Recorded live on the hallowed red stage of the Semaphore Workers Club, this episode explores the 21st annual Semaphore Music Festival with founder Debra Thorsen, club president Sally Mitchell, and local singing-songwriting legend Don Morrison, who reveals how guitars built from family memories became his signature sound.
The red stage of the Semaphore Workers Club provides the backdrop for conversations that capture the essence of community-driven music culture. Festival director Debra Thorsen explains how she’s become a “mother” to the music scene, connecting emerging artists with opportunities that change their careers. The festival spans multiple venues across Semaphore, creating what participants describe as a “love fest” where friendships form naturally over shared musical experiences.
With no SA Drink of the Week this episode, focus remains entirely on the music and community connections that define this seaside suburb’s cultural heartbeat. Although, “Green Death” does get a mention.
The extended Musical Pilgrimage becomes an intimate exploration of songwriting craft with Don Morrison, featuring two of his compositions alongside stories of guitar-making, touring with Midnight Oil and Bo Diddley, and the creative process behind songs that capture Grand Junction Road’s gritty poetry.
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Running Sheet: Semaphore Workers Strike Up The Music
00:00:00 Intro
Introduction
00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week
No SA Drink Of The Week this week.
00:04:24 Debra Thorsen, Don Morrison, Sally Mitchell
Our three guests take us deep into different parts of Semaphore’s musical DNA.
The Semaphore Music Festival
Debra Thorsen’s eyes light up when describing a recent moment that encapsulates her role in Adelaide’s music ecosystem. A young musician approached her at Don Morrison’s fundraising show, wrapping her in a grateful hug after she’d connected his duo with booking agent John Howell. That introduction led to their first interstate gig at the Echuca Moama Blues Festival. “He put his arms around me, gave me the biggest hug, and said, ‘we think of you like a mother,'” Thorsen recalls, her voice catching slightly at the memory.
This nurturing approach has shaped the Semaphore Music Festival‘s character over 21 years. Rather than simply booking acts, Thorsen cultivates relationships that extend far beyond single performances. The festival operates across multiple venues throughout Semaphore, creating what has been described as “the joy of going from one venue to the next with your friends and catching up with people along the way.”
Don Morrison, observing from his perspective behind the scenes, notes the festival’s uniqueness lies in its sprawling, community-integrated format. “We get to play all over Semaphore, you know, and Debra’s organising it and organising all these venues all over the place,” he explains, acknowledging the massive coordination effort required.
The Semaphore Workers Club
Sally Mitchell arrives mid-conversation, bringing with her the institutional memory of the Semaphore Workers Club‘s transformation from exclusive yacht squadron to community music hub. The venue’s journey mirrors broader social change, she explains, describing how a dying men’s club was revitalised by members who prioritised music and inclusion over tradition.
The club’s unique positioning becomes clear through Mitchell’s description of its diverse patronage. “We have people who travel here regularly from the likes of Mallala and Clare to come here for shows,” she notes, before adding the observation that captures the venue’s spirit: “People come from all walks of life, all political persuasions, all economic backgrounds, but they come here because of the music and the place that it is.”
This levelling effect extends to behaviour expectations. Steve then teases out a discussion about Geoff Goodfellow’s birthday party story, where “crooks, poets and federal court judges” mingled naturally, with a poet lighting her cigarette from a coal provided by a judge managing the barbecue. The poet’s comment, “isn’t it good to have friends in high and low places,” could serve as the club’s unofficial motto.
Musical Craft and Community Connection
Don Morrison’s relationship with songwriting emerges through discussion of the Semaphore Songs project, where local artists created works inspired by their experience of Semaphore and Port Adelaide. His contribution, “Semaphore Workers Club,” captures the venue’s character with lines like “they got cougars there by the dozen, some of them look like they might have killed their husband,” delivered with characteristic dry humour.
When pressed about his songwriting process, Morrison remains characteristically modest: “Once I’ve finished a song, I sort of look back and said, well, where does that come from? And I can’t think of it. It just flows out.” This intuitive approach extends to his guitar-making, where instruments crafted from the rubble of his father’s childhood home in Perponda and his grandmother’s cottage in Broken Hill became his primary performance guitars.
The conversation touches on broader questions about community participation in music-making. Morrison recalls the ukulele groups that flourished a decade ago, bringing together people who “had never played in a band before” but would “come along and they’d learn a song and then we’d all sing it together.” This grassroots musical participation contrasts with the professionalisation that can distance audiences from creative expression.
The October Long Weekend
Thorsen drops a significant announcement near the episode’s end: for the October long weekend festival, South Australian public transport will feature blues musicians in the front carriage of the 12:17 train from Adelaide to Glanville. This innovation, months in negotiation with the Department for Infrastructure and Transport, creates a musical journey that begins before festival-goers reach Semaphore.
The train connection resonates with both hosts’ memories of using public transport to access Semaphore’s music scene, creating a full-circle moment that links past and present community experiences.
00:48:02 Musical Pilgrimage
In the Musical Pilgrimate, we play two tracks by Don Morrison, Grand Junction Road, and Five Men In A Car.
Instruments Built from Memory
Don Morrison’s guitar-making extends far beyond craft into emotional archaeology. His most treasured instruments were constructed from materials salvaged from family homes, creating objects that carry both musical and personal history. “I didn’t really care nor expect that they would turn out to be very good guitars,” he admits, “because I just wanted to make something out of the memories.”
The irony that these memory-guitars became his primary performance instruments speaks to the intersection of sentiment and practicality in Morrison’s artistic life. With close to 500 guitars, 60 mandolins and 80 ukuleles crafted over his career, Morrison has built instruments that found their way across America, where the once-favourable exchange rate made his handmade resonator guitars accessible to blues musicians seeking alternatives to vintage Nationals.
Grand Junction Road’s Poetry
Morrison’s most-streamed song, “Grand Junction Road,” emerged from a Christmas Day observation that reveals his songwriter’s eye for finding universal themes in specific places. Walking home from family lunch, he encountered a sex worker operating on Christmas Day, which crystallised his understanding of the road’s character and the people whose lives intersect with its industrial landscape.
The song’s final verse connects personal history with broader social observation: “My father worked in a factory there just down from the prison, sometimes six days a week, but most often seven. And I wonder what he thought about all those years, he drove first thing every morning down Grand Junction Road.”
Family Music and the Raging Thirst
Morrison’s current project, Raging Thirst, brings together his sons Eddie and Jake in a configuration that demonstrates musical heredity. “They’re so good at their instruments that they wouldn’t be playing with me unless I was their dad,” Morrison jokes, characterising their involvement as “a charity move.”
The family dynamic reveals itself through natural musical communication. “We don’t even need to practice quite often,” Morrison explains, crediting their shared rhythmic sensibility to familial connection. His observation that “what they got from me was music is a human thing you can do” suggests an approach to musical education that prioritises accessibility over formal training.
Memphis Blues Challenge Ahead
Morrison’s upcoming representation of Adelaide at the Memphis International Blues Challenge places him on Beale Street alongside musicians from around the world. His preparation remains characteristically low-key, with set lists roughly planned but not overthought. The competition format includes various performance lengths, from 20-minute sets to half-hour showcases, requiring versatility in song selection and pacing.
His plan to potentially sell his handmade guitar in Memphis rather than transport it home reveals the practical mindset that underlies his artistic career, where sentiment and business considerations maintain careful balance.
Five Men in a Car
The episode concludes with Morrison’s reflection on his touring days with The Bogie, encapsulated in “Five Men in a Car.” The song captures the grinding reality of professional musicianship in the 1980s Australian circuit, where bands would “finish at the Mansfield room at four o’clock in the morning and then hop in the van to drive back down to Melbourne for a gig the next night.”
These experiences, detailed in Morrison’s autobiography “This Could Be Big: 45 Years at the Dag End of the Australian Music Industry,” provide context for understanding the difference between romantic notions of musical career and its often-unglamorous reality. Yet the song’s tone suggests fondness for those shared experiences, even when “not sure where we’re going” becomes both literal navigation and career metaphor.
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An AI generated transcript – there will be errors. Check quotes against the actual audio (if you would like to volunteer as an editor, let Steve know)
421-The Adelaide Show
Steve Davis: [00:00:00] Don, can I just get a volume,
Don Morrison: uh, check from you too? Yep. One, two, check, check, check. Hello? Hello, hello. One, two, Don. Do you know,
Steve Davis: you sound like Don Morrison in real life. Is that right? Hmm. Gee, that’s, that’s, uh, uplifting. It’s a cross between Sam Neil and Archie Roach. Same
Don Morrison: Neil, where do I know him from?
That’s right. King’s Cross in the Mansel room. That’s a
Debra Thorsen: famous actor, isn’t he? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Don Morrison: He used to come along way back anyway. And you met him in the men’s room, the Mansel room. It’s a Oh, okay. Place in King’s
Steve Davis: Cross. Yeah. Hello, Steve Davis here. Welcome to episode 421 of the Adelaide Show podcast all about SEMA four in particular, the SEMA four Workers Club, the SEMA four Music Festival, and local legend singer-songwriter Don Morrison.
What you’re about to hear was recorded live on that hallowed red [00:01:00] stage of the SEMA four Workers Club. We look at the SEMA four Music Festival, firstly with founder and festival director Debra Thorson. We then turn to the SE four Workers Club proper. We’re joined by Sally Mitchell, who’s the president, or El pte, uh, at the club.
To give us a little bit of the, the color and the background, the history. And then in the musical pilgrimage, it’s all Don Morrison all the time. Uh, plus Debra is still with us and chipping in and giving context from the SE four Music Festival perspective. It’s a beautiful meandering chat. Uh, we learned about how the Muse works with Don Morrison as he writes songs.
We learned about the, the community tendrils and the, the impacts that something like the Semaphore Music Festival has. And we just get that good, down, honest, sweaty, loving, [00:02:00] embracing sense of welcome that the Semaphore Workers Club provides. Stop press right towards the end. Um, Debra drops a bombshell.
They had just received permission that on this October long weekend, if you hear this in time, the 2025 October long weekend on the Saturday and the Sunday, if you catch a train from Adelaide out to c Glenville, there will be a blues performer in the front carriage to get you in the mood as you head towards the epicenter of all that is, you know, alt country, uh, roots, blues, et cetera.
