The Australian Songwriter Issue 107, April 2015 First published 1979 The Magazine of The Australian Songwriters Association Inc. Ross Ryan at the 2014 National Songwriting Awards. 1 In This Edition: Chairman’s Message Editor’s Message 2015 Australian Songwriting Contest Announcement Interview: Ross Ryan Cill Van Der Velden & Jarrad Grimmond: Joint Winners of the 2014 Ballad Category James Daley: Winner of the 2014 Folk/Acoustic Category New ASA Website Cathy Dobson: Winner of the 2014 Lyrics Category ASA Member Profiles: Jim Harding and Charlie Cacciola Sponsors Profiles Wax Lyrical Roundup Interview: Mick Thomas Robert McIntosh: 2014 Winner of the Rudy Brandsma Award Garth Porter and Lee Kernaghan’s ANZAC tribute Emma Jene: The Buddy Bench Members News and Information The Load Out Official Sponsors of the Australian Songwriting Contest About Us: o Aims of the ASA o History of the Association o Contact Us o Patron o Life Members o Directors o Regional Co-Ordinators o APRA/ASA Songwriter of the Year o Rudy Brandsma Award Winner o PPCA Live Performance Award Winner o Australian Songwriters Hall of Fame o Australian Songwriting Contest Winners 2 Chairman’s Message Hi All Members, How time flies when you are writing songs! It is Song Contest time once again. This year promises to be bigger and better than before. Our ever growing team of Regional Coordinators report that there has been “HUGE” interest in all their areas, and that augurs well for a high quality, competitive contest. I am always knocked out by the number of superb songs that our members bring forth each and every year. It makes me so proud to be part of the ASA. Vice Chairman and Editor, Alan Gilmour’s missive this month, is chock full of stories, interviews, photos and advice. He always seems to come up with an excellent magazine, and this one is no exception. The RC article is especially pleasing. Those guys are doing such great work for the ASA in their respective areas. Remember, if you are a songwriter, you should belong to the ASA. Denny Burgess Chairman The Australian Songwriters Association Editor’s Message In this edition, we feature interviews with well known Australian songwriters, Ross Ryan and Mick Thomas, as well as profiles on ASA members and contest winners, Cill Van Der Velden and Jarrad Grimmond; Cathy Dobson; Jim Harding and Charlie Cacciola; Robert McIntosh; and James Daley. Also, please have a read about the great work being done by NSW South Coast country singer/songwriter Emma Jene, as well as the ANZAC centenary tribute by Lee Kernaghan and Garth Porter. Thanks to Russell Smith for suggesting the ANZAC article. The Australian Songwriter welcomes written contributions from ASA members and readers of the magazine. If you have anything that you would like to say about yourself, other songwriters/musicians/artists/new releases or upcoming events, simply send your contribution via email to the Editor at [email protected]. Cheers, Alan Gilmour Editor and Vice Chairman The Australian Songwriters Association 3 2015 Australian Songwriting Contest Announcement The 2015 Australian Songwriting Contest is now open. The contest offers great prizes and is open to both ASA members and non-members. The 2015 contest contains 13 individual songwriting categories:  Australia Ballad  Contemporary Pop/Dance Country  Folk/Acoustic Instrumental  International Lyrics  Open Rock/Indie  Songs for Children Spiritual  Youth The 2015 Australian Songwriter of the Year will be chosen by the ASA Board of Directors from the category winners. The ASA Board will also choose the winner of the 2015 Rudy Brandsma Award For Songwriting Excellence from among all of the ASA members who have submitted songs into the contest and who have exhibited songwriting excellence in their song entries. Entries can be submitted on the following contest platforms by clicking on the links on the ASA website home page. www.trakvan.com/asacontest/ www.songcentral.biz/asa www.sonicbids.com/australian-songwriters- association-inc/ 4 Interview: Ross Ryan Ross Ryan onstage at the 2014 National Songwriting Awards. Ross Ryan was the Special Guest Artist at the 2014 National Songwriting Awards. Ross Ryan is a well-known Australian singer/ songwriter, who is best known for his signature song, “I Am Pegasus”, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2014. The parent album, My Name Means Horse, was released in February 1974, and is Ross's most successful album, reaching No. 3 on the Go-Set Australian Albums Top Twenty, and was certified triple gold. At the 1974 TV Week King of Pop Awards, My Name Means Horse, won Most Popular Australian Album. Ross's other Top 40 singles are I Don't Want to Know About It (July 1973) and Blue Chevrolet Ballerina (June 1975). Ross has also won a King of Pop award. Ross’s family moved from the USA to Mount Manypeaks, near Albany WA, in 1959, where they settled on a sheep farm of 3,000 acres. By the age of 13 years, Ross was writing songs and learning guitar. Ross attended Albany High, where he took the lead in The Music Man and produced a radio program, High School Half Hour, for the local station 6VA. He joined a number of local bands, including The Sett and Saffron. It’s fair to say Ross’s path was headed in the direction of music. 