If you’ve been following Australian music since the early ‘70s, you’ll know who Kerryn Tolhurst is. Best known for his key role in the massively influential Melbourne country-blues-rock band the Dingoes, Kerryn got his start playing with Dingoes bandmate Brod Smith in Melbourne’s hardcore blues band in the mid-to-late 60s, the Adderley Smith Blues Band. In between those two bands Kerryn played a significant role in the hugely influential Australian country-rock pioneers, Country Radio, and the subsequent career of Country Radio’s late great frontman, Greg Quill.
Greg Quill was a massive figure in Australian music in the first half of the ‘70s, and his profile would have no doubt remained high had he not decided, in the mid ‘70s, to move to Canada, where he lived for the rest of his life. Not only did he write (with Kerryn) and sing one of the all-time great Australian records, ‘Gypsy Queen’, but he was very much the first Australian singer-songwriter to emerge from the grass roots folk scene and bring Australian, British and American folk roots into the wild & wooly Australian rock scene of the early ‘70s.
– Gypsy Queen
Following Greg Quill’s unexpected passing at home in Canada in 2013, Kerryn and Country Radio harmonica player Chris Blachflower hatched a plan to record a tribute album to Greg in order to bring Greg’s songs to life once again. That album, with an incredible all-star cast of Australian talent, finally saw release a couple of months ago.
With newly recorded tracks from Ross Wilson, Paul Kelly & Pigram Brothers, Shame Howard, Joe Camilleri, Doug Parkinson, Richard Clapton, Russell Morris, Mike McClellan Kevin Bennett and Brod Smith, ‘Some Lonesome Picker’ is truly an Australian rock, country and folk album for the ages. Kerryn’s production is as sympathetic and detailed as you would expect, and you know what those voices are like. And then there’s Greg songs, classics one and all. If you’re on old fan you’ll love hearing these new interpretations; if you’re new to Greg’s songwriting, this will be a revelation.
- Paul Kelly & The Pigrim Brothers- Gypsy Queen
- Joe Camilleri - Wintersong
To coincide with the release of Some Lonesome Picker, and the belated digital release of Greg’s three Infinity/Festival albums - Country Radio Live by Country Radio, Gypsy Queen by Greg Quill & Country Radio (which includes all the classic singles), and the solo album Outlaw’s Reply - I Like Your Old Stuff caught up with Kerryn for a quick chat...
Greg Quill (left) and Kerryn Tolhurst at 2003 ‘So Rudely Interrupted’ album release show in Toronto. Photo - Bill Taylor
Q: Seeing as we’re here to talk about your Greg Quill tribute album and you’re involvement with Greg and with Country Radio, can you let us know how you met Greg and what your impressions of him were?
KT: I met Greg in Melbourne in 1971 after a meeting was arranged to talk about me joining Country radio. Although we were born a year apart he seemed much older and wiser than me. I had seen him and his band on GTK and immediately knew that was the band I wanted to join. We found a common interest in the music we both loved and, although a giant of a man, he was warm and engaging. Qualities he maintained to the end.
Q: You said in recent interview that Greg was very much Australia’s first singer-songwriter. Although Country Radio genuinely seen as country-rock, Greg came out of folk circles – how did that influence the band?
KT: Greg ran a folk club in Narrabeen called The Shack and gathered a bunch of musicians around him like Chris Blanchflower on harmonica and they became the first version of Country Radio. That lead to his first album on EMI , 'Fleetwood Plain' which gathered some attention, including mine. I came from the Melbourne scene of pubs and rock and blues but I'd recently discovered the joys of a new wave of American singer-songwriters thanks to the Byrd's' Sweethearts of the Rodeo’. Greg welcomed my influence and the two elements of our different backgrounds seemed to fuse naturally. I found that Greg was writing songs that sounded the equal of many I'd admired from the US and I knew of no one else here doing that in Australia in 1971. There were others but none had the poetry and depth of his songs.
