This fantastic collection of songs was sent to me by this
brilliant and generous artist Matt Williamson.
Beautiful acoustic folk blues which is intrinsically
Australian, this is a name which should be well
known. Check out Matt on Myspace Here
and let him know you like what you hear.
The songs you are hearing have come about due to the
collaboration and support of the many people who have
come to hear the songs of Matt Williamson.
Over the last half a dozen years Matthew has
been invited into several studios along the eastern side
of Australia usually from being heard at blackboard
concerts, busking and in more recent times at venues
where he has performed. The archive of Matthews songs
is now reported to be in the many hundreds,
but it is the timeless and profound quality of the songs
that has drawn the attention of many in the music
industry and within the arts. Matthews songs have been
described as pictures painted with a thousand words,
drawing a vision of a truly Australian landscape where
the issues of cultural and social uncertainty are tackled
in songs such as 'old black man', 'bad cousin to my own
brother' and 'song from a broken man', in a way that is
so personally honest and yet socially accurate that it
places Matthew in the same company as 'Woody Gutherie',
'Roy Harper' and 'Archie Roach'.
Download Here
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Matt Williamson - Little Songs
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2 comments:
cheers to you bob!
its so good to see someone bringing matthews songs to a wider audience.
i saw him play at the wiradjuri river dreaming festival here in bathurst, he is a great peformer and amazing story teller.
i first met him in 1987 he was setting up emergency accommodation for prisoner release and for visiting families to the bathurst gaol, he became heavily involved in reconciliation in the local area. but i think it broke his heart. he had a close friendship with one of the local wiradjuri elders, the old black man, who features in many of his songs. his songs are full of characters and events that are a very real part of his life, and they become a reoccuring theme, so his songs are like one story one song.
what many people may not know is matthews personal heritage. a great, great grandfather [george yates] who arrived at morton bay in the 1840s with a violin he had learnt to play on the voyage over. after arriving, being shocked by the treatment of the local people by the new settlers, george went bush and ended up traveling through the back country with a young companion from one of the south east queensland tribes, ending up in victoria. georges son
[george yates jnr] arrived in the bathurst area after gold was discovered at hill end. john meredith states in his collection of "folk songs of australia and the men and women who played them" that henry lawson in his story "the songs they used to sing" heard bullock-driver jimmy nowlett singing with gusto the song "all around my hat" to a george yates tune. the third generation of this wonderful musical family can be heard in the joe yates collection archived in the national library of australia, with joe at the age of 91 performing some 150 tunes and songs from his father and brothers tom, bill and arthur. bill yates went to the kimberleys and lived and worked with a local tribe there for 43 years. when he died they put him in a canoe and let him float of into the bye and bye, sending home his only possessions, a coat a pipe and a ten pound note. matthews mother ena yates, another wonderful musician and singer, carried on this wonderful tradition, this is where matthew got his grounding in the art of song. his father jack williamson was the last surviving member of the ben chiffly cabinate when he died a few years back. matthew said to me that we not only destroy the most natural and oldest living culture on earth, but that we continue to destroy our own.
over the years i have known matthew he has always given his time and his home to those members of our society that most of us choose to ignore. in recent years matthew himself has become reliant on welfare after years of hard work and raising a family, yet he still carries himself with a quiet dignity and a sense of humility.
i believe he is a true folk song writer in that his songs are so contempary, and as i understanding it, all of the music of his that you have posted has been put together by some wonderful people on nothing more than a handshake, he gives special mention to a true friend, pix vane-mason a recording engineer from maleny.
it would be an honour for me to sit down with matthew over the coming months and help him to archive his songs, and if you are willing, to share them with a wider audience. there are some you have here that i have never heard, and there are many i have heard that are not here.
so i will finish up with a verse from one of my favorites from the late 80s, "lucky man"
so what of our forefathers
tied up in chains
do we feel weve redeemed them
with the things we have gained
now what of our brothers
held up in gaol
life can be hard
yet its easy to fail
lets hope there redemption
comes soon at our hand
cause the only true freedom
is found in each others hands.
thank you bob
cheers gav!
Wow thanks for that Gav I will have to post this on the last mat post,
so if some one does a search for him they will find something very impressive
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