5 Photo: More of Ross performing at the 2014 National Songwriting Awards. Ross moved to Perth, undertook an electronics course, and worked as an audio operator at a TV station, STW 9. He started his musical career in 1968, from mid- 1970 to late 1971 Ryan used the station's facilities to record his debut album, Home Movies which was self-funded on the RR label. The local Perth radio station 6PM played tracks from his album. Early in 1972, Ross issued a split single with his track, Sounds of Peppermint, backed by The Statesmen's Keep on Truckin. In April of that year, it reached the Top 100 on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart. Ross signed with a manager, and started regular gigs at Gramps Wine Bar and played at University campuses. Ross’s music career moved upward in the mid-1970s, when he scored the support spot on a sixteen date Roy Orbison Australian tour. The audience and media response to his performances were such that in just over a year, he was voted at the then Radio Federation awards, Best New Talent, and his debut album A Poem You Can Keep, was named Record of the Year. During the mid-to-late 1970s, Ross was a guest on various TV shows, including The Paul Hogan Show and Hey Hey It's Saturday. He hosted his own pop TV program, Rock Show, and in 1978, along with Mike Meade, hosted, wrote and acted in a half- hour comedy show, Give 'Em Heaps, on ABC TV for twenty episodes. He continued to release albums including After the Applause (June 1975) and Smiling for the Camera (April 1977). Singles from After the Applause, were Blue Chevrolet Ballerina, which reached the Top 40 on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart. 6 Ross continued songwriting and released independent singles. Some of his tracks were covered by other artists, including John Farnham, who had recorded I Must Stay, on his 1975 album J.P. Farnham Sings. Slim Dusty recorded Isa, which was also used in the bio-pic. film, Slim Dusty: The Movie. In 1990, he co-wrote a revue, Les Boys (A Masculine Sensation), with comedians Rod Quantock, Lynda Gibson and Geoff Brooks. In the early 1990s, Ross and Broc O'Connor, established a studio, G.I. Recorders, where Ross was a record producer for acts in a range of music styles. In 1990, EMI, through its budget label, Axis Records, released another compilation album, The Greats of Ross 1973 - 1990, which also included previously unreleased material. In 2003 Ross issued a new studio album, “One Person Queue”. Also in October 2003, in addition to his own solo shows across Australia, he was working with friends such as Doug Ashdown, and was also a member of Idol and Idle, with friend, Australian singer/ songwriter, and Idol judge, Mark Holden. In 2006, he supported Carole King on her tour of Australia. Ross has played at the Sydney Opera House, performed at Sunbury Pop Festival, played the campus tours and done the US Club circuit. He has supported tours by international acts, Roy Orbison, Van Morrison, The Hollies, Helen Reddy, Roberta Flack, Michael Franks, Roger Miller and Dr. Hook. He also staged and toured a one-man multimedia comedy show called Sing the One About the Horse. In May 2007, Aztec Music re-released My Name Means Horse on CD format. Additional tracks were Blood on the Microphone (Pina Colada Version) and I Am Pegasus (1974 live version), from GTK, an ABC TV show. In 2008, the album, The Difficult Third Compilation, was distributed by Aztec Music. It features nineteen songs from Ross's ever expansive musical career, including two never before released tracks, the single, Queensland, and from the archives, the song, Connie. Ross is generally acknowledged as one of the greatest Australian artists ever, and continues to influence a new generation of up-and-coming musicians and anyone who is tempted to think that one song maketh the man should hang their head in shame. On the 24th November 2014, Ross appeared as the Special Guest Performer at the 2014 National Songwriting Awards and was interviewed by music journalist Bernie Howitt. The interview with Ross is on the following pages. 7 Ross Ryan (Left) and music journalist, Bernie Howitt (Right), onstage at the 2014 National Songwriting Awards. Ross Ryan was interviewed onstage at the 2014 National Songwriting awards by music journalist, and ASA interviewer, Bernie Howitt. The recorded interview is available on the ASA Youtube channel. Bernie: Occasionally, we get the opportunity to hear one of the really great Australian songwriters.... Ross: (Laughing) But he couldn’t be here tonight! (Audience laughs). Bernie: (Composing himself) We’re just going to run through a couple of questions that will hopefully give you an insight into the songwriting process. So, you’ll get to hear from one of the very, very best. He’s pretty modest, but he’s one of the very best we’ve produced here. Ross, you’ve written about people, and I’ve heard songs that go back to 1968 about High School girlfriends, and you’ve also written about ideas, so is there any difference in writing about people and writing about ideas? Ross: Writing about people is easy, particularly when it involves someone you know, or a relationship you’ve had, and particularly the stuff that I wrote when I was in High School, in fact the first song that I wrote was in Primary School, was about girls leaving me! (Audience laughs). I have a long history of this happening. 