Q: What did you guys think of actual country music? I’m remember your contemporary Keith Glass once saying that country rock was not a stretch for any of the ‘60s generation of Australian (or was it more specifically Melbourne?) pop and R’n’B musician because they grew up with country on the radio. Is that how you saw it?
KT: Most country music in Australia at the time was pretty lame and spoke nothing to our generation who were listening to a more ironic and irreverent version from the US. The only country music I heard growing up was Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. We never tried to be a 'country' band, we were after something that came from many influences.
Q: Greg obviously a big fan of John Stewart – you covered both ‘Some Lonesome Picker’ and ‘Never Going Back’. Who were his other favourites?
KT: Greg loved the songs of John Stewart and ‘Lonesome Picker’ was a staple of our set. He also had a rich knowledge of folk traditions from Celtic to Appalacian and Australian bush ballads as well as contemporary artists like Jesse Winchester,The Dillards, Steve Young, The Band, etc. (Note – to hear all these artists, along with Greg and Country radio themselves, check out our Cosmic Country playlist)
Q: Greg’s first album was solo, and then the familiar line–up of Country Radio coalesced. What do you think the band brought to Greg songs, and what do you think various members brought to the band. You became his co-writer…
KT: Not long after I joined the band I got my friend John Bois to be the bass player. His addition really stepped things up a notch. Suddenly we had great groove as well. Every body in the band had come from different backgrounds and it was a strange assembly of ideas and playing styles.....nothing was conventional. Somehow this lineup, John Bois, Tony Bolton, John A Bird, Chris Blanchflower and myself seemed to be the magic Greg was looking for.
Q: What were the highlights of the band’s existence? Having a genuine hit single with ‘Gypsy Queen’, which you co-wrote with Greg?
KT: I'd never been in a band that recorded before I joined Country Radio. I'd also never been involved in songwriting. First thing that Greg and I wrote together was ‘Gypsy Queen’ and it was recorded and became a modest hit and won an ARIA for best group single (shared with Mississippi). I couldn't believe it and then it was followed by another co write with Greg and Jon Bois, ‘Wintersong’ and it charted favorably as well. Exciting times and we couldn’t wait to do a full album. However, for some reason the record company, Infinity, decided on the cheap option and put us in the studio to do a live album in front of an audience. That's the only album we did and doesn't represent what we sounded like live.
By now we'd become a touring band and travelled the country doing concerts and festivals. We also so did supports for Creedence Clearwater Revival and Santana. The highlight though was Sunbury '72. We were preceded by a bevvy of "suck more piss" bands, loud and gross and when we appeared at sundown, a hush fell over the crowd and the whole mood of 50,000 people suddenly changed. An awe inspiring moment for a bunch of young guys on a stage they never imagined they'd be on.
– ‘Never Goin’ Back’ at Sunbury ’73 – Country Radio’s second Sunbury.
Q: How do you feel about the band as Greg’s recorded legacy ? You were involved in most of it.
KT: Greg and the band were never given the opportunity to do a properly produced studio album, so I was pretty disappointed at what we left behind. His songs and the unique quality of the band deserved better.
Q: The band broke up but then most of you played on Greg’s solo album – what’s the story there?
KT: In 1974, after John Bois and and I had left the band Greg decided to do a solo album, ‘Outlaw's Reply’. Recorded with John Sayers, Greg had free range and called in a vast line up of his favorite musicians. He was kind enough to invite John Bois and myself to be part of it. It sounded nothing like Country Radio but I applauded it because he needed to be seen as a solo artist to survive. Not long after the album was released in 1974 he was awarded an Arts grant and took off for Canada which he'd been obsessed with since I met him and the album faded into oblivion and his presence here was lost.
Q: You then formed the Dingoes - how influenced was that band by Greg and what you and John had done in Country Radio?
