Bob’s been editing and updating our website video page. There’s quite a bit of ‘content’ on there now, including video slideshows accompanying the studio recordings. Some of these videos have had quite a lot of views. You can help this process by liking a video, subscribing to the channel and sharing links with people you think would enjoy our music.
In 2024 we will be doing more of this as (1) it is the most cost-effective way of keeping in touch and (b) motivates us to stop watching Married at First Sight (LOL).
Bob and Laurel performing on the Bohemia Bar stage at the National Folk Festival in Canberra. Photo by Karina Red.
Our latest song is a fairly accurate description of contemporary life in Australia and its moral dilemmas. Bob was inspired to write this after finding an old black and white photo of his grandfather (a stonemason in Bob’s Scottish hometown). The Highland Clearances are mentioned here in the context of the plight of First Australians, homeless people and refugees.
We entered this in the 2024 Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice Award, the last time this award will be offered. Bob’s song, When Whitlam Took his Turn at the Wheel, was awarded the prize in 2022.
This year’s awardee is Paddy McHugh for an as-yet unreleased song about Lismore and its disastrous floods (A Hatchet in the Roof). Award coordinator Bob Fagan told the audience at a special National Folk Festival concert on March 30 that 200 songs for social justice had been written and offered to the judges in the 14 years the award has been held. After the concert (when eight of the awardees performed their songs), some audience members commented that some or all of these songs ought to be on a CD (or a download). We second that!
The 2024 concert in the Budawang included songs by Fred Smith, Penelope Swales, Snez, Miguele Heatmole, Tony Eardley, Tripple Effect, Karen Law and The Goodwills. There was also a rousing all-in version of Alistair’s famous song, “The Swaggies”, led by Murray Law and Fred Smith’s band.
Bob with his framed award from the National Folk Festival 2022
At our age, you take the chances when they come and that is why we are heading, by invitation, to the National Folk Festival at Easter.
As one of the Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice awardees, we have been invited to perform Bob’s song When Whitlam Took His Turn At The Wheel at this year’s festival. The song took out the award in 2022, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam government’s election.
A special concert is being presented at the National Folk festival as a tribute to the late Alistair Hulett, whose family set up the award. Sadly, it is now coming to an end, with the announcement of the 2024 awardee on Easter Monday.
The Singing for Social Justice Concert will be staged at the Budawang on Saturday March 30 from 10am to 11.20am. Concert organiser John Sutton has eight awardees lined up to perform their winning songs.
Previous winners of the Alistair Hulett songwriting award include Snez, Paddy McHugh, Karen Law, Penelope Swales and Fred Smith.
Alistair Hulett, who died in 2010 aged 58, was a Scottish-born singer-songwriter. He moved with his family to New Zealand and then subsequently to Australia, where he became known as the front man for the folk punk band Roaring Jack.
His best-known songs include He Fades Away (about an asbestos miner), Song of a Drinking Man’s Wife, and a powerful ballad known as The Swaggies. His songs have won awards and been recorded by well-known folk performers including Roy Bailey, Nancy Kerr and James Fagan, Andy Irvine and June Tabor.
We are quite likely to pop up at open mikes or sessions, so if you are at the National in Canberra this year, come and say g’day.
The Goodwills Trio (Bob and Laurel Wilson and Helen Rowe) are performing on Saturday November 11 at 10.15am at the Maleny Music Festival. We will be at the Obi Obi venue following Brisbane Irish band, The Jar. We will have to keep to time for this set as one minute of silence is scheduled site-wide for 11am to mark Remembrance Day. This Facebook link should take you to the festival programme to help plan your time there.
This is one of the original songs we will be performing – a reflection on the hard times of the Depression when some Australian families lived in shanties on the edge of towns. See you soon.
We launched this song on September 30 and Bob made a slideshow at the weekend. We think it’s an important issue so please, have a listen and a look and share. Bob and Laurel
Australian wattle – a native tree favoured by the Koori people of New South Wales
I decided to write a song about the referendum and had the idea of asking the question: what if we’d had citizens’ referenda about really controversial issues like Iraq and Vietnam? Did we get asked? Eventually the song gets round to talking about Yes23, which ought to be a fait accompli but probably not. The link will take you to Should we say Yes, which is published on our Bandcamp page. You can listen to it a few times before it will ask you for money!
