Barry McDonald
Barry McDonald, collected some of the Australian tunes in this archive.
Barry recorded a number of folklore performances and oral history interviews between 1981 and 1989 that form the (Barry) McDonald Collection, housed in the National Library of Australia. The interviews were recorded throughout the New England region. The collection consists of 121 records.
- Barry McDonald folklore collection, 1970-1989 [1], Consists of 121 records
- Barry McDonald folklore collection, 1993-1994 [2], Consists of 1 record, "Includes recordings with May Lowe, Bundy Bush Band, Les Betts, Enid and Keith Behrend, Carmen and Geoffrey Blomfield."
- Barry McDonald folklore collection, 1996-1997 [3], Consists of 5 records
- Barry McDonald interviewed by Edgar Waters in September 1992, [4], McDonald speaks of his interest in folklore in the New England Region after moving there from Sydney at age 21, how his interest in music had been fostered by his family as his mother was very musical and he had played contemporary music with his sister as a child, how he undertook history and economic history particularly at University of New England which encourage d a study of history from the grassroots using techniques such as oral history, how he had lived next to Russell Ward who assisted him in his early endeavours, how he had obtained his first collection of local folk songs, how he had met Chris Sullivan and Mark Rummery at the local folk club operating in Armidale since 1979, how he started collecting with a tape recorder after assisting them to record Charlie Batchelor, how he was introduced to Jim Lowe of Guyra,
Barry McDonald (b. 1955) grew up in Sydney and moved to Armidale in 1976. He studied history at the University of New England and acquired a strong interest in local history, oral history and folklore. He lived next door to Professor Russel Ward, who had pioneered the collecting of folklore and bush ballads in Australia. In the 1980s he was a schoolteacher in Armidale and later in Queanbeyan. He was a keen musician, playing the violin in the Armidale Folk Club and other groups. He got to know the collectors Chris Sullivan and Mark Rummery and this led him in 1983 to undertake a large number of recordings of folk music and oral history in the New England region. In more recent years he has written a number of academic papers on traditional Australian music.