KT: The Dingoes probably wouldn't have existed without my meeting Greg. It was he who showed me the structure of songs and the various approaches to writing lryics which gave me confidence to become a songwriter myself. By the time I left Country Radio in late 72, I was working on some songs that would eventually become the core of The Dingoes first album the next year. But it was Greg's mentorship that gave me the confidence to do that.
Q: Greg moved to Canada, you don’t play with him again until 2003’s ‘So Rudely Interrupted’. What are your thoughts and feelings about that reunion?
KT: Greg had been living in Toronto and I was in New York for many years, so we got to catch up from time to time and remained great friends. In 2000 he was visiting Melbourne and I happened to be here and we caught up and decided to try writing together again. We came up with 12 songs in a couple of months and got together in NY to record a new album. It was an exciting time for Greg since he'd been away from performing and recording for quite some time working at the Toronto Star as a revered music journalist. But the kudos for his writing didn't compensate for his desire to have his songs heard. We returned to Australia in 2002 and did a short tour and that was the last time we played together.
Q: What might Greg have achieved or done in Australian music if he hadn’t moved to Canada and ultimately given the game away for 20-dd years?
KT: It occurred to me while revisiting his songs how things might have turned out if he had stayed and promoted ‘Outlaws Reply’. It was 1974 and the Australian rock scene was just on the cusp of exploding and other songwriters were appearing on the scene like Richard Clapton, Shane Howard and Paul Kelly. I don't think he would have felt so lonely by then. He would have been part of a genre that was getting respect and would continue to grow and he could have been at the helm in continuing to write and record.
Q: You’re suggesting that as a singer-songwriter type, Greg was ‘lonely’ in Australia at the time? Did he really feel there was no support here for his music?
KT: I just think he left at the wrong time. He'd always had an 'obsession' to go to Canada but had he stayed here and promoted 'Outlaw's Reply' he may have found himself in similar company with The Dingoes, Cold Chisel, Shane Howard, Richard Clapton, Paul Kelly and others who were focused on songwriting in the music they were creating at the time. He would have felt at home in that company, I think. But he left and was forgotten. Ironically, I left Australia with The Dingoes a couple of years later and we probably suffered a similar fate.
Q: So the new tribute album – tell us how that came together, and any thoughts or feelings in regards to how it might serve Greg’s legacy and also in regards to any of the tracks on there?
KT: Soon after Greg's death in 2013, a memorial was held at his old haunt, The Shack in Sydney. A lot of old friends and bandmates and fellow artists were there. Chris Blanchflower and I got talking and I suggested that since Greg's songs never got the treatment they deserved that I would love to do tribute featuring many of his peers. A few weeks later Chris got back and said he could finance the project so I started making phone calls to a wish list of artists to perform Greg's songs. The reaction was enthusiastic so I went through Greg's entire catalogue and chose songs I thought would be right for each artist. Everybody was happy so after a year or so, thanks to the generous cooperation of all involved the album was done.
Q: What next for you?
KT: I've just completed an new album with great young singer songwriter called Simon Bruce and hope to have it released this year.
Q: There used to be some wonderful footage of you and Greg performing a version of the old Australian bush ballad ‘Ryebuck Shearer’ in Canada. Garth Hudson from the Band is accompanying. (Although that track does seem to have disappeared, there are other tracks featuring Greg, Kerryn & Garth still up on YouTube.) That must’ve been quite a trip, especially for Greg, singing a song from his old home land in his new homeland with help from an old bandmate and someone who was no doubt a massive source of inspiration.
KT: 1.I first met Garth when he performed on The Dingoes' Five Times The Sun in 1977 in San Fransisco and I think Greg met him later on when he wrote a piece on The Band. The Band had been a huge influence on both of us so it was a great honor to have him join us at the launch of 'So Rudely Interrupted' in Toronto. And bringing his bent, eclectic flavor to a traditional Australian song was a treat.
Greg Quill & Kerryn Tolhurst with Garth Hudson – Back This Way
- DL
