Aussie Bloggers

When hard rock legends AC/DC bring their 43-semi-trailer extravaganza across Australia in March 2010, it’s been estimated that 2.3% or one in 40 Australians will see them play. In some cities, tickets sold out in minutes and extra shows were added – only to have them sell out also.

Two shows sold out in record time in Perth, perhaps because of my city’s special tie to former AC/DC lead singer, Bon Scott. Bon moved to Perth from England as a young child and lived much of his life here. After his untimely death in 1980, he was buried in Fremantle Cemetery. His grave site is now a must-visit location for thousands of AC/DC fans each year.

In 2007, a group calling themselves Aussie Rock Concerts put on a benefit concert to raise money to commission a statue of the singer. The Angels Band, Rose Tattoo, The Party Boys (comprised of many highly regarded Australian musicians including former members of AC/DC and Status Quo), The Screaming Jets, Dave Warner and others entertained a crowd numbering in the thousands at Perth’s Claremont Showgrounds on February 25, 2007. The Bon Scott Celebration Concert raised more than enough money for the statue, with the excess going to Support Act Ltd, a charity supporting musicians in need.

The statue was unveiled at another concert at Claremont Showgrounds a year later, in February 2008. The statue was later moved to its permanent home in Fremantle’s Fishing Boat Harbour.

In 2008, an exhibition of Bon Scott’s letters, photographs and paintings inspired by the man were presented at Fremantle Arts Centre for the Bon Scott Project.

Sadly I’m too young to have ever seen Bon Scott perform, but here’s my favourite video:

Did you ever get to see him live? What’s your favourite Bon Scott story?

Have you heard of Eileen Joyce? Any bells ringing for you? I can guarantee that most Australians have never heard the name or one of this country’s most famous pianists of all times. How can her memory just have faded away? She only died in 1991 yet her passing went almost unnoticed in Australia.

Eileen Joyce was born in a tent in the mining town of Zeehan, Tasmania in 1912. Her family were poor as her father struggled to find labouring work. They moved to Western Australia when Eileen was only 2. She began piano lessons at the local convent and displayed such talent that she was later encouraged to study piano at the University of Western Australia. She was discovered by famous musician Percy Grainger and, with the financial support of her community, was sent to Europe to study further.

In 1930 she made her professional debut as a concert pianist playing with the London Symphony Orchestra and by 1931 she had given her first professional solo performance. She had a remarkable career playing all throughout Europe. During the war she played concerts at hospitals and for all those affected by the blitz in London and became well known to the English public.

She was a beautiful woman with a sense of style. She was dressed by Norman Hartnell in his lovely designer gowns. She seems to have been quite a ‘driven’ woman, working constantly, and developing her own way of doing things. She had a reputation for changing her gowns often during a concert and they were all colour coded to match the composer. She wore blue for Beethoven, green for Chopin and so on.

She became famous across the world and was invited to record for the soundtrack of “Brief Encounter” that famous war time tear jerker. By 1953 her early life was turned into a movie called “Wherever She Goes” in which she played herself. She was subsequently offered a small role in other films such “Girl in a Million.”She retired in 1960 although she sometimes appeared at charity concerts. She died in 1991 in England.

“Once you stop playing,’ she had once said, ‘you are forgotten.’ That seems to be very true. While serious musicians speak of her exceptional abilities critics of the time seem to have been more dismissive. Instead they talk of her popularity with the common man and her love of fashion as though they were things that should cause her talent to be ignored. Australia, as a comparatively young country, does not have many world famous pianists to claim. Eileen Joyce spent much of her adult life overseas but she firmly clung to her Australian roots. She donated $37000 to the University of WA to support music students as she herself had been supported. Other than the scholarship, which she herself established, there is nothing left to remember her by in Australia other than a little memorial park in Zeehan.

Why not watch Brief Encounter and listen to the Rachmaninoff theme woven throughout the film?

Perhaps listen to the recording of her playing Debussy’s famous Clair de Lune. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQfYRCsevj8)

Then tell me that you can forget her.

More information about Eileen Joyce is available here: www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/IMP0060b.htm ; http://www.naxos.com/artistinfo/bio12585.htm : http://www.binaryblue.com.au/LPA/eileenjoyce2.html

Anne Maybus is the owner of Beauty Banquet and passionate blogger at The Tall Poppy.