Australian folk music is a term which may be applied, relatively narrowly, to traditional folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 of Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, also called "bush music" or more broadly to traditional music

Traditional music

Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...

 from the large variety of immigrant cultures and those of the original Australian inhabitants

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

.

Celtic, English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

, German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 and Scandinavian

Scandinavian folklore

Scandinavian folklore is the folklore of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Swedish speaking parts of Finland.Collecting folklore began when Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden sent out instructions to all of the priests in all of the parishes to collect the folklore of their area...

 folk traditions predominated in the first wave of European immigrant music. The Australian tradition is, in this sense, related to the traditions of other countries with similar ethnic, historical and political origins, such as New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Bush music

For much of its history, Australia's bush music belonged to an oral and folkloric tradition, and was only later published in print in volumes such as Banjo Paterson

Banjo Paterson

Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, OBE was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales where he spent much of his childhood...

's Old Bush Songs, in the 1890s. The distinctive themes and origins of Australia's "bush music" or "bush band

Bush band

A bush band is a group of musicians that play traditional Australian folk music or contemporary folk music played in a traditional Australian style...

 music" can be traced to the sea shanties

Sea Shanties

Sea Shanties is the debut album of Progressive Rock band High Tide. The cover artwork was drawn by Paul Whitehead.-Production:Denny Gerrard produced Sea Shanties in return for High Tide acting as the backing band on his solo album Sinister Morning...

) of 18th and 19th century Europe and other songs sung by the convicts who were sent to Australia during the early period of the British colonisation, beginning in 1788. Early Australian ballads sing of the harsh ways of life of the epoch and of such people and events as bushrangers, swagmen, drovers

Drover (Australian)

A drover in Australia is a person, typically an experienced stockman, who moves livestock, usually sheep or cattle, "on the hoof" over long distances. Reasons for droving may include: delivering animals to a new owner's property, taking animals to market, or moving animals during a drought in...

, stockmen and shearer

Shearer

A shearer is someone who shears, such as a cloth shearer, or a sheep shearer.Additionally, Shearer is the surname of people:-In sports:*Alan Shearer , English footballer*Bobby Shearer , Scottish footballer...

s. Convict and bushranger verses often railed against government tyranny. Classic bush songs on such themes include: The Wild Colonial Boy

The Wild Colonial Boy

"The Wild Colonial Boy" is a traditional Irish–Australian ballad of which there are many different versions, the most prominent being the Irish and Australian versions. The original version was about Jack Donahue, an Irish rebel who became a convict, then a bushranger , who was eventually shot down...

, Click Go The Shears

Click Go the Shears

"Click Go the Shears" is a traditional Australian folk song. The song details a day's work for a sheep shearer in the days before machine shears. The enduring popularity of this song reflects the traditional role that the wool industry has played in Australian life...

, The Eumeralla Shore, The Drover's Dream, The Queensland Drover, The Dying Stockman and Moreton Bay.

Later themes which endure to the present include the experiences of war, of droughts and flooding rains, of Aboriginality

Australian Aborigines

Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...

 and of the railways and trucking routes which link Australia's vast distances. Isolation and loneliness of life in the Australian bush has been another theme.

Waltzing Matilda

Waltzing Matilda

"Waltzing Matilda" is Australia's most widely known bush ballad. A country folk song, the song has been referred to as "the unofficial national anthem of Australia"....

, often regarded as Australia's unofficial national anthem

National anthem

A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people.- History :Anthems rose to prominence...

, is a quintessential Australian folk song, influenced by Celtic folk ballads.

Country and folk artists such as Tex Morton

Tex Morton

Tex Morton was a pioneer of Australian country music.-Early life:At age 14 he left home to launch himself into show business...

, Slim Dusty

Slim Dusty

David Gordon "Slim Dusty " Kirkpatrick AO, MBE was an Australian country music singer-songwriter and producer, with a career spanning nearly eight decades. He was known to record songs in the legacy of Australian poets Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson that represented the Australian Bush...

, Rolf Harris

Rolf Harris

Rolf Harris, CBE, AM is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the...

, The Bushwackers, John Williamson

John Williamson (singer)

John Robert Williamson AM is an Australian country music singer-songwriter. Williamson has released over thirty-two albums, ten videos, five DVDs, and two lyric books...

