Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had their music that was passed down through the generations.

The European settlers brought their folk music with them, music that changed with circumstance and time. Later, these traditions would cross-pollinate.

Song, music and dance are all closely aligned. They feed each other.

The convicts brought the remembered songs from home, changing titles and words to suit their circumstances. “Moreton Bay” with its tale of convict suffering was fitted to the tune of the Irish song Boolavogue.

As European settlement spread, the convict tradition transformed into the bush ballads popular among itinerant agricultural workers. This was predominantly a male society.

Many worked alone in isolated locations, others travelled for work or came together for particular activities such as mustering. When they gathered together they told yarns or sang songs and sometimes danced around the camp fire, entertaining each other.

Many in this period were illiterate or semi-literate. Songs were learned by listening and practising and then passed on in an evolving oral tradition.

Overseas influences could still be important. “Botany Bay”, one of Australia’s most famous folk songs with its opening line “Farewell to old England for ever”, is apparently based an a musical burlesque “Little Jack Sheppard”. This was staged at The Gaiety Theatre, London, in 1885 and then repeated in Melbourne the following year.

While overseas influences remained important, the bush ballad had become an Australian tradition with many local variants. This tradition reached its peak in the 1890s, partly driven by Sydney’s Bulletin magazine with its focus on Australia, Australian nationalism and Australian rural life.

Collapse followed as the spread of recordings, of cinema and radio, supplanted the previous oral tradition. Australian folk songs were replaced by US offerings.

By the 1930s, New England Country Party politician Mick Bruxner, a cousin of Australian film maker Charles Chauvel, was complaining bitterly about US cultural dominance in film and language.

Not all was lost, however. A new wave was about to emerge, one that would see something of a resurgence in Australian folk music including folk songs, a rediscovery in which New England would play an important part.

Next week I will tell you how and why.

Jim Belshaw’s email is ndarala@optusnet.com.au. He blogs at http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com.au/ (New England life) and http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/ (New England history)