Sit Down and Sing
Roy Bailey with Martin Simpson & John Kirkpatrick
Fuse Records, 2005
Available from
REVIEW BY ALEX MILLER
Roy Bailey is based in Sheffield, England, and is described by veteran British left-winger Tony Benn as the finest socialist folk-singer of his generation.
Bailey recently toured Australia for the last time (he's getting on a bit in years), and my father-in-law bought me a copy of Bailey's new CD at a fine concert he gave in Adelaide in March. There are many stirring and moving songs on this album: Si Kahn's "Go to Work on Monday", Dick Gaughan's "A Different Kind of Love Song" and Holly Near's "I ain't afraid" are among my personal favourites.
However, the most powerful track is one of the two Australian songs on the album, "Clancy and Dooley and Don Mcleod", a tale directly relevant to today's fight against the federal Coalition government's attempt to destroy our unions.
In the sleeve notes, Bailey lets Bob Fagan tell the tale: "On May Day 1946, 800 Aboriginal workers on sheep stations in the Pilbara region of Western Australia went on strike for decent wages and rights to join a union. The strike leaders, a white man, Don Mcleod, and two Aboriginals, Clancy McKenna and Dooley BinBin, were arrested and convicted but community pressure, including through the national trade union movement, brought about their release.
"This was the first chapter in a long running story of aboriginal outback workers and their struggles to receive wages and conditions comparable to whitefellers."
Bailey does a great job of bringing Dorothy Hewitt's words to life in an arrangement by Chris Kempson. Some parts of the song could have been written for jailed Socialist Alliance unionist Craig Johnston:
"In the big white court crammed full with hate
They said, 'we wouldn't scab on a mate!'
In the great hot choir they said it loud
A smile in the eyes of Don Mcleod
And the working men all over the land
Heard what they shouted and shook their hand."
There's a description of the sheep station bosses that could be tailor-made for PM John Howard, Treasurer Peter Costello and foreign minister Alexander Downer:
"Their bellies swelled so full with lies
The blackfellas shooed them off like flies."
And the climax of the song sees Bailey's voice tremble with passion as he speaks for Clancy and Dooley:
"Our young men are hunters and our old men make songs
And the words of our people are whip lashed with wrongs
In the tribes of our country they sing and are proud
Of the Pilbara men and the white man Mcleod.
"And our voice is lightening all over the land
And we clench up our fists in the sweat of our hands
For the voice of the workers is thundering loud
Like Clancy and Dooley and Don Mcleod."
This is a superb album, and should be welcomed by Australian socialists and folkies alike.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, July 20, 2005.
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