, and John Schumann

John Schumann

John Lewis Schumann is an Australian singer, songwriter and guitarist from Adelaide. He is best known as the lead singer for the folk group Redgum, with their chart-topping hit "I Was Only 19 ", a song exploring the psychological and medical side-effects of serving in the Australian forces during...

 of the band Redgum

Redgum

Redgum were an Australian folk and political music group formed in Adelaide in 1975 by singer-songwriter John Schumann, Michael Atkinson on guitars/vocals and Verity Truman on flute/vocals; they were soon joined by Chris Timms on violin. All four had been students at Flinders University and...

 have continued to record and popularise the old bush ballads of Australia through the 20th and into the 21st century – and contemporary artists including Sara Storer

Sara Storer

Sara Storer is an Australian country music singer. She won seven Golden Guitars in the Tamworth Country Music Festival 2004 awards in Tamworth, the most awards ever won in one year in the 32-year history of the awards. As of the 2010 Golden Guitar awards, Storer has won a total of eleven...

 and Lee Kernaghan

Lee Kernaghan

Lee Kernaghan OAM is an Australian country music singer and songwriter. He was the 2008 Australian of the Year.-Honours:Kernaghan received the Order of Australia Medal in 2004....

 draw heavily on this heritage.

A number of British singers have spent periods in Australia and have included Australian material in their repertoires, e.g. A. L. Lloyd

A. L. Lloyd

Albert Lancaster Lloyd , usually known as A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English folk singer and collector of folk songs, and as such was a key figure in the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s....

, Martin Wyndham-Read and Eric Bogle

Eric Bogle

Eric Bogle is a folk singer-songwriter. He emigrated to Australia in 1969 and currently resides near Adelaide, South Australia.-Career:...

.

In adapted forms Indigenous Australian music

Indigenous Australian music

Australian indigenous music includes the music of Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, who are collectively called Indigenous Australians; it incorporates a variety of distinctive traditional music styles practiced by Indigenous Australian peoples, as well as a range of contemporary...

 influenced the development of Australian country music

Australian country music

Australian country music is a part of the music of Australia. There is a broad range of styles, from bluegrass, to yodelling to folk to the more popular. The genre has been influenced by Celtic and English folk music, by the traditions of Australian bush balladeers, as well as by popular American...

 and particularly after the folk revival, Australian folk music.

A similar bush band tradition is also found in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

Folk rock

The Australian indigenous tradition brought to this mix novel elements, including new instruments, some of which are now internationally familiar, such as the didgeridoo

Didgeridoo

The didgeridoo is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia around 1,500 years ago and still in widespread usage today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe"...

 of Northern Australia.

Notable Australian exponents of the folk revival movement included both European immigrants such as Eric Bogle

Eric Bogle

Eric Bogle is a folk singer-songwriter. He emigrated to Australia in 1969 and currently resides near Adelaide, South Australia.-Career:...

, noted for his sad lament to the battle of Gallipoli

Battle of Gallipoli

The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...

 "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

"And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" is a song written by Scottish-born Australian singer-songwriter Eric Bogle in 1971. The song describes war as futile and gruesome, while criticising those who seek to glorify it...

", and indigenous Australians like Archie Roach

Archie Roach

Archie Roach is an Australian musician. A singer, songwriter and guitarist, he survived a turbulent upbringing to develop into a powerful voice for Indigenous Australians, a storyteller in the tradition of his ancestors, and a nationally popular and respected artist.- Biography :In his own words,...

 and many others. In the 1970s, Australian Folk Rock brought both familiar and less familiar traditional songs, as well as new compositions, to live venues and the airwaves. Notable artists include The Bushwacker Band

The Bushwackers (band)

The Bushwackers Band, often simply The Bushwackers, is an Australian folk and country music band or Bush band founded at La Trobe University in Melbourne in 1971....

 and Redgum

Redgum

Redgum were an Australian folk and political music group formed in Adelaide in 1975 by singer-songwriter John Schumann, Michael Atkinson on guitars/vocals and Verity Truman on flute/vocals; they were soon joined by Chris Timms on violin. All four had been students at Flinders University and...