8 Bernie: If you don’t believe him, I recommend you go to his website and buy his CDs, because there’s a cavalcade of unfortunate love affairs that trickle through every piece of work you’ve ever done, I think? Ross: (Gestures in bemusement and possible agreement). Bernie: And that leads to another thing you write about: you’re very humorous in your writing, and that’s a tricky thing to do, to be genuinely funny when you’re writing a song. How do you do that? Ross: That’s a huge compliment, actually, because I think it’s hard to be funny. I suppose it’s because I was an acoustic act, and I was always interested in comedy, once again from a very young age. Being a singer/songwriter, they say that every songwriter has one song, and they just spend their whole career re-writing it, and a genius has two songs. (Ross and audience laughs). So, I suppose that when I was on stage, I was always aware of the fact that I’d seen so many people who were singer/songwriters say “and now here’s another depressing song that I wrote in my lounge room.” (Audience laughs). So, I think if I was going to play one of those songs, I would try to have a funny story about how the song came about, and then people would actually pay more attention to the song, rather than just being down all the way through. Bernie: You also write and resolve issues about yourself, and I’m thinking about a song called Anthem, where you have American roots, you are transplanted to Australia, you’re in Albany, Western Australia, and you’re trying to resolve “who’s Ross Ryan?” So how hard is it to write about yourself, and can you use that music to work out who you are? 9 Ross: (Surprised look and audience laughter). Wow, that’s really deep! I don’t know that I thought that when I wrote the song, Anthem. It was about the fact that I was born in Kansas, and came out when i was nine. My mother was a war bride, and we came back to Australia, and we were on a farm. I felt at the time I wrote that particular song, and if you haven’t heard the song, it was on an obscure album that sold about nine copies (Audience laughs), but thank you (turning to Bernie Howitt) for bringing it up! (Ross, Bernie and audience laugh again). At the time, Australia was just coming of age, in my opinion. The song says “Someone said ‘God Bless Australia’ and we all looked embarrassed”. And that was kind of what it was. I wouldn’t play that song now and I wouldn’t write that song now, because in the last thirty five years since I wrote that, there’s been a huge change in this country. Bernie: And have you changed with it, do you think? Ross: I got older! (Audience laughs). I mean, everybody changes over a period of time. Bernie: And does that come through your music? When you’re writing personal songs, your perception is constantly changing. Songwriters here (in the audience) who are growing older should not be afraid to reflect on who they are. Ross: No, no, they say that people who write novels: write what you know, and look in the mirror, look at your own life, and go from there. I try not to write songs that are just specifically about me. They try to do that from a starting point and then try to make them more universal. But you need to have kind of gone somewhere. You can’t write a novel about Timbuktu if you haven’t at least visited it once. Bernie: And you were in that position where you have actually written a classic song. You heard the applause when Pegasus was mentioned. Do you know when you’ve written a classic, the moment you’ve written it, that it’s going to enter the heart of every Australian? Ross: No! (Everybody laughs). I’ve thought other songs were going to be classics and they weren’t. Pegasus was a song that came about as a comedy song, because “Ross” does mean “horse”! I thought that was kind of funny? Depressing, but funny! So, I was writing that song and in fact, I was working it up as a track for comedy song for my show. My producer, the late and great Peter Dawkins, saw something in the song that I’d missed. And, I remember playing it for him. I said, “Oh, by the way, I’ve written this little ditty” and he went “Well, that’s the single”. He recognised it as something that was going to work, and I give Peter Dawkins and Peter Martin total credit for that song being a hit. I just turned up, folks! (Everybody laughs). Ross is convinced that he can never sell a show in Sydney, so you’re about to hear Ross Ryan live! This is rare in Sydney, so let’s make him feel really, really welcome, so that he understands that there are people here that actually love Ross Ryan! 10