Hypothesis

The Bushwhackers formed in 1952 by John Meredith was not the first (Australian) bush band as claimed by the Bush Music Club and others, but merely a readily identified example of an established and continuing tradition.

We shall call those people making the claim, 'firstists'.  Logic Front to Back (LFTB) holds that the firstists are wrong.

Why does it matter?

Besides its academic absurdity, the firstists claim discounts the significant contribution made by the early bush bands to Australian culture and history.

What did John Meredith say about the formation of the Bushwhackers?

In 1996 John Meredith published his work Real Folk, being 90 pages of his background and (in the bulk) interviews with folk musicians.  The work includes some outstanding photographs.  It also contains a single paragraph on the formation of the Bushwhackers.

By 1952 the folksong revival was getting under way and, with two mates, Brian Loughlin and Jack Barrie, we formed a group called the Bushwhackers.  It turned out to be the forerunner of, and the model for, an outbreak of similar bush bands all over the continent.  Our aim was to sing Australian songs accompanied by traditional instruments, such as the button accordion and the mouth organ. [1]

Note that Meredith makes no claim of 'firstness' or originally.  There was a 'folksong revival getting under way' and, drawing on the experience of its members, the Bushwhackers 'turned out to be' a 'model' of a traditional bush band.  A cooking show can show you how to bake a cake, without implying that the presenter invented cakes. Some people may have given the title "first" to The Bushwhackers because those people knew of no earlier examples of bush bands.  In 1952, three score and ten years ago, Australian television was still four years distant; the world wide web forty odd years away.  Data was not readily accessible in 1952.

Strictly the firstists claim can only be considered an ambit claim, as to prove it they would need to demonstrate the non-existence of any previous example – a very difficult thing to do.

Some Firstists      

Warren Fahey Australian Folklore Unit [5]
"The first so-called bush band was The Heathcote Bushwhackers in 1952.  Its members were John Meredith (button accordion), Jack Barrie (tea chest bush bass) and Brian Loughlan (lagerphone or jingling johnny).  Heathcote being an outlying southern Sydney suburb."
Warren doesn't enlarge on the use of the descriptor "so-called".

The Bush Music Club 6 April 2016 [2]
Under the Heading:
"Paper presented by Sandra Nixon at National Folklore Conference – The Early Days of the Bush Music Club as illustrated by Singabout – the Journal of Australian Folksong, 1956 to 1967."
We find:
"The first meeting of the Bush Music Club was held on Thurs 24th October 1954.  The founders were the members of The Bushwhackers"
and as a caption for a photograph of The Buskwhackers apparently parodying a (non existent?) bush band:
"Australia's first bush band & stars of the musical play, Reedy River which was about the after-effects of the 1891 shearers strike."

Music That We Adore, The Bushwackers(sic) [Aust] - Discography, Ozzieguy [7]
"The Bushwhackers, initially named The Heathcote Bushwhackers, Australia's first bush band were arguably the catalyst for Australia's folk revival of the 1950s.  They performed from 1952 to 1957, when founder John Meredith disbanded the group and its members dispersed into other activities".

Others (a story)

In the previous decade I attended a talk on Australian folk music at the local historic society.  I was surprised when the speaker made the claim that Australia's "first bush band" The Bushwhackers was founded by John Meredith in 1952.  After all, the music that formed their repertoire had been collected by Meredith and was dated decades earlier.  I felt that at least parts of this collection must had been performed in the 'bush' by groups of musically inclined people that could be described as 'bands' and it followed those groups were then bush bands.  The speaker disagreed; there were no bush bands before the Bushwhackers.  I asked for a definition of a "bush band", the speaker replied that a bush band must have a tea chest bass and a lagerphone and implied that the lagerphone had been devised by the Bushwhackers.  A strange definition, with a little ingenuity one could advance a novel definition of a car, and during a couple of weeks in the workshop modify a car to met the definition and then claim that you had built Australia's first car.  At this stage, I suspect much to the relief of the audience, the speaker and I let the matter rest.

Introduction to the case for the LFTB hypothesis      

Bush bands existed for at least 63 years prior to the Bushwhackers and in fact there was at least one bush band that functioned across the year 1952.  For structured debate we need a definition of bush band.  Let's run with a basic definition that a band is a group of two or more people, at least one of which plays an instrument, gathered together to make music intended for general entertainment.  "Bush" in a straightforward Australia sense means "out of the metropolitan area with a restricted access to resources" as in "after that experience he camped in the bush for a couple of weeks to unwind". 

