JOHNNY ASHCROFT, HERE’S TO YOU, AUSTRALIA! RAJON CDR1066
Here’s To You, Australia! is a 28-track double CD set featuring Johnny Ashcroft, Gay Kayler and Bettybo—with musical director, Shep Davis.
Here’s To You, Australia! CD One: My great, great grandfather,Marine Corporal John Gowan’s arrival aboard the Sirius and John Ashcroft’s imprisonment aboard the infamous convict hell-ship, Surrey, means I’m a First Fleeter and a convict descendant—hence bonus Tracks 1 and 2. What follows, is the first CD release of my EMI bushranger album, the 1971 market leader, ‘They All Died Game’. Joe Halford and I researched and wrote Tracks 2 to14 of these factual songs. They still sound as modern as tomorrow.
Here’s To You, Australia! CD Two: Bonus Track 1 is my original 1960 hit Little Boy Lost. It received Australia’s and New Zealand’s first 45rpm Gold Records and topped charts longer than A Pub With No Beer and Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport combined. Australians well know bonus Track 14. The in-between tracks, recorded in Col Joye’s private studio, constitute the first CD release of the 1989 Jade album, ‘The Cross Of The Five Silver Stars’, another market leader. With maestro Shep Davis’s talent and arrangements, Gay Kayler performs beautifully on the fully researched material, much of which I wrote or co-wrote with others, including Bettybo, who also performs on this CD.
NB: Gay Kayler laboured hundreds of tedious computer hours to individually eliminate nearly 1000 background sounds from these vinyls. This retainedtheir originalsound, integrity, ambience and warmth.
Therefore, this CD set is a ‘first’ for refurbished vinyl records released commercially in Australia.
JOHNNY ASHCROFT, HERE’S TO YOU, AUSTRALIA!
CD ONE
Tracks 3-14 represent the first CD release of the unique, best-selling vinyl
331/3 rpm album, ‘They All Died Game’
(Click to hear track samplings)
1) I Am Australian(click to play sample)
Never-before-released version by Johnny Ashcroft & Gay Kayler
A song of unabashed pride, without prejudice.
2) The Night Before I Die (with the ABC Orchestra)
Written by Joe Halford and Johnny Ashcroft and recorded with two musical arrangers, Milton Saunders (rhythm section) and Joe Washington (strings, voices and brass sections). The storyline is set in convict John Ashcroft’s (and Joe Halford’s) hometown of Liverpool, England. It portrays the feelings of a convict the night before his transportation to Botany Bay.
3) Moondyne Joe
(click to play sample)
From this point onwards these true song-stories, also written by Joe Halford and Johnny Ashcroft, embrace major elements of Australia’s fascinating bushranging history. People in the east may not be too familiar with the comedy exploits of Moondyne Joe (Joseph Johns)—but in Western Australia, he’s a legend. This song’s distinct jazz underlay (Ron Martin–bass, Bryce Rohde–piano and Ken Kitching–Dobro guitar) was a first—conceived long before others applied a similar treatment to country-based material.
4) The Ballad of Matt Brady
Prior to Van Diemen’s Land becoming known as Tasmania, Matt Brady, a cheeky 1820s bushranger, offered 20 gallons of rum for the ‘capture’ of the colony’s Governor, George Arthur. This was in retaliation for the Governor posting a rum reward for Brady.
5) And He Used To Be A Preacher Man
In 1869, a man identified as the local preacher, robbed a bank near Ballarat Victoria. The preacher (Andrew Scott) later hit the road as Captain Moonlite. After a string of crimes, he was arrested in Sydney while trying to escape by boat. Ned Kelly and Scott were both hanged in 1880. Scott’s exploits were featured in the 1910 Australian movie, Moonlite. But it was not until 1995 that his last wish was granted. His remains were transferred from Sydney’s Rookwood Cemetery to be re-interred at Gundagai NSW, close to James Nesbitt, a member of his bushranging gang.
6) Sixteen Summers
At nine years of age, an English boy named Rares was convicted for stealing an apple. He was sentenced to seven years transportation to Van Diemen’s Land’s dreaded Port Arthur prison. This island-like natural prison was connected to the mainland by Eaglehawk Neck, where guards and savage dogs patrolled. After serving his seven years, he was then told he would serve another seven years for being naughty upon his arrival. He escaped, became the Boy Bandit of Tasmania, was shot and, at age 16, was carried to the gallows and hanged.
7) Thunderbolt’s Lament (Yellilong I Love You) (click to play sample)
Yellilong, an Aboriginal girl also known as Black Mary, rode lookout for her lover, Captain Thunderbolt (Fred Ward), who was one of only two men to have escaped from Pinchgut in Sydney Harbour. One story has it that when Constable Walker bailed him up in a swamp near Uralla NSW, Thunderbolt asked if he was married. He replied, ‘I thought of that before I came here’—then Walker shot Thunderbolt, it is said, with his last bullet.
