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Lowell’s Brief Musical History
My cousin Stewart Walker started playing guitar in 1962.
He performed in church halls and at parties. His songs included
He’ll Have To Go, El Paso, I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You,
Running Scared, Big River and Little Boy Lost. |
In May 1963 I performed with him at a family party. We composed
an instrumental song called Faeces and also Son of Faeces.
We
both played guitars to an audience, even though I had not yet learned
how to play.
Stewart bought a new guitar and gave me his old one, an ancient
Spanish guitar with a split soundboard. My father cut out the
original soundboard, replaced it with a piece of 3-ply which I
covered with a leopard skin cloth, and it wouldn’t play at all.
On 13 June 1964 Stewart’s parent’s – Auntie & Uncle
Jim gave
me my first playable guitar as a birthday present. Within a fortnight
I was taking it over to their place, working out songs with Stewart. In
October he started teaching me Minor chords, like Fm and Gm.
It was a Belmont guitar and I painted it with gold glitter, plus I
added a few signs.
In January 1965 I started playing guitar at - and with – Allan Broadhurst,
who sometimes sang too. That was the January when Stewart taught
me the chords to Peggy Sue.
In March 1965 I saw Andrew Kingston and Tom Borody – two guys
from my class – perform Heart & Soul.
On 7 April I sang publicly for the first time. The song was Broken
Things, written by Tony Barber of the Aztecs. I sang it in front
of my class. Three days later I sang The House of the Rising Sun
at Jenny Petherbridge’s party
By this time I was taking my guitar to school every day. This got me
a spot backing two girls on Silver Threads & Golden Needles after
which Greg Parr played I Love You Because on pedal steel guitar.
On 6 May 1965, on a public holiday we had a meeting and
agreed the band – The Rejects – would be: Greg Parr – steel
guitar & vocals, Tom Borody – percussion and clarinet, Edu
Neirinckx – harmonica, Andrew Kingston – organ and
me on guitar / vocals.
Stewart purchased an electric guitar and amp on 29 May.
On the last day in July he performed, If I Had A Hammer, I
Understand and Blowin In The Wind.
Clayton bought an acoustic guitar in mid-August. After school Allan
and I went to his house especially to see it. Seven days later Allan
bought an acoustic guitar costing £9.10.00 from Guitar City in George
Street Wynyard.
I introduced Allan to the Rejects at a practice in September.
Our songlist was Stingray, Rockin Robin, Tell Me, Not Fade Away,
I Love You Because, Telstar, Board Boogie and Do The Clam.
Allan suggested less Surf music and more R&B.
Greg Parr didn’t like Allan too much - though they jammed together
more times than seems possible, with hindsight (and diary notes).
The Big Gig for the Rejects was Grad Tea, 8 December.I quit shortly beforehand.
During November 1965 and into the start of 1966, Allan, Clayton
and I were jamming together all the time.
On 21 January 1966 I bought an electric Jason guitar and amp, for £
63 from Guitar City. The next night Stewart and I performed Sing
C’est La Vie, Turn Turn Turn, The Sound of Silence and El Paso.
I think I wrote my first song on 14 March but I forget what it was called.
Next I sold my Belmont to Lyn Wright for £5 and on the same day
I accompanied Allan to Guitar City where he too bought an electric rig.
Bob Dylan was playing the Sydney Stadium on 16 April and Allan
I were going. We were leaving from my place – and running through a
few songs when Stewart showed up out of the blue with his mate Bill
Darby and his full drumkit.
Instead of going to see Dylan we formed Three’s Company.
The band peformed throughout 1966-67at several parties
and at least twice at church-run evenings, to devastating effect.
Songs included: Gloria, Lady Jane, River Deep Mountain High,
Still I’m Sad, Tell Me, Don’t Start Crying Now, and a song I
had written called, Irene.
No one in my class – not even the Rejects – was interested
in the type of music that interested me, so I would hang out
with a much younger crowd. For example, 1967 started with a
series of schoolyard jams with Louis Rao and his mates, all of
whom were at least two years younger than me. This is how I met
Robert Wolfgramm.
