Blues Portrait: A Profile of The Australian Blues Scene Volume 5
By Pauline Bailey (Pauline Baileyu Art)
You could call Melbourne visual artist and author Pauline Bailey a “blues preacher” but James Blood Ulmer got there first with an album title. “Blues evangelist” works better anyway.
Pauline’s been self-publishing this series of soft cover “Blues Portrait” books since 2019 but the title is a misnomer. “Blues” is a tag in such broad use that it’s slipped its shackles almost to the point of redundancy. It means many things to most people.
The Blues were born into impoverished and downtrodden circumstances but are better characterised as a feeling than a school of academic thought. As the author points out, there’s traditional blues and there’s music that’s been influenced by the blues, Her books span both.
The series concept is simple: Each volume draws on first person interviews with its subjects who paint a picture of what drew them to the Blues and they’ve influenced what they do. There’s minimal editing, just the featured artist telling it like it was and/or is.
Most of the subjects are Australian, with notable exceptions. Of the 40 musicians profiled in Volume 5, Charlie Musslewhite is the exception but has probably been here so many times that he drives on the left-hand side of the road. The interviews in this volume straddles COVID and the period immediately beyond.
Odds are that half the subjects will be people most of us has never heard about or simply saw billed in an online gig guide one day. There are also plenty of names familiar to people outside the Aussie blues scene.
For example, Tommy Emanuel spans generations and was an Oz beer barn staple with brother Phil in the halcyon 1980s before devoting himself to acoustic guitar and decamping to the USA. Rick Lum is best known as “that Hush bass player guy” but has probably spent more of his musical life finger picking notes in blues bands than reprising “Glad All Over”.
Mia Dyson now lives in LA but has more ARIAs to her credit than frequent flyer points. On first glance, John Baxter, founding guitarist for Buffalo, and vocalist Jeff Duff, consummate showman and chameleon-like shapeshifter, are unusual choices but ultimately they’ve taken most of what they have from the Blues.
The conversational format opens a window to the personalities of the musicians. Jeff Lum presents as a genuinely nice guy who was anchored enough to carve out a second successful career in graphic design. Sydney wunderkid Simon Kinny-Lewis is the humble student, Charlie Musselwhite the wise elder statesman, Melbourne’s Mohican sporting bassist Mick McPherson the journeyman who made the transition from jobbing muso to doting Dad.
