The Complete List

The earliest known Australian recording, made by Dr Thomas Rome of a novelty song featuring imitations of a chook sung by J.J. Villiers, a Warrnambool businessman who had a display stand at the Warrnambool exhibition. He appeared in amateur theatrical presentations for many years acting as a performer, scenic painter and decorator as far back as 1872. This recording is known to have been made prior to 15th January 1897 at the Warrnambool Industrial and Art Exhibition on an Edison cylinder recorder.

(NFSA Title No. 452097)

The only recorded example of Tasmanian Aboriginal songs - and the only recorded example of Tasmanian Aboriginal language. Fanny Cochrane Smith was born on Flinders Island and married a sealer, William Smith. In late 1899 and 1903 she recorded for the Royal Society in Hobart all the Tasmanian songs that she knew. She recorded six cylinders in both English and the Tasmanian Aboriginal language.

NFSA Title No. 500445 (excerpt)

Nellie Melba's first commercial recording sessions for the Gramophone Co. in London, 20 October, 1904. The accompanist was Herman (sometimes Henri) Bemberg. Melba's success and popularity highlights the impact of the gramophone in bringing great music into the homes of ordinary people.

(Gramophone 'Melba' Record GC3575) (NFSA Title No. 301462)

A cylinder recording made in 1910 by Shackleton on his return from the Nimrod expedition to Antarctica. Shackleton and his companions made it to within 97 miles of the South Pole, travelling 1700 miles by foot and sled. This recording tells of the loss of some of the party's horses which was one of the reasons the group turned back before reaching the Pole. This was one of the expeditions documented in film and still photographs by Frank Hurley.

NFSA Title No. 562537

This includes what is probably the first recording of 'Advance Australia Fair' and is a fascinating concoction of a recording, probably made in London sometime after the Australians landed at Gallipoli. As a seminal recording of the song that was to become our national anthem, and also an early example of the use of sound recording for the dramatisation of historic events, this little known recording is a hidden gem in the NFSA's collection.

(Zonophone 3068) (NFSA Title No. 229760)

This piano roll was issued by the Duo-Art Company in May 1919 shortly after the music was published by Schott, London. For Percy Grainger (1882-1961), 'Country Gardens' was both the blight of his life - he loathed the work for its coarseness and huge public appeal - and his biggest hit, bringing in a considerable proportion of his income for the rest of his life.

Grainger's double-edged bounty was based on an English Morris dance-tune or “Handkerchief Dance” collected by Cecil J.Sharp and given to Percy sometime around 1908. This became the basis of a notated 'improvisation for solo piano', composed on 18 July 1918 as a birthday present for his mother Rose Grainger, but lovingly dedicated to the memory of Edvard Grieg.

These 'Aeolian' Duo-Art rolls (Aeolian catalogue number 6149) were made in real time by a perforator punching holes as Grainger played the piano. Dynamics were added simultaneously by a producer using two rotary controls. Grainger was one of the 'Aeolian' Company of New York's most popular artists: between 1920 and 1933, he cut 12 piano rolls for the company.

(NFSA Title No. 510950 (piano roll))

'Along the Road to Gundagai' was written by Jack O'Hagan in 1921 and recorded by Peter Dawson in 1931. O'Hagan was a major Australian songwriter between World War I and World War II and this recording of his most famous song recorded by the most popular Australian singer of the day remains instantly recognisable.

(HMV EA 889) (NFSA Title No. 332353)

Over 600 entries for Waltzing Matilda appear in the NFSA's catalogues, making this Australia's most recorded song. This is its first known recording, probably recorded by the Queensland-born tenor John Collinson in London in 1926. It was released on the Broadcast Deluxe Series label (W573) with My Old Home Town (Mildura) on the other side but sold very few copies. At the time, the recording industry barely existed in Australia and the few releases by Australian artists were recorded and manufactured overseas. The same recording was released on the UK label Vocalion (X 10021) in 1927 with The Maori Flute on the flip side.

(NFSA Title No. 283469 (1926), 322708 (1927), 283470 (mp3)

This recording contains the voices of Don Bradman, Bill Woodfull, Clarrie Grimmett, Alan Kippax, Stan McCabe and Tom Wall. If they sound a mite cocky, they can be forgiven: they were recorded in London just before their triumphant return to Australia following Australia's draw with England in the 33rd cricket Test series in June-August 1930. The 21-year-old Bradman returned home a hero, having notched up record batting scores at Lord's and in Leeds. Recording the voices of famous people, such as the touring Kangaroos cricket team and the transoceanic pilots of the day such as (Sir) Charles Kingsford-Smith and Bert Hinkler was quite common at this time. The recording is introduced by an anonymous 'Australian girl' working in London at the time.

