ANZAC Day

Good on ya, Cobbers. 

So why did Uncle Jay go to Oz for Christmas?

I think I'm starting to figure it out.



UPDATE: see comments for link.  And CBS News' "New Media" folks are clearly incompetent in getting their content out to new media.

Anne Kirkpatrick - Travellin' Still - Always Will

My man Uncle Jay is a travelin' man, more than I have the stomach for.  He's stuck Down Under, and so is touring that fair land on motorcycle.  Check it out as he bumps up against the "they're so like us/they're so different" thing that makes travel a pleasure.

That like/different idea applies to music as well.  Australia is home to what may be the biggest Country Music center outside of America - certainly the biggest out of North America.  The crucible of the Outback was a refining furnace for the original Scots-Irish music similarly to how the Appalachias melded our version of those same old songs into the Ur-Country music.  The 1950s and 1960s saw the internationalization of popular music, with Slim Dusty (Oz's Johnny Cash) bringing American influences to the music scene Down Under.

Slim's daughter Anne Kirkpatrick has an almost Emmylou Harris purity of the style, although hers was born of the Outback "Bush Ballad", not from Coal country.  But the differences highlight the similarities.  It's very like what we're used to on these shores, but different.  And that's a good thing.  G'donya, mate.  This Sheila can sing, fair dinkum.



So good on ya, Jay.  Careful with the grog.