Guitars Strings for Australia

Jeanette Wormald has made a request for second hand nylon strings for the guitars in her music education project in the communities of the Northern Territory.

Jeanette describes that the young women in the communities where she is working have never had a chance to hold a guitar until now.  She says this is not cultural but a symptom of gender intimidation in dysfunctional and wounded communities where she is working with her music. The women want to learn guitar with Jeanette in a safe place so that they can accompany themselves on gospel songs and old country songs.

Jeanette Wormald at Oak Valley School

Jeanette Wormald attended Oak Valley Aboriginal School which hosted its first ever community concert or inma last month. Jeanette Wormald, from Adelaide, spent a week at the remote desert school, 1500km north west of Adelaide, working with the students. It was the final leg in a month long tour working with Pitjantjatjara students from throughout South Australia. During her week at Oak Valley, Jeanette encouraged the students to sing and write songs that celebrated their lives and environment. They then performed their songs at the inma. “The focus of my Songs of the Inland Music programme is to share the joy of music and show students how songs can tell stories, celebrate identity and build self esteem through using students own experiences and lives as inspiration,” Jeanette said. “Working with Aboriginal communities is a priviledge and an incredibly special experience. For the majority of the students and communities I work with, English is a second language. Music is a wonderful way to overcome so many barriers and connect, communicate and celebrate.” Oak Valley students were taken on a bush trip to nearby sand hills in the Great Victoria Desert and then the next day they wrote a song with Jeanette called “Stories in the Sand” about the animal and birds tracks they found in the sand hills. This song and other songs about Anangu children’s lives were performed at the inma. Jeanette said response to the inma was wonderful, with parents and adults from community clearly delighted by their children’s singing and dancing. “And the kids were so enthusiastic they kept asking to sing the songs again,” she said. “It was great to host the event in the school grounds. When we made the decision to set up the concert in front of the admin building, we did not realise that we were creating a historic event for the school.” Oak Valley Aboriginal School principal Vivien Deed said Jeanette’s visit was a great success with positive learning outcomes for the students. “It gives them a chance to be creative and make up their own songs,” she said. “It was good to see that all the kids got involved with the inma and good to see the family members turn up.” “Events like Jeanette’s visit give the kids an experience we can’t offer them. The children have music in them. It’s something that they love and they love to participate in. It’s good to hear them sing.” “We want to continue the programme and will definitely have Jeanette back again,” Ms Deed said. Jeanette also spent a week at the Yalata Anangu School, west of Ceduna, building on the previous work she had done there last year encouraging the students to write and perform their original songs. “The songs this time were wonderful with the students celebrating what was unique about their lives and their community. Yalata is the only Anangu community whose land encompasses parts of the far west coast of SA. We wrote a song with the middle primary students about the whales and the older students wrote a great song in the desert reggae style about Yalata Beach.” Yalata School also hosted an inma to celebrate Jeanette’s visit which was well attended by the community. Jeanette, who has been working on music programmes with SA Aboriginal communities for more than ten years, spent the whole of June working in Anangu schools throughout the state. She began the month with a two week visit to the APY Lands delivering a music programme which focussed on building literacy skills in early childhood and junior primary students, before heading west to work in Yalata and Oak Valley. She said students in the APY Lands were excited to hear the songs she had written with the Yalata students when she visited last year. “I think the Yalata children’s songs could be a hit – especially “Roly Poly Wombat” and “Bush Sweet.” It’s really important for children to hear and sing songs that relate to their own lives.” Jeanette Wormald is a professional singer songwriter based in Adelaide. She has released four albums and has enjoyed national and international success with her music, performing at major music festivals including the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Adelaide Cabaret festival, Tamworth and the Gympie Muster. Jeanette has been working with the Oak Valley community since 2001. However, this was her first visit to Oak Valley which focussed purely on the children and the school and her second visit to the Yalata Anangu School.

Jeanette Wormald & Songs of Inland

There’s jazz, lush pop and awesome three-part harmonies all combined with the fine musicianship by Michael Cristiano (guitars) and Ben Fuller (double bass) that add up to the Jeanette Wormald experience.

The Tal Kin Jeri Dance Troupe open the evening and provide real inland Ngarrindjeri ambience. Jeanette’s show features a multimedia backdrop of scenes of the outback and particularly of inspiration to the songs she presents. Jeanette is sultry, sexy and in fine form with both her voice and guitar in Songs of the Inland.

As a band, her musicians know their stuff. But they are also able to bounce off each other with a little improvisation happening in featured solos. Look for for Jeanette Wormald – it is well worth catching up on.”

Photo courtesy Stephen Von Der Bouch

MOON CALLER from Penny Davies & Roger Ilott

MOON CALLER new music from PENNY DAVIES & ROGER ILOTT

For over 30 years PENNY DAVIES & ROGER ILOTT’s  performances of songs such as Hey Rain!, Where the Cane Fires Burn, Beside a Railway Line, Ridin’ on the Fruit Train, The Monkeys Sing Soprano and When the Cooper’s Coming Down have been taken to Australia’s heart and are part of the Australian psyche.

