Interview Transcript from Illawarra Stories Wollongong City Libraries Oral History Project – Leo Coleman
Interviewer: Jennifer Macey
Interview date: Unknown
Jennifer: So, can you say your name, and if you like, how old you are and where you’re from? And yeah, how long you’ve been coming to the Folk Festival?
Leo: Well, my, my name is Leo Coleman. I’m 76 years old, and I live at Parramatta. I mean, I first went to the Jamberoo Folk Festival about in 1988 and since then I’ve haven’t, I’ve only missed a few, and I’ve been coming to, ah, to Bulli over the last, I think almost 20 years. But I know I missed one, I missed one at the beginning, the first year that you had it here, I, I didn’t come to the Bulli Festival in the first year it was here.
Jennifer: And so why do you come?
Leo: I come because I, I love folk music, I’ve got to, ah, got to notice and love folk music in the 1980s. And, ah, then I, I actually… a couple of teachers who went to the Jamberoo folk music, they, they told me about it and I started going there in the 1980s.
Jennifer: And always just as a, an audience, as a participant, or, like, have you ever – do you play music?
Leo: No, no, I’ve – only a participant, yes. and spectator
Jennifer: Yeah. And what specifically is it about the music that you like?
Leo: Well, first of all, I’d say to anybody, I just love the tunes that folk music has. Just the whole variety of the, of the tunes, they, they fascinate me. I, I love them. And, um, then, then there’s the singing of, ah, singing about all the sorts of social problems and the social history, particularly of, of the working class, of the workers and social problems down through the years. And particularly say, straight away when I heard Woody Guthrie, I was very, very, ah, very sort of taken straightaway by Woody Guthrie and, and his songs like that about, about working class and working problems and whatever.
Jennifer: Yeah. Um, so I guess the, the storytelling element as well for you…?
Leo: Storytelling element, of course, yes, but, er, the main thing I find is even just the, even just the rhythms and sort of the, the roar and just, er, about the problems that people have or even the experiences of life. For instance, I’ve just been reading something there about John Henry, you know, and you have that song about John Henry being a steel-driving man and how hard that life was, and how, he, of course, he had to battle the machine and the machine killed him, he killed himself sort of battling the machine. Well, that sort of personal involvement in history, I think, is one of the great things about the folk, about a folk song.
Jennifer: I guess the folk tradition then sort of connects the music to everyday people’s lives rather than being something sort of you know, untouchable.
Leo: I think that what it does do it gets down to the sort of reality of life. The hard, the hard real things that have affected people. And if you, you take say the popular pop song, it tends to be a bit dreamy and a bit romantic, er, unreal about life. Well, the folk songs, particularly, are very much about the hard struggles of, of life. And partic… you can see that in a lot of the Australian, the Australian songs, say about squatting and about the, even some of the problems of, um, even that women had in the pioneering days. And, and, um, I know there’s, there’s a song about – I can’t remember the details – about losing the selection and being, having to, er, having to get on the selection because you couldn’t survive on the selection. That sort of song about the real struggle, and reality of, of life.
Jennifer: And what is it particularly about this festival that keeps you coming back? Do you go to other festivals, or is it just the Illawarra Folk Festival?
Leo: Well, I come here for one reason, for it’s very convenient and it’s on at a very, very good time of the year, that is right in the middle of January and, ah, and I’m completely free then. And I’ve got three or four days to just come down and stay here for and not worry about anything else. That’s why I come here. And also, it’s just even the themes and even the nature of what I was saying about the songs and they, this this festival really concentrates on the, those, those tough, gritty, ah, folk songs. And I, I do go to other festivals. I go to St Albans regularly, in about, at the end of April and, er, I go to, ah, like Kiama Folk. I’ve been going down there for the last two or three years.
Jennifer: Do you think though there is that more of that connection to those gritty themes that you say because of where the Illawarra is situated? I guess because of its, you know, history with the steelworks and the coal mines and so forth?
Leo: Yes, I, I thought a bit about that. I am an Australian history teacher and I realised that one of the things that why the, the Illawarra has been able to produce and even back and support so much of this sort of folk music, that it does have that working background and there’s a lot, a lot has grown out of that I think, yes.
Jennifer: Um, is there anything that I’ve missed? What else would you like to add? I mean, do you meet up with old friends, like the familiar faces?
Leo: No, I don’t meet up with old friends here or familiar faces. What happened, the people I, I used to meet at Jamberoo, er, I found don’t come down here. The, they live in the Southern Highlands and they, they don’t seem to come down here to, er, to Bulli.
Jennifer: That’s a shame.
Leo: Yeah, I, I actually keep looking for them and for a while I, I was looking for them, and wondering why they, why they didn’t turn up, but they haven’t actually. You know, In 20 years they haven’t turned up, but yeah.
Jennifer: Any highlights for you? Like any musicians, any…?
Leo: I always forget the highlights after a while. For instance, Eric Bogle is here this year, yes, he’s, he has been a great highlight to even see him. Oh, yes, my favourite singer was John Broomhall, John Broomhall from, from Broken Hill. From the first time I saw him, I thought he had one of the best voices I’ve ever heard in my life – anybody in the world. Nobody sang better than John Broomhall. He was, he had a brilliant, wonderful sounding voice. Also, I came from Central Western NSW, from a town called Manildra in the middle of New South Wales and, and the trains always used to go through our place to Broken Hill. And, ah, so when I heard that – I heard a lot about growing up, I heard a lot about the mines of Broken Hill and all that sort of thing. And then I discovered John Broomhall and John had all those songs about, ah, about the Broken Hill and the country around it. And I, and, ah, I’ve, ah, I’ve bought every CD that, that he has got and, ah one of his songs, [?] and one of his songs, called the Silver City Comet was a song about leaving Sydney on the train and travelling all the way through my hometown, Manildra, and to Broken Hill. And the Silver City Comet was a diesel powered rail car that ran from Parkes to Broken Hill for about 30 or 40 years, even longer maybe. And so I knew it, I knew it intimately, I knew everything about it. And actually, one of my brothers in Parkes worked on that Silver City Comet. And so I, I was taken by this, by this song of John’s and I, and I spoke to him about it. And I said, “I love that song, you know, it’s really part of my life.” And he really enjoyed me telling him about that. It was a, yes, I love John Broomhall, he was great.
Jennifer: He’s my uncle-in-law!
Leo: And last year I asked where he was. And, er, and they told me that he had gone, he’s gone away somewhere. Gone up north, somewhere around the Gold Coast or something.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Leo: Yeah.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Leo: Right, well, I noticed in the last few years since he had some health problems, his voice got, er, got, you know, faded away, wasn’t, wasn’t as good, and I, so I suppose he just felt like, er, did he feel like giving it away?
Jennifer: Anyway, shall I say thank you? Was there anything else that you’d like to add?
Leo: Jamberoo itself – I think the, the, ah, location at Jamberoo was just, just had a bit of magic about it, and even though, sort of, you know, for any number of reasons, where the festival has coming down to Bulli, I still, I still think the Jamberoo would be a great place for some sort of folk festival.
Jennifer: Thank you very much for your time.
Leo: Yes, great, yeah.