John Williamson: The Big Red

19 January 2012

by Nathan Jolly

"I knew it was just a matter of having a bit of fun then going back to the farm in North-West NSW,” recalls Australian country music legend John Williamson. “I actually had gone back when Old Man Emu went to number one. You can pick up radio stations from North-West NSW to Melbourne and I could hear the track going up the charts and thought, ‘Maybe I should give it a proper go’.”

More than forty years after his debut single reached pole position in the national charts and Williamson realised he should give music a ‘proper go’, he is still touring the country at a pace that would destroy most younger bands, selling a cool four million albums along the way. He has recently emerged from a Tamworth recording studio with a new record, The Big Red, his first in four years. The album is also his first to be released through Warner Music, a situation he seems optimistic about (“They were really, really keen to have me, and that’s a good sign”). And lest anyone claim that Williamson’s patriotic songs are incongruent with his lifestyle, as he speaks to TMN he is at his bush getaway in Springbrook, Queensland, overlooking the Numinbah forest. Back in 1971, though, Williamson wasn’t thinking far past his move from Moree to Sydney.

“I headed up to Sydney pretty quickly,” he recalls, “by ’71 I was in Sydney and me and whole bunch of mates had a flat in Coogee. I guess that’s where I started to learn the trade. The club had three shows a week, you’d be booked with jugglers and dancers but you’d get a forty-minute show, and that became my life.”

Although Williamson’s first number one single came quickly, it was another 16 years before he had his next substantial success with the 1986 album Mallee Boy, his triple Platinum breakthrough album. “It really took me a long time to find my feet as a songwriter. Then, from [1986] on, I was just trying to come up with original songs that made the same impact as Mallee Boy, which is never easy,” he laughs. “I think The Big Red is equal to that one, though,” he adds quickly.

The Big Red was recorded in Tamworth over six months of sporadic recording sessions: “The refining of it takes longer than the recording,” he explains. A strong set of “new stories”, Williamson is hesitant to guess which songs will exist alongside Raining On The Rock, True Blue and Cootamundra Wattle in his classic canon.

“If I can write songs that actually improve my show after forty years, that’s the goal, he explains. “There are quite a few songs on this album that will stay in the live show until I drop dead. I can now do a show, which has strong songs about every part of Australia, so I can take people on a journey around the country. That’s what I do, I like to tell stories.”

His hesitation to earmark future fan favourites makes sense when he explains the slow burn most of his records enjoy.

“The strongest songs off Mallee Boy didn’t really get much airplay when that album came out; radio played Budgie Song which is a silly bloody song about taking a budgie to the vet.

“They often play the commercial songs I suppose, which are easy to pick up in a hurry, but the stuff that lasts for me is the stuff that’s a little different and it often takes people a bit of time to get used to those songs. I’ve noticed that myself; when I first heard Bob Marley I wondered what the hell he was doing, now he is one of my favourites. When I first heard Willie Nelson I thought his voice was really ordinary, but because he has stuck to his guns, there’s a character thing there that you grow to really love. You can’t really tell straight away which songs will last. I know once I start playing, though, based on what requests I get.”

One of his most endearing songs caused a stir when it was first released. Rip Rip Woodchip has long since entered the canon of classic Australian songs, being added to ABC’s Songbook for Kids and sitting amongst his most requested tracks to date. At the time of its 1989 release, it caused a reasonable amount of controversy due to its fierce anti-logging stance. The lumberjack and logging communities threatened lawsuits, among other less-savoury acts.

“Good newspaper and journalist fodder,” Williamson says dismissively about the controversy. “It did upset a lot of people,” he reconsiders, “but at least they realised I’m prepared to put my money where my mouth is. I still get upset at our forests being knocked down; as we speak I’m looking over a valley that has been selectively logged over the years, but it’s got all the species still there. Once foresting gets a hold of it, they just want the timber so you lose the diversity of wildlife. Rip Rip Woodchip is still one of my most popular songs, kids love it whether they understand it or not. It’s in the school songbook!”

The Big Red is out Jan 27 through WMA to coincide with his performance at this year’s Tamworth Country Music Festival.