Silent Recordings
Unpredictable Music for
Unreliable Times

Artists:

Coda
Prop
Telemetry Orchestra
Tracky Dax

Compilations:

Nocturnal Emissions
Silent Soundtracks
Sounds of Silent
This Show Is About People

Rouseabout Records
Keeping it Real

Artists:

Bondi Cigars
Creedence Clearwater Revisited
Donna Fisk and Michael Cristian
Eric Bogle
Fiddler's Feast
Gary Shearston
Gordon Lightfoot
Herb Superb
Julie Wilson
Nyalgodi Scotty Martin
Russell Morris

Yesterday's Australia:

Barbara James
Bob Dyer
Bobby Limb
Buddy Williams
Dame Nellie Melba
Florence Austral
Frank Coughlan
John Brownlee
Johnny Ashcroft
Percy Grainger
Reg Lindsay
Shirley Thoms
Smoky Dawson
Strella Wilson
Tex Morton
Tex Morton and Sister Dorrie
Warren Fahey's Diggers

Compilations:

Forte – Golden Fiddlers
Stand Up & Shout

Yesterday's Australia:

Australian Radio Serials
Australian Hillbily Radio Hits
Australian Stars of the International Music Hall Voume 1
Australian Stars of the International Music Hall Voume 2
Band in a Waistcoat Pocket
Strike up the Band
Stars of Australian Stage & Radio Vol 1
Stars of Australian Stage & Radio Vol 2

Yep! Records
Music Without Compromise

Artists:

Jenny Morris
Michal Nicholas
The Lovetones

Gary Shearston
“Here & There, Now & Then. An Anthology …”.

Gary Shearston has been a major influence on Australian music for some five decades. In a society where we are conditioned to take music for granted, as yet another dismissible commodity, Gary's music has stood the biggest test of all - the test of time.
This compilation offers music selected from those five decades to represent Gary's repertoire, however two compact discs barely does justice to the body of songs recorded by him over these years. Some are taken from his very earliest recordings when he was seen as the most reliable interpreter of Australia's bush song tradition. This was in the heyday (or should I say Hootenanny days?) of the international folk revival when Australians were singing with broad Irish accents, sounding like frisky sailors or cotton pickers on the Mississippi. Gary was one of the few determined to sing our own songs - about shearers, drovers and other bushmen, and with a natural bush voice. He also started to sing new songs written in the folk idiom, songs that told Australian stories and his collection of contemporary songs, issued as 'Australian Broadside' was a landmark album in the history of our music. Always a social activist, Gary also wrote songs the reflected the changing society we lived in. They were good, solid songs that resonated around the country and the world.
He saw trappings of fame: a television series, extended record contracts, big stadium shows etc but he usually saw right through these as simply a part of his other life. He went to Britain and toured to Ireland, the States and elsewhere and made some recordings in England that found their way back to Australia. He eventually moved back to raise his family, and, later, to commit himself to his beliefs and church. Throughout all these travels, both physical and spiritual, Gary continued to create new songs and revisit his old ones. He still travels that same road and this compilation is a tribute to him as a singer, songwriter, free thinker and music stylist.
Warren Fahey

Artist Website

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Gary Shearston
For many people Gary Shearston is the definitive voice of Australian music.

His early record releases have become the benchmark for the interpretation of our traditional repertoire and albums like ‘The Springtime It Brings on the Shearing’, ‘Bolters, Bushrangers and Duffers’ and ‘Folksongs and Ballads of Australia’ still stand tall these many decades later. He was also singing new songs written by local songwriters and Don Henderson in particular however it was his own songwriting that kept shining through in his performances. His ‘Australian Broadside’ album, issued by CBS in 1965, remains an important landmark document in Australian contemporary music.
Gary was also fairly unique in that he sang with an Australian voice when most singers were bunging on an Irish, British or American accent to carry their repertoire. Maybe it would be more appropriate to say he sang in his own voice reinforced by the fact that he was born in the bush (Inverell, northern New South Wales, 1939) and was always interested in what made Australians tick. As the ‘folk boom’ continued to explode Gary appeared on several television shows including ‘Teen Time’ and ‘Bandstand’ and even had his own national television program ‘Just Folk’ on the Seven network. In 1974 he had an international hit with his version of the Cole Porter classic ‘I Get A Kick Out of You’ but, more importantly, he recorded albums for Charisma and Virgin featuring his own songs.
Gary returned to Australia in 1989 and recorded ‘Aussie Blue’ which reintroduced him as a strong Australian voice. The songs in this collection are true to Gary’s musical and spiritual heart. They talk of friendship, love, understanding and joy. There is also a sense that after all these years the songwriter is entitled to look back however, in this case, it is clear that his feet are firmly planted in today’s Australia. True to the saying ‘everything old is new again’ in ‘Hendo’ he skillfully uses the late Don Henderson’s own song words to shine a bright light on one of Australia’s great word-smiths. Likewise his new musical setting for the Ben Hall bushranging song ring true to remind us of this tragedy of some 150 years ago. When he invites Brother John Sellers to ‘Sing on, Brother John’ we sense that the old gospel bluesman is knowingly swinging along.