. Redgum are known for their 1983 anti-war protest song "I Was Only Nineteen

I Was Only Nineteen

"Only Nineteen", "I Was Only Nineteen" or "A Walk in the Light Green" is the most widely recognised song by Australian folk group Redgum. The song was released in March 1983 as a single, which hit number one on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart for two weeks...

", which peaked at #1 on the National singles charts. The 1990s brought Australian Indigenous Folk Rock to the world, led by bands including Yothu Yindi

Yothu Yindi

Yothu Yindi are an Australian band with Aboriginal and balanda members formed in 1986. Aboriginal members come from Yolngu homelands near Yirrkala on the Gove Peninsula in Northern Territory's Arnhem Land...

. Australia's long and continuous folk tradition continues strongly to this day, with elements of folk music still present in many contemporary artists including those generally thought of as Rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

, Heavy Metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 and Alternative Music.

Music of the convict era

European settlement of Australia began with the transportation

Penal transportation

Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...

 of convicts from Great Britain. These convicts brought songs with them which were rapidly adapted to Australian conditions. Songs such as Moreton Bay

Moreton Bay (song)

Moreton Bay is an Australian Folk Song attributed to Francis MacNamara, originally titled 'The Convict's Arrival' or 'The Convict's Lament on the Death of Captain Logan'...

 based on the Irish song Boolavogue

Boolavogue (song)

"Boolavogue" is a famous Irish ballad commemorating the Irish Rebellion of 1798. It was composed by Patrick Joseph McCall in 1898, for the centenary of the Rebellion issued Irish Noíníns ....

 described the sufferings of the convicts.

The most notable songwriter of this era was Frank Macnamara, better known as Frank the Poet

Frank the Poet

Frank the Poet was a convict, transported to New South Wales from Ireland, who composed cheeky improvised verse expressing the convict's point of view. In 1832 he was convicted of larceny, and sentenced to seven years transportation...

, author of such well known songs as Bold Jack Donahue, which developed into The Wild Colonial Boy

The Wild Colonial Boy

"The Wild Colonial Boy" is a traditional Irish–Australian ballad of which there are many different versions, the most prominent being the Irish and Australian versions. The original version was about Jack Donahue, an Irish rebel who became a convict, then a bushranger , who was eventually shot down...

.

The convict tradition also came to include songs popular in the English music halls, such as Botany Bay

Botany Bay (song)

"Botany Bay" is a song from the musical burlesque, Little Jack Sheppard, a comedy staged in London, England, in 1885 and Melbourne, Australia, in 1886. The show was written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and William Yardley, though the music for "Botany Bay" was written by Florian Pascal, a pseudonym...

, and broadsheet ballads such as The Black Velvet Band

The Black Velvet Band

"The Black Velvet Band" is a traditional English and Irish folk song describing transportation to Australia, a common punishment in 19th century Britain and Ireland. The song tells the story of a tradesman who meets a young woman who has stolen an item and passed it on to him...

.

19th century

In the century following European settlement of Australia, a musical tradition developed in the bush, particularly among itinerant workers such as shearers. As in the convict era, most bush music was made by setting new words to well-known traditional or popular songs. The Bulletin

The Bulletin

The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine that was published in Sydney from 1880 until January 2008. It was influential in Australian culture and politics from about 1890 until World War I, the period when it was identified with the "Bulletin school" of Australian literature. Its influence...

, known as the 'Bushman's bible' played a prominent role in publishing and popularising new songs.

1900-1950

As in other countries, the spread of recorded music and the arrival of radio spelt the end of Australian bush music in its traditional form. American country music largely displaced traditional Australian music in the bush. However, traditional dance music proved more durable in this period.

1951-2000

Folk music in the 1950s onwards lost popularity in mainstream culture with the creation of rock music and it's popularity among the younger generations of the time. However, bush bands, as currently formulated, experienced a revival in 1953 with the musical play Reedy River, which was first produced and published by the New Theatre (Sydney)

New Theatre (Newtown)

The New Theatre is an independent theatre company in the inner western Sydney suburb of Newtown, Australia. Established in October 1932, it is the oldest theatre company in continuous production in New South Wales...

 and most recently produced in 2002. Written by Dick Diamond, the musical featured twelve or so Australian songs, which included Doreen Jacobs' setting of Helen Palmer's "Ballad of 1891," as well as the title song, Chris Kempster's setting of Lawson's "Reedy River." The backing band for this popular stage production was "The Bushwhackers," who had formed a year earlier in 1952. As the musical was performed in Brisbane