Over the long weekend, I’ll be there and by taking in at least one of the events, and after today’s chat, probably two or three, I hope you, uh, take that offer up. So the 1217 train, yes, it’s run the way Mussolini would like it on time. Go along, have a train trip there [00:03:00] and you can walk. From venue to venue around the SE four Music Festival.
Enough from me. Let’s have a listen to the episode.
Theme: The Refugees Lady
Caitlin Davis: in the Spirit of Reconciliation. The Adelaide Show Podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout South Australia and their connections to land, sea, and community. We pay our respects to their elders past and [00:04:00] present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
That
Theme: lady Lady,
lady Lady.
Steve Davis: I’m here at the SE four Workers Club where Lenin’s portrait and bust, uh, still watch over the bar and the red stage has witnessed decades of musical rebellion. And with us today are the SE four Music Festival director, Debra Thorson, and one of Adelaide’s most enduring musical craftsmen, in fact, who is a big deal in Adelaide.
Uh, Don Morrison, Debra and Don, welcome to the Adelaide Show. Thank you. It’s a pleasure. Thanks for having us and we also might have a flying visit shortly from Sally Mitchell who is El [00:05:00] pte here at the uh, SE four Workers Club. But first things first, we are recording this almost on the eve of the SE four Music Festival, October long weekend, 2025 at the time of recording.
Before we dive into what’s coming though, what I’d like to do is something you said to me when we chatted last week, Debra, you said that sometimes you get referred to as like a mother. To the music scene and it’s not about booking acts or selling tickets, there’s something else going on there. What’s that?
’cause I think to me that’s the DNA of what we’re about to be exploring.
Debra Thorsen: Well, Don had a fundraising show here on Sunday at the SE four workers club and invited, um, his colleagues and family and friends to, to play, to raise money for him to get to Memphis for the Memphis Blues Challenge. And in the audience was, um, a young fellow called Arman, who plays in a duo [00:06:00] called with.
Um, another fellow called Lachlan and they had come through the Adelaide Roots and Blues, uh, youth program. Anyway, Armand came up to me and started saying, Debra, I wanna thank you so much for introducing us to John Howell, who’s a booking agent. John had rung me about an, we were talking about another act that was playing in the music festival, Kathleen Hallan.
Anyway, um, he said, oh, Nathan Cavalier is coming into town. We really need a support act. Can you recommend anyone? I said, yeah, Ahmond and Lachlan, they’ll be fabulous. And out of that, which. Nathan Cavalier was one of their heroes out of that, uh, they got a gig, their first interstate gig at the Echuca MoMA Blues Festival, and they were absolutely wrapped.
Well, he was telling me this story and he was really like, genuine, and he put his arms around me, gave me the biggest hug, and um, and said, we think of you like a mother. And I [00:07:00] went, oh, I nearly, I nearly wept when I was telling you that story before. I just, but honestly, no one else has ever said that unless they’re referring to another kind of mother.
Steve Davis: No, uh, no. That was the story. Although I had a note here. I don’t mention the mother story. Oh, sorry. Too late. But if you think about it, this is the 21st year, so you might might’ve even watched him go from nappies into a young man. I don’t know him that well, no. Okay. Uh, Don, do you concur? Is there something Debra brings?
That has that sort of spirit.
Don Morrison: Well, yeah. It’s, it’s the, uh, SE four music festival is unique and, um, we get to play all over se four, you know, and Debra’s organizing it and organizing all these venues all over the place, you know, and, um, must be a huge job just to get it all strung together and, uh, yes.
Yeah, it’s, it’s a unique
Steve Davis: thing. I’m [00:08:00] coming to the spread of venues in a moment, but it’s often referred to Donna as a love fest, this musical festival. Oh, yes. Now I’m gonna ask Debra for the real reason behind that, but is that a descriptor that springs to your mind? Can you see how Love Fest might actually work in relation to the Semaphore Music Festival?
Don Morrison: Uh, I usually see it from the, uh, the dag end of the, uh, the industry, you know, like, um, behind the stage. And is the sound good enough? Is the lights good enough? You know, love fest. Well, well
Steve Davis: someone’s gotta make it possible for the rest of us. Debra Wise, it a love fest.
Debra Thorsen: Well, I consider it to be like a very peaceful, peace loving hippies kind of getting together and their kids and, you know, running around on the, on the grass in bare feet and, you know, it, it, it, there’s never been any trouble at the SE four music festival.
If the cops ever come to the Foreshore Reserve, they’re going nothing to see here and just turn around and go. So it is very peaceful and it’s very [00:09:00] loving and we try to encourage that vibe.
Steve Davis: Yeah, no, that’s great. ’cause it’s also a real community festival. If someone’s coming along in 2025, they’ve never been before, what’s the, the symptom?
What do they see that. Is the hallmark of it being a community festival, what will they notice?
Debra Thorsen: Well, I, I can remember, uh, Robin Hawkin from the Ling saying to me one of the first music festivals. It’s just great, you know, going from one venue to the next with your friends and catching up with people along the way, or Kath Dooley saying we had the best time at the workers club with all of our friends jumping up and down on the dance floor and, you know, seeing bands they’d never seen before.
Um, and I think that people tend to bond over good experiences like that. We tend to remember how people make us feel and how an event makes us feel, and we take that away with us and hopefully come back the next year and feel a little more connected and a little more [00:10:00] bonded to the area and to our friends and family.
Steve Davis: Do you think people make friendships here?
Debra Thorsen: Yeah, I do. I know that I have. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Steve Davis: How? Just, just through happenstance.
Debra Thorsen: Well, it’s a repeat thing, isn’t it? You know, you, you might meet someone here and then you see them again, and then you come back again. And once something’s been going for a few years like that, you get to know each other.
You get to know what each other’s musical tastes are. And, you know, you might not see each other necessarily even outside, um, you know, a venue or, uh, the music festival. But chances are that you’ll hang out in similar types of venues and in similar types of places because we are like-minded and we have got a connection with a lot of the people that come here.
Steve Davis: When I moved school very early in year one, like this is primary school, my mum said, take a little toy car to school and play with it, and other friends will join you. Do I need to do that at the summer for music festival or will people befriend me?
Debra Thorsen: Um, I, I don’t have any [00:11:00] recommendations for toys, but um, look.
Yeah, I think it will all be good no matter what. Come along and just talk about the music. Yeah. Just come along and have a good time.
Steve Davis: And Don, you of course, your musical career spans way before the Summer four musical festival. Yes. Can we put a number on it? How many years have you been,
Don Morrison: uh, started in 1979 with the band called The Bogie.
So What’s that? Uh, 45. 40. It’s a lot of time. Four, six years. Yeah.
Steve Davis: Is there a common thread that it just makes sense that threads a place like this, the SEMA four Workers Club, with something emerging like the SEMA four Music Festival. Is there something that says to you, this really could only have happened in semi maros.
There’s something local about it.
Don Morrison: Um, well, there are festivals all over the, you know, all over the world. But, um, the, uh, workers club is unique, you know, so, uh. Yeah, I’m, [00:12:00] I’m not sure I, I don’t have a very good overview of the music industry. I only see what I have to do. You know, I have to go to that gig and I have to wait to get on stage and then I have to play to that play.
And people say, you know, what’s the, what’s the industry like? Is it going better or worse? Or whatever. And I say, I dunno. I just do what I have to do. You know? Okay. So if you want, um, you know, um, intelligent oversight of what’s happening, don’t ask me. That’s
Steve Davis: actually counterintuitive. Um, I wanna explore that because we all think the musicians coming to your festival, uh, blissing out and loving it, and I’m sure they’re having a good time.
But you are working, aren’t you?
Don Morrison: You’ve, yeah. Yeah. And you are, you know, you’re always thinking when I go and. Say we are on the foreshore there. I’ve played there a few times and I go and watch the band that’s playing before us and I think, oh, there was the sound good. Yeah. We’ll have to get the sound man to turn the bass up a bit more, you know, that sort of thing.
It’s [00:13:00] um, just what I do, but I don’t dunno much about it, if you know what I mean.
Steve Davis: Well, ’cause we just hear the music play and it just rolls and it’s rhythmic, but someone’s actually plucking those strings, uh, playing the org, doing whatever they have to do. Mm-hmm. Does that, were you aware of that as well?
Am I just a babe in the woods thinking that the musicians are as just as with us as, as we are having a lovely time versus working their butts off.
Debra Thorsen: The importance of having a strong team around supporting, um, the musicians and the whole show is, is, you know, can’t be underrated. Mm. You know, we have to have sound technicians and equipment that is industry standard and make sure that it’s going to be good enough.
And, and we, a lot of preparation goes into it. If the preparation isn’t there, then chances are, you know, things might go horribly wrong. So there’s a lot of communicating with each other, making sure that, you know, we are all on the same page and singing from the same song sheet. And, um, and hopefully the [00:14:00] musicians are having a good time.
But, you know, people have performance anxieties, uh, you know, who knows what they’re going through, but they still have to get up on stage. And I imagine what happens is that with a lot of characters, they go into a character. They’re not necessarily, they’re themselves, they’re, they’re performing. Um. But from the community point of view, my early career, I, I lived in New York and I can’t tell you the strength of the music community there is just incredible.
You know, I, it’s almost a survival skill. You’ve gotta have your, your people around you. And, and this music festival was fashioned in a way, on, on music festivals like Tamworth. That’s the whole of an area. Yeah. Not just, uh, one particular place or, or one big event that with all the bells and whistles, it’s, um, you know, it spans over, you know, a, a location and an area.
It’s about place. Mm-hmm. And the people that inhabit it.
Steve Davis: And on that, [00:15:00] I remember there was that song, Mr. Tanner, uh, by Harry Chapin. He’s a man who runs a laundry service. Uh, and he sings in the background and one day he gets to be on stage. Doesn’t go well for him, but he at least got to taste it. Has there been anyone.
That you are aware of from the local community who’s a shopkeeper, a business person. A resident, and they, through the music festival, get a chance to be on stage and do something. Has, has that happened that you’ve noticed?
Debra Thorsen: Um, what do you think, Dawn?
Don Morrison: No, I haven’t noticed that, no.
Debra Thorsen: What about Steve Vanderbilt?
