There’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next batch of posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. And everything that is not that bloody virus is a plus. At the moment we can’t meet as a group, as we are in lockdown, so I have set out a version of songs that are in our repertoire but which have not yet been recorded. With any luck (and, as three of us are north of 70, we’ll need it!) we will be able to resume our normal practice of meeting weekly and playing tunes, singing songs and generally enjoying the crack.
Botany Bay, discovered on 29 April 1770 by Captain Cook, who first named it Stingray Bay, later Botanists’ (Harbour and Bay), and finally Botany Bay in his journal, probably to honour the botanists aboard HMS Endeavour led by Sir Joseph Banks as well as to mark its floral novelties. Banks later (1786) advocated Botany Bay as an ideal place for a penal colony on account of its supposed fertility. The first fleet under Captain Arthur Phillip landed there on 20 January 1788 and, finding Banks’s account much exaggerated, moved on to Port Jackson, landing there at Sydney Cove. Nevertheless, the name Botany Bay became synonymous with Australia… as a convict settlement. Botany Bay is also the site of Sydney’s (Kingsford-Smith) international airport. (source, Martyn Webb in encyclopedia.com)
The Gweagal Aborigines made first visual contact with Cook and other Europeans on the 29 April 1770 in the area which is now known as “Captain Cook’s Landing Place”,…It was the first attempt made, on Cook’s first voyage, in the Endeavour, to make contact with the Aboriginal people of Australia… In sailing into the bay they had noted two Gweagal men posted on the rocks, brandishing spears and fighting sticks…After an hour and a half, Cook…with 30 of the crew, made for the beach, only to be threatened by two warriors. They threw some gifts on shore, trying to get over the idea they had come to seek fresh water, but the Gweagal men reacted with hostile diffidence. Cook felt it necessary to encourage a change of attitude [!!] by shooting one of the men in the leg with light shot. … The sailors then proceeded to walk onto the beach and up to an encampment. Both Cook and Banks tried, with great difficulty, to make contact with the local people but without success due to the Aborigines avoiding contact after the first encounter. [Do you have to wonder why, really?] (source, Wikipedia)
[The song, The Shores of Botany Bay, was] collected from Duke Tritton by John Meredith. Tritton learned the song while busking in Sydney early this [20th] century. He also wrote the last verse. Second verse is from Therese Radic’s Songs of Australian Working Life. (source, folkstream.com)
Note: listen to Duke Tritton’s The Sandy Hollow Line, on A Bit of Banter: Banter X, song 110, a true classic of life in the Great Depression for Aussie battlers.
The French king, Louis XVI, who was inspired by Captain James Cook’s Pacific voyages…ordered the French expedition[ led by La Perouse ] to show the world that France could also dominate in ocean exploration…On 20 January 1788, the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay. The British believed they were completely isloated from any other European presence. Just four days later however, Philip Gidley King recorded in his journal: ‘…two Strange Ships were seen standing in the Bay … we judged them to be the two Ships under the orders of Monsieur de la perouse.’…La Perouse’s ships sailed out of Botany Bay in March 1788. The British lookout on South Head saw them leave. This was probably the last time the French expedition was seen by Europeans…It was not until 1964 that the wreck of La Boussole was finally discovered on Vanikoro’s reefs. At last the fate of La Perouse and his crew was known. (source, State Library of New South Wales)
The song has long been a favourite in Aussie bush music circles and Banter regularly features it with Sam the Man taking the vocals. This, though, is a lockdown special where I usurp Sam’s role, ably assisted by the Band-in-a-Box/RealBand combo featuring acoustic bass, Nashville drums, nylon guitar, fiddle, electric pickin’ and clean guitars as well as solo bluegrass mandolin and accordion. I have read somewhere that the song originated in 19th Century English music-hall. But what cares I when it has such up-beat energy- not all immigrant songs have to be doleful, after all.
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