School ended, Allan and I took our guitars to Melbourne but
as we couldn’t find a drummer, we got on with the rest of our lives.
Both Allan and I stopped playing electric guitars shortly
after high school. I bought an Aria steel-stringed acoustic and a
Maton nylon-string guitar, and I spent 1968-69 writing songs and
seldom performing outside my room.
I recall performing with Allan at least once. Plus I wrote
Why Are We Flying To The Moon? for Phil Ward’s Moonwalk film.
I spent 1970 in Sydney, and I started a poetry magazine
called Rags which I’d sell from my stand at Sydney’s Domain,
where crowds would gather to listen to Sunday afternoon soapbox
speakers. There were Christians like Sister Ada, Webster the
philosopher, John the Magnificent, the Communist Party, and I had the
Nothing Stand.
I also teamed up with Stewart and Dallas Lewis. We formed a
band with the unlikely name of Rebecca. Dallas sang, Stewart played
12-string guitar and sang, and I played 6-string guitar and wrote most
of our material, especially words.
We performed – say – 20 gigs including the Sydney Domain, clubs,
hospitals and parties. We probably wrote 80 per cent of our
songlist, Some were joke songs, like High Upon A Mountain.
Many were love songs, like Love Song and another one with a
particularly earnest monologue.
I would often sing solo as well – always at the Domain and
certainly in other gigs. I’d perform songs like Illegitimate Child and
I’d also read poetry.
In 1971 I attended the same Christian college as Robert
Wolfgramm. He had formed a high school band, with Paul Judd, Bill
Smith and Robert Wareham and he never stopped writing music.
Eventually he got around to playing me Peter’s Song, which blew me
away. I gave him the words to Vinegar and within a couple of days Robert
came back with the wonderful song.
Robert and I jammed for hours that year. Frequently with
him on piano, me on electric guitar and no audience. We also
jammed at street-preaching gigs. Robert was performing with a
band called Inner Light – Andrew Kingston, Rhonda Illett and
himself. Meanwhile I was attending poetry readings in Newcastle
and I realised how much better my poems sounded with Robert’s
guitar backing.
Having made that connection between music and narrative
we wrote a musical called Threedom which is about
the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And being in the context of a
conservative Christian college, Robert did not write a Rock
Opera - which would otherwise have been his natural inclination– he composed orchestral music instead.
Threedom was performed twice that year: at Hamilton and
Parramatta Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Threedom continued into 1972. Robert scored it, and made use of every
musical facility the college could offer. Threedom went on to perform
Avondale College auditorium, Newcastle Town Hall and Ryde Civic
Centre, Sydney. It was seen by 2000 people.
Songs: Wash The Cup, Disciples Song, Alone In The Garden, Listen To Us Jesus,
Peter’s Song, Procula, Herod’s Song, What Is Truth? Spill The Water,
Simon’s Song, Judas’ Song, Caiaphas & the Council, I Know The
Man, Vinegar.
Before Threedom I had never written, or contributed to a
song that I could not physically sing myself or ‘back’. Having
Robert as a co-writer did not increase my repetoire by much. So after
two years of seclusion I found that I had written a few songs that I
could perform. I played a few coffee shops – usually using
whoever else was on the same bill to guest the lead guitar.
This is how I met Sam Melamed (check the Town Criers) and Brian Patterson
(check Tony Worseley & The Blue Jays and The Executives). I usually played
a few Dylan covers, followed by a few of my own songs.
Bruce Rowlands made real marionettes. He had worked with all the
important marionette companies inAustralia, now he wanted to create
his own show.
In 1973 he commissioned me to write a play based on a
Breton fairy tale, Mona and the Morgan Prince.
I wrote a song into the play, it was called Think of Your
Friends Back Home. Robert wrote the music, which Bruce
didn’t like. He commissioned someone to write something that
sounds straight out of the Lion King! A soprano belted it out, which was
my only disappointment in an otherwise brilliant show.