‘I Get A Kick Out Of You’ still receives massive air play.

Press
What the Media have to Say...

'Here & There, Now & Then'

"Shearston has written and interpreted some beautiful music. This two-CD set looks in all the nooks and crannies of the Shearston story. No gem has been discarded. He also wrote perhaps the smartest Australian song ever, 'Irish Girls Will Steal Your Heart Away'".
(Pete Best, Sunday Herald Sun)

"What a welcome arrival. There has been an undercurrent of demand for Gary Shearston recordings for many years now, rekindled every five or so years by a special recording that reminds us of the special nature
of his songs and arrangements. This is a deserving anthology for one of our musical poets, one who has been very difficult to get, until now."
(Ron Adsett, Capital News, August 2007)
 
"Gary's influences in the folk and Australian bush music scene came from the times he was living in - the volatile 60s when Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders were fighting for equal rights and the right to vote - and when a sector of the community spoke out against Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Gary Shearston was right there in the thick of it, writing songs in support of these causes and speaking out for what he believed in. This outspokenness was a two-edged sword, in that it gave him prominence, but also hindered his chances of obtaining (and maintaining) a visa to live and work in the United States. The Gary Shearston story is one that books could be written of, so in lieu of an epic, feel free to visit his website, www.garyshearston.com or www.undercovermusic.com."
(Anna Rose, Capital News, September, 2007)
 
"This song collection is a very appropriate reaffirmation of the important contribution Gary has made to the rich tradition of Australian songwriting. The CDs are bursting with musical gems, for Gary's songs possess that special quality which tells you that they will be around for some time to come."
(Jim Low, Trad & Now)

 “Gary Shearston was the closest Australia ever came to producing a local version of Bob Dylan. Not only was he an influential singer of traditional folk songs during the 1960s heyday of the folk boom but he was also a hugely gifted songwriter, a radical re-interpreter of the folk tradition (who else thought of using reggae as a backing for Australian songs as early as 1974?) and, if you need any further evidence, had he not been banned from travelling to the United States due to his involvement in the anti-Vietnam movement, he would have ended up being managed by Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman.

Grossman invited Shearston to go to the States. US Immigration locked him out. So Shearston ended up in London in the early 1970s where, signed to Charisma Records (famous for a catalogue which included Genesis and Van Der Graaf Generator) he scored a hit with an unadorned version of Cole Porter's I Get A Kick Out of You.

By any measure Shearston's career has been an enviable journey. From Jim Carter's Troubadour folk club in Sydney to London then back to Australia where, having written a novel, he recorded the remarkable Aussie Blue before joining the Anglican clergy. He preached in both the Riverina and on the North Coast and, at one point, wryly observed that he could now be called "the Reverend Gary Shearston" like the great African-American folk bluesman, the Reverend Gary Davis.

This 42-track double CD has been long overdue. It brings together the essence of Shearston's remarkable career. All the bases are covered. Starting with his haunting and melancholy reading of The Springtime It Brings On The Shearing it includes a range of sublime interpretations of traditional Australian folk songs, all recorded in 1965, before moving effortlessly to sensitive readings of Don Henderson's witty The Basic Wage Dream and Oodgeroo Noonuccal's passionate We Want Freedom. Shearston's early forays into songwriting – Who Can Say? and Don't Wave To Me Too Long – hover somewhere between Dylan and Donovan. They lead, quite naturally, to the extraordinary collection of self-composed songs on his two masterpieces – Dingo and Aussie Blue. Baiame, about an enduring love of Australia, is still one of the great expatriate songs. It floats on an ocean of nostalgic feeling and, quirkily, is backed by a stuttering and wildly eccentric reggae rhythm.

The difference between Shearston and Dylan is essentially cultural. Dylan's influences were Woody Guthrie and the poetry of the Beat Generation. Shearston is unashamedly Australian. He is a modern Henry Lawson whose music is infused with a "love of country" that makes it unique to this continent. He has felt the rhythms rising from the land and has turned them into timeless music.”
(Bruce Elder, Sydney Morning Herald) 

“Australia’s answer to Johnny Cash”
(Phil Punch, renowned Australia Producer)

“There are songs there that actually changed my life.”
(Bruce Elder, SMH)

Other Reviews (PDF Format)

'Only Love Survives'

Gary has been featured on ABC's 'Australian Story'

" ... a perfectionist and an original..."
(The Sun, London)

"... genuinely spellbound ... a marvellous voice..."
(Melody Maker, London)

"... a national treasure ..."
(Australia All Over, ABC Radio)

"... occupies a singular place in Australian music history."
(Keith Glass, The Australian)

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