HERES THE OLDEST RECORDED music Ive run across, though its ...
Why was the harmonica the national instrument of Australia for much of the last century? Because of the fearful immensity of the Outback, where its popularity began.
There's nothing out there for miles on end. The "stations"?cattle and sheep ranches?are the size of U.S. states, but privately owned and run, often by a handful of people working at little more than subsistence level. Like the Aborigines, who went walkabout with only a bowl and a digging stick, the station workers could not afford to carry anything unnecessary. But they also could not afford to go totally, over-the-edge loony from loneliness.
You might expect the wailing cry of a Hank Williams in this music, but instead you get more often a rippling, toe-tapping, day's-work-done-and-time-to-relax feeling with more than a hint of calliope. How much of this is the product of the recording companies' and performers' choice and how much reflects at-home playing standards?this is the sort of thing that Ray Grieve's notes maddeningly ignore.
There's one mention that the original sessions with P.C. Spouse, the country's first harmonica "star," included no Australian compositions. Why? Bias on the part of the performers or producers? Lack of material? It seems astonishing that people sitting at a campfire 200 miles from the nearest town would play Scots tunes, Irish jigs, Spanish melodies, English music hall favorites and, for God's sake, "The Sidewalks of New York." And there's not a trace of Aboriginal influence in the music's substance or style.
Some of this may spring from the longstanding Australian need to feel linked to the English-speaking and European world while surrounded by Asia. (Basically, white Australia had almost no real culture of its own until the 1960s and the development of the Sydney Opera House. Virtually everything was borrowed, hand-me-down.)
Despite the under-three-minute limit of the original 78s, roughly half the tracks are medleys, which leads me to think that, at least for the performers, the tunes were probably passed along without context or possibly even titles?Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home," for example, was recorded as "Swanee River." Spouse was certainly working with pure sound, and though he played occasional "variations," he doesn't seem to have ventured into composition. His creativity and artistry were put to weaving bits of tunes together into clever, flowing conglomerates.
Part of disc two is given over to the later (late 30s-early 40s) harmonica bands. Woo, isn't that a concept? A dozen or more harmonica players?even a bass harmonica?along with a couple violins, a piano and (oh, I do love this) a musical saw? It's a wonderful, wonderful sound, half silly, half inspired, all delightfully human. Some of the hijinks that never got recorded must have been just as interesting: "[Spouse] did cornet imitations on a specially shaped piece of tin and produced unusual musical effects with a wood axe." I should think so.
The harmonica in Australia picked up on jazz, blues and skiffle around the middle of the century as influences broadened. Part of me wishes these had been included in the collection, but the larger part thinks Grieve made a wise decision to stick to the early history. And times change, for better or worse: The encyclopedic Moon Travel Handbook on Australia?my bible for Down Under modern society?doesn't list "harmonica" in its index.
What's Out There: I got mine from the bibliophile's dustbin delight, daedalusbooks.com, but they seem to be out. Try Amazon.