Mona & The Morgan Prince was shown all around Newcastle
and perhaps Sydney.
In 1973, Martin Luther was my first play. My sources were an old book
By R V Rivington and Roland Bainton’s well known biography, Here
I Stand. I re-wrote the play three times and submitted it of a
History assignment for my Dip Ed at the Newcastle Teacher’s
College.
Martin Luther was performed before 130 in the Hamilton Youth Theatre
In Newcastle, 50 at a church in Maitland, 800 at Ryde Civic Centre,
Sydney and 250 at Eraring. Martin Luther was on the same bill as Lester
Silver’s musical, Thomas. And so I met Lester.
I also wrote several short plays for my English classes, including I Wanna
Be A Teenage Idol and The Sword and The Shield. Meanwhile Robert was street-preaching
every Sunday night in Melbourne with a gang of musicians, including Robbie’s
brother Adrian, Eric Berg, Con & Louise and Colin Mack.
Allan was somewhere in Asia, with Clayton.
Robbie, Amber and I moved to Sydney in 1975.
In 1974, as an English teacher in Warragul Victoria, I wrote Jonah
for my Year 9 class. It was simple to produce and was performed twice,
before the school (Sion Girls College) and at a combined schools
drama function at Traralgon Victoria.
At the suggestion of my wife Robbie I re-wrote Jonah and added songs
co-written with Lester Silver, who also played the part of Jonah.
We took this show to five venues:
Ryde Civic Centre, Hamilton Youth Theatre Newcastle, Wahroonga
Community Centre, Avondale College Auditorium, and the Lyceum Theatre, Sydney.
Songs: Father In Heaven, Trouble, Why Me? Ninevah,
Ease me Gently, Three Days, 40 Days, Father In Heaven (reprise).
I booked myself into every folk club who would have me at $7 a set,
including Cellar Folk in 1975, the Journey’s End in Forbes Street, the
Elizabethan, as well as performances in churches and schools. I played heaps
of gigs. The folk clubs had five acts per night – three in the first
set, two in the second - but I was never good enough to graduate out of the
first half before Interval.
Songs: Keep On Truckin Mama, The Night Was Black,
Goodnight Irene, Nature’s Song, Joel’s Song, etc.
Adrian moved to Sydney in 1977, and we grouped up
on songs like Days Of 49 on Dylan’s Self Portrait. Adrian
also played banjo and excellent mouth harp. We put together a
band called Fig Tree, which lead to the Sally Hilder Band.
This became a 9-piece band, with four under-aged blonde back-up
vocalists, Adrian on guitar and harmonica, me on guitar, Steven
Wold on drums – Tony Stacey somewhere. I can’t remember
who passed through that band, maybe Geoff Heise on
bass. the only ‘discovery’ I recall was Sam Melamed.
Solo or with a band, I performed 32 times in 1977.
After a while I stepped back and let Sally sing more, and now instead of being
stuck in the first half, we got to close the show! And by December, she was
fronting the band most of the time.
During the 70s Sam Melamed worked with all of us. (He’d been
in the Town Criers from 1967-1971 and had a No 1 hit with
Everlasting Love). In the mid-70s he worked with me as a duo
as well as in Fig Tree, he also worked with Robert, he was
on Sally’s album, then he worked with me and Sally
in the precursor to the Sally Hilder Band.
And ultimately he was the guitarist in the Sally Hilder Band alongside drummer
Jim Buckley and a bass player. They performed widely in clubs in 1979-80.
Sam formed Straight Lines in 1981, Snapp in 1982, IDI in 1988 and
(under his stage name Sam Dunnin) his name pops up every now and then
as a songwriter, for example, the Blinky Bill movie.
Sally’s first live repertoire included: Have You Heard The
News? Two Of Me Walking In One Man Blues, Wayfaring
Stranger, You’re The One, Father In Heaven and, of course, Sailing.
