I’ve been searching out my original note to the BJ album ‘Downunder: Live In Australia’, for Earth Vinyl to use (with a few tweaks) on a forthcoming reissue, and I’ve found a longer draft of it with a few extra bits of info. It includes a note to self that BJ had, while in Australia in Feb-March 1998, recorded a guest appearance on a record by a female artist that I never got around to identifying at the time – Bert didn’t recall the name (his Oz bassist Pete Howell’s arranged the session), but it was Australia’s equivalent, to Bert’s mind, of Big Mama Thornton.
Johnny C, Junior, others down there – any ideas?
Gotta be Venetta Fields? Not Aussie but based there. Did a lot of work at Sing Sing in Melbourne.
Wendy Saddington?
Renee Geyer?
I suspect it was Margret RoadKnight
I also found this on an online forum:
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=62073#1002447
She says “I recorded “When Malindy Sings” accompanied by Bert Jansch (guitar only) and his Australian bassist Peter Howell in Melbourne a few years ago.
Finally released it this week on my “Moving Target>>>>harder to hit” CD… there’s even a photo of the three of us in the booklet….
(details at my website – homepages.ihug.com/~margretr )”
Thanks all – based on those suggestions a bit of Googling reveals it to be RoadKnight (what a weird spelling – a capital letter in the middle of someone’s surname?!), and a track called ‘When Malingy Sings’.
Very tall ( perhaps that prompted the Mama Thornton reference) thin woman with round glasses and afro hair. A great voice ,thing she still plays occasionally. Was big in the folk scene in sixties and early seventies.
Who even knew there *was* a folk scene in Australia then? (I know the Oz rock world of that era very well but I can’t think of any folkish acts.)
There was Trevor Lucas of course who came to Britain in 1964 and ended up as Mr Sandy Denny and a member of Fairport. I saw him as a solo performer around 1968 with his big Gibson 12-string.
Before coming to Britain Lucas had issued a couple of now unfeasibly rare and expensive solo LPs in Australia. These were in the distinctive “bush ballad” style which is what passed for folk music in Australia at the time. It’s a cross between folk, sea shanty and country and nothing like the folk blues style which was taking off in Britain at the time.
Later there were other more mainstream folk-ish acts like Redgum and the Bushwackers.
The Seekers!
Rolf Harris!
Yes, he does get a mention here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_ballad