(NFSA Title No. 266765 (mp3))

Produced by and starring George Edwards, pioneer of Australian radio drama, based on the characters created by Steele Rudd. It dramatised the trials of Dad, Mum, their son Dave and their family and neighbours in outback Snake Gully. It was estimated 90 per cent of the population listened to Dad and Dave. 2276 fifteen-minute episodes were recorded and broadcast throughout Australia and New Zealand between 1937 and 1953 and have been repeated many times over the years.

NFSA Title No. 737158 - Dad and Dave Ep 1 and 677627 Theatre of the Mind

The words of the Aeroplane Jelly jingle were written by Albert Francis Lenertz (aka 'Frank Leonard of Marrickville', 1891-1943), a wholesale grocery and wines-and-spirits merchant in Sydney, who was co-partner in a company which manufactured and marketed the 'Aeroplane' brand of jellies and other products. Initially, Leonard/Lenertz's tune was a tribute to War-time Prime Minister 'Billy' Hughes - try singing lines like “Folk in the city and folk on the plain/ Billy's great deeds for our land can acclaim” to the famous tune! - but the song failed to stir the patriotism of the populace, so its author put it to the service of advertising, re-working its lyrics in 1930.

That same year, it was first recorded by Amy Rochelle, a music hall entertainer who did child imitations, but the best known recording was made in 1938 by the seven-year-old Joy King (later Joy Wigglesworth). She was chosen as the result of a state-wide competition and her version was broadcast for many years as part of a very effective advertising campaign for the jelly crystals, a song which has remained one of Australia's most endearing 'sing-along' favourites over the decades.

(NFSA Title No. 402848 & 281850)

Two songs from Buddy Williams' first recording session on 7 September, 1939. Williams was the first Australian-born country singer to write and record songs with a distinctive Australian flavour. Commencing his recording career at age 21 with the Regal Zonophone Co. Buddy continued to make records until shortly before his death in 1986. Australia has taken country music to its heart, and the Australian flavour of our contemporary country music now belies its American origins.

(Regal Zonophone G 23855) (NFSA Title No. 190438)

Written in 1935, this work was recorded in 1943 by the Queens Hall Light Orchestra conducted by the composer, Englishman Charles Williams, who also wrote music for Alfred Hitchcock, the BBC and other British television organisations. An 18-second version was adopted as the theme music for the ABC News and first used on 1 January, 1952

Previously, it was deployed for Parliamentary broadcasts. The abbreviated Fanfare replaced a shortened version of 'Advance Australia Fair', penned by the Scotsman Peter Dodds McCormack in 1879. Shortening what was already regarded as a significant national song was regarded as somewhat sacrilegious, while shortening the apolitical 'Majestic Fanfare' was deemed less contentious.

(NFSA Title No. 37182)

Graeme Bell's Dixieland Band first published recording made in Melbourne in 1944. Graeme Bell has been a central figure in Australian jazz for over 60 years and these historic recordings mark his first commercially released tracks made three years before his ground-breaking tours to Europe in the late 40s.

(Ampersand 2) (NFSA Title No. 232811)

There are few pieces of music in Australia as instantly recognisable as Ronald Hamner's Pastorale - the theme music to ABC radio's serial Blue Hills, by Gwen Meredith, which ran for 5,795 episodes from 1949 to 1976. Best known for his light orchestral and brass band compositions, Ronald Hamner (1917-1996) was an English composer who emigrated to Australia in 1975. The original recording of his Pastorale was made by the New Century Orchestra, conducted by Sidney Torch, and was released on a 10” 78rpm disc (FDH023) by the mood-music company Francis Day and Hunter. The ABC subsequently processed recordings of the theme dubbed from the original. More recently, it has been appearing in 'popular classics' concerts by the Australian symphony orchestras.

(NFSA Title No. 503205)

Harold Blair was the first Aboriginal Australian to achieve recognition as a classical singer. This recording is one of two unreleased songs on a lacquer disc donated to the NFSA by Dorothy Blair (Harold's widow). It is perhaps an early version of a five-song EP Blair recorded in 1950. This contains notated versions of five traditional 'Australian Aboriginal Songs: Melodies, Rhythms and Words Truly and Authentically Aboriginal'.

