Aust music stars salute unsung hero


Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 11/01/2008

Reporter: Tracee Hutchinson

Kev Carmody is not a well-known name, but in the music industry he's a giant who has worked with the best. Now a group of stars have come together to celebrate his work as part of the Sydney Festival.


HEATHER EWART: The name Kev Carmody might not roll off the tongue as easily as Paul Kelly when it comes to the leading lights of Australian music, but to those in the know he's an industry giant. The former stockman has penned some of Paul Kelly's most famous songs and now some of the country's best known musicians have come together to celebrate the man whose work remains largely undiscovered. Missy Higgins is one of the artists performing in a tribute concert as part of the Sydney Festival.

Tracee Hutchison reports.

KEV CARMODY, SINGER: (singing) Gather round people, tell you a story, an eight year long story of power and pride .

PAUL KELLY, SINGER: (singing) We're not talking about wages, we're staying right here, 'til we get our land...

TRACEE HUTCHISON: Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody know about little things growing.

(song 'From Little Things Big Things Grow')

PAUL KELLY: We write it in 1988 on a camping trip.

KEV CARMODY: Then I told him about the Gurinji struggle and it really, really influenced us as back country cattle people.

PAUL KELLY: It was a powerful story and the way they just decided enough was enough.

TRACEE HUTCHISON: 20 years on, that campfire sing-along about Vincent Lingiari and the Wave Hill walk off is a much loved anthem.

KEV CARMODY: When you look at that song it really is a cultural love song.

TRACEE HUTCHISON: That sentiment led Paul Kelly to some of the biggest names in Australian music, to play tribute to his old friend's repertoire, initially in an album of cover versions and now in concert as part of the Sydney Festival.

PAUL KELLY: Right from the start I wanted to get really well known artists doing his songs.

MISSY HIGGINS: I was like 'I can't believe I have never heard of this guy.' His songs are incredible, his lyrics just paint these beautiful Australian landscapes like nothing else I've ever heard before.

CLARE BOWDITCH: I'd never met Kev before. I knew him as the co-writer of From Little Things Big Things Grow. But I didn't have any idea of his back catalogue.

TRACEE HUTCHISON: Kev Carmody himself is a musical late bloomer. The former stockman taken from his family as a 10-year-old released his first album aged 43.

KEV CARMODY (singing): In 1788 down Sydney Cove, first boat people land...

TRACEE HUTCHISON: Back then, his music was renowned as tough and uncompromising. Two decades on it's getting a new treatment and it's these new interpretations by a new generation of performers that's inspiring the man who performed them.

KEV CARMODY: I knew none of my music would ever get played on commercial radio but this one especially.

PAUL KELLY (singing): It was down in Charleville...

KEV CARMODY: Trying to sum up what the droving life was like and then of course when Missy Higgins comes in at the end, Missy would bring tears to your eyes.

MISSY HIGGINS (singing): I heard his spine snap... (end singing) It's a heartbreaking story of loss and it's really moving and it's just told so beautifully.

TRACEE HUTCHISON: For these contemporary performers, the recognition is timely and long overdue.

(All sing)

CLARE BOWDITCH: It feels like the right time to be hearing them again. I'm constantly confronted by my own ignorance when I come into Kev's world, you know, and that's a good thing. That's as it should be.

PAUL KELLY: There's beautiful language in his songs so I was always struck by his combination of poetry and politics.

MUSICAL DIRECTOR: And the other thing is after the line, "A handful of sand," who sings that?


TRACEE HUTCHISON: It must feel pretty good, 20 years on, to have this mob of rock stars singing your tunes.

KEV CARMODY: The calibre of those musicians for a start is just phenomenal. This is a collective of musos that are getting together and we're putting on not just Kev Carmody stuff, this is for everybody.

CLARE BOWDITCH: It's a body of work that's carried generations of stories and the thought of those stories being sung again and sung in a new way and being heard by a new audience, that's really exciting stuff.

(singing) She can't go back...

TRACEE HUTCHISON: What will you take with you from this experience?

CLARE BOWDITCH: There's a tenderness that comes from Kev's songs. I get very emotional about...but, yeah, there's something about the honesty and the beauty of those songs that I as a songwriter very much appreciate and think is incredibly valuable.

SINGER: I've been moved by the wind upon the water, by the shadows as it leaves are blown, when that old wind blows. On a weary winter Sunday, like an old friend, he's not here, an old friend, keeps knocking...

TRACEE HUTCHISON: Tonight, Sydney's grand State Theatre is a big bush camp that welcomes all comers.

SINGER 2: Lay me down in the sacred ground, keep me from the cold, wrap me in the deep, warm earth, where the stars can see my soul...

TRACEE HUTCHISON: It's the perfect showcase for a man some describe as Australia's Bob Dylan.

PAUL KELLY: I wouldn't rank him or describe him in terms of other people. He's a one off. He's Kev Carmody.

KEV CARMODY: When you make that comparison with Bob, he was singing in some ways about a context that he saw. It is a different thing, though, to live the reality, to actually cut the cane, you know, to actually lump the bags, to actually be, yeah, confronted on a daily basis with that racism.

(Missy Higgins singing 'From Little Things Big Things Grow')

TRACEE HUTCHISON: And for these two old friends, tonight might just be the night that sets a different kind of wheel in motion.

KEV CARMODY: Our spirit walks with you. Good bye, see you again.

HEATHER EWART: Tracee Hutchison with that report.

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Aust music stars salute unsung hero

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Extended interview with Kev Carmody

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Extended interview with Paul Kelly

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Extended interview with Missy Higgins

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Extended interview with Clare Bowditch

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Kev Carmody talks about Song Trails

Related Links

Sydney Festival