SIMON McDonald was a well-loved and well-known Creswick character who, for all his life from 1906 to 1968, lived on the family property at Springmount.<\/p>\n
He eked out a living from gold fossicking and agricultural work, and was a fixture at local pubs, particularly The American Hotel, where he would sing after work for beer and food.<\/p>\n
At a time when The Folk Wave was on, when folk music was the hip-hop of its age, Simmy was called \u201cthe best traditional singer in the British style ever recorded in Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n
There are still friends and relatives of Simmy\u2019s living in Creswick.<\/p>\n
His story will come alive again when Neil Adem, musician and storyteller will impart the life of this remarkable man at the Creswick Courthouse on Saturday 19 August, as a fundraiser for the Courthouse, now home of Creswick Theatre Company.<\/p>\n
Adem has been on a journey into Simmy\u2019s life, which has put him in touch with his relatives and local people who knew him, turning up some great and touching stories.<\/p>\n
The show ranges through tales of gold-fossicking around Creswick and grape-picking in Mildura, to songs that have their origins in Napoleonic Europe, Burl Ives, and the 1960s Folk Wave.<\/p>\n
Half family and local history, half Simmy talking and singing about his life from the tapes, half Simmy\u2019s songs re-sung.<\/p>\n
With an LP of his songs made in 1964, and a book on his life published soon after, there are also about 30 hours of reel-to-reel tapes recorded between 1959 and 1967 in the National Archives of Australia in Canberra.<\/p>\n
The tapes are of Simmy talking about his life in Creswick and surrounds, and singing the songs he learnt from his father and grandfather in a house with no electricity, where the entertainment was conversation, story-telling and singing the family songs from Ireland and Scotland.<\/p>\n
If you missed Adem\u2019s engaging performance at CresFest, or you want to hear it again, book your tickets through humanitix.com.au.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SIMON McDonald was a well-loved and well-known Creswick character who, for all his life from 1906 to 1968, lived on the family property at Springmount. He eked out a living from gold fossicking and agricultural work, and was a fixture at local pubs, particularly The American Hotel, where he would sing after work for beer […]<\/p>\n