They were arranged for voices and keyboard by the itinerant British composer Arthur Steadman Loam (1898-1976), who was introduced to these songs by Dr H.O. Lethbridge, whose family owned the Maranoa Station in Queensland. The melody figures prominently in the music of Peter Sculthorpe, notably in the Canticle section of his 2004 choral "Requiem".

(NFSA Title No. 245797)

First major orchestral work by an Australian composer on a recognisable Australian subject to achieve national and international recognition. Meticulously planned by composer John Antill and loosely based on the Australian Aboriginal song-dance ceremony, a 16-minute suite from the 45-minute ballet score of 'Corroboree' was first performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Eugene Goossens in August 1946.

Goossens subsequently performed it with several international orchestras and recorded an expanded 'Suite' with the SSO in December 1950 (a recording recently re-released on the occasion of the SSO's 75th anniversary). As a fully staged ballet, the world premiere was given in Sydney in July 1950, and revived again for the Royal Tour of 1954. Two further recordings with the SSO exist Antill's own (HMV OASD 7554,1967) and the full ballet score conducted by John Lanchberry (HMV OASD 7603,1977).

(HMV ED1193-4) (NFSA Title No. 297286)

The recording of Jack Luscombe was the formative item in the John Meredith Folklore Collection housed with the National Library of Australia. The collection by pioneering oral and folk historian John Meredith (1920-2001) is the most important of its kind in Australia. This recording contains three 'folk' songs that include mention of unionism, shearing and the Kelly gang.

As with many of the songs in this collection, they were learnt in the aural/oral tradition and would have been lost had Meredith not recorded them. The ubiquitous 'Ryebuck (or Ribuck) Shearer' is one of the songs preserved. Born around 1873, Luscombe was also involved in the Shearers' Strike of 1891, which gave birth to organised unionism and the Australian Labor Party. On this recording, he provides one of the very few oral history recollections of that seminal event.

(NFSA Title No. 737269. John Meredith Collection, National Library of Australia TRC4)

The first available LP recording of traditional Aboriginal music, released by the well known Ethnic Folkways label in America from recordings made by AP Elkin. While the music is of ongoing musicological interest, little regard was given at the time to cultural sensitivities regarding ownership and who has the rights to listen to this music. The Archive now consults with the traditional owners to obtain clearance to make it publicly available.

(Folkways FE4439) (NFSA Title No. 242999)

This is perhaps Slim Dusty's best known song and one that created several milestones in Australian recordings. It was the fledgling music industry's first Gold Record awarded to an Australian performer and the biggest selling Australian record to that time. Released on a single 78rpm side at a time when that format was rapidly disappearing, this recording effectively marks the end of the 78rpm era in the Australian music industry.

The song was written by Slim's mate Gordon Parsons, and probably based on a poem written in North Queensland by Dan Sheahan in 1943. Sheahan was an Irish cane-cutter who visited the Day Dawn Hotel in Ingham for a beer, only to be told the place had been drunk dry the previous night by a group of American servicemen. Sheahan's poem was published in the 'NQ Register' the following year as 'A Pub Without Beer' and Parsons read it a short while later.

(NFSA Title No. 190647)

Courtesy of EMI Music Australia

The first Number 1 hit for Australia's first big pop star, Johnny O'Keefe. His success as a home grown rock'n'roll star owed much to the American connections he enjoyed through his association with concert promoter Lee Gordon. American Scotty Turner (aka Graham Turnbull), one of the song's co-writers, played the newly written song to O'Keefe while on tour of Australia, and O'Keefe recorded the song in the USA in 1959 with Barney Kessell playing rhythm guitar.

(Leedon/Lee Gordon LS 582) (NFSA Title No. 291386)

The Easybeats' 'Friday On My Mind' was the first international pop hit by an Australian band, and a landmark in the distinguished career of songwriting team Harry Vanda and George Young. With a distinctive guitar arrangement, universally appealing lyrics, and a high standard of production, 'Friday On My Mind' exemplifies the qualities of a classic pop song. With members from England, Scotland and the Netherlands, the Easybeats demonstrate the importance of post-war immigration in Australian popular music.