8) The Twilight Bar In ‘Frisco
Frank ‘the darkie’ Gardiner, was sentenced to thirty-two years for stealing £14 000 ($28 000) from the Eugowra (NSW) Mail Coach. By a strange twist of fate he became the respectable proprietor of the Twilight Bar in San Francisco, USA.
9) Run Cesor, Run
First Fleeter, convict, and ex-plantation slave, John (Black) Cesor, was reputedly always hungry. A big man, he was also known as ‘Runaway Cesor’. When he became Australia’s first bushranger, some claim he was shot and killed by a homesteader on Liberty Plains—which lies between Rhodes and the Olympic Stadium, in Sydney’s west. Others say he was killed by Australia’s first Aboriginal freedom fighter, Pemulwuy.
10) Who’ll Light A Candle In The Morning?
On 10-11-1880, the night before Australia’s most notorious bushranger Ned Kelly was hanged, authorities permitted his mother, Ellen, to visit Ned in Melbourne’s Pentridge Gaol. She embraced him and said, ‘Die like a Kelly, Son’.
11) Bailing Up The Mail (with Al Tomkins—five string banjo)
When a policeman asked Harry Power whose horse he was riding, Harry was so incensed by the inference that he was riding a stolen horse, he pulled a gun and shot the cop. Three months prior to ending his 14-year sentence Harry broke out of gaol, was re-arrested and later ended up telling stories of his bad, bold bushranging days on Murray River paddleboats.
12) Donahoe’s Lullaby
Popular Irish-born Bold Jack Donahoe arrived in Australia in 1825. The brilliant pedal steel guitarist Kenny Kitching, who has been elevated to Tamworth’s Roll of Renown and is in St Louis Missouri’s Pedal Steel Guitar Hall Of Fame, is featured throughout this song. Three matched Australian-made Maton guitars, played by Valda Hammick, Dave Donovan and Jan Gold supply the rhythm.
13) On The Fifth Of May(click to play sample)
Ben Hall turned bushranger after he was framed by an ex-trooper who ran away with his wife, Biddy. Police tracker Billy Dargin, an Aboriginal boyhood friend of Ben Hall, led the troopers to Hall’s hideout near Forbes, NSW.
14) We’ll All Die Game
Sums up the feelings bushrangers had towards authority. This song mentions many famous bushrangers ‘captured’ on CD One.
JOHNNY ASHCROFT, HERE’S TO YOU, AUSTRALIA!
CD TWO
Features: Johnny Ashcroft, Gay Kayler, Bettybo and musical arranger/flautist/pianist, Shep Davis
Tracks 2-13 represent the first CD release of the vinyl long-play album ‘The Cross Of The Five Silver Stars’
a Heritage-Award finalist in Tamworth’s Australasian Country Music Awards
(Click to hear track samplings)
1) Little Boy Lost (original 1960 hit version)—Johnny Ashcroft (click to play sample)
On 5 February 1960, 4-year-old bush kid, Steven Walls, became separated from his father while tending sheep and was lost in snake infested and dingo (wild dog) inhabited country at Tubbamurra, near Guyra, NSW. The 4-day, 3-night search stopped Australia. Seven aircraft, an Aboriginal tracker–William Stanley from Moree, NSW and 5000 people combed the wild New England Ranges looking for this one small boy. On 8 February, 1960, Steven was found alive by PMG linesman, Bill Scrivener. His first words were, ‘Where’s my daddy, where’s my daddy?’ When searchers asked why he wanted his daddy the boy replied, ‘Because he’s lost–and I’ve been looking for him!’ These dramatic words made strong men turn and weep. Here in the 21st century, this epic event still remains the biggest land and air search in Australia’s history. Johnny Ashcroft’s 3:30-minute song is a living tribute to all who participated in that historic event.
2) Here’s To You, Australia!—Johnny Ashcroft, Gay Kayler & Bettybo (click to play sample)
A salute to Australia and all Australians.
3) The Explorers’ Waltz—Johnny Ashcroft & Gay Kayler
You can almost sense the presence of many famous people mentioned in these words. And you will recognise these keystone events, all of which remind us of our good fortune to live in this Great South Land.
4) Reliving The Years—Johnny Ashcroft (with Gay Kayler & Bettybo)
Life was more meaningful and friends were ‘true blue’ back when we lived by other standards—when all that was required to seal the safest of contracts was a simple handshake.
