Jessie Lloyd will perform at Folk By The Sea. Photo: Supplied.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander songkeeper Jessie Lloyd will bring a “pub-choir vibe” to songs that tell Aboriginal stories in Aboriginal languages during Kiama’s Folk By The Sea festival in September.
Describing herself as a “hunter and gatherer” of ancient stories and songs, Lloyd will perform her Sing On Country show taken from the songbook developed for schools.
She initially developed the Sing On Country concept after being left disheartened by the failure of the 2023 referendum to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the Australian constitution.
“I took the ‘NO’ vote personally,” Lloyd said of the referendum.
“I made the commitment to stop singing in English as my own protest at the result.
“Then I was convinced by music teachers to teach songs suitable for Australian classrooms because they were struggling to include Indigenous content.”
Lloyd said music was a powerful way to connect people and find commonality.
She said Sing On Country was a collection of songs either written herself or collaborated on from around the country that sought to share First Nations culture and stories.
One of her songs she even described as a “modern songline of Australia”.
“These songs are safe, not overcomplicated, and a beautiful way to approach difficult subjects,” Lloyd said.
Having originally developed her Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander songbook for schools, her Sing On Country is a live show of the songbook.
Lloyd is road testing the songs as a show for audiences of all ages.
“It is a good chance for people to learn basic facts and words from Aboriginal languages from around Australia,” she said.
Topics range from explanations of the colours of the Aboriginal flag and Acknowledgements of Country, to the title song that shares the Indigenous names of the places where Australia’s state capitals are located, in the original languages of the people of those places.
It also includes a song with deep family connections from Lloyd’s 2017 Mission Songs Project.
During that project, she revived the folk songs of Aboriginal Australians forcibly removed from their land onto state-run reserves and Christian missions in the early 20th century.
That project was inspired by Lloyd’s paternal grandmother, Alma Geia, who was taken as an eight-year-old from her family in Cooktown and sent to live in a children’s dormitory on Palm Island, the notorious mission settlement off the North Queensland coast.
Lloyd used her grandmother’s composition Down In The Kitchen, about the mission children surviving on rations of damper and tea.
“I am looking forward to bringing the show to Kiama – hoping we can create a pub-choir kind of vibe at the festival, with people singing and dancing along and learning new words from our Indigenous languages,” she said.
Hear all the Sing On Country songs on the website www.jessiesclassroom.com
Lloyd is part of a line-up of 40 acts from around Australia at Folk By The Sea, organised by the Illawarra Folk Club.
Other acts include multiple Golden Guitar winner Darren Coggan, Americana/bluegrass duo The Weeping Willows, Indi-folk band Hand Over Hammer and Triple j Unearthed-winning folk rock/alt country duo Ally Row from Victoria, folk-country act the Sam Fletcher Trio from NSW and Kiama’s own The Water Runners.
Folk By The Sea will be held throughout Kiama from 12-14 September, with early bird ticket and volunteering information available on the festival website.