We’re delighted to announce that the Goodwills Trio will be performing at this year’s Maleny Music Festival, which is on from Friday November 10 to Sunday Nov 12, 2023. Fiddler and singer Helen Rowe joins veteran duo Bob and Laurel Wilson to present what is becoming known as ‘harmonic folk’. – mainly originals with our special 3 voice blend.
This is the 10th anniversary of the Maleny festival, which was re-invented by Noel Gardner and friends. As we all know, the original Maleny Folk Festival, which started in 1987, morphed into the Woodford Festival, which has become one of the biggest music festivals in Australia. There was always a hankering to return to the small-scale, good vibes feel of a smaller festival. Apart from the Covid-19 interruptions, it has all gone well.
The programme looks good and we will be camping there for the duration. As to when we are performing, you’ll need to check the programme later in the year.
The Goodwills Trio opening show for Fred Smith June 18, Nambour. Photo by Rob Mackay.
We’d no sooner finished our opening set for Fred Smith at Nambour on June 18 when along came an email inviting us to perform at The BUg in July. The Goodwills Trio is the original Goodwills (Bob and Laurel Wilson, original songs, guitar and vocals) plus Helen Rowe on fiddle and vocals.
The New Farm Bowls Club is one of our favourite venues for folk-flavoured music. There’s a good stage, a great sound man, you can order meals and if you want to natter to your mates you can go into the other bar. Perfect arrangement.
The BUg (Brisbane Unplugged Gigs) has been operating under that banner at this venue every Tuesday for many years. All styles of music have had their turn up on that stage, from the full-on Irish song and dance band, Murphy’s Pigs, to solo singer-songwriters.
We (The Goodwills Trio) will perform a set of Bob’s original songs and perhaps a surprise cover (or two). Fiddler and singer Helen Rowe complements and sometimes re-invents our arrangements worked out as a duo over many years. Laurel usually takes lead and if not, then it will be Bob’s ‘wonderful reedy tenor,’ as a reviewer once put it. Bob’s songs such as ‘When Whitlam took his turn at the Wheel’ and the two songs about New Zealand are almost certain to get an airing. Since Giardinetto’s is still down in the Valley, it seems the right place to sing ‘Big Country Town’. And, as Bob rashly promised (on social media), he will be doing a solo spot with his quirky song about a red shirt and a girl in a black dress (‘Dead Man’s Shirt’).
If you are interested, this song was covered by country singer Kalesti Butler on her album Airborne.
The Jar, a high-energy four-piece led by John Logan, will be quite a contrast to our folksy harmonies. As described in the Folk Rag, The Jar play traditional and contemporary Irish, Scottish and Australian music with the occasional pop classic thrown in.
Doors open at 7.00 pm. The music starts with three blackboard acts, followed by The Goodwills (8:15pm), and then The Jar. Admission is $10. New Farm Bowls Club, Brunswick Street opposite New Farm Park.
If you are within cooee of Nambour on Sunday June 18 what better way to spend an afternoon that a concert with celebrated songwriter Fred Smith and a reunion with The Goodwills.
Fred will be launching his new CD ‘Look,” a departure from his material about Afghanistan. Fred says it is about “the ordinary stuff of our lives and the world we live in: the speed of modern life, love, isolation, and the internet in a world that seems to be lurching forward by a rolling series of crisis.”
The Goodwills Trio are the support act for this concert at Nambour’s Black Box Theatre. Bob and Laurel and fiddle player Helen Rowe will present some of Bob’s songs arranged for three-part harmony. Maleny people will remember our long-running series of house concerts at Maleny. Fred performed there three times before his popularity necessitated a move to the RSL!
Sunday Folk organiser Karen Law tells us bookings are being made even at this early stage. A booking link is included below.
Sunday Folk is at the Black Box Theatre, 80 Howard Street, Nambour. Tickets are $25/$23 and children under 18 – $18.
If you are within cooee of Nambour on Sunday June 18 what better way to spend an afternoon that a concert with celebrated songwriter Fred Smith and a reunion with The Goodwills.