Don Morrison: Yeah. But he hasn’t sung on stage, has he?
Debra Thorsen: Oh, no, he hasn’t sung on stage,
Don Morrison: but he’s, what has he done on stage? He does
Debra Thorsen: do karaoke. That’s right. Yeah. Okay.
Steve Davis: He is an auctioneer. Okay. Oh, oh, wow. So who likes this song The Best You? I’ll Take five. That’s right.
Debra Thorsen: I have noticed quite a few people, like a bit of Mike.
Steve Davis: Mm. Okay. Oh, yes, mc. Yes. Yeah, there you go. And they [00:16:00] have
Debra Thorsen: shown talents. Sally has a sing every now and she’s got a damn good voice now, Sally.
Steve Davis: We’ll get it tested out in just a moment when we turn our gaze to her club. Uh, but just on people getting involved, I have signed up for the Charles Jenkins Songwriting Workshop Masterclass.
I’m looking forward to that. Don, my first question about this is to you. I have been doing some songwriting, uh, for a while, and I love it. I saw this masterclass and I had to be there to, to learn more from someone who does it all the time. And part of me is doing it because I think the world, our society, Mr.
Trick, in the early 19 hundreds when we stopped doing everything grassroots around the piano communally, and we kind of. Okay, professionals, you do the music, we will consume passively. I think we lost something there as [00:17:00] a society, mind you, when people like you can, um, specialize in it, we gain from taking us to new places.
Mm-hmm. Can you reflect on that for me? That divide between us being not just passive audience members, but having the courage and the guts to try our hand at the expressing ourselves musically.
Don Morrison: Well, that springs to mind. Um, a few years ago, maybe 10 now, the ukuleles were big and there was a whole bunch of ukulele groups sprung up from people that didn’t normally play music, uh, in front of anybody else.
And, uh, there were groups and there’s still, some of them are still going. Uh, I mean, I was the, like the conductor of one, uh, at the gov every Wednesday night or something. Yes. And we were 20 or 30 people, and most of them had never played in a band before. And they would come along and they’d learn a song and then we’d all sing it together and we played at a, [00:18:00] uh, down at the, uh, Willunga festival and things.
So, so that in a sense was what you’re talking about, you know, around the piano. Yeah. And there’s more than just that couple of groups, so it still happens, but, um, yeah, it’s, um, I would say. Well, in, in, to my knowledge, I don’t know that it happens a lot, you know? No. And wouldn’t the world be better if it did, do you think?
Well, I think there’s nothing. It’s, it’s great fun to, you know, get together and play. Another is sort of in Instru uh, instance of that is, um, I go every Monday night to, um, a radio, a live two air radio show on 3D radio called The Hillbilly Hoot. Yes. And, um, that’s held outdoors and even if it’s freezing cold, you know, and, um, we, we have artists that play, uh, one song each, you know, and it’s about 15 people get up to play and a lot of them put together their group that, a group that hasn’t [00:19:00] performed, you know, for professionally or for people, you know, a lot of them are really good musicians that play around a lot.
But, uh, that’s another instance of, you know, local music
Theme: and, ‘
Don Morrison: cause I can’t help think that when we’re doing that
Steve Davis: and the bar is low. We would be able to enjoy the moment more than when you are the professional standing on stage and the bar is high.
Don Morrison: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean it’s, there’s different things like when I’m playing in front of people, I’m performing, I’m doing my stuff and I really enjoy it.
But, um, it’s a bit when you’re sitting around just playing music with pe friends or people Yeah. That you don’t even know. They’re just into music. It’s almost like eating tea, you know? It’s, it’s a nice, yeah. Yeah.
Steve Davis: Oh, I like that actually. And Debra, what was the masterful stroke and having something like this?
’cause I, to me, I come and learn and the more you learn about the aspects of music, the more you appreciate when you see it happen. Is that what was behind? Charles Jenkins [00:20:00] involvement or, and others?
Debra Thorsen: Well, Charles is a good friend of, of ours. Yeah. He’s originally from Adelaide and played in a punk band called Mad Turks and then, uh, moved to Melbourne and, uh, played in the ice cream hands.
But he’s also a good mate of Vic from Mr. V Music and has been a mentor on our songwriting, um, project that was titled Summer Four Songs, and that’s the one that Don wrote. Um. Sam, four Workers club, and we recorded, that project went on for about 10 years. So, um, Charles is, is no stranger to, uh, our community.
We know him pretty well. Um, we call him Chuck. He’s, uh, he said, I’d really love to do a, a songwriting workshop. And so I went to the local church and, um, they’d already said they wanted to participate. And, um, I said, how about Charles doing his master class there? Now, now that church has also got a choir that is going to perform during the music festival.
Oh. And we have also got the [00:21:00] Born on Monday choir that, um, performs every Monday at the Waterside Workers Hall in Port Adelaide. Um, it’s supported by Vital Statistics and, and they’re all good friends too. Um. Ella Pac Poi is the conductor. Her dad is the, you know, the dad, the choir dad. And, um, I met him through the Center for Aboriginal Studies and Music.
So, you know, we tend to, you know, hang around Don’s, um, at the, uh, hillbilly Hoot All Stars played at the very first December four music festival. Yep. Do you remember that?
Don Morrison: Oh, yes, I do. Now. That’s over a long time. Over on the deck at the pal. That’s right. Yeah.
Debra Thorsen: Did that for a few years. So we tend to not just have one-offs.
We tend to build on those, um, relationships and so that it, it, it’s not just, you know, yeah. It, it, it develops
Steve Davis: because to my way of thinking more people doing these learning things at a festival like yours means we are [00:22:00] growing an audience for the future who appreciate things more, although there could be a downside to that.
Don, can you imagine an audience of all these people who have newly learned how to write songs. Listening to you and taking notes and going, oh, hang on. I’m not sure what he should have done. There was That’s right. They say, oh, I’m better than that bloke.
Don Morrison: What’s he doing up there? That’s right.
Steve Davis: That’d be a blessing and a curse, I imagine.
Um, actually the diversity of music styles, I mean, it gets talked a lot about Blues and Roots, but it’s more than just that. Can you talk us through the diversity of what you curate and, and pull together for the music festival?
Debra Thorsen: Yeah. Well, I, I like to think that, uh, the Sam Hall Music Festival reflects what’s going on in the community.
And, you know, through observational going to see artists and bands and listening to what other people say they like and who, and of course who applies and wants to play. We can then try and fit [00:23:00] the right people into the right spaces. And some of the venues curate their own Prague program, like Mr. V Music.
He curates his own, um, acts there. Uh. Uniting Church has a a, they call it Sophia retreat. They’ve put some of their acts in there, like a sound bath. We often have, um, members of the LT lgbtq plus community playing. Last year was a great example. My re um, Emerald, um, uh, who else? Anyway, a number of, of different bands that are diverse and we like to also be accessible.
You know, this is something that is really important. We might like to know that people can, um, can get into places and, uh, can enjoy it, that there’s a sense of equality.
Steve Davis: And on the show notes for this episode, we’ll have all the links so you can actually get tickets if you hear this in time and learn a bit more.
Uh, before we bring Sally up on the stage though, I wanna come [00:24:00] back to the SE four songs project. And can you and Don set up what. What was the SE four songs project? Can either of you talk to that and then introduce the song that we’re going to listen to, which is a song that I believe you wrote, Don, about This hallowed club, the SE four Workers Club.
So what was SE four songs in a nutshell.
Debra Thorsen: Must have started back in about 2010. And looking at the artists that are on here, we have Emily Davis, Glenn s Khor, brilliant, Carl Williams, Jr. Mick Kidd, melody Feeder, Heather Fran, Don Morrison, Nancy Bates, and the Baker Suite. Now, all of these artists were asked to write a song that was inspired by their experience of se Foral Port Adelaide.
Uh, they, some of them were introduced to a subject, for example, uh, the Baker Suite and, um, Jane, uh, John Baker was introduced to uncle, um, uh, uncle Louis O’Brien, the, [00:25:00] um, garner Elder. And he wrote a song about Uncle Louis Nancy, recorded old black woman that was written about Auntie Veronica Brody. Um. Uh, melody Feeder wrote a song about the carousel.
Oh. Emily Davis wrote a song, a, a murder ballad called Six White Horses, which was referring to the, uh, horses that were were yeah. Drawing their carts, so to speak. Uh, Glen wrote a song about, uh, the King Tide and the Port River flooding. Mm-hmm. And really wrote a song called, um, port Misery. I think that I’ve, oh, no.
And Cow wrote a song about a ship that sank out, out on the ocean there. Mick was a little more literal and wrote a song about, um, a general kind of Sunday afternoon in SEMA four. Heather wrote a song about growing up, uh, um, in a house around here, or living in a share house. So it was, every [00:26:00] song was different.
And over the years that this project went on at 10 years, there’s, there’s never two. The, uh, the same,
Steve Davis: yeah. What’s the knack, what’s the trick if there is one for writing a song about something local Don and getting the balance right. ’cause I imagine if you go too local, people outside aren’t going to necessarily connect with the song.
If you go too abstract, then it loses its roots.
Don Morrison: Yeah, it’s a bit of a, a thing ’cause uh, I, I, I play in Melbourne a lot and. I’ve got all these songs about Adelaide, which I, I sort of can’t do over there ’cause everybody goes, what? You know what, yeah. What’s he talking about? There’s no Grand Junction road there.
Um, and that sort of thing.
Steve Davis: But, um, I’ll just say, so I’ll just say on the Melbourne is on the wrong side of Grand Junction Road, just for the Fair enough. There is St. Kilda though, so Yes, but sorry. Yeah. Your, your approach.
Don Morrison: Ah, you know, I get asked about songwriting a fair bit and I find it very hard to explain because, um, once I’ve [00:27:00] finished a song, I, I sort of look back and said, well, where does that come from?
And I can’t think of it. It just, it flows. It flows out. Yeah. You know, you, sometimes it’s just strumming on my guitar and come up with a few chords or a melody and then the lyrics. Sometimes I write the lyrics first. Um. Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m gonna be very dull, uh, with this sort of big thing because I don’t know a lot about it.
You know, I could never hold a songwriting lesson because, ’cause you say, well, you play your chords and then sing the song. Eh?
