The Australian blues scene has grown enormously over the last decade, in terms of both quantity and quality. Of all the local blues CD's to hit the shops the year, there has been none
better than Marooned (Blues Club Records) by Marco Goldsmith's Blue Heat, a seven-piece band based in Warrnambool, on the west coast of Victoria.
Blue Heat has been around for a few years now, having won fans at events like the Ballarat Blues Festival, the East Coast Blues festival (1993) and the Melbourne Blues Festival ('91 - '93) a 4 - piece edition of the band contributed a strong track to the
important compilation CD, Real Australian Blues, in 1992.
Even so Marooned was a revelation as was a gig I caught at the Central Club Hotel in Melbourne, which formally launched the album. Goldsmith stood out as a truly special talent, an authoritative and inventive guitarist and a convincing singer. Tenor pla
yer Brad Harrison and keyboardist Richard Tankard were also strong soloists; and the band as a whole had a tight, hard hitting, irresistibly energetic sound.
Not bad for a band from the bush? These guys were right up there with the best that the Sydney and Melbourne blues scene can offer. Hell, they would carve more than a few acts who have toured here from the States! So, who are these guys, and how did th
ey learn to play like that down at Warrnambool?
Marco Goldsmith was born in 1959, in Port Fairy, a fishing village not too far from Warrnambool. He recalls starting out as a harmonica player, doing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee songs with a mate who played guitar.
"In fact", he laughs, "I still can't live that down; whenever we play a gig at home, there's someone calling out, 'Play some harmonica, Marco!'"
After about six months, Marco decided that he wanted to play guitar.
Among the early influences he cites are B.B. King, Freddie King, Johnnny Winter, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. He taught himself to play guitar, he says, more by absorption than by study: "I've always been musically lazy. I've never been a devotee of th
e guitar as an instrument, from the point of view of sitting down and working out scales and licks.
"It was more from listening. We'd be jamming and I'd hear something in my head and eventually, I'd get it. But I've never been into studying it. Just as if I've got an itch, I scratch it; if not, I can't be bothered."
As for his singing, he says, " I don't go for overly gymnastic style singers. I like guys like Gatemouth Brown: it's simple, but it's got a lot of character to it. Or Albert Collins: it's just lazy blues style, but I like it."
Marco makes a point of acknowledging that his music has also been influenced by Australian blues acts such Dutch Tilders, Chain and the Foreday Riders.
Blue Heat was born in 1991, when promoter Helen Jennings offered Marco a gig at the Ballarat Blues Festival. Marco had to put a band together, so he approached Barry Galbraith, a drummer whom he had worked with some years earlier. He wanted to bring alo
ng his brother, Graeme, who played bass. "We got together, and just clicked from the word go," Marco remembers.
Initially the band worked as a trio, playing alot of Stevie Ray Vaughan material. Brad Harrison who had been in The Mudcats, sat in occasionally, and soon became a permanent member. In 1993, they recruited another two horns (Paul Lemke on trombone and n
ow Matthew Trenery on trumpet), and last year added Richard Tankard on piano and organ.
"We decided that our material was suited to a bigger fatter sound," Marco explains. "When the horns came in, I could lighten up my guitar sound, become a bit more swingy and jazzy. It was better for me, more interesting, I could do some stinging stuff i
f I wanted to, or I could go into the Ronnie EarlDuke Robilliard kind of stuff - you know, smoother-flowing lines. I t also gave me a nice relief for my singing, not having to go flat-chat on guitar all the time.
"And once the guys in the horn section got their parts sorted out, they started to play the odd solo, which adds another dimension to the band. It's not just the bigger sound; their personalities are coming into it now, through their soloing. The same w
ith Richard."
"It's much more creative and diversified. We've found we can bounce off each other, and that's what make a band. There's gotta be a vibe there, that's what gets the audience happening, and it goes full circle. But everyone in the band has to contribute
to that vibe, or the circle breaks down."
Blue Heat's repertoire is 80 percent original now. He writes the lyrics, then brings his ideas to the band for everyone to make an input. "More often than not, I"ll have some idea of how I want the tune to sound, but it's open slather then. Richard wil
l have an idea for the bridge, Brad will have something for the section to do, and Barry contributes alot to the contstruction of the songs - how long the different section should go for, or what feels comfortable."
Marooned shows that Marco has a real talent for writing songs that remain true tot he blues tradition, but sound fresh and contemporary in their imagery. "I really learned to write about six years ago, when I was working in a factory: It was really noisy
, you had to wear earmuffs all day, and I could drift off sometimes, and when I got the chance to scribble down a few lyrics or some other ideas, I would."
"I had alot of shit draw from in my life at the time. I found it immensely frustrating, working in that factory, but I had a family to look after, you know? Plus I was trying to get a band happening, and things weren't working out too well.
"It's all been done before," he points out. "It's just a matter of how you string it together. The feeling and truth, in the blues is what makes it something that people can relate it to."
Marco eventually quit the factory job ("I would have gone crazy," he says) to take a shot at making a living from his music. He admits that it's a struggle, the band doesn't get paid much for local gigs, and while they are making an impression in Melbour
ne, he says that getting a gig in Sydney is "like trying to crack a safe at Fort Knox". But, he says, the band has been encouraged by the number or rave reviews the CD has scored, and has every intention of hanging in there until things start running the
ir way. Encouraged by Dave Hole's international success, he even harbours hopes that the band might be able to make overseas. "What's happened for Dave has been more than deserved. But there are some other great Australian artists who deserve that too.
I'm not trying t say I fall into that category: but it does seem doors can be opened, if you just get a lucky run. I'm sure that Dave's profile will help other people from Australia to at least get a hearing.