My Kind of Scene uncovers the past and present of Australian music. In part 1 of this two part episode we deep dive (and I mean it!) into three titans of Australian soul: Renée Geyer, Marica Hines and Venetta Fields.
Find the episode playlists on the Spotify Cara Diaria artist page and on YouTube. Send questions or compliments to mykindofscenepod[@]gmail.com.
My Kind Of Scene acknowledges and pays respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of the land many of us call Australia.
Sources
My Kind of Scene uncovers the past and present of Australian music. In part 1 of this two part episode we deep dive (and I mean it!) into three titans of Australian soul: Renée Geyer, Marica Hines and Venetta Fields.
Find the episode playlists on the Spotify Cara Diaria artist page and on YouTube. Send questions or compliments to mykindofscenepod[@]gmail.com.
My Kind Of Scene acknowledges and pays respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of the land many of us call Australia.
Sources
Intro 00:00
🎵 Welcome to My Kind Of Scene where we uncover the past and present of Australian music. I'm Cara Diaria, indie musician and music nerd, bringing my unique perspective to the hits and misses, the movers and shakers, the goodness and greatness that makes the Australian music scene, my kind of scene. I'm so happy to be back with you after a few months off! Before we dig in, let's acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present, and future traditional custodians and elders of the land many of us call Australia.
🎵 For this two-part episode, we are going to get in touch with our soulful sides. In part one, we'll explore the careers of three of the most soulful singers that have called Australia home, pioneering women who laid the groundwork for many more to come. Next time we'll take a joy ride through the streets of modern Australian soul and look ahead to the future. While we'll focus on women and non-binary artists, we won't forget about the men.
Renée Geyer intro 01:49
I hope not to start a trend of episodes being inspired by the passing of one of our great talents, but the recent sad news of the death of Australian soul icon Renée Geyer at age 69 has had me musing on the most soulful singers in our history.
Geyer's incomparable voice, defied expectations. In her own words, she was <quote>, "a white Hungarian Jew from Australia 🎵 sounding like a 65-year-old black man from Alabama" <unquote>.
Attempting to go back and listen to Geyer's four-decade catalog of studio and live recordings has proved frustrating. I'm not sure if it's due to my international status, but very few of her releases seem to even be available on iTunes, let alone on the plethora of streaming platforms that exist today. At the time of recording this episode, a free Deezer account seems to be the best option to listen to the majority of Renée Geyer's albums. 🎵
As I listen to her husky, yet powerful vocal rolling over bluesy pianos and funky baselines, I wonder how we've allowed this to happen. For a once-in-a-generation artist's body of work to slip into obscurity, to exist only in our parents' dusty record collections and forgotten CD stackers, while her American and British contemporaries are revered, streamed and sampled.
This is part of the conundrum of Renée Geyer, a challenge she herself identified. She was relatively peerless, a little out of time, and didn't fit neatly into a box. Therefore, she was perhaps not recognized and cataloged in the way many of her Australian rock or pop contemporaries were, or for that matter, the way her international soul and R&B counterparts, like Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, Nina Simone, or Dusty Springfield were.
In her year 2000 memoir, Confessions of a Difficult Woman, Geyer referred to the music industry and audiences' struggle to pigeonhole her as her star rose.
<Quote> "My sound caused a lot of confusion. Black people were hailing it, but being white got in the way. And white people simply didn't know what to do with me because I sounded too black" <Unquote>. This lack of marketability apparently limited her solo success overseas, where she instead became a sought-after backing vocalist for the likes of Sting, Chaka Khan, Tony Childs, Neil Diamond, and Bonnie Raitt. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Renée's beginnings 04:40
🎵 Renée Geyer was born in Melbourne in 1953. She was the third and youngest child of a Hungarian-Jewish father and a Slovak-Jewish mother who was a Holocaust survivor and named Renée after another survivor who'd helped her in Auschwitz, after the rest of her family was assigned to death. From a young age, Geyer listened to rhythm and blues music on a transistor radio under her pillow, and met like-minded musicians at record stores.
A self-described problem child, Renée was expelled from private school for stealing. She began her singing career at 16, not necessarily with her parents' approval, performing in Bondi with jazz-blues outfit Dry Red, which featured future Mondo Rock staple, Eric McCusker. Geyer soon moved on to the more accomplished jazz-prog-rock group, Sun, releasing one album, Sun 1972, before again moving on to greener pastures, this time joining the better suited 🎵 R&B-soul outfit, Mother Earth. They performed regularly on Australian television, playing covers of overseas soul hits, often male-led like Stevie Wonder's "Superstition," 🎵 Marvin Gaye's, "What's Going On?" 🎵 and Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine."