Steve Davis: Well, I just, I will just bring onto to the table though. Leonard Cohen did say that into the particular, you find the universal meaning that you, you can name some particular things like Grand Junction Road or Kens Road or whatever.
And if the person listening’s never been there, they’ll just substitute that for something they know, but it’ll tap into something deeper. That’s right. Yeah. Do you, do you, do you think Leonard was on the money?
Don Morrison: Oh, I do. Yeah. Yeah, because, uh, you know, it’s just from what people tell me about what they think.
One of my songs [00:28:00] about, oh, I love that song about this and that. And I say, no, that’s not it. But, but the fact that they have interpreted it in a way. Is is great, you know? Yeah. Well
Steve Davis: do tell me the Ful Workers Club song that is about the ful workers, isn’t it? Oh yes. Yeah. That’s a pretty down to earth song about, um, what should we listen out for as we’re about to hear it?
What, what, give us a point of interest. What’s, is there a favorite line in it or hook
Don Morrison: or something that Well, it’s probably the worst one there is. Um, what’s that line about the, uh, the women Cougars. Cougars? That’s right. That’s, I use that phrase you
Debra Thorsen: call women cougars by the dozen.
Don Morrison: Yeah, that’s, they got cougars there by the dozen.
Some of ’em look like they might have killed their husband, but I dunno if that’s really appropriate anymore.
Debra Thorsen: It rhymes.
Don Morrison: Yes.
Steve Davis: Well it does rhyme and that gets you a license, I suppose, to play it. And it’s too late for me not to play it ’cause I’ve already talked it up. So let’s have a listen now. This is Don Morrison and SE four Workers Club,
Don Morrison: if you want your [00:29:00] favorite blues band played.
Then drive on down the northern expressway past the wingfield dump. In the toxic wasteland. The bright and cement works has lit up like gracelands and turn right onto the esplan.
Well, you are out on the jetty trying to catch some whining, but the tide’s gone out. The fish ain’t bit, you’ve got an outer killed to do what you please. You hear some rocking music drifting on the breeze. You follow it up the,[00:30:00]
it’s the common club, the workers club, the SWC, no matter what you call it. It’s the place to be. They got two guys there by the dozen. Some of them might killed their husbands. We don’t know. The punters get laid, but one thing’s for show, the band always gets paid
well, if the Russians had only followed this model of smoking dope and hitting the bottle of kicking back and watching a live band play,
communism could [00:31:00] still be alive and well today. It is the club workers club. No matter what you call it, it’s the place to be.
Steve Davis: That’s Don Morrison and SEMA four, uh, workers Club. Is that album still available anywhere, Debra? Or is it now getting as rare as hen’s teeth? The SEMA four songs or I’ve tested you, haven’t I?
Debra Thorsen: It’s as rare as hen’s teeth. Okay. Collectors items only, but if you really want one, go to Mr. V Music on SE four Road and we’ll see what we can put in there over the weekend.
Steve Davis: Beautiful. Or we
Debra Thorsen: might even have them here, SE four Workers Club. How about that, Sally?
Steve Davis: We can do that now. That voice is Sally Mitchell.
Uh, president. What’s the title? Chair? President. President of the SE four Workers Club. Um, sorry I’m sitting otherwise I would’ve curtsied.
Sally Mitchell: I expect so yes. At least tug your fall.
Steve Davis: Thank you. Do I need to do anything to Lenon who’s over?
Sally Mitchell: [00:32:00] No, no, no. We tend to have to explain who he’s to. Most people. Somebody wonder who, who, because the, the bust over there is painted black.
They wanna who the, the black man is in the corner of the room. Oh, wow.
Theme: Yes.
Sally Mitchell: And that’s interesting. But, um, he’s been part and parcel of, uh, that particular bus has been here for many a year. It’s got a whole history of its own.
Steve Davis: Now, before we get into the club proper and touch on a little bit of its history, cahs, are they sort of thing here at the club with Don singing about them?
Is that something, is that an attraction? I
Sally Mitchell: must admit I hadn’t picked up that line very much in the song. Um, I wouldn’t say that’s the attraction. I think the music’s the attraction to come to the club. Uh, music and atmosphere. Um, we have a, it’s a, a unique community here. Um, recently I, I described this place as it’s a community within community.
If you, in a sense. The people who come here come from all over, all walks of life, all political persuasions, all economic backgrounds, you know, um, and [00:33:00] experiences. And, but they come here because of the music and the place that it is, and that’s what brings them here. We have people who travel here regularly from the likes of Malara and Claire to come here for, for shows.
Uh, people come from the other side of town or way down south. And I, and I always feel so honored and, and privileged that, that, you know, and I think it’s a huge compliment to the club and everybody involved in the work that’s done here and to the musicians that perform here.
Steve Davis: I’m glad you named that because it’s easy, even in my work where I meet with a client and here they turn up and that’s when we start seeing them.
Yeah. But they’ve been building up to that. They’ve been looking forward to it. They put effort into attending. And you are aware of that?
Sally Mitchell: We’re very aware of that. And if, if we have a great. Range of regular patrons, and if they don’t turn up for a couple of weeks, we start to go, are they okay? You know?
Yeah. And people do that around the room, you know, so if somebody hasn’t appeared for a while, there tends to [00:34:00] be a bit of a reach out and a bit of a, a welfare check on people to check that they’re doing okay. Uh, which is a lovely sense of community in that regard. You know, um, we, we unfortunately had our, uh, a tragedy of our, our bar manager passing away earlier this year.
Um, the number of our patriots who took the day off work to attend her funeral and to come here afterwards and and so on, was, was, was really humbling, you know, in many ways. Yeah.
Steve Davis: And that’s because it is a community within the community.
Sally Mitchell: Yeah. And I come across a lot of people locally where they might have moved to the area, uh, fresh to the area, and I’m, I’m, me, I talk to everybody and anybody talk at people, I often describe it as, um, and I say to them, if you don’t know anywhere in this area.
Come to the workers’ club, you can go there on your own, particularly as a, as a woman. Um, it’s a comfortable environment. You’ll be okay. Nobody’s gonna give you a hard time. Um, and if you don’t know anybody the first time, you certainly will the second time you come along and people will then start, you know, and that’s the nature of this place that they, you might not know anybody, but you know, before too long people have included [00:35:00] you in conversations are nodding, say hi, and, and that type of thing.
So, and that’s, that’s what I love about the place.
Steve Davis: Mm-hmm. You know, so not a place for an illicit affair because everyone will see you
Sally Mitchell: adelaide’s on a place for illicit affair. It’s way too small. You will be caught. Yeah.
Steve Davis: Uh, now I want to tap into the history of this place, and before I get some of the official history from you, Don, when you walk into play here, and, and I know you would’ve done it a lot of time, but how has it changed over the time that you’ve been here?
Don Morrison: Well, it changed a lot and changed, not at all. It’s, um, it’s still got the same vibe, you know, it’s, uh. It’s unique, it’s different from any other venue that I play regularly at. If you had to name one way that it’s unique, what would you say? Oh, I would say just from the porch, the view across the beach.
Okay. And you got, it’s a music venue, but you’ve can also step out to this huge, fantastic vista. You know, like of, um, you go from a dark [00:36:00] in rock and club inside out to this beautiful ocean view. And um, you can see the, you know, the bird, the seabirds flying and the waves and nothing like that. You know, nothing else is like that.
But standing
Steve Davis: up on this stage, what does that feel like? ’cause people are quite close here.
Don Morrison: Oh yeah, yeah. No, it’s, well, back in the old days I used to be able to hit people with the, my headstock of the guitar. They were so close. But, uh, yes, it’s, um, that’s when you started making steel one, so that they didn’t That’s right.
So I wouldn’t get shot ’cause bounce off the steel, but, um, no, no, it’s, it’s really good. It does get a little bit irritating watching people play the, uh, the pool down the back there while you’re playing away. But, you know, that’s part of the deal.
Steve Davis: Are you sure there’s no protocol required that the pool stops when the band isn’t?
No. No it
Sally Mitchell: doesn’t. No. You often I dance around the pool table. If I, um, you know, the pool is part of the club and, and it’s sort of, the tables that we have here are very old and people come to play them. [00:37:00] Um, I’ve never thought of it from a musician’s perspective. I love the fact the room’s all encompassing in that regard that you can play Paul and still listen to a fantastic band and they’re over there, you know, um, away from us.
And so you get that concentration music near the stage, but you also can go a bit further into the room and, and, uh, talk to people and still hear them and so on.
Steve Davis: What I’m loving about this chat is already we are seeing things from different perspectives. We’re all, wow, alright, I’ve, I’m gonna go away. A richer person as a result.
Now you talked about, um, people from all different walks of life. There was, there is a story about a certain birthday party that a Jeff Goodfellow held here where it says there were crooks poets and federal court judges all mingling. And there was one point when a poet was out the front needing to light a cigarette, and a judge who was managing the barbecue wrapped a coal into something and said he light it from this.
And she made the comment going in, I dunno, the poet’s name was, uh, [00:38:00] isn’t it good to have friends in high and low places? Is that the spirit of se four workers club? This almost like a
Sally Mitchell: leveling field. A leveling field. Yeah. I I, I do think that actually, um, yeah, it is, it is a bit of a level that’s that thing if it’s a community within community, um, that you can come from all walks of life, all political persuasions yet come here and, and talk to each other, you.
Where you might not do that elsewhere. You know, you, you all have your own places that you go to. Um, I mean, I often describe the club that we’re very proudly not been gentrified or commercialized. Mm-hmm. That we still have retained some character of the place. Um, and it is quite unique, but equally in my experience of traveling is that we, I think the club and the quality of music that we, that we, we hear here is world class.
And I think the club stands up against any other club I’ve gone into anywhere in any country.
Steve Davis: Was it still [00:39:00] worth, uh, world class in that period of time when punk was very common? Here
Sally Mitchell: we are currently doing an emerging music. Are you at night? On, uh, once a month with young, young artists, which is quite exciting.
I just, I laugh and I describe as the young band’s night, um, because by quite safe make me feel old. Um, they’ve got such energy and enthusiasm and I’m so out of touch with that. Uh, with, you know, that generation of people and it’s, it’s great to see this new generation finding the club and and enjoying being here.
Yeah.