In September 1977 I introduced Robert to Sally Hilder, who sang for him
more or less on the spot. He liked her immediately. That evening Robert,
Genna Levitch and I created the Galilee (Records) partnership. We signed
an agreement with Sally and we recorded the All My Friends Are Sinners
album in December 1977.
There was an understanding amongst ourselves that Galilee should be
somewhat different from other Christian musical ventures. Session musos
were not used on Christian recordings, and we unashamedly hired the
best. And Galilee resisted Christian ‘praise’ music, so popular
at the time.
The mood was more towards the blues – or the Old Testament Book of
Psalms.
Songs: On A Cross, Have You Heard The News? Procula, Waggoner & Jones,
Praise To The Lord, Alone In The Garden, Simon’s Song, Trinity, Father
In
Heaven, Bringing To You, I Wish I’d Never Known.
Sally’s album was extremely well received. It was awarded ‘Album
of the
Year’ by a Christian magazine, and songs from the LP are sung in churches
today. Had we continued as we had started, we would have surely earned
our place in Australian Gospel music. But we did not.
Then Robert – who prefers to cross the stage with at least 40 people
(see
Threedom and Apocalypse Rider) - was pressured into making a solo album.
It is, of course, fantastic and not commercially available. The track Good
Samaritans was selected by Radio 2SM as the theme song preceding discussions
on the issue of migrants wishing to enter Australia in the 70s.
Songs: Good Samaritans, Refugee, Man’s A Tree, Thomas’ Song, Emmaus,
Look a Yonder, Carried Away, Born To Die, You Are The Harmony, It Was
News To Me, Bring Back The Good News.
Around this time Robert stopped driving trucks and started studying
towards a PhD. He performed at the Christian Newsong Music Festival
in 1979 sharing the same stage as Leon Patillo (Santana), Keith Green
and Stevie Wright. (If anyone has a tape, please contact me.)
The Sally Hilder Band was going strong and Robert had been performing
with the Streetpreachers for a decade - a big jam every Sunday night from
the back of a flat top truck in Collins Sreet, Melbourne.
In 1979 I moved to Bermagui where Allan and Clayton lived. When
the Le Marlin Café opened for business in 1982 we all started
jamming, mostly backing bluesman Neil Graham - who had previously
played in Melbourne blues units like Reuben Tice and Salters Rush
Blues Band.
When Neil stopped coming up, we had no one to back, so Allan and I
formed The Wilts duo and we played our first gig at the Le Marlin Café in December 1983.
Bob Harris and Martin (Marto) Fowler joined the band in September
1984. The duo played mostly restaurants and a few pubs, the 4-piece
played mostly pubs and a few restaurants.
The Wilts performed 19 gigs as a duo and 16 as a quartet playing gigs
from Pambula to Moruya – a total of approximately 40 gigs, with at
least three and up to five Wilts. The Wilts performed 13 times at the
Le Marlin Café. As a 4-piece, we charged $400 a night, and $200 at the
Le Marlin Café. As a 2-piece it was half of that. The band broke up
in October 1985.
The Wilts usually played two 40 minute sets, sometimes three. The idea
was to play familiar – preferably kitsch - songs and trash them, so we
only performed three original compositions.
In 2000, Allan and Nick Lister compiled The Worst Of The Wilts CD, which was
criticised by some for attempting to capture on CD an act that relied so much
on its visuals.
CD tracks: Knock On Your Door (Eddie Hodges), Message (Bee Gees), Satisfaction
(Rolling Stones), In The Summertime (Andy Williams), Surfer Girl (Beach Boys),
Boomerang (Charlie Drake), Tell Him (Exciters), You Really Got Me (Kinks),
I [who have nuthin] (Shirley Bassey), Let The Water Run Down (P J Proby), Surf
City (Jan & Dean), Donna Donna (Donovan), Mr Apollo (Bonzo Dog Doo Dah
Band), Wipe Out (Surfaris), In My Book (Easybeats), Robber Ball (Bobby Vee),
Red Roses (Wayne Newton, Catch The Wind (Donovan), Somewhere (P J Proby)
Although released in 1985, most of Persecution Games was written in
1979. This is significant because its content reflects the mood of a group
who were about to quit attending churches. By the time of the release
of Persecution Games, we were long gone.
