Forum

My Comments widget only allows 10 comments. Here are earlier comments:

Fred de Munk       10 April 2025

Bloody fantastic. Thank you so much Bruce. 

Stan Gottschalk      9 April 2025

Fantastic work, Bruce! - a thoughtful and fitting tribute to all those talented individuals who created the Australian folk music scene, and who inspired and influenced all of us fortunate enough to have shared times, tunes and friendship with them. I watched the video with a smile (and the occasional tear)! Thanks

Michael Fine      9 April 2025

Congratulations Bruce, This is simply brilliant.  What a great project.  

But, a word of caution from an old academic.  It is an interesting but inevitably partial selection. I applaud the ones I know and feel grateful for those that I have never been able to see live but had always hoped to see and hear live.  But there are so many of the Australian greats missing - both those of our time and those of former years.    

If you were to hold a poll to nominate the top ten, fifty, or two hundred of our stars, there would be many nominations for the best known ones, such as the Seekers, the Bushwackers, the Fagans, our award winners and commercially successful performers, such as Mike McClellan, Jeanie Lewis, Doug Ashdown, Bob Hudson, (to name a few of the big name NSW artists of the 60s and 70s) and so on.  The song writers, such as Frank the Poet, Henry Lawson,  Banjo Paterson, Dorothy Hewitt and so on, publicists and marketers such as Warren Fahey, more indigenous artists, and so on all deserve .  

Even Bruce Watson is not included!  

The claim that this group are immortals suggests that those not listed are less worthy in some way.

I don't in any way wish to be critical of this amazing project.  But such a big claim I think it might be helpful to suggest the ongoing and inevitably incomplete nature of this project, and to outline the sort of criteria used in compiling and extending it in future.    

Of course, creativity is eternal.  The job is vast and never ending.    

Bruce Watson      9 April 2025

Thanks Michael. I made the call not to outline my criteria on the video itself, and that's why I created this website for it to sit in. The 'About' page, and the description in the YouTube video itself discuss the criteria, and explain how I made the project manageable by setting limits:

1. It only includes those who have died - which is why the title "Immortal"

2. I take 1967, the year of the first National Folk Festival as my starting point.

Of course, there are still many worthy people who are left out. That's inevitable. But nearly all the people you mention are out of scope. Sorry if this isn't clear enough.

Stacey Moule      8 April 2025

Thank you for doing this Bruce. We miss my dad

pauljmch     7 April 2025

Does any have any information about singer songwriter Paul Brand who had 2lps in the 70s. One on Festival and CBS. Contact pauljmch@gmail.com. In the 60s sang with Trevor Lucas

dhults   7 April 2025
Well done Bruce. What a treat to revisit old friends and those known by reputation. What a fine effort indeed. Many thanks.

Linda Bezemer   4 April 2025
Wow Bruce......just wow !!!!
Smiles,tears,singalong moments.Thanks for the journey

Mary Brettell  4 April 2025
As a co-conspiritor on the Brisbane Folk History Project I can say I am very familiar with what it takes to put together a project such as this and Bruce you have done a great job.
It is wonderful to see and hear these pioneering folk performers and collectors, as well as the images of other people in the background and/or performing with the individuals.
I hope the Immortals remembered here will provide inspiration to the modern day 'folkies' and, hopefully, keep the folk tradition alive.

Greg O'Leary  2 April 2025
Simply wonderful! what  tour de force. many of these people shaped my life, saved my sanity and helped me make sense of my world. Bruce, you have my profound thanks for creating such a tribute that reminds me of the debt I owe them, that I can never fully repay.