(Parlophone A8234) (NFSA Title No. 258900)

Irkanda IV is the first major work by Australia's leading composer Peter Sculthorpe (b. 1929) to be commercially recorded and to reach a national and international audience. The fourth in a series of works sharing the title Irkanda (which the composer explains as "a remote and lonely place"), it is scored for solo violin, string orchestra and percussion. It was written as a memorial to the composer's father, Joshua Sculthorpe, who died in 1961 while the composer was studying at Oxford. It is the first work to present to a wide audience Sculthorpe's views on the deployment of Indigenous materials as a means of endowing Australian music with a recognizable Australian identity. It has been recorded at least seven times and is the subject of a forthcoming book by Fiona Richard, to be published in the UK in 2009, marking the composer's 80th birthday.

(NFSA Title No. 332275)

Courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Harold J Pollock was a well known film maker and nature photographer in Australia during the 50s and 60s. The NFSA holds numerous Pollock films of Australia fauna as well as this 7” EP which came in a 24 page book with detailed information and photographs of each bird and animal. This recording is just part of the NFSA's extensive holdings of Australian nature sounds, but one of only a few to be commercially released.

(Jacaranda Press)

(NFSA Title No. 255276)

Billy Thorpe (29 March 1946 - 28 February 2008) was a major pop star in the mid 60s, but reinvented himself a few years later by embracing a more hard-edged British blues/rock style. Most People I Know (Think That I'm Crazy) became what Thorpe called his 'personal anthem', reaching no. 2 on the national charts. This recording of Thorpie's live performance at the 1972 Sunbury Festival in Victoria captures one of the most powerful moments in Australian music.

(NFSA Title No. 322350)

Gough Whitlam's 'Kerr's cur' speech on the steps of Parliament House on 11 November, 1975

This was recorded on the steps of Parliament House on 11 November, 1975. The events of this day are significant enough in themselves, but it is Whitlam's rhetorical brilliance, dramatic flair and outraged passion that set this recording apart from the many other important political and historic speeches and announcements preserved as sound recordings.

Press photographs of the moment show at least seven microphones recording Sir David Smith and Gough Whitlam, so it is just about impossible to know exactly where this recording actually came from.

NFSA Title No. 500445 (excerpt)

This song has been cited in The Rough Guide to Punk as “One of the iconic singles of the era” and predated most of the English punk recordings. Written by guitarist Ed Kuepper and vocalist Chris Bailey, the track was originally released on the band's own Fatal Records label, with an initial pressing of 500 copies and on the strength of this first release the band were signed to EMI Records. In 2001, it was voted among the Top 30 Australian Songs of all time by APRA.

(NFSA Title No. 322350)

Men At Work's song has become an Australian icon recognised internationally, described in Wikipedia as an “unofficial national anthem”. While popular as a nationalistic sing-along Men at Work front-man Colin Hay describes the lyric as being “about the selling of Australia” (the chorus ironically refers to a land where “men plunder”). The record was a number one single in Australia, the UK and the USA, making Men At Work one of only five artists to achieve simultaneous number one chart success in both Britain and America.

(CBS BA 222891) (NFSA Title No. 337398)

Aboriginal rock-reggae band No Fixed Address came together at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies (CASM) in Adelaide in 1978. Composed by Bart Willoughby, 'We Have Survived' appeared initially on the sound track album for the award winning film 'Wrong Side of the Road'. In 1982 the track appeared on the EP 'From My Eyes'. This composition is viewed by many as an anthem of the Aboriginal land rights movement in the 1980s and since that time it has grown in significance as an iconic Aboriginal protest song.

Bart went on to become the first Aboriginal musician to score a feature film and the first to sign a record deal. He was also leader of the first overseas tour by an Aboriginal rock band. Currently the anthem features in the Murundak performance and recording by The Black Arm Band, a 'super-band' of Indigenous and politically attuned Australian musicians

(NFSA Title No. 210397)

The first pop release in Indigenous language. The Warumpi Band formed in the early 1980s in the Aboriginal settlement of Papunya in the central desert region of the Northern Territory, 260km west of Alice Springs. The band's name derives from the honey-ant dreaming site located near the settlement. Original founding members included Sammy and Gordon Butcher, and Neil Murray assisted by other young men in the community.

The Warrumpi Band’s unique sound was developed as they toured the Northern Territory and Kimberley region, wirting much of their material on the road as they travelled betwen communities, outback stations and isolated township. The Warumpi Band wrote, recorded and released the first rock song in an Aboriginal language "Jailanguru Pakarnu" ("Out from Jail") in 1983. The B-side was "Kintorelakutu" ("Towards Kintore").

(Hot Records HOT703)(NFSA Title No. 244115)