Persecution Games is the second in a trilogy of Wolfgramm-Tarling
presentations. It is the only one not to have been road-showed, and the
one I like best.
Structurally-based on Wm Blake’s Songs Of Innocence and Songs of Experience,
side A of the LP offers a hopeful view of Christianity whereas
side B degenerates into a nightmare of cults, bureaucracy and the burning
of heretics. As in Threedom, the final song is Vinegar.
The songs: Just A Boy, Another Messiah, Ruling Class, Peter’s
Song, Jesus Keep Me Near The Cross, I’m A Tryer, Save Your Grace, The
Cult, Fighting
Man, King Of The Ghettos, Bureaucracy Blues, Persecution Games, False Witness,
Vinegar.
In 1985 Jim Ward was working on Cool Change, a short film.
Having successfully completed the windsurf movie Blown Away,
he commissioned us to write the soundtrack to
Cool Change – songs like The Dream, Cool Change and many
instrumentals written by Robert.
In the late-80s Bob Harris formed the Spinners with Andrew
Russak and John McVeity. They played many local gigs,
including Burma.
Marto released a CD of songs titled Between Two Worlds
and his music took him to America.
In 1989/90 I wrote 1967, my third novel. The story is about a
high school band called the Blitz. I decided to release their fictitious single
at the back of the book, which - in a way - idealised Three’s Company.
In 1996 I recorded some new songs with Allan Broadhurst, David
Jensen, Karl Jensen, Mick Reid, Tony Stacey, Robert Wolfgramm
and Genna’s words, but nothing came of them.
Around the same period Mick Reid wrote a dozen songs using my
words: Can Of Coke, Hippie Games, Queensland Lady, Nature,
Young & Handsome Riders (Don’t Talk To Strangers), The Shirt,
When The Boat Comes In, Jo-Jo, Guilt, Poker Machine Queen,
Middle-Aged Women, Rep, Heartache, Thanks and - Ain’t Fat Girls
Good and Getting’ Along which he sings on the Buckshot CD.
Allan and I created the show Owl Broadhurst & His Band, on
25 October 1997 at the Murrah Hall.
Songs: Watermelon Man, I Think It’s Gonna Work out Fine, Midnight Hour,
If You Need Me, Amore, Summertime, Mack The Knife, Viva Las Vegas,
Mustang Sally, What’d I Say, When A Man Loves A Woman, Fat Girls.
Sometime around 1996 we all stopped being Atheists, (‘I never was!’ said
Robert, who went back to church.) And Robert wanted to write something new.
The Apocalypse was easily agreed upon, although my original draft was
gothic, suicidal and it did not mention Jesus Christ. Robert had taken it
upon himself to perform it with a 20-member choir, 10-piece band and
conductor. He was involved in every detail of the writing/re-writing and the
performances.
Apocalypse Rider was performed before 1500 people at Monash
University Frankston, Preston Seventh-day Adventist Church, Wantirna
Seventh-day Adventist Church and Avondale College.
Songs: Look A Yonder, Friday Night, It Was News To Me, Save
Your Grace, Nothing But The Cross, I Hear The Angels,
There’s A Way, Jesus Blues No 2, This Is It! Pacific Blue,
Lullaby, Questioning The Plan, I Love The Man, Coming King
(Tell Me Why), Crown Of Jewels, Soldier Of Grace. (Tell Me Why), Crown Of Jewels,
Soldier Of Grace.
In 2000, working with my Wilt tapes and Nick Hanson, Allan
compiled the Worst Of The Wilts CD, endorsed by Glenn
Wheatley as ‘the world’s worst band’.
In 2001 Allan took three strings off his guitar and decided to write his first
song, ever.
Working through a wordbook of song-poems that I had written over the years,
he composed an album of songs which – partly because of his unique style
of playing guitar – is refreshingly original. 
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