The early bush bands did not identify themselves as "bush bands".  In the same period bands in Ireland did not identify themselves as "Irish bands" – it was self-evident.  By contrast there was no shortage of "Irish bands" playing in Melbourne in the 1970's in Melbourne clubs and pubs.  We may not find 19th century or early 20th century bands self-identifying as "bush bands" but we may find bands comprised of bush dwellers playing in the bush.  Perhaps this is the Bushwhackers contribution to bush bands formed post 1952 – the group demonstrated the marketing power of a recognized classification.

The paradox case for the LFTB hypothesis      

A paradox,
A most ingenious paradox!
We've quips and quibbles heard in flocks,
But none to beat this paradox!
G&S

The firstists' claim contains within itself a contradiction.  We are told that the Bushwhackers was a traditionally sized group, playing tradition music on traditional instruments, yet, remarkably, it itself was not a traditional band but entirely something new.

The statement made by contributors to Wikipedia that "The band were(sic) unique in that they(sic) performed with traditional bush instruments"[8] substantiates the LFTB case most eloquently.

Formally catalogued support for the existence of bush bands (with images)      


The break-up of the drought State Library of Victoria

The Break-up of the Drought - a Bush Rejoicing

Medium: Wood Engraving Publisher: Alfred Martin Ebsworth, Melbourne

January 24, 1889

State Library NSW reference mp010197

The use of a short handled shovel to serve as a banjo is a novel improvisation.

Colemane Band State Library of NSW

Colemane Band. Alfred, Albert and Charlie Colemane.

Cootamundra, NSW (306km WSW Sydney

"They played at all the bush dances and were self-taught."

circa 1890

Photograph: G Dinsmore

State Library NSW reference BCP 01486

See also The Concertina Journal

Leach Brothers Band
Sunshine Coast Council

Leach Brothers Band with female accompanists

Landsborough, QLD

circa 1900

Sunshine Coast Council reference M863458


The Bush Band at Point Pass
State Library of South Australia

The Bush Band at Point Pass

L-R sitting: Arthur Michalk; Garrie Michalk; Herb Obst;
Eddie Michalk; Arthur Handke
Standing: Adolph Koster

Point Pass is 120km north of Adelaide and 31km
south of Worlds End

circa 1910

State Library SA reference B-4669


A Bush Band at O'Connells, Nackara
State Library of South Australia

A 'Bush Band' performing at O'Connells in Nackara. The conditions of the room are very poor with graffiti on the wall and a hurricane [lamp] providing light.

Nackara is on the Barrier Highway about halfway between Adelaide and Broken Hill

circa 1924

State Library SA reference B-48840

Bush bands in Australian literature and song      

The historic existence of improvised dances is noted in the works of Henry Lawson (A Bush Dance, 1902) and Steele Rudd (Arthur Davis) (Kate's Wedding, 1899).  The story lines are similar.  The local concertina is found wanting and the night's dancing is only saved by the arrival of Jimmy Mears (and his fiddle) in the first instance and Jim Burke (and his accordion) in the second.  Unfortunately for the LFTB case a single instrument does not constitute a band.  It's easy to imagine that some form of percussion was improvised, but we have no evidence of that.

On the other hand, if we examine The Complete Adventures of Blinky Bill, Dorothy Wall 1939, we discover that when Blinky Bill and his mates attended the Rabbits' Party (definitely an informal bush affair) the band was substantial enough to be described as an orchestra and the dancing was initiated by the call "Take your partners for The Bunny Hug,"

The provenance of the song Brisbane Ladies (also known as Augathella Station) is well established.[6]  It was written by Saul Mendelson a storekeeper at Nanango prior to 1880.  The penultimate verse of the song is:

The girls of Toomancie they look so entrancing
Like bawling young heifers they're out for their fun
With the waltz and the polka and all kinds of dancing
To the rackety old banjo of Bob Anderson.

Sometimes the last line is presented as:

To the old concertina of Hen-er-ee Gunn.

Someone was supplying music on a bush weathered instrument, either Robert Anderson or Henry Gunn.  We have agreed that a single person does not constitute a band, but perhaps on some occasion both Henry and Bob played.  Or maybe there was improvised percussion or an attendee sung along – then there would have been a bush band.

In 1900 Henry Lawson's collection of stories On the Track was published.  The opening "story" is written in the style of an mini autobiography and is cleary drawing from life.  A paragraph from the work reads.

Somebody tackling the “Old Bullock Dray;” it must be over fifty verses now. I saw a bushman at a country dance start to sing that song; he’d get up to ten or fifteen verses, break down, and start afresh.  At last he sat down on his heel to it, in the centre of the clear floor, resting his wrist on his knee, and keeping time with an index finger. It was very funny, but the thing was taken seriously all through.
So we have a country dance which must have had a band.  It is extremely unlikely that this band came from Sydney or Melbourne, it was a local band – a bush band.