Steve Davis: And there is a harder edge and a punky edge in the mix.
Sally Mitchell: Yeah, very much so. Yes, very much so. And they, you know, they’re mesmerizing in, in, uh, in the way they, they deliver on stage and they don’t care. I think there’s one player that never played saxophone, but he did last time, you know? Wow. And he, and he’s got a great little miniature trumpet, this beautiful little piece of instrument.
He just wants to play them on stage, so he gets them and he does something with them, and he has fun doing it, and it’s great energy [00:40:00] there, you know.
Steve Davis: Could there be any alternate universe in which Don Morrison was a punk performer?
Don Morrison: Uh, no. Um, although. When, when the Bodge started in late, uh, in the late seventies, early eighties, there was people used to come to our gig, you know, they had, would dress in the car bag, the garbage had been dresses, and the girls would wear army boots and that.
And we were more punk than proper punk bands in a lot of ways, but we were more in the rhythm and blues Yes. Sort of style. But, um, well, I suppose there is, yeah. Really, really, if you look that, that way, just below
Steve Davis: the surface, yes. Yeah. It’s there. Uh, but, uh, I wanna actually, I, one, one quick question. The bogie I meant to ask, I think my dad in the fifties was a bodge, right?
Was the, that bodge movement, what gave you the idea for that name? Or was it completely accidental?
Don Morrison: No, there were two things that gave us that, um, in, uh, when I was a little kid, um. Every Friday we would go to the fish and ship [00:41:00] shop. You know, ’cause Catholics, you’re never gonna let it eat meat on Fridays.
Of course. And so we go down there and my, I remember my grandmother came down from Broken Hill and she says, oh, don’t you talk to those bogie at this fish and chip shop, Don, you know, when I went to buy the, get this fish and chips and then another time when we had a, we, the band had just started and we didn’t have a name yet.
Uh, the sound man of this gig said, oh geez, you blokes have got some GY equipment. So there you go. That’s where we got it. And you just
Steve Davis: went with it ’cause you’re a songwriter. Yeah. Uh, now just back to the history, so I can’t lay you off the hook here ’cause you said we don’t want to be gentrified. Mm-hmm.
And there’s a little bit of irony with that because it certainly did begin in the realms of the gentry in the early days. It certainly did. Uh, yachting club and it wasn’t at the Adelaide Club by the Sea. It was referred to by some people.
Sally Mitchell: It was originally the, uh, yacht squadron.
Steve Davis: Yep.
Sally Mitchell: Um, and I’ve. I’m not sure exact timing, but I’m presuming that when the palate was built and it blocked the view [00:42:00] of the regattas, that they would sit out the front and watch with the governor.
Um, they moved down the coast and it became December four club. And that was very much a, a men’s club when we were only allowed to be associate members of it. Um, and they, um, continued to club through to, um, the time at transition to become, you know, what we see today.
Steve Davis: Wow. And so there was a coup
Sally Mitchell: Well, yes, there’s various stories as to what happened at that time, but basically what we, uh, what we had was a club that was.
In effect dying through lack of involvement. And I know when the first time I came in here, um, there was dust everywhere and their long nets were open if you had a drink, uh, long net beers. Yeah. Um, you know, and there was very little activity happening. Pickax. And So pickax, long necks probably. Yeah, probably Southern actually.
Yeah. So, you know, green death. Green death. Green death. Um, yeah. Really. We still have some, so behind the bar really bought, but, um, oh, I’d buy one. I’ll buy one
Steve Davis: before I leave. [00:43:00]
Sally Mitchell: But, uh, so from that point as becoming members, you know, we kept it active and, um, we started doing bands here when Sunday trading very first started.
Theme: Oh wow.
Sally Mitchell: And, uh, Frank Lang and I went round the, all the local pubs for the week before with this tiny little flyer about the gig. The flyers were the band and, uh, we, we put that on people’s windscreens, but on the back of that was a map. Of where we were. ’cause no, whilst the club had been here, and it’s been here for well over a hundred years, people didn’t know that it was here.
It was still a best kept secret of Adelaide, uh, or Semaphore in particular. And so we had to tell people it was here, it was at the time that Pier was quite an active, you know, drinking spot and all of that. And so, uh, we brought music here and people came here and we’ve basically continued music in various ways, shapes and forms ever since.
Steve Davis: Uh, okay. So if someone’s, I asked before about someone’s being new to the SE four Music festival and Debra gave some tips. If someone’s new to the Summer four Workers Club, [00:44:00] what’s your advice?
Sally Mitchell: Come in, in, enjoy, you know, um, come in, we have. Adelaide punches above its weight with musical talent. We have the privilege, um, here in that we operate Fridays and Sundays predominantly.
Mm-hmm. Um, so Friday nights and Sundays of
Steve Davis: afternoon, afternoon, late afternoon. Yeah.
Sally Mitchell: With, and we’re doing more Saturday nights now, but generally the Friday and Sundays are very blues focused and they are the best in town.
Theme: Mm-hmm.
Sally Mitchell: You know, the, you know, the only having the two nights and having the, the, the amazing range of musicians and bands in this, in this town, we get the best in town.
And so anybody who comes here is gonna have, wouldn’t matter if they dunno who’s playing, they will walk into top class musicians, world class musicians. Yeah. If not musicians from interstate, from overseas. Come here and play. Um, we recently hosted a night here with three interstate artists and they were doing one show in Adelaide and they rang and said, can we do it at the workers club?
I said [00:45:00]
Steve Davis: Hats off. Hats off. Thank you.
Sally Mitchell: Yeah, we say thank you. You know, that’s a huge compliment to us and to our patrons and to, to, you know, the scene here in Adelaide that they wanna come here. Are there meals here? We, we, we do very simple food. We keep things very as affordable as possible. So we have a barbecue Oh yeah.
You know, in the warmer months. Uh, and during winter we go down the nice homemade soups and toasted sandwich path. It’s not a big meal, but it’s something to keep, you know, the wolf from the door, uh, have that, but it’s something stout and one should always eat when one’s drinking. Yeah,
Steve Davis: that’s right. And is there a dress code?
Sally Mitchell: No. Other than wearing clothes? Um, basically no. Is another thing. You just took my
Steve Davis: next question from it. So no dress code. It’s kept as affordable as possible. Try not to play pool when the band is playing. Be respectful. Don nodded that I think. Oh, he doesn’t care anymore. No. It’s
Sally Mitchell: about being respectful. It is, you know, of our, our musicians on stage of our patrons around the area.
Yeah. And, uh, [00:46:00] if we spot anybody who’s, who’s got a bit, you know, ous, we’re having too good a time, you know, we, we, um, we just monitor things and look after things. And if we have a group of new people come in and somebody had a few drinks before they got, here we go, here’s your problem, child, not ours. You know?
Okay. And people do take responsibility for each other here. That’s what I find. And that’s my experience. I,
Don Morrison: I could not remember. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like a, a brawl or a fight or even an argument almost, you know, here in all the years I’ve been playing. Yeah. Is that because the ghost of Lennon
Steve Davis: would have them summarily shot
Sally Mitchell: up against the wall?
Um, no. More so the environment and that people come here to hear Yeah. Because they know what it is. And that we do have a cover charge on the door. And whilst we keep that as best we can low, that does. You know, that’s a principled issue for us. Yeah. That is that musicians, you should be prepared to pay for good music.
Yeah. Um, that the people we have on stage here have spent years honing their skills and craft. And so we, we don’t think it’s [00:47:00] unreasonable to do so. That keeps the bar prices down too. Awesome. Because if you have a free entry, you’ll pay for it at the bar.
Steve Davis: Everybody wins. Yeah. Sally Mitchell, thank you for stepping in.
Thank you very
Sally Mitchell: much.
Steve Davis: Uh, because we are about to round off this interview in a moment. Musical pilgrimage we are getting, even though Don said don’t talk to me about songwriting, I’m gonna try one last time, but thank you very much. I am so thrilled to have finally come and stepped into this hallowed space.
I don’t know what it is. I just hadn’t made that, hadn’t made that happen yet. Well, we look forward to seeing you here with your dancing shoes on. I will do that. Now that I know there’s no, uh, dress code,
Sally Mitchell: as I said, when I describe the no dress code, what I say to people is that I’ve been to venues and the best dressed.
People can be the worst behaved patrons, right? How you dress doesn’t reflect your personality and your behaviors. And so we, we we’re focused on that. We’re not focused on how you look.
Steve Davis: I love that. So my dancing fongs will fit right in. They’ll be right [00:48:00] in. Thank you, Sally. Thank you.
Theme: And now it’s time for the musical pilgrimage
Steve Davis: time. Now for the musical pilgrimage. And we’re doing something a little different. We’re not just playing one song, we are playing two, and we’re not just talking about them. We actually have the man behind them. So Don Morrison is still with us. Don, this musical pilgrimage is all you.
Is that all right with you? I don’t think that’s going be very successful. Then we’ll give it a go, in which case, Debra is still with us from the, so you can, you can step in and save him
Debra Thorsen: too late for that.
Steve Davis: Alright,
Don Morrison: so first things first, a luthier. Yeah. Well I only ever use the term Lu when the police pull me over and they say, what’s your occupation, sir?
And I say, Lou there. And then they have to say, oh, what’s that? No, I’m a guitar maker.
Steve Davis: Yes. You share a lot of photos of them online. Yeah. Made from all manner and material. [00:49:00] We’re gonna talk about that some you’ve made from the rubble of your father’s childhood home in Preponder. If I, that’s it. Yeah. And your mother’s Cottage and Broken heel.
It evokes, for me, when I think about it, there’s a Johnny Cash song called Papa Played the Do Bro, in which there’s an old guitar of his, he finds and he plays it. What, especially the first times when you played those guitars, was there some sort of. How would you describe, there must have been some sort of deeper connection than just an instrument.
Don Morrison: Well, it’s hard to nail that down because the process of finding all the material, then turning him into a guitar and, um, getting it all together and I was just happy that, you know, I could put strings on it and play it. And, uh, because when I’m, when we’re talking about those guitars, the one that I made from dad’s place and my, my grandmother’s house, I didn’t really care nor expect that they would turn out to be very good [00:50:00] guitars.
