2 Songmen

It's no surprise that Shane Howard and Neil Murray would team up on the national '2 Songmen' tour. They have been long-time friends and fans of each other's songs. In fact, they've already chosen which of their songs they'd sing at each others' funerals.

So it's hard to believe things were sour before the two met.

Chuckles Murray, "The Warumpi Band came to Sydney to stir up some interest, just as Solid Rock became a hit in 1983. I was really miffed because no one was giving this Aborigine band from the bush a look in. I wrote a piece in a music magazine accusing Goanna of being jingoistic. Shane thought it a very unkind thing to say.

"We met two years later in Sydney through a mutual friend and buried the hatchet over a couple of beers. He told me he'd never expected Solid Rock to be a hit and that if the DJs had realised it was such a pro-blackfeller song, they'd never have played it."

Howard and Murray grew up in the picturesque Western District of Victoria, with a healthy love for nature and its original inhabitants. Both went into the desert and discovered themselves. Both were driven about their music, to the point they were away on the road for so long they became alienated for a time from their elder children.

Both are fiercely protective about their personal lives. But Howard's life was told in a recent episode of ABC-TV's 'Australian Story'. Murray wrote about his life in his 1993 'auto-fictionary' novel 'Sing For Me Countryman', which is now back in print after ten years.

Both Howard and Murray have come up with a great body of work, yet one of their songs each have been huge monsters. In Howard's case, Solid Rock remains one of the greatest sweet-sour statements about the Australian psyche. Earlier this year, he went back to Uluru at the request of TV's 'Today Show' and sang the song there for the first time, a very emotional moment, he admits.

Murray's My Island Home, which he wrote in the Warumpis and which later became a hit for Christine Anu, is regarded as an unofficial Australian national anthem.

Their connection with the First Australians is still as strong. Howard is involved in the local indigenous Tirerer Cultural Festival and produces many indigenous acts in his home studio.

Last March, Murray led a week-long symbolic trek tracing of the journey of the eels in Tjapwurrung country - from the mouth of western Victoria's Hopkins River to the shores of Lake Bolac. It was a way for blackfellas and whitefellas to connect with each other and the land, he says, and one of the greatest achievements of his life.

In August, Howard releases an album called 'Songs Of Love And Resistance', which is a folk music effort. As the title indicates, the songs range from tender moments about the people he loves, to straight-out political songs. One is called Lock Them Down Johnny.

Howard smiles, "It's no use being subtle any more."

The standout track is probably Rise Up, which remembers the Eureka Stockade in 1854. "It's about sedition and the importance of protest. We have every right in a democratic society to absolutely question our government. A lot of our civil rights are being eroded and we have to be vocal about it. It's always been the songwriters, poets, journalists and writers to do that."

After the tour with Murray, he goes to Broome to work with Jimmy Chi (of 'Bran New Dae'), returns to record indigenous musician Dave Arden, goes into Goanna-mode on the Countdown Spectacular, works on a project called Blackarm Band and in November will do a solo tour.

In September, Murray starts work on his next solo album.

The songs are "About the road, alienation, spirituality and the feeling of kinship with ancestors from walking on their land." He then heads to Nashville and Los Angeles to do gigs and some writing with American country names such as Guy Clarke and Darryll Scott.

Christie Eliezer

2 Songmen play at Fowler's Live on Sun 20 August.