John Meredith
John Meredith AM (1920-2001), from Holbrook, NSW, spent half a lifetime travelling the bush with his tape recorder, and his vast collection of tapes, containing some 5000 items, is housed in the John Meredith Collection in National Library in Canberra, and was the source of details for a significant number of the tunes in this archive. He was a founding member of the Australia's first revivalist bush band The Bushwhackers, was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1986 for service to Australian folklore and music, and became a Member of the Order of Australia in 1992 for service to the Arts, particularly in the collection and preservation of Australian folklore.
John Meredith's contributions to the fields of Australian folklore and folk heritage are substantial and even defining. Meredith's extensive interviews, which are lodged with the National Library of Australia, provide an invaluable resource. However, it is challenging to comprehensively document and honour all of Meredith's work. A search for John Meredith in the Library Catalogue will yield a multitude of references. However, some of this work was published in the well regarded volumes:
- J Meredith, H Anderson, Folk Songs of Australia Vol 1, UNSW Press, 1967
- J Meredith, R Covell, & P Brown, Folk Songs of Australia Vol 2, UNSW Press, 1987
- J Meredith, "King of the dance hall : the story of fifty years of ballroom music with Frank Bourke and the White Rose Orchestra", Kangaroo Press, 1986
- K McKenry, "More than a life: John Meredith and the Fight for Australian Tradition", Dural, NSW, Rosenberg, 2014: A biography
See the extensive article and obituary for him at Australian Folk Songs - John Meredith, AM.
Or have a look at his Wikipedia page.
John Meredith interviewed by Phillip Ashton [1]
