DAVE'S
DIARY 20 MARCH 2004 - SARA STORER VICTORIAN INVASION
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Sara
Storer scored gold in Tamworth when she wrote about floods, droughts
and other bush dramas. But now the Sunraysia born singer-songwriter is fixing to add to her booty with a little help from a city bank robber. Storer has followed in the slipstream of country outlaws David Allan Coe, Steve Earle, Willie Nelson and the late Johnnies - Cash and Paycheck - with a jail song. Storer plans to enter The Ballad Of Tommy Foster - story of a Sydney prisoner who told his story in letters to her - in the 2005 Australian Country Music Awards. |
She included
a live version of the song on her ABC Music DVD Stories To Tell,
released in April, and will include it on her third album to be recorded
in August.
"It was a real challenge, the extreme opposite of my life,"
Storer, 31, told Nu Country on the eve of a return tour of her home state
in late March.
"I grew up on a farm at Wemen near Robinvale, went to Teachers College
in Ballarat and taught in the outback for five years. Tommy has been in
jail many years. The song is how he thinks and feels about his life, all
his regrets. It's his life story. He's in his fifties and in Silverwater
jail. He wrote several letters to me. He left his family behind. He has
a son, I'm not sure if he has a daughter."
GENE BRADLEY FISK
Storer, now
living on the NSW Central Coast, hopes her song will have a happier finale
than Geelong country singer Gene Bradley Fisk's historic He's On The Run
- the tale of Pentridge prisoner and songwriter Garry David Webb.
The prolific writer and self-mutilator died at 39 on June 11, 1993 from
peritonitis after 33 years in institutions.
It was 11 years after Fisk, a former 3UZ and 3GL disc jockey, released
his song based on Webb's songs and letters sent from his cell at the now
defunct Coburg jail.
Fisk, now living at Winchelsea west of Geelong, encouraged Webb's song
writing and gave him a David Allan Coe biography to try to dissuade his
chronic mutilation of his genitalia and other delicate body parts.
Gene, 66, is also the high noon DJ on Country FM - 89.3 - and the voiceover
man on the Nu Country TV promos on the popular community station.
Ironically, Fisk's daughter Donna and recording partner Michael Christian
competed with Storer when she won seven Gold Guitars in the 2004 Tamworth
awards.
Their new album The Big Picture will also be vying with Storer in the
2005 awards.
STORER SONGS TRIPLE THERAPY
"The letters are also therapy for Tommy," says Storer whose
Victorian begins on March 25 in Bairnsdale.
"They enable him to reflect on his life and seek a better outcome."
The song might also be therapy for Storer - a twin and second youngest
of six children born and bred on a 5,000-acre family wheat farm at Wemen
near Robinvale.
Storer's father Lyndsay, 61 and source of award-winning songs, attended
the Tamworth festival after being diagnosed with a serious illness.
Storer and three sons work a 16,000 hectare family farm at Gullargambone
in western NSW.
"He is only 61 but it's really effecting him," says Storer of
the man about whom she wrote These Hands.
"He's such a workaholic, he gets frustrated he can't get up and do
what he used to. The doctors say he has to slow down, take it easy. He
doesn't have much choice. My wins were was a real tonic. All the family
is in the DVD, singing a few songs. My career has been inspirational for
them, it brought smiles to their faces when times were tough."
HERBIE TAKEN BY DINGO - NOT FRED
Sadly there
was one Storer pal who didn't make it to her gala awards night in the
Peel River flood belt.
He was Herbie - a beloved Maltese terrier who was Storer's constant companion
on the Central Coast.
"Unfortunately Herbie's no longer with us," says Storer, 'I
took him home to the farm and we had a dingo hanging around and it got
poor old Herbie. It killed him. He was gorgeous. I'm sure he was clapping
his paws up there in heaven when I won."
Storer bemoaned the absence of a good man in ABC documentary Heart
Of The Country and is still looking despite perils of touring.
"I had a boyfriend for 18 months, he loved my music and everything
I did but the time on the road can make it tough," Storer confessed.
"This time I'm away four months. It's hard on a relationship. If
you find someone really supportive there are ways around it if the partner
has their own life and not dependent on you being around. You can have
a fantastic relationship. You're only a plane flight away. It would be
harder if he liked all that other crappy music."
SARA BAND A HAPPENING THANG
Storer fronts
a stripped back organic trio on her Victorian tour.
Former Happening Thang guitarist Jeff Mercer will also play mandolin and
fiddler Pete Denahy makes the most of his many musical talents.
The duo played in late bush balladeer Slim Dusty's acclaimed Travelling
Country Band.
Denahy, a solo artist, has recorded with many fellow Victorians including
former Goanna singer Marcia Howard and her younger brother Damien's Plough
Boys.
Marcia launched her second solo CD Burning In The Rain at Port
Fairy and returns to the Cornish Arms, Brunswick, on April 3 for a city
launch to be filmed by Nu Country TV. Benalla born Denahy opens Storer's
show and performs tune from fourth album Petrol Head Fly.
"It's a real cut back acoustic thing," says Storer, "it
suits my songs. I like to listen to the stories without drums crashing
and bashing in the background. Pete is playing fiddle. It would be nice
to have banjo and steel."
Storer performs in Bairnsdale - March 25, Morwell - March 26, Wonthaggi
- March 27, Moorooduc - March 28 and Warracknabeal - March 31.
She is promoting her second ABC album Beautiful Circle and DVD
Stories To Tell, to be released in April.