News and information

[JH4HJ]

From Russell Morris to Peter Allen and a lyrebird, these are the sounds Of Australia
our unofficial national anthem I Still Call Australia Home inducted into the Sounds Of Australia archive  August 21, 2013

Todd McKenney, who has played Peter Allen in the original Australian production of The Boy From Oz, reckons he has sung I Still Call Australia Home at least 2000 times and would be "lynched if I left it out of any of my shows".

The entertainer believes the song remains one of the most emotionally evocative songs about Australia.

"I think Peter Allen was very clever because if you look at the chord structure, it's very similar to Waltzing Matilda which of course is so very Australian," he said.

"I'm not saying it's stolen; it's been reworked without the jumbuck and the billabong.

"It's Australian without too much schmaltz."

Full article (other inductees)



... or watch any Quantas ad on YouTube - there are some great videos using this song.

[mamaleh]

It's only fitting and proper that Peter's most Australian song become part of the country's archives, to last forever. That is wonderful. I'm sure Peter is smiling, somewhere.

I guess I don't understand musical structure because to me, ISCAH and "Waltzing Matilda" do not remind me of each other.

Ellen

[JH4HJ]

Aug 21, 2013 14:08:59 GMT -5 mamaleh said:

I guess I don't understand musical structure because to me, ISCAH and "Waltzing Matilda" do not remind me of each other.

Well, they're both waltzes - in "three quarter time" - so that helps a lot. Listen to them melded together (something done fairly frequently Down Under for finales, etc.) and you'll hear it.

[mamaleh]

Interesting--thanks, Valerie. I guess they are both waltzes. But WM seems so much more waltz-like than ISCAH--at least the way I've heard Peter and Hugh sing it--that I just never made the connection. The medley makes that connection nicely, though.

Ellen

[Jamie]

Aug 21, 2013 14:57:06 GMT -5 mamaleh said:

Interesting--thanks, Valerie. I guess they are both waltzes. But WM seems so much more waltz-like than ISCAH--at least the way I've heard Peter and Hugh sing it--that I just never made the connection. The medley makes that connection nicely, though.

Ellen

Also every 4/4 march can change its tone completely when played in 3/4. John Phillip Souza was always writing 3/4 melodies that were failures until he turned them into some of his most famous marches. You can hear this most clearly in Meredith Wilson's Music Man. The waltz "Goodnight My Someone" is note for note the exact same tune as "76 Trombones", but it isn't really noticeable until the two songs are sung as a duet fairly late in the show.


youtu.be/xwDFWo3reeE

[birchie]

Aug 21, 2013 17:19:22 GMT -5 Jamie said:

Aug 21, 2013 14:57:06 GMT -5 mamaleh said:

Interesting--thanks, Valerie. I guess they are both waltzes. But WM seems so much more waltz-like than ISCAH--at least the way I've heard Peter and Hugh sing it--that I just never made the connection. The medley makes that connection nicely, though.

Ellen

Also every 4/4 march can change its tone completely when played in 3/4. John Phillip Souza was always writing 3/4 melodies that were failures until he turned them into some of his most famous marches. You can hear this most clearly in Meredith Wilson's Music Man. The waltz "Goodnight My Someone" is note for note the exact same tune as "76 Trombones", but it isn't really noticeable until the two songs are sung as a duet fairly late in the show.


youtu.be/xwDFWo3reeE

Who said Musical Composition couldn't be fun!
Valerie, that video of the WM/ISCAH mashup was beautiful, thank you for posting it.

Jamie, I love John Phillip Souza! Spent most of my childhood in bands & orchestras and also was an Air Force brat, which is why one of my favorite old movies is Stars and Stripes Forever the story of JPS! It stars Clifton Webb as Souza and a very young Robert Wagner. I think Wagner's story line was mostly made up but the rest of the film is full of the songs we associate with Souza and tells a good though slightly abbreviated story of his life. He was probably one of the first touring American musical super stars. I watch it every time it's on. I wish they would have made it a bit longer and had even more of his music in it but overall it's a lovely, lively, even if a bit corny, movie. There is a BluRay/DVD combo that I have in my Amazon wish list and will get soon.
Sue

[datbuckaroo]

Nice points. Still, I love ISCAH and agree that Waltzing Matilda is too billabong and smatlz. What Todd said goes further, the chord structure is similar. This is one of the many things I love about Peter's music. He had an ear for the right feel and in ISCAH he likely did not think "hmmm, if I rip off the chord structure from Waltzing Matilda" I would get a real Oz feel." Nope, the boy didn't read or write musical composition. But he knew how to evoke emotion and how to tell a story. A personal story about his home had to have som WM feel.

