ABOUT US

Margaret Walters has been active in the NSW folk scene for thirty years, appearing at clubs and festivals throughout Australia as a soloist and in combination with various other performers and groups; and she has toured in England on four occasions, two with songwriter John Warner as Walters and Warner.   Margaret is renowned for the quality of her voice, particularly when singing unaccompanied, and for her sensitive interpretations of folk song; she is also recognized for her intuitive harmony singing and her extensive repertoire.  Margaret has a wide knowledge of Australian traditional song (the main focus of Southern Cross Trawlers) and contemporary English and Australian folk songs including a large number of John Warner's wonderfully evocative songs.

Margaret's solo recordings are:  For the Future and the Past and Power in a Song;  in a duo with songwriter John Warner - Pithead in the Fern, Who Was Here?;  and with the group The Roaring Forties - Hazard Hardship and Damned Little Pay, Shore Leave, and their most recent recording, John Warner's song and verse cycle Yarri of Wiradjuri).

Margaret has collected a series of poems by Cicely Fox Smith that others have set to music and presents this under the title Shellback Sheila with the help of the Roaring Forties.  An earlier collection scripted by Margaret called Tolpuddle:  the Australian connection uses songs by Graham Moore and Mick Ryan about the famous six agricultural labourers transported to Australia in 1832.  This work was presented in 1993 by Margaret with Taliesin, John Dengate and Robin Connaughton, and revived in 2004 with the Roaring Forties.

Don Brian has a repertoire almost exclusively of Australian traditional material which he performs in a pleasing baritone voice with the relaxed assurance derived from solid in-depth background knowledge. Don's flowing beard and laconic style of delivery make him the archetypal bush man. For three decades Don has been collecting, absorbing and researching songs, verse, history and folklore from the field and other primary sources including ships logs and old journals.

One outcome of Don's research is a booklet titled Chanties from the Nimrod. The Nimrod was a Newfoundland steam and sail sealer used in Shackleton's 1907-09 expedition to the South Pole.  Accomplishments of the expedition include the first ascent of Mount Erebus and locating the Magnetic South Pole.  A book - Memories of Antarctic Days by G.E. Marston (Artist) and J. Murray (Biologist) on the Expedition - was the basis of Don's compilation, making a handy reference for people interested in with these particular variations of some popular sea chanties.  Don has lived in rural New South Wales; he plays concertina and tin whistles and was in the Tin Shed Rattlers bush band when he lived in Wagga Wagga.  Since moving to Sydney ten years ago, he has been active in the Bush Music Club.  Don has contributed to projects of the Roaring Forties and is now a member of that group, contributing vocals and whistle to the 2006 CD Yarri of Wiradjuri.