Brisbane

Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

 and other Australian cities, local "bush bands" modeled on the Sydney group, such as Brisbane's "The Moreton Bay Bushwhackers," sprang up in each place; many of these remained together following the closing of the musical, and spawned other, similar groups. The Australian band The Seekers

The Seekers

The Seekers are an Australian folk-influenced pop music group which were originally formed in 1962. They were the first Australian popular music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States...

 emerged in 1963 and blended traditional music, contemporary folk music and pop, an illustration of the rapid evolution and diversification of folk music than began in the mid 1960s.

2001-Present

There has been somewhat of a revival of Australian folk music in recent years with many folk bands and musicians becoming quite successful. For example Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is an Indigenous Australian musician, who sings in the Yolngu language.He was born in Galiwin'ku , off the coast of Arnhem Land, Northern Australia about 350 miles from Darwin. He is from the Gumatj clan of the Yolngu and his mother from the Galpu nation...

 whose debut album Gurrumul

Gurrumul

Gurrumul is the debut album for Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. It is performed in a mixture of both Yolngu and English. It reached number three on the ARIA charts, won ARIA awards for Best World Music Album and Best Independent Release and won a Deadly for Album of the Year...

was nominated for four ARIA

ARIA Music Awards

The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards is an annual series of awards nights celebrating the Australian music industry, put on by the Australian Recording Industry Association...

 awards and reached 2x Platinum. Other Bands such as Angus & Julia Stone

Angus & Julia Stone

Angus & Julia Stone are an Australian brother-sister duo from Newport on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. Forming in 2005, their parents are both musical and played as a folk duo before Angus and Julia were born. At very young ages, their father introduced them to music and encouraged them to join...

 or Boy & Bear

Boy & Bear

Boy & Bear is an indie rock band from Sydney, Australia.The band describes its style as "a combination of drivey indie folk and choral harmonies."-Description:...

 have also heavily drawn on folk influences.

Known internationally, were the Bushwackers

The Bushwackers (band)

The Bushwackers Band, often simply The Bushwackers, is an Australian folk and country music band or Bush band founded at La Trobe University in Melbourne in 1971....

 (spelt without the "h" as in the earlier Bushwhackers Band of the 1950s), who formed in Melbourne and were active from the early 1970s to 1984. Their style was infused with Celtic music (i.e. reels and jigs) to a greater extent than previous bush bands, and they used an electric bass guitar in place of the more traditional bush bass. The period leading up to and following Australia's Bicentenary, 1988, saw a marked resurgence in bush music and bush dances that lasted for many years.

Many bands also bearing the rock influence and adding original music rode this Australiana wave. Examples are the Ants Bush Band, Eureka!, Rantan Bush Band and Bullamakanka. Few bands formed in the 1980s survive to this day. One exception, while seeing many player changes over the years, is Currency Lads (Sydney), which still performs regularly (2009). Brisbane's Rantan Bush Band, formed in 1977, continues to perform commercially on at least a weekly basis (2010) and still has three of its original line up.

In recent years the emergence of bands such as The Currency (Melbourne), The Handsome Young Strangers (Sydney) and Sydney City Trash (Sydney) has moved bush music into rock and roll venues and major festival stages, with a blended style that includes rock drums and guitars whilst combining with Celtic influences. The Handsome Young Strangers lean more towards the traditional style of bands such as The Bushwackers, whilst The Currency and Sydney City Trash incorporate both punk and Celtic styles. Rantan Bush Band has maintained a folk/country blend as its trademark and performs both traditional Australian songs as well as Australian country music and a supporting repertoire of regular pop and rock music for dancing.

Bush bands play music for bush dance

Bush dance

Bush dance is a style of dance from Australia, particularly where the music is provided by a bush band. The dances are mainly based on the traditional folk dances of the UK, Ireland and central Europe.- Eras of bush dance in Australia :...

s, in which the dance program is usually based on dances known to have been danced in Australia from colonial times to the folk revival in the 1950s. Contemporary dances, composed in the traditional style, are also featured at bush dances.

External links

• http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-music
• http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/performing_arts.html