Silent Recordings
Unpredictable Music for
Unreliable Times

Artists:

CODA
Prop
Telemetry Orchestra
Tracky Dax

Compilations:

Around The Block
Nocturnal Emissions
Silent Soundtracks
Sounds of Silent
This Show Is About People

Rouseabout Records
Keeping it Real

Artists:

Bondi Cigars
Cathie O'Sullivan
Colin Dryden
Creedence Clearwater Revisited
The Celebrated Knackers & Knockers Band
Donna Fisk and Michael Cristian
Eric Bogle
Fiddlers Feast
Gary Shearston
Gordon Lightfoot
Herb Superb
Johnny Wade
Jim Low
John Munro
Julie Wilson
Koori Classic
Kym Pitman
Marcus Holden
Mic Conway's National Junk Band
Ngarukuruwala
Nyalgodi Scotty Martin
Robyn Archer
Roger Knox
Russell Morris
The Newtown Rugby League Football Club Song
Warren Fahey & Luke Webb
Warren Fahey & Max Cullen (DEAD MEN TALKING)

Compilations:

Before the Boomerang Came Back
Down By The Billabong
The World Turned Upside-Down
Forte – Golden Fiddlers
Stand Up & Shout

Yesterday's Australia:

Barbara James
Bob Dyer
Bobby Limb
Buddy Williams
Dame Nellie Melba
Florence Austral
Frank Coughlan
John Brownlee
Johnny Ashcroft
Keith Branch & His South Sea Islanders

Percy Grainger
Reg Lindsay
Shirley Thoms
Smoky Dawson
Strella Wilson
Tex Morton
Tex Morton and Sister Dorrie
Warren Fahey's Diggers

Yesterday's Australia Compilations:

Australian Radio Serials
Australian Hillbilly 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
Mastertouch Pianola
Strike up the Band
Stars of Australian Stage & Radio Vol 1
Stars of Australian Stage & Radio Vol 2

Yep! Records
Music Without Compromise

Artists:

Antenna
Jenny Morris
Michal Nicholas
The Lovetones
Saints of India
Screw the Pooch
sounditout
Southend
Spaceniks

Keith Branch & His South Sea Islanders

By the time Keith Branch stepped into the Columbia recording studios in Sydney on 20th June 1947, the popularity of Hawaiian music was starting its slow and steady decline. The six recordings made by Branch sit at an interesting point in the development of the genre; then at the tail-end of its influence as a form of mainstream popular music.

The combination of Branch’s sensitive steel playing, sparse accompaniment (guitar, uke and bass), along with crooner-style vocalising, stand in contrast to later shifts in the electric steel guitar sound and elaborate and instrumental orchestral arrangements featured in later recordings of Hawaiian music.

The songs themselves reflect a greater awareness in Australia’s position and connection to the wider Pacific, with references to Hawaiian culture but also Tongan and Maori. Although they are ostensibly pop songs, the themes mark a trend towards more local and topical songwriting, and a broader sense of “Australianness”.

Although Branch’s musical legacy is brief, the recordings made under his name were kept in the EMI catalogue right until the mid-1950s, just before 78s were phased out altogether. This compilation is dedicated to the overlooked recordings of Hawaiian music made in Australia during the 78rpm era.

Keith Branch & His
South Sea Islanders

Keith Branch & His South Sea Islanders
Catalogue Number RRH80

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View Album Booklet (PDf Format)

Over 70 years later, Keith Branch’s recordings are reissued here for the very first time.

Album Track Listing

  1. Malo Lelei
  2. Where The Bluegums Turn Red In The Sunset
  3. Manu Rere (A Maori Love Song)
  4. Pokarekare
  5. My Hawaiian Flower
  6. Magic And Moonlight