gain attention from the start. The delicate beauty of the melody further contributes to making this a very emotional journey. The song faithfully documents the human condition when it is in a most vulnerable state. Achieving this with such sensitivity and compassion is, in my opinion, the mark of a truly accomplished songwriter.
The song Sea Kings relates the tragic loss of life of Australian Navy personnel while assisting in relief operations on the Indonesian earthquake-ravaged island of Nias in 2005. Without in any way dishonouring the memory of the men and women who lost their lives, Gary makes a comment in the chorus about the perversity of war and the preparations for it.
This tragedy, he says:
" ... helped us forget for a while
That we made you for war,
Which we've learned to our cost
We should study no more."
The song reminds me of his 1960s song The Voyager about another fatal, peacetime accident. This song also contains a similar warning. ("Ships must sail the seas for peace before another dies.")
Some of the songs have already enjoyed a life, long before these recordings were made. I first remember hearing an emotive performance of When The Cross Turns Over on the ABC Australian Story programme in 1996. I heard Gary sing his fine tribute to Richard Brooks, The Harmonica Man, at a Sydney performance in 2004. Brooks performed on most of Gary's seminal 1960s CBS recordings. His memorable, tasteful and expressive harmonica playing was an integral part of these recordings.
There are other stirring songs of tribute, memory and celebration including Hey, Charlie Perkins and A Song for John Baker, a close friend of many years. There is also a delightful song about his young son with which all fathers are bound to empathise.
In his production of these recordings, Gary has set the songs in a rather sparse, musical landscape with minimum accompaniment. This allows his warm, distinctive, Australian voice to be prominent. It also gives the songs an engaging intimacy, reminiscent of his early recordings, as well as a fresh energy that is often only achieved in live performance.
Special mention should be made of David Hume's very fine acoustic, slide and electric guitar playing which enhances each song. The valuable contribution of Roger Ilott and Penny Davies deserves a worthy mention, not forgetting that the songs were recorded at their Restless Music studio in Stanthorpe, Queensland.
The songs that make up this 2CD set are, as the title song says, definitely "sung from the heart". We live in uncertain times and these are songs of our time. They are honest responses to the world we live in and share. While acknowledging sorrow, tragedy, despair and wrongdoing that form parts of our life experience, these songs celebrate and inspire a real hope for and faith in humanity. Above all, they are characterised by compassion. Let's hope that songwriters like Gary Shearston continue this most valuable trade. Quoting once again from the title song:
"There's always another song still to be sung
It's the best of all trades to make songs
And the second best to sing them."
(Jim Low, Simply Australia, April 2009)
'Here & There, Now & Then'
"Shearston has written and interpreted some beautiful music. This two-CD set looks in all the nooks and crannies of the Shearston story. No gem has been discarded. He also wrote perhaps the smartest Australian song ever, 'Irish Girls Will Steal Your Heart Away'".
(Pete Best, Sunday Herald Sun)
"What a welcome arrival. There has been an undercurrent of demand for Gary Shearston recordings for many years now, rekindled every five or so years by a special recording that reminds us of the special nature
of his songs and arrangements. This is a deserving anthology for one of our musical poets, one who has been very difficult to get, until now."
(Ron Adsett, Capital News, August 2007)
"Gary's influences in the folk and Australian bush music scene came from the times he was living in - the volatile 60s when Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders were fighting for equal rights and the right to vote - and when a sector of the community spoke out against Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Gary Shearston was right there in the thick of it, writing songs in support of these causes and speaking out for what he believed in. This outspokenness was a two-edged sword, in that it gave him prominence, but also hindered his chances of obtaining (and maintaining) a visa to live and work in the United States. The Gary Shearston story is one that books could be written of, so in lieu of an epic, feel free to visit his website, www.garyshearston.com or www.undercovermusic.com."
(Anna Rose, Capital News, September, 2007)
"This song collection is a very appropriate reaffirmation of the important contribution Gary has made to the rich tradition of Australian songwriting. The CDs are bursting with musical gems, for Gary's songs possess that special quality which tells you that they will be around for some time to come."
(Jim Low, Trad & Now)
“Gary Shearston was the closest Australia ever came to producing a local version of Bob Dylan. Not only was he an influential singer of traditional folk songs during the 1960s heyday of the folk boom but he was also a hugely gifted songwriter, a radical re-interpreter of the folk tradition (who else thought of using reggae as a backing for Australian songs as early as 1974?) and, if you need any further evidence, had he not been banned from travelling to the United States due to his involvement in the anti-Vietnam movement, he would have ended up being managed by Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman.
Grossman invited Shearston to go to the States. US Immigration locked him out. So Shearston ended up in London in the early 1970s where, signed to Charisma Records (famous for a catalogue which included Genesis and Van Der Graaf Generator) he scored a hit with an unadorned version of Cole Porter's I Get A Kick Out of You.
By any measure Shearston's career has been an enviable journey. From Jim Carter's Troubadour folk club in Sydney to London then back to Australia where, having written a novel, he recorded the remarkable Aussie Blue before joining the Anglican clergy. He preached in both the Riverina and on the North Coast and, at one point, wryly observed that he could now be called "the Reverend Gary Shearston" like the great African-American folk bluesman, the Reverend Gary Davis.
This 42-track double CD has been long overdue. It brings together the essence of Shearston's remarkable career. All the bases are covered. Starting with his haunting and melancholy reading of The Springtime It Brings On The Shearing it includes a range of sublime interpretations of traditional Australian folk songs, all recorded in 1965, before moving effortlessly to sensitive readings of Don Henderson's witty The Basic Wage Dream and Oodgeroo Noonuccal's passionate We Want Freedom. Shearston's early forays into songwriting – Who Can Say? and Don't Wave To Me Too Long – hover somewhere between Dylan and Donovan. They lead, quite naturally, to the extraordinary collection of self-composed songs on his two masterpieces – Dingo and Aussie Blue. Baiame, about an enduring love of Australia, is still one of the great expatriate songs. It floats on an ocean of nostalgic feeling and, quirkily, is backed by a stuttering and wildly eccentric reggae rhythm.
The difference between Shearston and Dylan is essentially cultural. Dylan's influences were Woody Guthrie and the poetry of the Beat Generation. Shearston is unashamedly Australian. He is a modern Henry Lawson whose music is infused with a "love of country" that makes it unique to this continent. He has felt the rhythms rising from the land and has turned them into timeless music.”
(Bruce Elder, Sydney Morning Herald)
“Australia’s answer to Johnny Cash”
(Phil Punch, renowned Australia Producer)
“There are songs there that actually changed my life.”
(Bruce Elder, SMH)
Sydney Morning Herald Review (PDF Format)
'Only Love Survives'
Gary has been featured on ABC's 'Australian Story'
" ... a perfectionist and an original..."
(The Sun, London)
"... genuinely spellbound ... a marvellous voice..."
(Melody Maker, London)
"... a national treasure ..."
(Australia All Over, ABC Radio)
"... occupies a singular place in Australian music history."
(Keith Glass, The Australian) |
