Troy’s new album is a family affair
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Winning tales … Troy Cassar-Daley’s songs have struck sucha resounding chord in Australia he has sold more than half a million records. Picture: Supplied.
Source: Supplied
TROY Cassar-Daley insists his new record Freedom Ride isn’t about him. Or his family. Or his life. Songwriters often say that.
And they do believe it, confident they have blended the conversations overheard in cafes or shared on planes, the moments they have borrowed from loved ones and strangers, into a narrative which is separate from their own stories.
But get this beloved Australian country music star talking about his ninth studio album Freedom Ride and you find out the man, his life and his family all over these songs.
There are a couple of exceptions, with very Australian stories inspiring the title track and the-money-or-the-family dilemma of FIFO mine workers brought to life in Two Weeks On, Two Weeks Off which also features his good mate Jimmy Barnes.
Freedom Ride was written with another friend Paul Kelly months before the pair would join the journey in February to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the NSW civil rights bus ride.
The experience struck home to this Grafton-raised indigenous country music songwriter who found it tough to wrap his head around the segregation which existed in those regional towns until the late 1960s.
Freedom Ride … The record title was inspired by the civil rights journey into regional NSW which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. Picture: Supplied.
Source: Supplied
“It still smacks me in the face a bit, that there was segregation in regional towns in 1965. I still smart from it but I think if the Freedom Ride did anything, and sometimes it stirred up trouble for local fellas and had negative effects on towns too, but it did stop people sitting in different seats in a movie theatre. And it did stop women from having to walk over a mountain nine months pregnant to have a baby in a hospital that would allow them in there.”
Others songs on Freedom Ride celebrate what Cassar-Daley loves about Australia. Both the tracks Take A Walk In My Country and Another Australian Day stem from his ritual of grabbing a coffee and walking around a town before he has to head to the venue for soundcheck.
“I’m so fortunate to be able to play these small towns. As soon as I get there, I get out of the motel and breathe the place in, go for a walk, talk to people, have a coffee. Even if it is International Roast; then, I’ve got to have a lot of sugar,” the coffee snob says, laughing.
His grandfather’s old Akubra, which managed to survive the 2011 flood which hit his family’s property near Brisbane, tells its tales in This Old Hat.
Black Mountain was inspired by the experience of his Uncle Buddy, wife Mary and two aunts Jannay and Joanne who went for a sightseeing drive near this hallowed ground not knowing “it was forbidden for our mob to go there”.
Hearts will break listening to Since You Left This Town. A young indigenous boy falls in love with a local girl and her father forbids the relationship. Cassar-Daley prefers that song to speak for itself.
Family business … Cassar-Daley has record with his son Clay and daughter Jem for his new record. Picture: Noel Kessel. Source: News Corp Australia.
Source: News Limited
But he candidly details other moments from his own childhood and the lives of his own children Clay and Jem, with wife Laurel Edwards, throughout the record.
Skim the lines of Something About Trains and you discover Cassar-Daley would go shooting rabbits and kangaroos before he had even hit double digits.
Bring up shooting and he shudders. The question evokes the fateful day he asked his mother if he could move to Sydney to live with his father when he was just seven. It was a couple of weeks after going out shooting with his stepfather near their Grafton home.
“I was ok with a gun. I couldn’t stand him so much. That night, while the spotlight was on the rabbits running around and he was standing near the car, for just a split second I thought to myself “If I got rid of him, then my problems would be over’,” Cassar-Daley recalls.
“I dropped the gun down thinking “I can’t do that, I’ll go to jail.’ That moment made me realise I needed to move to my dad. My mum was trying to keep her marriage going and in her defence it must have been hard to balance everything.”
He did move back to Grafton after a year living in inner-city Sydney with his father and his Maltese relatives. The musician recalls his dad sitting on the edge of his bed playing the guitar and harmonica to calm him when he missed his mum and the bush.
Musical DNA … Cassar-Daley and wife Laurel support their children’s musical inclinations. Picture Cameron Richardson.
Source: News Corp Australia
So it is no surprise the musician DNA from both Cassar-Daley and his wife is strong in their son and daughter who joined their parents on stage at this year’s Tamworth Country Music Festival and have recorded songs with him for Freedom Ride.
The whole family sing together on the traditional American song Down To The River To Pray, which featured in O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Clay, who is studying at music college, chose to record the Ryan Adams song Under Your Breath and 14-year-old Jem picked a Ray LaMontagne track Rock & Roll and Radio to record with their dad.
Country king … The beloved music star has been going to Tamworth Country Music Festival since the early 1980s. Picture: Supplied.
Source: Supplied
“I didn’t expect them to pick country songs but they played them at Tamworth and the response to the kids was phenomenal, I couldn’t believe it. I had to look away a couple of time because I was going to cry I was so proud of them,” he said.
“They’re such good kids. We’ve tried to bring them up so that you could leave them in any company and they should be able to hold their own.
“Music is in the blood but I told them it’s not easy and they definitely need their Plan B going.
“They understand how hard it is. They used to hate it when I put the guitar by the door because they knew I was going.
“But they love being on the album — Jem and Clay couldn’t believe their name was in print!”
* Troy Cassar-Daley Freedom Ride Tour kicks off on April 30. The Palms at Crown, Melbourne, May 9, Hydro Majestic, Katoomba, September 13. For all regional dates, troycassardaley.com.au
