Cultured Views

One grim, rainy Saturday in 1973 dad asked me if I would like to go with him into Sydney to watch him record a track with his mate, the Australian country music legend, Tex Morton. Tex was putting the finishing touches to a single he was recording as a tribute to the famous race horse, Melbourne Cup winner Gunsynd, otherwise known as The Goondiwindi Grey.

Being eleven years old and having nothing else to do I thought I may as well. I didn’t realise as we walked into the old EMI Studios in Sydney later that afternoon that I would be witnessing a small piece of Australian recording history. To me it was just another gig dad was doing and to be honest, as I watched dad playing the riff over and over again for the recording engineers – as is usual when recording – I soon found the experience to be rather boring. There was nothing for me to do except sit and listen and those old studios back then were rather dingy. It took all afternoon and into the evening before Tex was happy with the song, he worked on what was to be the ‘B’ side of the single and then it was all wrapped and we went home.

That single went to number one in the charts.

I had the original single picture vinyl record until I misplaced it when we moved house a few years back and thought I had lost this precious relic of my father’s work until I found it on YouTube recently. So, and indeed especially for my children – dads grandchildren – who never got to hear what a wonderful musician their Pop was, here is that song. It is nothing ground breaking to anyone else, but to me it is a dear memory of old Tex, my childhood, my dad and his ‘fiddle’…

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