Cobbers. Bushland Dreaming - The story behind the music скачать в хорошем качестве

Cobbers. Bushland Dreaming - The story behind the music

I'm John Armstrong and I'd like to tell you the story behind this piece of music. In 1969, our band, then called Freewheelers (stolen from The Freewheeling Bob Dylan - well it was still the sixties) went through some major changes. Bob Bedford got called up for National Service and Big Ron decided he wanted to play rock 'n' roll again for a while. My brother, Chris, and his best friend, Mark Brown had a three piece band going and we asked them to join us. At 17, Mark was the youngest in the band. At the time, I was working in a music store and the band used to hang out there a lot. Mark came in one day, wearing a bright floral shirt (proving that the sixties weren't over yet) and the store owner's wife greeted him with, "Hello, Blossom!" Mark replied, "No-one is ever going to call me that again!" so of course, from then on, we all did. Blossom took over the business management of the band while Chris handled the finances, jobs for which they both proved to be exceptionally talented and the early successes of the band were due very much to their efforts. Ten years later, in January 1979, we were preparing for our first national tour. Blossom had found an old Ansett clipper bus and we had spent months setting it up to sleep eight people. We had just one job to finish before the tour started and that was to record music for a documentary film called "The Country Editor" The Melbourne scene was thriving in those days and the only studio time we could get was after midnight, two days before we were due to leave. By 4AM we had most of it done but there was one scene which needed some gentle music that we hadn't yet chosen. A friend had given me a guitar a few weeks before this and while a couple of the band were finishing some tracks, I was playing with an idea for this last piece. We recorded it with Chris and I on guitars and Blossom on bass but it didn't quite have what I wanted. While Chris and I started experimenting, Blossom crawled under the mixing desk and fell asleep. I tried adding a penny whistle and, still not really happy, did it again with a slightly different melody. Same result! When we played both whistle tracks together though, it was just right, except for the beginning of the second time through when the two whistles clashed horribly, so for those four lines, we left them out and let the guitar hold the melody. Happy that the job was complete, we headed home for some much-needed sleep. The next day, Blossom was critically injured in a car crash. Big Ron offered to re-join the band for the tour (and stayed another twelve years) and as the first show was in Adelaide for the ABC, we taught him the repertoire in the bus on the way over. Then came the news that Blossom had died. He was twenty-seven years old. As this was his last piece of music, we played it at his funeral and so many people wanted a copy, our record distributor at the time, Warner Bros, offered to produce it as a single. The problem was that it was too short and Warners suggested we go back into the studio and add a third "verse". Big Ron didn't feel right about playing bass on it so we took the first half of the first part and added the second half of the second part and tagged both onto the end. This took a lot of careful cutting and splicing tape in those days. We then added Big Ron on Bodhran, Christy on banjo and Chris on mandolin to give a lift to the end - and that is what you are now hearing. Warners needed a name for the piece so we got together with Blossom's father to discuss this. Blossom loved everything about the bush, particularly the things that crawled or slithered through it so a bushland theme was quickly agreed on. He was also strong on Aboriginal rights and was one of the few people to whom the sculptor, William Rickets had given a sample of his work. He also allowed Blossom's ashes to be scattered at the sanctuary in the Dandenongs where his work is displayed and made a small memorial piece to mark the spot. This sadly appears to have since been stolen. Bringing the two trains of thought together gave us Bushland Dreaming. The band went from strength to strength musically but Blossom's talents as a business manager were almost impossible to replace. We went on to re-record Bushland Dreaming twice more, both times with the City of Melbourne Pipe Band (which required a change of key) and it is the last of these recordings that most people know. This clip uses the original recording and though fairly rough, it is still my favourite. The footage I have used is some that I have taken around the bushland where I live. Bushland Dreaming. Copyright John J. Armstrong 1979 Recorded by Cobbers