Oh. Because I just wanted to make something out of the memories, and then I would hang them on the wall or something like that. But it turned out they both sounded great. So they’re the two guitars I use all the time when I play live. I don’t think about it much as I play, but it’s a, it’s a long term thing.
You know, I have them, they’re, they’re part of me. I’m never, I’ll never sell them. And, uh, I use them all the time. And, uh. You know, it’s something that I’m really glad I’ve got and I’ll pass down to, you know, my kids when I can’t play anymore.
Steve Davis: My research tells me there’s about 500 plus guitars you’ve made.
Is that about right? Yeah.
Don Morrison: Uh, there’s 445 guitars, 60 odd mandolins, and about 80 odd ukulele. So more than 600 altogether instruments? Yeah.
Theme: Wow. I know
Steve Davis: you could almost have a SE for music festival in which everyone who arrives gets to temporarily play one of Don’s guitars, except they’re all [00:51:00] stole.
Debra Thorsen: We had an exhibition once, didn’t we?
Oh, do you remember that? Over at the RSL we had you and Jimmy Redgate. Ah, that’s right. Yeah. A couple of other, uh, LUAS ex exhibiting their guitars. Yeah, this was pre guitar festival days. Um, and yeah, that was good. But yeah, Don’s guitars are, are unique. I remember you saying to me once that you sell more guitars in America than what you do, your music.
That’s how
Don Morrison: they started. Yeah. ’cause um, yeah, I, uh, I sold a lot to America. ’cause the Australian dollar up until recently was very low. So they would pay roughly half the dollar amount. I’d still get my, my. What I wanted. But, uh, they, they were cheap to them. And uh, I got, I mean, there’s more than a hundred over there in America.
Yeah. And
Debra Thorsen: can they’d be sort of like a, a national steel guitar? Is there a comparison there? Yeah,
Don Morrison: that’s, that’s what they’re based on. Mm-hmm. That’s what I wanted. ’cause national, the steel [00:52:00] guitars were invented in the twenties. They were called DOB Rose and, uh, ’cause they didn’t have amplifiers then and they’re much louder than a normal guitar.
Oh right. And so, pretty shortly a lot of the blues guys got hold of them ’cause they could be heard in the noisy bars that they were playing in and so forth. And, um, so they become known for the blues. And I was right into the blues at the time and I really wanted a metal guitar, but they weren’t being made anywhere anymore.
They stopped being made when Amplifier started. And so I, that’s when I started to try and make one, you know. And, uh, it took me a while to finally get one that I could put strings on and. Now they’re being pumped out in factories all over the world. But luckily I was in the right place at the right time and got my, uh, business started.
Can you
Steve Davis: tell me, though, what’s the difference between a handmade instrument and one of these churned out factory ones, do you think? What, what, what’s involved?
Don Morrison: Oh, well, one thing that I’ve noticed with the factory ones, uh, the [00:53:00] cheap ones mm-hmm. Is, um, most of them don’t sound very good, but there’s always one.
And in a shop you say, oh, this one sounds good. They’re, um, a bit random in the way they sound, but a handmade one, you would get the best sound out of them because you, when you’re, when you’re building it, you’re listening to it and you, you learn all the right pla ways to do things. So, you know, the sound would be much more consistently better.
Whereas the other ones, it’s just a. You know, luck of the draw.
Steve Davis: I just wanted to look up the lyrics from this. Papa played the dob, bro, because something might resonate with you because he said, um, it was an old one that was kept hidden. It said the guitar’s resonator was a gallon bucket lid. Oh yeah. Does that ring true with how they must have been at some point, the old blues players, et cetera?
Oh,
Don Morrison: no, but there’s a, you know, people make one, or, you know, with using all sorts of funny things for the resonator, um, [00:54:00] just because it’s something different, you know. But you, you can buy the cones that go in them. They’re spun aluminum and they look like a, actually a loud speaker. Oh. Uh, and, um, they’re inside the guitar.
So it’s like you’re playing a speaker box, you’ve got a loud speaker and the, the bass comes outta the f holes here and the treble comes out near the cone and, and that sort of thing. See,
Steve Davis: this is where I get into treble. Debra’s gonna hit me. In 2026, wouldn’t it be great to have a show that is only people playing this sort of instrument?
There is no electricity, you know, it’s, it’s,
Debra Thorsen: I love it. How’s that? It could be around a campfire perhaps,
Steve Davis: but No, this would spread further than a campfire. They’re amplifying themselves.
Don Morrison: Yeah. Well, um, they are much louder than a normal acoustic guitar, but not, not deafening, not as loud as an ampl. You know, you play guitar and do an, alright,
Steve Davis: well maybe if you get [00:55:00] stuck and you’ve got a really small space, Debra, there you go.
You can have that idea for free. You could
Debra Thorsen: do a, a Don Mo Guitar Master class and re go back to, um, showing some, you know, uh, bespoke guitars that are made by local people and that, that I’d be very into doing. That sounds like a great idea. Yeah. I
Don Morrison: actually in, I’m going up to Canberra in a couple of weeks, there’s a.
National Vintage guitar exhibition and it’s, uh, a lot of people that make guitars and sell guitars will be there. And there’s a a, um, there’s a show on after the show, you know, I’ll be playing there, so. Oh, beautiful. It’s similar to that, but not quite.
Steve Davis: You’re also going much further to Memphis. Uh, I want to get inside that the Memphis International Blues Challenge, you are representing Adelaide.
What happens at these blues challenges? Well, that’s a good question
Don Morrison: and I’ll find out when I’m there, but, um, people from all over the world, I like, I know there’s representatives from Sydney and Melbourne go there as well, uh, and people from Europe, [00:56:00] they come along and it’s all in Beale Street in Memphis, you know, the famous Beale Street and there’s venues, lots of venues there, and.
The first three nights are all the semi-finals and they have judges and you know, you’ve gotta, and so if you make it through the first three nights, you go to the semi-finals and that sort of thing, and eventually you win. I don’t even know what you’ll win if you win, but, uh, you win a don mode guitar apparently.
Ah, yeah. Well I’m thinking of selling mine over there so I don’t have to bring it back, but, you know. Well there is that, I mean, provided you get it through in the first place, of course,
Steve Davis: yes. You are representing us. Do you know what song, or do you have one song for the competition? Do you have multiple? No, you
Don Morrison: have to do, um, some of the finals are half hour sets, so that make, you know, might seven or eight or nine songs and some of them are 20 minutes.
So. And have you sorted out your set? Um, mostly, but I’ve got plenty of time yet. But, um, you’re saying to me that’s what the plane trip’s for, aren’t you? Uh, no, no. Just to [00:57:00] survive the plane trip. But I, I don’t have to go till January, so, uh, but I’ve, you pretty much got the set worked out, you know.
Steve Davis: Okay. Now, I, I only discovered that you have an autobiography out there called This Could Be Big, which I’m gonna have to try and find a copy and read by whatever.
Um, there’s a reference to having once been brave enough to stand next to Shaken Stevens at a urinal. That’s a lovely gag. Uh, but that’s true. Nearly killed by Willie Nelson in Austin, Texas. I can’t discover that without asking you to elaborate.
Don Morrison: Okay. We, um, the band I was in called the Bodgie, we went to Texas to play some gigs and that, and, um, the people that organized the tour, uh.
Took us out. Uh, it was a Saturday afternoon, had nothing to do. So we said, ’cause Willie Nelson used to own, own a golf, a golf course just on the outskirts of, uh, Austin, Texas. And so they took us out to, you know, have a bit of a mess around on the golf course and I’ve never played golf before. Anyway, we were [00:58:00] out there puting around and, um, I’d lost my last golf ball into the bush.
So I went over there and trying to find it. And then around the corner on this, uh, golf buggy, you know, motorized one, uh, nearly run me over, this bloke coming around. And he says, watch out there, young fella. And that was Willie Nelson. He had, you know, because of the red hair and, uh. Ponytail sort of thing.
And uh, yeah. So whilst nearly killed his exaggeration somewhat, I might’ve, might’ve been run over, but imagine how many CDs they would’ve sold if he did run over and end i
Debra Thorsen: The man who killed Don Morrison. That’s right.
Steve Davis: Yes. You should have said to him, I wish you could say, I’m in the world again. Yes.
That’s, I never thought of that. That’s good. Next time. Yes. Next time. Uh, now, um, the other thing I wanted to ask Eddie and Jake, your sons Yes. And so en raging thirst and that configuration your performing with them?
Theme: Yes.
Steve Davis: I didn’t get heaps of the family [00:59:00] connection with you and your guitars earlier. Is there something strong about the familial bond when you’re on stage with your own DNA?
Don Morrison: Oh, yes. Yeah, it’s, uh, I noticed that ’cause in the bodies I was in, I was with my two brothers and so there were three of us. And a lot of people that play in family groups say that their family harmonies are fantastic. You know, like it’s unbelievable. But what we found in the bogie was our sense of rhythm was just nailed together.
So we’d have a really solid rhythm sound and we, we actually could speed up and slow down all just together
Steve Davis: intuitively.
Don Morrison: Yeah. And, um, with, with my sons Eddie and Jake, look, I’m really pleased. They’re so good at their. Instruments that they wouldn’t be playing with me unless I was their dad, you know? Wow.
It’s a charity move. Yeah, that’s right. And, uh, and they, they’re fantastic. And, um, they just sort of follow what I do. We don’t even need to practice quite often. Uh, you know, and, uh, I love it. Yeah. And they fill it in and make it [01:00:00] sound much better. Are you
Steve Davis: mentoring them along the way? Are you learning things from them?
What’s that dynamic like?
Don Morrison: Yeah, well, I think they just, I’ve never taught them, you know, technically music. Um, they just got from me the fact that. You know, guitars and that were around the house and people could play them. Humans played music, you know, and, uh, Jake, he’s learned piano. He went to lots of piano lessons and so forth.
And Eddie, for some reason, he got right into the double bass. He liked rockabilly music and that, and so I’ve never played bass, so I just, I think that what they got from me was music is a human thing you can do.
Steve Davis: Have you seen them play Debra?
Debra Thorsen: Oh, God, countless times. Yeah.
Steve Davis: Do you see, like looking at a photo album, a family photo album, do you see and, and have a strong sense as an audience member that this is family?
Debra Thorsen: Oh, definitely. Yeah. The Morrison clan is, is huge in this part of [01:01:00] the world.