A band that played 1952 in and out      

The firstists argument requires that (figuratively speaking) the Bushwhackers walked out onto an empty stage.  This was not the case.  In October 2000 Peter Ellis published an extensive article "Harry McQueen, Castlemaine button-accordionist" in the international magazine "Musical Traditions".[3]  The material that Peter presents was obtained directly from Harry and follows his musical activity over a period of some 60 years.  The quotations that follow are drawn from that article.  The material presented represents only a small fraction of the article which is well worth reading in full.  Harry McQueen was born in 1910.

In the article Harry's bush credentials are established formally, "He started learning and practising at home, but his father unlike his grandfather, could not tolerate the noise, so Harry would go bush behind the rifle range to try out tunes."  After a considerable amount of practising, Harry started playing at local dances.  A couple of his mates ... told him to play "Daisy" for the Circular Waltz and "Ring the Bell Watchman", now known as "Click Go the Shears", for the Barn Dance.  Ironically "Click Go the Shears" was one of the first tunes played by the Bushwhackers decades later.  Peter continues, "Harry McQueen not only learnt his material from Bill McGlashan, but he attended other dances, in fact met his wife to be, Olive, in the Maxina in 1934."  Here we can gather a sense of the importance of dance in the minds of the interviewee and the interviewer.  Harry made the point to Peter that the introductory dance for the couple was the Maxina and Peter found the point significant enough to include in his article.  Further Pete writes, "[Harry McQueen] began to play for the Fryerstown dance in 1928 and continued there on a regular basis for nearly 61 years.  The Bushwhackers 5 years of activity was just a ship that passed in the night.

A jungle bush band or a bush jungle band?      

Michael Atherton's excellent book "A Coveted Possession: The Rise and Fall of the Piano in Australia"[4], contains some incidental comments on bush bands relevant to LFTB's hypotheses.  On page 41 is a simple acknowledgement of the existence of bush bands,  Writing in a 19th century context Michael observes: "Respectability was also maintained by what was played,  Hymns were considered the most proper music, not vulgar jigs and reels,  Yet we know that the piano was used in bush music bands and bush orchestras that played for dances".

At the beginning of the 20th century it seems that if you have a collection of travelling Australians you have the makings of an impromptu band,  "During World War 1 Australians carried flutes, harmonicas, guitars and accordions onto the battlefield"[page 111],  The ability of Australians to provide or improvise musical instruments was evident in World War II,  "Two days after internment at Selarang Camp a group of Australian POW's formed the Changi Concert Party,  At first the Concert Party put on simple Tivoli-style variety shows using the available instruments - guitars, piano accordions and saxophones,  Some members made their own instruments, including banjos, pot-lid cymbals, shakers and tea-chest bass drums"[page 135],  Incidentally, these last two instruments are interesting as one firstist I spoke with had suggested that the tea-chest bass and the shaker were part of the originality of the 1952 Bushwhackers band,  (The possible distinction between a "tea-chest bass drum" and a "tea chest bass" is noted, however. the usage of the tea-chest bass prior to 1952 is extensively recognized.)

References

[1] Real Folk, John Meredith, 1996, available (PDF download) at https://www.nla.gov.au/sites/default/files/realfolk.pdf accessed 18/03/2021
[2] The Bush Music Club unattributed, https://blog.bushmusic.org.au/2016/04/paper-presented-by-sandra-nixon-at.html#gsc.tab=0 accessed 01/02/2023
[3] Harry McQueen, Castlemaine button-accordionist, Peter Ellis, Musical Traditions, October 2000, https://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/mcqueen.htm accessed 19/03/2021
[4] A Coveted Possession: The Rise and Fall of the Piano in Australia, Michael Atherton, La Trobe University Press, 2018
[5] Australian Folklore Unit, Warren Fahey, https://www.warrenfahey.com.au/a-history-of-the-bush-band/ accessed 01/02/2023
[6] Complete Book of Australian Folk Lore, Bill Scott, Summit Books, 1976, ISBN 0 7271 03121
[7] Music That We Adore, The Bushwackers(sic) [Aust] - Discography, Ozzieguy, https://music-that-we-adore.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-bushwackers-aust-discography.html accessed 01/02/2023
[8] John Meredith (folklorist) Wikipedia, unattributed, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Meredith_(folklorist) accessed 04/03/2023
[9] The songs they used to sing, The Institute of Australian Culture, https://www.australianculture.org/the-songs-they-used-to-sing-henry-lawson/ accessed 23/06/2023