But, with a daughter learning more and musical composition and music theory (and a mother who was a vocalist) and having tired to play piano , I can picture the cords....and the progressions are similar.

BTW, I bought the sheet music from TBFO. I pity the person who made sheet music from Peter's songs. He key changes were a bitch - often using key signatures that anyone "writing" the music down would not bother to try. And did I mention the spread of some chords? After I attempted a few pages, I put it away. I then started looking at photos for evidence that his hands were big enough for those cords. There is a great pic of him during Legs. He is standing behind the female actress with his right arm coming around her torso and his hand rather comfortably over her lower abdomen....one big hand.

Well, it has been fun!

Miss you all, thanks for inviting me to play Val!

[mamaleh]

Welcome back, Diane! We missed you, too. Hope you can stay around.

Ellen

[JH4HJ]

Hey Buckaroo, Great to "see" you! Don't be a stranger.

Yes, Peter had a wide "finger spread" - essential for piano playing. I'd attribute that to starting so young, when it was necessary to really "stretch" to reach "normal" chords. As to the frequent key changes - he played "by ear" so whatever sounded good was fine with him. Peter didn't even know The Rules, much less follow them. "Professional" songwriters with whom he collaborated have described working with him as both frustrating and liberating, sometimes both simultaneously. He definitely had his own style, which is what made his songs so unique and memorable.

[Doc, you might want to check your anatomy books for "abdomen" - but I think this is the photo you mean. (I'm teasing!) ]



Here's another one of his hands.



If you watch these videos again, you'll see what datbuckaroo means as Peter gestures.

"Deadliest Creature" interview

...and in the overhead shots as he plays here

[JH4HJ]

While looking for something else, I stumbled upon an article about Peter written at the time of Hugh's TBFO Broadway opening. Google made a nuisance of itself (asking questions and wanting me to access through my Facebook page) before allowing me to read the whole thing, so rather than linking to it, I'll just copy/paste it here. [It's from something called "Lawrence.com" if you want to dig deeper.]

By By Justin Glanville - Associated Press Writer
Sunday, October 19, 2003

New York — It seems to have been Peter Allen's fate to be overshadowed by other stars.

When he died in 1992 -- by which time he had scored an Academy Award, recorded 10 albums and starred on Broadway -- Allen was still identified in obituaries as the man who had been discovered by Judy Garland and was the first husband of her daughter, Liza Minnelli.

His songs, too, were hits mostly for other performers: Melissa Manchester with "Don't Cry Out Loud," Olivia Newton-John with "I Honestly Love You." Even "The Boy From Oz," the new Broadway musical about him that has renewed interest in his work, is causing a stir mostly because of the actor playing Allen: Hugh Jackman.

"Peter was never a name," says Carole Bayer Sager, a frequent songwriting collaborator of Allen's. "He didn't have a No. 1 record of his own, and people in the Midwest didn't know him. He was kind of a cult figure."

At its peak, though, Allen's cult was huge, at least in New York City. He sold out Radio City Music Hall so often in the early 1980s that he was named the concert hall's official personality. Former New York City mayor Ed Koch once called Allen his favorite entertainer.

His performances were distinguished by visual extravagance and Allen's seemingly unflagging energy. At one of his Radio City concerts, he came on stage astride a camel, flanked by a battalion of Rockettes. His costumes were similarly outrageous: all gold lame, sequins and gaping collars.

"He was very savvy about what his audience wanted to see -- great costumes, great pacing," says Ann-Margret, a friend of Allen's who still closes her cabaret shows with a song he wrote for her, "Once Before I Go."

But in contrast to his outgoing performance style, friends remember Allen as an intensely private man who shared little about his personal life even with those close to him.

Few friends knew he had HIV, for example, until his final days. And he rarely spoke about his childhood, which had been shaded by his father's suicide when Allen was 13.

Keep feelings inside

"He just kept everything inside," says Ann-Margret. His personal philosophy, she says, was, "Don't show anyone you're crying, and if you're hurting, don't show anyone."

He expressed those feelings in song with "Don't Cry Out Loud," which he wrote with Sager and recorded for a solo album in 1979. Manchester's version hit in 1978.

"I wasn't writing that song thinking it was about Peter, but in retrospect, it does echo his personality," Sager says. "He didn't believe in crying on anyone's shoulder."

