Indigenous songwriter remains forever young

University of Sydney student Toby Martin has given the music of a little-known Indigenous country music singer a new lease of life through postgraduate research and performance.

Toby Martin (left) performing with Jimmy James at the University for Reconciliation Week. [Image: Ted Sealey]

As principal songwriter and singer of the band Youth Group, Toby Martin has been creating and performing music to enthusiastic audiences in Sydney and Melbourne for more than a decade.

In more recent years the band has gained international success, especially in the United States. Their single ‘Forever Young’ (cover of the Alphaville ballad) featured on the hit television show The O.C. as well as the ABC show Greek, and in 2006 was honoured by the ARIA award for ‘Breakthrough Single’.

Toby’s musical interests also encompass the academic world. In June 2011 he received a PhD from the University of Sydney for his thesis on the history of Australian country music. He is continuing his work at the University as a research assistant on Richard White’s Australian Research Council Discovery Grant project about tourism in Australia.

While investigating Australian country music for his PhD, under the supervision of Richard White in the Department of History, Toby came across the music of Dougie Young, an Aboriginal songwriter who lived in Wilcannia (in outback New South Wales), during the 1950s and 60s.

“Dougie Young is a cult figure to some – particularly within Aboriginal communities – but he remains unknown to a broader audience,” says Toby. “This is a real shame, as his songs have a lot to teach us about our past – not just past injustices, but also past forms of social protest and the circumvention of establishment and authority by Aboriginal people.”

The main source of information on Dougie Young's songs are field recordings made by Emeritus Associate Professor Jeremy Beckett during several visits to Wilcannia in the 1950s and 60s. He taught anthropology at the University of Sydney from 1966–94.

Wilcannia in the 1950 and 60s was largely divided between the whites who lived in town and the Aboriginal people who lived on the government mission and on the banks of the Darling River.

“The Wilcannia Aboriginal community was a lively one,” Martin says. “There was a lot of music, especially country music.” Dougie Young wrote and performed songs about life in town, with alcohol – which was illegal for most Aboriginal people at that time – one topic of interest.

“Young’s songs described life for an Aboriginal man in Wilcannia with wit, verve and extraordinary immediacy,” says Martin. “This was a life where if you wanted to ‘cut a rug’ with your mates you could end up ‘in the clink’ as a result. The law that banned drinking wasn’t repealed in New South Wales until 1964.”

Toby’s research on the history of country music earned him the 2010 John Ferry Award for Local History from the Australian Historical Association. His article ‘Country music capital: the past in Tamworth’ was published in a special popular culture edition of History Australia.

After being named 2011 National Folk Fellow by the National Library and the National Folk Festival Toby was granted access to the library’s vast collection of archival field recordings. This enabled him to get even more up close and personal with Dougie Young’s songs, and led to the creation of the Rug Cutters, a new band dedicated to his music.

The band includes Jimmy James (Dougie Young’s grandson) on vocals, ARIA-nominated Jason Walker on steel and electric guitar, Patrick Matthews (also of Youth Group) on bass, and Neville Anderson on drums.

“The Rug Cutters re-imagined Dougie Young’s songs as electrified country: the way in which the songs may have been recorded had he gone on to establish a career in white Australia,” Toby says.

In June Toby and Jimmy performed an acoustic set at the University as part of Reconciliation Week 2011. The band has also performed at the National Folk Festival in Canberra and at Redfern’s traditional Aboriginal housing estate ‘The Block’.