Fun at Hugo’s Place

 

Those of you who were not amongst the 1,000 people who invaded Graeme Hugo’s place to help raise money for the Royal Flying Doctor Service really missed a great show. The event resulted in a cheque for $6,000 being passed on to the RFDS. Total raised to date at Hugo’s Place is $11,800.

 

Graeme Hugo manages Lincoln Park, south of Port Augusta, for Chris and Vanessa Boully. He put the show together with assistance from the Boully family and a lot of sponsors including a very generous Brambles who supplied most of the buildings and sun shelters on the property and paid Adam Harvey’s airfares.

 

Artists appearing included Adam Harvey, Anita Ree, Graeme Hugo and Iron Bark, Chrissy Murphy and Highway 32, Shane Parle and Kimberley Rodgers. The event will run annually on the first Saturday in December so mark it in your diary now.

Lake Charlegrark Country

Music Marathon

 

It is that time of the year again when the crew at Lake Charlegrark run their annual music marathon. The marathon is designed to raise money for the Edenehope Hospital and the Womans and Childrens Hospital in Melbourne. To date the organisers have handed the hospitals cheques in excess of $100,000 which is a really amazing effort. Lake Charlegrark is just over the Victorian border south of Francis in the South East. It is basically a camping ground beside the lake and is a great area for a festival.

 

Most people move in on the Friday and leave on the Monday. The show runs Saturday afternoon, Saturday night and all day Sunday.

The cost is $35 for adults, $25 for pensioners and children under 15 are free. There is a small charge for use of camping sites.

Artists appearing at Lake Charlegrark this

year include Troy Cassar - Daley, Sweeney - Killeen, The Costa Brothers, Peter Horan, Jake Nickolai, Graham McArdle (from NZ), Wild Card and Graeme Hugo and Iron Bark. The compere this year will be Fiona Holliday. This is a top line up of artists and your attendance would ensure another good cheque for the hospitals.

 

Contact it Paddy Pretlove on 0427 514 117. Paddy is a farmer so you may have to leave a message for him to ring you back.

Troy Cassar - Daley and his much loved, restored

Holden. Troy is appearing at Lake Charlegrark Festival.

Record Reviews

 

Wild One - Sovereign

Cockatoo Records

 

This is one of the most exciting productions I have heard for many years and in fact I would compare it to Lee Kernaghan’s first album - Boys From the Bush. Sovereign is a harmony group very similar to Alabama except these boys sing Australian music and I might add really good Australian music. They are very good and this album should attract a lot of attention.

 

When you look at the roots of the album it is not hard to work out why it sounds so good. Firstly you have excellent harmony voices and secondly it is produced by the master himself -  Garth Porter. Thirdly the guest musicians are among the countries finest and last but not least the songs are very high quality. Group members Stephen Hartley, Steve Eales and Andy Hartley have with some assistance from Garth Porter and Colin Buchanan written some wonderful material. You will hear more of this group. I gave it eight out of ten.

 

Rambling Shoes - Neville Anderson

Salidu

 

This album caught me by surprise. It is very good. This is Neville’s third album and by far his best. The album  kicks off with some of his home grown material and then looks at some

of his most requested material with songs such as ‘The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, Leave Him in the Longyard and Camooweal. It is a great combination of songs that would please any listener and is complemented by Neville’s easy style of delivery and the great traditional country backing.

 

There was something that caught my attention straight away when I first listened to it. It was the ‘gutsy’ style of production. The producer of course was our own Bill Chambers. This is a good listen and should do well for Neville who is based in the Hunter Valley. I gave it seven out of ten. Contact is Bev Marsh 02 4936 1251 or mullay@networksmm.com.au

 

Country Pickin’ Instrumentals - Greg Bunnett

 

This album is a ‘must’ for all country music followers. Greg Bunnett plays lead guitar for Graeme Hugo and is one of our finest. The album has on it ten of Greg’s favourite instrumental tunes and they are well recorded using all SA musicians and expertise. Production was by Greg and Jamie Baldwin. The tunes include The Savage, Winter Winds, White Rabbit, 40 Miles of Bad Road, San Antonio Rose and Wipe Out. A great album for all of the old guitar freaks like me and the young people who just enjoy good music. Well done Greg - it has been a long time coming! I gave it seven out of ten. You can get a copy from Greg on 08 8636 2318 or bunnett@tell.net.au

 

Editorial Comment

Without the support of radio stations our music is doomed. We do get good support from the community FM stations but in South Australia we get very little support from the major stations. I find this a little hard to understand as the country music listening audience represents around 30% of the population and we are all potential customers for people advertising on commercial radio. Do these stations not want our business or can they not see beyond the horizons of ‘talk back’ and rock music?

 

Even the ABC, which is supposed to be the people’s station, funded by the people, overlooks our needs. Sure they give us John Nutting’s program on Saturday night but even that show has almost slipped into the early hours of the morning and is dropped should anything even remotely interesting to their management come along such as cricket.

 

Four years ago the country music syndicated program produced in Tamworth was dropped by Bill Caralis, owner of SuperNetwork, in favour of talk back and other styles of entertainment. Doom and gloom fell on Tamworth and people such as presenter Nick Erby had to move to Brisbane to secure employment.

 

Now, I am so pleased to say, country music is coming back onto the SuperNetwork stations which includes twenty one station throughout NSW and Qld. What a wonderful boost for our industry. Is it possible that the management of this operation have realised the commercial value of country music? Is it possible that networks in SA and Victoria will see the benefits of such a move? We can only hope so. We have so many young potential stars developing in our industry and we desperately need avenues for them to express themselves. C’mon Adelaide radio -  give us a go!

Guitarist Greg Bunnett, RFDS President Vanessa Boully, host Graeme Hugo and RFDS fundraising manager John Tobin

February 2004

Prelude

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