Chris Jensen’s Blog

On the weekend of the 21st and 22nd of November some of the greatest bush balladeers in Australia gathered in Pittsworth for the annual Gidgee Coal Bush Ballad Awards (At the end of this article you’ll find a list of all the winners).

The Australian Bush Ballad is a unique piece of music. Like Bush Poetry it tells of the bush and the people of the bush and the struggles and triumphs of every day life in the Australian Bush.
It was great to catch up with old mates again for the weekend and there were really good crowds to enjoy the line up. Keith Jamieson was given a special award for services to the Bush Ballad movement, something that really took him by surprise.
When Ros Scotney and Keith Jamieson got together and started the Gidgee Coal Awards they were of course thinking of the title of one of the best known Bush Ballads “By a Fire of Gidgee Coal” written in 1964 at the Tatts (Tattersall’s) Hotel in Pittsworth by one of the greatest writers of bush ballads Stan Coster.
Another great writer of Bush Ballads, in fact someone who I’ve often referred to as the Bush Balladeers Bush Balladeer, Waverly (Wave) Jackson was given the inaugural “Gidgee Coal Bush Ballad Living Legend Award”. And what a treat it was to be on stage with Wave when he accepted. It’s a memory I will long cherish and I’m sure everyone who was there will feel the same.

So the Gidgee Coal Awards are over for another year and I think it’s safe to say Pittsworth can now claim to be one of the great centres of the Australian Bush Ballad Movement.

See you in Pittsworth next year.
Winners:

Female Vocal
Dianne Lindsay – Jackie Howe
Male Vocal
Ernie Constance – Silent Crosses
Group or Duo / Collaboration
Dean Perrett & Diane Lindsay – There’s a Rainbow Round my Memories
Instrumental
Charlie Boyter – Good Morning Australia
New Talent
John Battle – In the Outback of Australia
Album of the Year
Dean Perrett – A Thousand Campfires
Songwriter
Ernie Constance – Milestones
Comedy / Novelty
Debbie Beckett – Ode to Elsie
Encouragement Award
Sharon Smith
Gidgee Coal Bush Ballad Living Legend Award
Wave Jackson

Keith Jamieson with John Staunton (creator of the plaque)