DAVE'S DIARY - 26 FEBRUARY 2014 - FLYING EMUS CD REVIEW
FROM
BALMAIN TO DIAMOND CREEK - FLYING EMUS FLIGHT PATH
FLYING EMUS
THE COLLECTION - 1984-1990 (FESTIVAL-WARNER)
The Flying Emus had good reason to reform for major festivals including Tamworth and Port Fairy - they were way ahead of their time in their short six year recording career.
As home-grown
bluegrass-acoustic trail blazers they won six Golden guitars and ARIA
awards before quitting in 1990.
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Now, 30 years down the roots music highway, this 22 track retrospective reflects their importance in an era when bluegrass was not nurtured in the mainstream media. They reach back to Larrikin Records debut Look Out Below when major writers - brother and sister John and Genni Kane - penned Cajun flavoured Wheeler Dealer, swing tune Ain't No Letters and a cover of Lesley Gore pop hit It's My Party. |
Equally memorable is Diamond Creek - inspired by a road sign for the Victorian town and written on a beer coaster by Genni and discarded until retrieved and finished by John.
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It resonates
with this reviewer because my interview with Genni in Tamworth about
the song's source produced a front page story in now defunct Sydney
Sun. At that stage I had just finished a five year stint on the also defunct Sydney Daily Mirror before heading back down south to the Shipwreck Coast and big smoke of Glen Iris. That's the magic of the Emus - they wrote local songs with an international appeal. It's A Sunburnt Country and eighties drought inspired Auctioneer were timely and topical and This Town (penned by Genni about Lithgow) and Darling Street (about the Balmain home of Genni) were localised tales without jingoism of songs of the era. |
They include
originals Gold Coast inspired Postcards From Paradise, I'm In Love
With Love, I Don't Know About That and Something Somewhere/ Say
Old Man interspersed with instrumentals and covers diverse as John
Prine's I Just Want To Dance With You, Rodney Crowell's Til
I Gain Control Again and Bill Monroe's Uncle Pen.
The band is augmented by Michel Rose and Lucky Oceans on pedal steel and
Emmylou Harris' late fiddler Wayne Goodwin.
A classic.
The Flying Emus play the Caravan Club, Oakleigh, on Thursday March 6 and
the 38th Port Fairy Folk festival March7-10.