MOON CALLER is their latest release and features son Jordy on drums along with old bandmate Jed Hudson on bass – creating a strong rhythmic feel on every track. The album features songs about people, climate, greed, the price of war, human achievement and human frailty, the lessons of history, bushrangers, growing up and growing older.

The moon is a strong symbol throughout this new album – with its focus on the mysteries and the tides of human life on this planet. MOON CALLER is their 17th album. Tracks:  She’s Like A Tree, Aurelia, Four Horsemen, The Circle Game, Crazy Weather, O’Mara’s Front Verandah, The Goldfield, Wet Season Blues, Song Of The Artesian Water, Pte. Herbert Thomas Scard, Must Have Been The Moon, Armstrong, Goodbye To Your Schooldays, Peaceful, Storm King Jam.

Jeanette Wormald To Tour Europe

Ballad Singer Graham Rodger Releases New Album

Australian Multiple Golden Guitar finalist Graham Rodger has teamed up with Jeanette Wormald to record a duet which is included on his new album The Fire Within Me.

Graham Rodger is a Multi-Award winning country music songwriter and recording artist specialising in Australian Ballads. His songs have been played all over Australia and have been recorded by a number of country music artists including the late Slim Dusty. On this new album, Graham teamed up with Jeanette Wormald for a duet. Jeanette travelled to Brisbane in January to record the duet in producer, Michael Fix’s studio. The song is an Australian classic about a little lake in South Australia’s outback Carra Barra Wirra Canna. Jeanette tells that Graham rang her up and asked whether she would consider doing a duet with him. “I was honoured,” Jeanette says. “But our initial choices for a duet didn’t work out. I was in the studio listening to Graham’s new songs and was really excited by the direction he was heading. I did the vocal arrangements for him on Diamantina, and then realised that Carra Barra Wirra Canna would work really well for us. We learned it that night and recorded it the next day. I was so excited by the harmonies I got teary and Graham got goose bumps. Even Michael was excited and called Susan Jarvis in to have a listen.” The duet features on Graham’s seventh album which was launched in Queensland the first weekend in April.

Songs of the Inland

Where Red Earth and Blue Sky Meet

One of the hit shows of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Songs of the Inland is a musical and visual journey into inland Australia through the original songs of Jeanette Wormald, incorporating words and imaginings from the Pitjantjatjara and Ngarrindjeri peoples. For the first time, her songs will be set against a backdrop of stunning imagery of South Australia by acclaimed Riverland photographer Italo Vardaro with additional Maralinga Tjarutja images by landscape photographer Andrew Weller. A must see event.

Farmers in Australia Protest Water Crisis

The day he turned the taps off, dairy farmer JR Williams of Torrumbarry near Echuaca, got an idea. He had been unable to irrigate his pastures for his dairy herd and so he decided to raise awareness of the struggles of his region through music. And so this gifted songwriter-farmer put his passion for music into words with a song called “WHO GIVES A STUFF ABOUT THE FARMER”. JR believes the song which was released nationally in Australia in December 2007 when the water crisis hit hardest will help spread the message about what is really going on in Australia’s bush lands. His song expresses the region’s frustration of seeing water run to waste in the south of Australia as the government decided to pipe water out of the struggling northern irrigation system to supply the cities int he south. JR is also concerned about the social implications of young people on the land being forced to leave rural areas and move to the cities in order to feed their families.

“We need to work together to find positive long term answers for our irrigators along the Murray Darling River System.”

Sounds of the Desert Echo Around Adelaide

People from the traditional community of Oak Valley in the Maralinga Tjarutja Lands and singer songwriter Jeanette Wormald will share their music with city audiences this month in a special Inma event. For many from Oak Valley it is the first time they have travelled to Adelaide and performed publicly outside of the community. The Pitjantjatjara / Yakunytjatjara speaking people who called themselves Anangu (people of the western desert regions) will perform a special concert called Maralinga Inma or Maralinga Music, at the SA Folk Centre on Friday, November 30th. For the past six years, Mallee based singer songwriter, Jeanette Wormald, has been working the community developing self esteem and celebrating cultural identity through writing and performing original songs. Jeanette’s love of Anangu culture and the determination of community members will see this concert held for the third time in Adelaide in the past five years. Jeanette, who is celebrating the Top 20 success of her hit single Pukulpa Days, inspired by her work in Oak Valley, is travelling again to the community next week to prepare the musicians for the concert. “This project is long term and has developed according to the community’s needs. It’s been exciting to see their skills and confidence grow and to see their joy in expressing their own stories to a wider audience,” she said. Community members will need to undertake an arduous 1500km journey, which will take two days in a mini bus. The first day the bus will travel over red desert sands to get to Ceduna and then travel from Ceduna to Adelaide. Chris Dodd from the Oak Valley community is one of the driving forces behind the group, The Desert Oaks, who are performing on the night. “The whole community is looking forward to this,” he said. “We are all right behind it. Music is a perfect vehicle for us to celebrate our way of life and become ambassadors for the Anangu and indigenous people in general.” Maralinga Inma, featuring Jeanette Wormald and The Desert Oaks is on Friday, November 30th at the SA Folk Centre in Thebarton.