5) The Cross Of The Five Silver Stars—Johnny Ashcroft (click to play sample)
This story, written and fully researched by Bettybo and Johnny Ashcroft, is a story of true heroism. Irishman Peter Lalor led the poorly armed miners at Ballarat’s Eureka Stockade uprising. Lalor’s oath is proclaimed by Irish comedian, Sean Kramer. When the miners stood their ground and faced the might of Victorian Government forces on the Ballarat goldfields in1853, they were overwhelmed in a furious 20-minute fight. Thirteen miners were marched off to Melbourne to stand trial for high treason. In an attempt to secure guilty verdicts, continual government changes to juries were fruitless. Each was found ‘not guilty’. Few realised the eternal niche this event would forge in our history. It is considered to have fathered democracy in Australia.
6) A Dog That No Man Can Own—Johnny Ashcroft
Wordsmith and farmer Bill Ryan’s stock was almost wiped out by dingoes on his Rylstone, NSW, property. In time, understanding beset this writer who came to respect the dingo—the world’s purest canine breed.
7) Sailin’ South For Botany Bay—Johnny Ashcroft, Gay Kayler & Bettybo
A rip-roaring seafaring song by Joe Halford who wrote the enormous hits Reminiscing (with Jay Justin) and Little Patti’s Stomping At Maroubra and Stompie Wompie Real Gone Surfer Boy.
8) Boomanulla’s Bay—Johnny Ashcroft (with Shep Davis—Flute and Kirk L’Orange—guitar)
A social comment song about two young men thrust together by circumstance, when the First Fleet arrived at Kamay (now Botany Bay) in 1788.
9) Matthew—Gay Kayler (click to play sample)
Captain James Cook taught navigational skills to Captain Bligh, of Mutiny On The Bounty fame. Bligh in turn passed on this knowledge to Matthew Flinders. In 1801, three months prior to leaving England for Terra Australis Incognita (the Unknown Great South Land), Matthew married Ann Chappelle. Eventually, Flinders circumnavigated and named Australia. Matthew’s maritime charts of Australia’s coastline were so accurate they were used up to the time of satellites. Unaware that England and France were at war, Flinders was returning to England when he sailed into French Mauritius and was detained for over six years as a suspected British spy. Consequently, Ann and Matthew were separated for nine years. Johnny Ashcroft wrote this love song from Ann’s viewpoint. Matthew Flinders’s maritime charts of Australia were published on 18 July, 1814, the day after which he died—an almost forgotten man.
10) What A Shame You Sold It, Mr Cobb!(click to play sample)
Johnny Ashcroft, Gay Kayler, Bettybo & Kevin Reiman
Freeman Cobb sold his coach company Cobb and Co prematurely. This ‘send-up’ of Freeman Cobb is fact. James Rutherford would ultimately build Cobb and Co into the world’s largest transport system in its day. The Leviathan, the world’s biggest coach, carried over 100 passengers fully laden. It then required up to 22 horses to pull it and six postilions (outriders) to help the driver control them. There are no known pictures of the Leviathan, last seen rotting away in a paddock in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Cobb and Co had the world’s longest coach run and ran 6000 of its 20 000 horses every day. Overseas, Cobb and Co also operated in Japan, South Africa and New Zealand and was possibly Australia’s first multi-national company. Cobb’s drivers were unarmed. None were killed in bushranger attacks.
11) Big Green Apples—Bettybo (with Gay Kayler—harmonies).
Wherever Granny Smith Apples are sold in the world, their origins can be traced back to the 1860s where Granny Smith developed them on her little family farm in the now Sydney suburb of Ryde. Granny was the first female stallholder at the Sydney Market.
12) The Cross Of The Five Silver Stars—Johnny Ashcroft
This ‘as written’ ballad version is totally different to the ‘march’ version on Track 5. Listeners are evenly divided about which they prefer—hence both appear on this CD.
13) Mrs Swaggy Joe—Gay Kayler
A swagman’s swag or Bluey got its name from the cheap blue blanket in which he rolled his meagre possessions. This folklore story tells of how a Bluey came to be called a Matilda. ‘Waltzing’ originated when swagmen travelled the outback in a yearly circle, looking for work. This was the waltz. If work opportunities were lean, they began their next year’s waltz, starting from the same point, but heading out in a different direction. Swagmen (most of whom were looking for work) differed in this respect from the American hobo.
14) Waltzing Matilda/Road To Gundagai—Johnny Ashcroft (click to play sample)
From the vinyl LP Johnny Ashcroft ‘Live’ at Wentworthville Leagues Club.
A unique, 28-track double CD set of historical importance
Johnny Ashcroft, Here’s To You, Australia!...Rajon CD Set CDR 1066
to hear track samplings)