Heart Strings Twanged As Tamworth Finally Takes Note
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday January 22, 2001
It has taken decades but Aboriginal musicians at Tamworth's Country Music Festival are stepping out of the shadow of the gum tree and claiming their own place on the stage.
In the pubs down Peel Street country singers can pepper the patter between songs with racist jokes and still get a laugh, but yesterday a host of Aboriginal bands performed in the festival's first Koori showcase.
Indigenous people have long loved country music, with the occasional artist notably Jimmy Little and, more recently, Troy Cassar-Daley breaking through for mainstream success. Listen to outback Aboriginal community radio and it is inevitably flavoured with the twang of the guitar.
But when Gus Williams, 64, first came to Tamworth 11 years ago the message was clear.
``We started off busking and we got the message that Tamworth wasn't really for Aborigines, but we just kept coming to say, `We're as good musicians as you are', and it's turned out all right."
Times have changed. His son Warren has sung with John Williamson and, with grandson Clyde, three generations of the family perform in Country Ebony. Tamworth is the family's great ``pilgrimage", a two-night trip from the Northern Territory.
As a child, Williams, growing up on a Lutheran mission west of Alice Springs, could be caned for singing or listening to country music.
``Living on the mission at Hermannsburg we grew up with their policy that you could only sing religious songs, and it wasn't easy to convince them we wanted to learn something different and that it wasn't doing anyone any harm. The country songs were based on people of the outback, they were about dry rivers and floods, and we found country music lovely to sing to."
Slim Dusty's early 78s were the first country songs Williams heard but now his son Warren is writing his own music and imbuing tracks with an indigenous flavour.
Jimmy Little traces the Aboriginal love of country to being forced into fruit picking, shearing and stock work, but also to something more spiritual.
``Australians were singing about gum trees and the pub with no beer, but the indigenous heart is very romantic, so Aborigines liked the American songs more, which were about love and family.
``And because the indigenous heart is so much in love with the land, their culture and tradition, it's a powerful emotional release to sing about a broken heart."
This week's Aboriginal country shows will be heard through the National Aboriginal Radio Service.
© 2001 Sydney Morning Herald
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