Down The Overlanders Trail

Warren Fahey

There was a time when country music ruled the Australian capital city radio airwaves. This was the 1940s and early 1950s when we didn’t feel as ‘musically pigeon-holed’ as today. There was also a lot of ‘light classical’ music available but it was ‘country and western’, for that’s what it was called, that you heard when you tuned into the more popular stations. In some ways it was a strange music and, more often than not, performed live in the studio - and sounded like it! A typical radio station ‘band’ would be comprised of piano accordion, harmonica, acoustic guitar and drums. There was also a sound effects person ready to provide turning wagon wheels, clip clop hooves and even the occasional cracking stockwhip. The songs were introduced in a congenial style reminiscent of homespun yarners fresh from the high hills of Montana. Much of the music was used for station breaks, interludes and to back spoken commercials. It had a ‘western’ sound familiar to anyone who had seen a Hollywood western film – for this is where ‘country and western’ got its name. Nowadays the music is universally known as ‘Country’ music and more likely to sing about trucks, city life and emotional heartbreak like D I V O R C E and vagabond husbands.

CD ONE
1. Art Leonard - Can I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight, Mister?
2. The Hillbilly Singers - When I Get To The End of the Way
3. The Singing Stockmen - Hillbilly Valley
4. Art Leonard - The Face on the Barroom Floor
5. Art Leonard and Freddie Witt - They Cut Down the Old Pine Tree
6. Len Maurice - The Big Rock Candy Mountain
7. P. C. Spouse - Cuckoo Waltz
8. Tex Morton and Harry Thompson - South American Joe
9. Tex Morton & Sister Dorrie - Hand Me Down My Walking Cane
10. Tex Morton - Mandrake
11. Tex Morton - Along the Stock Route
12. Smilin’ Billy Blinkhorn - Poor Ned Kelly
13. Jenny Howard - Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny Oh
14. Bob Dyer - I Never See Maggie Alone
15. Shirley Thoms - The Cowgirl Yodel
16. Shirley Thoms - Night Time On The Prairie
17. June Holms - Happy Yodelling Cowgirl
18. Gordon Parsons - The Australian Bushman
19. The Two Barnstormers - Mary Jane Waltz

CD TWO
1. The Two Barnstormers - Wildflower Waltz
2. Tim McNamara - I’ve Got Five Dollars and It’s Saturday Night
3. Tim McNamara with the McKean Sisters - Red River Valley
4. Reg Lindsay - The Country Hour
5. Reg Lindsay - Then I’ll Keep On Loving You
6. Reg Lindsay - Down By the Old Slip Rail
7. Queenie and David Kaili - When It’s Springtime in the Rockies
8. Mayo Hunter - Honolulu March
9. Harry Cash - The Black Yodel
10. Buddy Williams - On the Gundagai Line
11. Buddy Williams - The Overlander Trail
12. Johnny Ashcroft - Little Boy Lost
13. Chad Morgan - The Duckinwilla Dance
14. Chad Morgan - The Sheik of Scrubby Creek
15. Tex Croft - Chicken Yodel
16. The McKean Sisters - Where the Frangipani Grow
17. Slim Dusty - The Rain Still Tumbles Down
18. Smoky Dawson - When the Bloom is on the Sage
19. Smoky Dawson - Radio Serial Episode 110  

Released: 2012-01-20T00:00:00