Steve Davis: Grand Junction Road. It’s your most streamed song. It leaves the others for dead. It’s not what I might call the most flattering song for Grand Junction Road itself. So I imagine most of those plays aren’t coming from within the.
Port Adelaide Enfield Council.
Don Morrison: Oh, well, I don’t know. They, there’s a lot of comments on there from people who actually live around the area and they say, yeah, I, I love that, you know, oh, you’ve written a song about Grand Junction Road. It’s good.
Steve Davis: And I know you don’t, like, you can’t talk so much about your songwriting ’cause it sort of happens, but you must have made some judicious choices about what to put attention on and what not to put attention on in the way you picked up the symbols of
Don Morrison: Grand Junction Road does.
Yeah. Well I, I lived right next to it and, um, in Rosewater and the idea came about. I was out, it was Christmas Day, I was out having Christmas lunch with the family and uh, you know, it was a really great afternoon. Had a lot [01:02:00] of fun. And, uh, coming home about five o’clock I saw this, um, street girl. Applying a trade on the corner of near where I lived.
Mm-hmm. On, on Grand Junction Road. And I thought, what Christmas Day, you know, out working on doing that. And when I got home and I started thinking about it and the other connection I had was Dad used to work in a factory up the other end. Yes. Right off it. And um, so it was, you know, I knew there was a few connections there, so, um.
I just thought I’d try and describe Grand Junction Road the, the way I see it, you know?
Steve Davis: Right. So instead of courting it all your Christmases come at once you thought, I’m gonna write the song about Grand Junction Road. Yes, that’s right. Right. Probably. Um, let’s have a listen to it now. What should we listen out to?
’cause you do talk about your dad at the end. Um, any other favorite little line that you’ve snuck into that song, any that you’re really proud of?
Don Morrison: Uh, not really. I just think I, I’m quite proud of the overall lyrical content of it and the way it, way it goes. [01:03:00] Nothing, I’d have to listen to it again to find any highlights.
Well, let’s do that right now. Here’s Grand Jun. This is Don.
Steve Davis: Morrison,
Don Morrison: it runs alongside the city past all the things they don’t want you to see, and then goes to all the places that you don’t want to be. It’s the home of the hyvee shirt and the clapped out commodore of smokes hanging out the window and for one eye out for the, there’s no prestigious location, no desirable post code.
There’s coming on[01:04:00]
at the IGA near Addison Road. Best to keep it clean. Well, Stockton in straight rose, but in the car park there’s a deal going down between young men. So far gone. They’re barely human. And on the corner there’s a girl. So stone, she can hardly stand when just a mile two down, she could be kicking off in the sand.
There’s bottle shops selling to the always pissed prostitutes, servicing the never kiss late night pokies for the barely miss truck. Loads of crap for the wing field tip. It’s the place you go to make a living. It’s not the [01:05:00] place you want to live in. It won’t find nothing to ease your load driving down.
My father worked in a factory there just down from the prison. Sometimes six days a week, but most often seven. And I wonder what he thought about all those years. He drove first thing every morning down grand.[01:06:00]
Steve Davis: Alright, Don, we’ve got one more song to play before we finish, but before we get there, a couple of things. Um, midnight Oil Men At Work, you’ve shared the stage with them.
Don Morrison: Yes. Yeah. Midnight Oil. We, um, played a couple of times with them once at the Adelaide University and, uh, another time at Melbourne, A-R-M-I-T in this huge hall.
And there was the Bogie, the So Boys and Mark Seymour’s band. What was that? Hunters and collectors. Hunters and collectors. And the. [01:07:00] And, uh, we were on first and ’cause everybody had their gear on the stage, you know, like, so we were just crammed right up the front, trying not to fall off into the crowd because there was so much stuff on the stage.
Right. And then you’d play and your stuff would leave with you. And the next band, sunny Boys, they were a little bit further back until, uh, till the oils came on and Garrett had enough room to run around, you know, so, but it was fantastic event. It was one of the. The best ones of my life. That one I think.
Steve Davis: Is that because everyone, there was pretty exci, like do you get energy from the audience or is it mingling with the likes of Gary? Yeah,
Don Morrison: well, no, it was just from the, just the vibe in the audience. It was a huge hall and there was all mostly students and they’re out for having a good time and it was packed and uh, great bands and yeah, it was, well, I’ve, I’ve
Steve Davis: listened to a bit of the Bodgie music and it has got, it’s very accessible because it’s got that tight rhythm happening.
Did you dodge what normally happens to the opening act of people going, ah, get off. You know, did you dodge that and, and [01:08:00] we’ll welcome to their bosom? Or did you still have to deal with They’re really here for the
Don Morrison: oils? Yeah. That, that was one of the, they were there for the event, you know, and, uh Oh, okay.
’cause there were so many bands on and uh, that was one of those times that that didn’t happen. You know, quite often we’d do supports for mid-level. Bands that were a bit higher than us. Yeah. And they would tape down the, uh, sound desk and that, so you couldn’t push the, the sound man couldn’t go too loud and they would turn off five out of the seven lights, so you could only use two of them and that sort of thing.
So you always had to come across as, not as quite as good as the, the main band. And that happened all the time. You wouldn’t do that to your supporting acts, would you? No. No, no. As long as they bring all their own gear. No, we, that’s all part of the, that was, that was the thing back then. You know. What about Bo Diddley?
Bo Diddley, yeah. We played a lot of shows with him. He was really good. Uh, he was very friendly. Like when you see Bo [01:09:00] on, uh, and read about him, you think, oh, he’s a big strutting guy, you know, but he was very friendly and down to earth. And, um, yeah, it was good to meet him. And we played a number of shows in Melbourne and a number up in Sydney, uh, with him.
And, uh. Yeah. So we got to talk to him quite a lot. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And does
Steve Davis: anything linger about Joe Cocker in your memory? Yeah, because he, he’s had big presence. Yes. Or was,
Don Morrison: uh, well it was, we supported Joe Cocker, let me see. Sydney Canberra and Melbourne and Adelaide in big halls. And of course we never got to meet any of the band because they had their own big green room and um, thing, and we weren’t allowed to go in there.
And we had a, we got changed in the toilet and so forth. And their road crew were really, gave us a hard time, you know, like I can remember, um, down, it was at the Palai Theater in St. Kilda and we were down there and we did the sound check [01:10:00] and the road crew were really up, you know, they gave us the shits.
And, um, we went out to get some tea before the gig. And then we saw what the, the main, main antagonist road crew. In the dark, walking past the palate theater. Uh, there’s a, a parkland there and we were in our car and we thought, let’s go and beat the bastard up. And Brian was, he was the shortest one, the drummer.
He was gonna run out, grab him by the legs and throw him to the ground. Then we were gonna hop on top of him and punch the hell out of him. But then we thought, no, no. We are musicians. We can’t do that. You’re on a mission from God. That’s right.
Steve Davis: Uh, wow. Now these stories, Debra, the reason I really wanted to draw them out of Don is this is what happens as music.
People’s careers merge. Everyone starts somewhere. And the grassroots that you bring together for the Semaphore Music Festival, what is it? That made you do this? What prompted [01:11:00] you? Because it takes a lot of work. It would consume every moment for you to keep the energy over 21 years of a music festival.
What is it about music that brings you that, that gave you that energy?
Debra Thorsen: Well, you know, I, I’ve all, I, since a child, being a child, I was a music fan, music lover, I like to say. And, um, and I started working in the industry, you know, the late seventies and early eighties in New York. And I, uh, didn’t have very much talent myself, but I recognize it in other people.
Um, a good friend of mine, Spencer p Jones, said to me once, Debra, you have got great taste. And I think I do. So recognized a gap in the, uh, um, events calendar, if you like. Once the, um, Vic, the, uh, Victor Harbor. Folk festival shut down. And I’d been talking [01:12:00] about the, the idea of an old country roots and blues festival with my friends Gail Kocher, whose programs at the Adelaide International Film Festival and Jane Ma, who was an arts officer at the city of Port Adelaide Enfield.
And at the time Gail was working at Arts sa. So we thought, yeah, we’ll come up with a, an i, you know, concept, um, program. It, uh, mostly with artists that I would go and see or that I knew. And, uh, we put a program together and it got some funding. First one was over the Anzac Day long weekend. And then we, um, started doing over the October long weekend when the, that that gap in the calendar, um, you know, just sort of happened.
And, you know, a, a friend of mine, Glenny Ray Virus once said to me, Debra, choose a date and stick to it. Yeah. And that’s what we’ve done. And it’s been a lot of work, you know, applying for funding, um, and, uh, keeping it all [01:13:00] going and, and you know, attempting to keep people on board and council, et cetera.
Uh, but it’s very much a community event. We’ve, I think everybody agrees on that. And so that keeps me going in, in a sense. There’s, it’s a part of, um, my identity. I think that, um, you know, I, I thought, oh, I’ll retire. And then it was like, oh, retire and do what? Um, and people are saying to me this year, I thought you said last year the 20th anniversary was your last.
And I said, yeah, but I just couldn’t, not, what was, what was I gonna do? Sit on my hands and, you know, knit or something. Well, I could have done that, but I just thought well have a look at another model of, of keeping it more around the venues, because the issue around the October long weekend is the weather.
Um, and so, you know, if it’s in venues, we have shelter and it also helps the businesses. And I, I think [01:14:00] we’ve all seen post COVID that some of these, uh, local businesses have suffered. And, um, you know, creating or, or have presenting events like this, coordinating events like this helps them and helps the community and the cohesiveness, it builds culture.
Um, and, you know, I’m, I’m, I, it’s a lot of work and, but you’ve gotta have a really, um, a cohesive team, um, around, around to help make it all happen.
Steve Davis: All right. In my final question is a reflection on, well, there’s two parts to it. The, the, the roots blues, the Alt, or there’s alt country. There’s alt everything, alt folk, all this alternative derivations.
I love that style of music. ’cause to me there is a stripped back honoring of rhythm and meter that doesn’t get in the way of passion. The, the, the words are on an altar. You actually get to hear what’s going on. [01:15:00] I love it. It doesn’t seem to cut through in mainstream radio. So my, at least to my experience, why do either of you have a theory?
Why does this hotbed of great music not get played by those programmers?
