Alan Scott

Alan Scott made a number of field recordings that form the (Alan) Scott Collection, housed in the National Library of Australia in Canberra. It includes recordings of folk music, dance music, folklore and oral history from New South Wales and Queensland recorded during the period 1955-1990. It was used to provide details for some of the tunes in this archive.

Alan Scott (1930–1995) was born in Caboolture, Queensland, the son of a railway worker. The family moved to Brisbane in 1935. He attended the Industrial High School in Brisbane and was later apprenticed as an electrical plater. He became interested in Scottish and American folk songs as a schoolboy and after joining the Eureka Youth League he began collecting and singing radical and union songs. His interest in Australian folk songs began through his friendship with Ron Edwards and John Manifold and developed after he saw a performance of the play Reedy River. He moved to Sydney in 1954 and for many years worked at the Redfern Mail Exchange. Scott was an accomplished musician, playing the concertina, tin whistle, recorder and mouth organ and was a fine singer. He joined the Bushwhackers Band soon after his arrival in Sydney and was a foundation member of the Sydney Bush Music Club. He assisted John Meredith with some of his early field recordings and in 1955 he acquired a tape recorder and began recording bush songs and bush dance music.

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