Allen had wanted to be a performer since his childhood in rural Australia. Born Peter Woolnough in 1944, he was performing in bars by the time he was 12, playing piano and mimicking the rock 'n' roll moves of Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis.

In the 1960s, he partnered with another local boy -- Chris Bell -- to form an act called the Allen Brothers. The act was managed by Bell's father, who booked them on concert tours of Australia and Asia.

Garland caught the Allen Brothers in 1964 in Hong Kong, where she was also performing. The Associated Press reported then that an enraptured Garland could be heard yelling, "Marvelous!" as she watched the show, and afterward introduced herself to Bell and Allen.

She took the two under her wing, becoming their manager and booking them as the opening act for later concerts she gave in Britain and the United States.

"Peter hit all those places that touched her," says cabaret singer Julie Wilson, who knew Allen and Garland through a vocal coach the three shared (Wilson also starred in Allen's 1988 Broadway flop, "Legs Diamond"). "He had the heart, the energy -- the same magical things she had."

Garland also introduced Allen to her daughter, Minnelli. The two married in 1967, although by then Allen had already begun to have affairs with men. One such tryst, recounted in "The Boy From Oz," apparently got the Allen Brothers fired from a gig in Australia in the early 1960s.

"I do believe that Peter did love Liza and there was a relationship there," says Sager. "I don't know how long it stayed sexual, but I don't believe it was a set-up marriage from day one."

'Tough relationship'

He and Minnelli separated in 1970. In the same year, he cut off his professional relationship with Bell to pursue a solo career, writing songs with Sager, lyricist Dean Pitchford and others.

"I watched him evolve as a performer. He was shy at the beginning, but then all of a sudden his shoulder was leaning in, then one leg would go up on the piano. By the time he hit Radio City, he was on top of the piano," Sager says with a laugh.

In 1972, Allen began a long-term relationship with Gregory Connell, a model from Texas who was six years his junior. Connell eventually became Allen's lighting director and stage manager. Their relationship was close but limited by Allen's professional commitments and outside affairs, friends say.

[chessie]

Nice article - thanks for posting it, Valerie.

Peter would have been so proud to have his song honored in this way. I would not have thought that ISCAH and "Waltzing Matilda" were so similar without hearing them performed together. The medley was lovely.

I can imagine that Peter's songs were a challenge for someone trying to play them from sheet music. Playing "by ear" is a different way of doing business.

I'm reminded of the elderly couple who lived next door to the house where I grew up. He played the mandolin and she played the piano and sang (she and her sister had a vaudeville act "back in the day.") They both played by ear. Once in a while they would come to our house for a jam session with my dad, who played guitar and base (also by ear.) The husband played in all sharps, the wife played all flats, and my father went crazy trying to play along with them. They sang their hearts out and always had a wonderful time, key signatures notwithstanding!

Carol

[JH4HJ]

Todd McKenney has been touring Down Under with a sort of "night with Peter Allen" stage show. (not a new version of TBFO - no plotline, though he does tell some stories to put songs in context, but it's more a pseudo concert) Now he has a new CD of Peter's songs. I like the idea, but I can't say I'm thrilled with his re-arrangement of NTBND. Has anyone seen this show or heard the CD? Is this what he's done to all the PA songs in the show? I always enjoyed it when Peter reinvented one of his songs, or did a new "combo" - sliding one song into another. Can't put my finger on exactly why, but I don't care for Todd's version of this classic. (The kid from Glee did it better IMHO) What do you think?

[JH4HJ]

The new Qantas TV commercial features Peter Allen's I Still Call Australia Home -
see if you recognize any other Aussies in the video
(filmed 2yrs ago, but put on hold due to CoVid)

Qantas: Spirit of Australia

[Pallasa]

I really wish Qantas would actually show Peter or use his original song in their comnercials, but maybe they don't have the rights to do this.  National Panasonic used "I Still Call Australia Home" in their campaigns since 1983 or so and even had Peter singing it in their commercials.  He did a lot of commercials for them and they are really good too!😀

[ADMIN]

Sept 10, 2022 8:57:56 GMT -5 Pallasa said:

I really wish Qantas would actually show Peter or use his original song in their comnercials, but maybe they don't have the rights to do this.  National Panasonic used "I Still Call Australia Home" in their campaigns since 1983 or so and even had Peter singing it in their commercials.  He did a lot of commercials for them and they are really good too!😀

The guy who does this channel worked for National Panasonic. He has quite a few of Peter's TV commercials.

[Pallasa]

I talk to him all the time!😀 He worked in advertising and met Peter a number of times throughout his time at National! What a lucky person!!