Don Morrison: Well, yes. Why? I dunno, either. It’s, um, maybe the, the audience that they’re trying to attract, you know. With on commercial radio, you might, might not, the, the, the likers of that sort of blues and roots sort of stuff might not be rich enough for the, you know, but it’s so easy to like, yes.
Debra Thorsen: I think that there’s probably, uh, community radio presenters. Mm-hmm. There’s a lot of that. Very much into what we do, the industry, if you like. It, it sort of goes for the a and r representatives will go for what they think is going to be commercial and what will sell. [01:16:00] And, um, our people in the old country, roots and blues aren’t necessarily people that are gonna want to go on the road the whole time.
They’re not necessarily people that are going to do as they’re told. They’re, they’re gonna be, they’re artists. They wanna do what they want to do, you know? Mm-hmm. And, and also programmers aren’t the demigods, you know, we, the industry makes them out to be. I can remember back in 2005, I was pitching this idea to television about Murder City.
And the guy from Channel nine that was a programmer said at the time, true Crime doesn’t sell. Oh. You know, people get themselves in these positions and, you know, yeah. That’s just an example of, of, of individual tastes. Um,
Steve Davis: and the final thing, this is my public com, um, confession to my dear listener. I missed so much good music because I didn’t frequent places like this in the eighties and nineties.
I was working in radio [01:17:00] and so I was sipping from that commercial music well, and it kills me. Ev all the stuff that I missed, is it too late or is there a pulse? Is there a lively pulse in the live music scene in Adelaide? I know Don, you said, look, don’t talk to me about the industry, but Debra, you might have an insight into this too.
If, if someone like me says, no, I’m drawing a line in the sand. I’m buying CDs more than just listening to streaming. I am going to go out and press the flesh. Is there enough places to go to, ’cause the gentrification of venues has been squeezing out. Opportunities.
Debra Thorsen: And what if I was to name a few venues, um, where I went when I first came back to, to Adelaide, um, back in, uh, 2000.
The Grace Emily.
Steve Davis: Oh, yes.
Debra Thorsen: Um, and then, uh, of that came the Wheaty.
Theme: Mm-hmm.
Debra Thorsen: Um, you know, [01:18:00] the, the live music venues that, you know, they’ve got, they’ve got a group together, an association. Jive is a good one for younger people. Here, obviously is another good one. Memphis Slims in the city. Um, up in the hills there’s the three Brothers Arms down south.
There’s the Delta. Delta Murray. Delta Murray De Joint. Yes. That’s it. Thanks. Ah, yes.
Steve Davis: I saw John Truman there. Yeah.
Debra Thorsen: Yeah. Okay. And then, uh, there’s another one, Inger. Uh, radio, Odinga Radio. What’s that one?
Don Morrison: Uri. Is it the Uri?
I’m not something, uh,
Debra Thorsen: they’re around. If you’re in interested, you know, ask around and uh, check gig guides.
Like join the Adelaide Blues and Roots Association Gig Guide. See what’s, who’s playing there? Uh, listen to community radio, song catcher on, on, um, on Monday nights or
Steve Davis: so. I’ve just got to get off my backside and exercise a little bit of, uh, energy to go looking. You’re saying it’s worth it. There is stuff to find.[01:19:00]
Debra Thorsen: Yeah, for sure. And of course I’ve left one huge one out and that’s the gov.
Steve Davis: Of course. Don, you should have jumped in to mention the gov because you frequent there, don’t you?
Don Morrison: Uh, not that much recently. No. No. Just, uh, I’ve been, um. With the raging thirst. That’s the band with my two sons. We don’t do a lot of gigs because it’s very hard to rope us into one spot at one time.
’cause Eddie and Jake both got their own bands and do stuff, rape ’em together. But you are their dad. Yes, I know. That’s why, come on, put your foot. That’s why they donate a couple of days in the year for me. That’s right. But uh, and then most of the gigs I’ve been doing solo ones have been over in Melbourne or, or elsewhere, right.
Recently. So, um, the, the, the venues that Deb mentioned though are, are really good, but they’re, they’re not packed out, but they’re going Okay. You know, so. Right.
Debra Thorsen: And you can always come and see Don Morrison play solo. We might have a couple of guests, who knows. [01:20:00] Um, on Sunday. The 5th of October at the Sam four Hotel in the beer garden.
That’s a great beer garden there. And they do good food.
Steve Davis: Alright, so there you go. If you happen to be listening to this after the long weekend in October, 2025, that’s your loss. But if you get it beforehand, um, that’s a great tip. Thank you Debra Thorson, thank you so much for taking us on this journey.
Debra Thorsen: Oh, thank you for inviting me along here. You know, this is, uh, where I work and where I play and where my friends hang out, so it’s, um, yeah. Welcome.
Steve Davis: Thank you. And I’m looking forward to the 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th festival. That’s what I, my prediction is you’ll go to 25,
Debra Thorsen: do you think? Yeah. Thank you.
Steve Davis: And Don Morrison, thank you for taking time to sit down and answer some of my questions.
Trying to prize into the. The ethereal nature of songwriting and, and music. Sorry, I couldn’t be more, uh, helpful. Well, it’s the honesty that’s important. If you don’t know, you don’t know. Mm-hmm. The last thing we want is making stuff [01:21:00] up just for the sake of it. Yeah. But I wanna take us out with one more song that you recommend would be a good one to have a listen to.
Five Men in the Car. And first of all, there’s a lot of car. So, I mean, there’s a whole album of Car. Of Car and Transport songs you’ve done. Is there one about catching the train to Etherton to come to the Summer four Music Festival? Has that been written yet? No. No it hasn’t. That’s not a bad idea though.
I reckon that because you would be, because Debra says it’s a great way to come, uh, to the festival.
Debra Thorsen: Yeah, yeah. And you won’t believe this. DIT got back to me yesterday and said, oh, what time do you wanna have your blues players on? Um, the train from Adelaide to Glanville? And I said, wow. So I’ve been negotiating this for months and months and months.
They finally got back to me and said, yes, that we are able to do it. So you can catch the train from Adelaide to Glenville during the Summer four music festival on Saturday and Sunday. It’ll be departing [01:22:00] at 1217 on Saturday and Sunday, and we’ll have a blues player on the first carriage.
Steve Davis: That is magnificent.
Wow. Because, uh, I think I mentioned to you, I went to Woodfield High School for a bit and year 11 for our golf elective, we’d catch the train, uh, up here to go to the local golf club and on the way back, get our minimum chips and everything. It was fantastic, but it’s so much better having a blues player on a train.
Debra Thorsen: I know. And I was, we were sharing that, um, that’s what me and my friends used to do. Catch the train from Woodville to here for the Leys Battle of the Bands back in the day. So that’s probably also in part of my DNA.
Steve Davis: Do you think you’ll have a song about that before the October long weekend that clickety clack clicky crack is the bass rhythm.
Don Morrison: Well, it’s a not a bad idea. I’ll have to maybe knuckle down and see if I can Yeah, we can wait for half an hour. Do you want to do it now?
Debra Thorsen: What about going to Chuck’s, um, masterclass and
Steve Davis: Yes. How dare you. How [01:23:00] dare Don talk us into five men in a car to take
Don Morrison: us out. Okay. Five men in a car is, um. I’ve written about my days with the Bodgie again.
Um, ’cause we’d used to do things like, uh, we’d go over to Melbourne and we’d play seven nights a week for two weeks in a row there. Then drive up to Sydney, do seven nights a week for two weeks there. We’d do things like finish at the Moundsville room at four o’clock in the morning and then hop in the van to drive back down to Melbourne for a gig the next night.
Play in-betweens and yeah, just five. And there were five of us because there was four in the band. And the road manager would go in the car and the two roadies drove the truck, you know, different. And, um, I’ve actually written all about it in my biography. It’s called, this could be Big. 45 years at the DAG end of the Australian music industry.
I write the song and sometimes I’m asked to sum it up, the book up in a few words. I said Five men in a car. And that’s what the song’s about. Alright, well let’s have a listen to that. By the way, is the book available still? Yes, but [01:24:00] I only, um. Sell it at gigs. Now I’ve stopped putting ’em in shops because, um, but yeah, if, if you come to see a gig, I’ve always got some books for sale
Steve Davis: for sure.
Fantastic. Um, because I just finished a great book by Harry Moffitt, a former SAS operative called the Fourth Pillar. He said, we need to all be reading more. Keep a book around. Chuck it in the car. You find a moment, read some and what a better book than, what’s it called? We, this could be big. This could be, that’s great.
Let’s have a listen. Here’s and Don, thank you again. This is Five Minute In Car, Don Morrison, five Men in a Car,
Don Morrison: and not sure where we’re, we’re going somewhere. We’ll,
it’s four[01:25:00]
on this.
Towns go by. They’re just
refueling points on our road.
We’ve been here before, maybe, I’m not sure, but the,
it is my turn to[01:26:00]
turn.[01:27:00]
Oil light comes on outside. If we break down out here, don’t know what we’ll do.
Road house food
could be[01:28:00]
five men.
Five men in a car.
Steve Davis: There it is. Don Morrison and five Men in the Car. And now I’m just one man left in the studio, uh, to say thank you to my guests for all taking part and welcoming me in to the Summer Four Works Club. Uh, today. All that’s left to me to say is I do hope you embrace the Summer four Music Festival, come along and rediscover what it is to just be part of a community grassroots event.
Be able to tap the neighbor next to you on the shoulder and have a chat about who you’re listening to and who [01:29:00] knows, could be the start of another beautiful friendship as the saying goes. Until next episode, it’s goodnight from me, Steve Davis. Goodnight, Lenn and goodnight Dawn.
AJ Davis: The Adelaide Show Podcast is produced by my dad, Steve Davis.
If you want to start a podcast or get some help producing creative content. Talk to him. Visit steve davis.com au. Thanks, aj. I’m Caitlyn Davis and I agree with everything my sister said. But there’s one more thing to say. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please leave a rating or a review ’cause that will make my dad really happy.
Oh, and one more thing. If you really, really liked it, please help a friend put the Adelaide Show on their phone. Thanks for listening.
Buzz. Buzz [01:30:00]
Theme: Lady?
Lady Who? Lady. Lady. Lady.
That
lady. Lady.