Geyer was signed to RCA in 1973 and released her self-titled debut LP in 🎵 September, a collection of mostly interpretations of overseas hits like "Moondance" " 🎵 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," and "Lean 🎵 On Me," with the band Mother Earth providing backing at her insistence to the record company.
It's a Man's Man's World 08:55
But it was Geyer's second album 1974's It's a Man's Man's World that finally landed her in the Australian album charts.
🎵 The title track, a cover of James Brown's 1966 hit, was a number 44 single in Australia. Geyer's first inside the top 50. And what a stroke of genius! Indeed Geyer shares a little of Brown's smoky vocal timbre and sensuality, but taking this inherently chauvinistic lyric and delivering it from a woman's perspective completely reclaims the song and places much more power with the tagline, "…but it's nothing without a woman or a girl."
By the way, according to rock historian Glenn A. Baker, this was only the second-ever charting album by an Australian female singer, with the honor of the first going to Allison MacCallum, whose 🎵 number eight single "Superman," authored by Vanda and Young, helped drive album Freshwater up to number 42 in 1972.
Another fun connection between Geyer and McCallum is that they both recorded political jingles – 🎵 McCallum being the voice of "It's Time," the Gough Whitlam-led Labor party's successful call to action, after 23 years of conservative government. Three years later, following the dismissal of Whitlam's Labor government by the Governor-General, Malcolm Fraser's Liberal party engaged Geyer to sing their election 🎵 campaign song, "Turn on the Lights."
Mid-seventies to mid-eighties success 11:32
Over the 11 years from 1975 to '86, Geyer released six studio albums, three live albums, and two compilations. She had her greatest Australian commercial successes during this period with 1975 album, Ready to Deal reaching number 21, ' 76's live album climbing to 23 and '77's album, Moving Along, produced by Motown's Frank Wilson, and featuring Ray Parker, Jr. bassist James Jamerson, and members of Stevie Wonder's band, ascending all the way to number 11 🎵.
Geyer later recalled being awe-inspired to be in the presence of such greatness. She said, <quote> "All my influences were Black rhythm and blues artists, and here I was with one of the greatest people who produced those people, Curtis Mayfield's producer.
It was a big thrill for me, and I was very lucky to be in that situation. I was just in awe the whole time and learned a real lot. That's something that I'm very proud that I actually have that in my catalog. You know, not many other people can say that they've been through that experience, especially from Australia" <Unquote>.
Signature songs 13:26
🎵 Signature Renée Geyer songs from this period include:
Eighties and nineties session star 19:29
As I mentioned earlier, Geyer's mismatched voice and look meant she struggled to find traction as a solo artist in America. However, through the eighties and nineties, she became an in-demand session vocalist, appearing on several international pop and blues superstars' releases, including:
Geyer has also lent her mighty pipes to Australian and New Zealand artists, including 🎵 Paul Kelly, 🎵 Russell Morris, 🎵 Jimmy Barnes, 🎵 Cold Chisel, 🎵 Hoodoo Gurus, 🎵 Even, 🎵 Dragon and 🎵 Men at Work.
After her death, Men at Work's Colin Hay reflected on what it was like to work with the formidable vocalist.
<Quote> "Renée could be scary until you got to know her. And then she was really scary. She was funny, filthy, and if I managed to make her throw her head back and laugh, well, that was something. What a woman, what a singer! She was at the top of the class and long may she remain. The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen." < Unquote>
Geyer's contributions across genres and decades cemented her status as one of Australia's most soulful voices.
Later career 26:46
🎵 In 1994, she resumed her solo career with her ninth studio album, Difficult Woman, produced by Paul Kelly. While it wasn't a huge commercial success, the album's reception prompted her to relocate back to Australia and reestablish herself on the live circuit. The album's title, also referenced in her 2000 biography, Confessions of a Difficult Woman was born from Geyer's industry reputation as headstrong, frank, and uncompromising, from her insistence on including her <quote unquote> "big pink, huge face" on her album covers, despite that potentially discouraging black audiences, to posing with her ARIA award up her nose, Geyer played to her own beat, always.
A 1998 Best Of album was followed in '99 by another studio album, 🎵 Sweet Life, co-produced by Paul Kelly and Joe Camilleri. The lead single, "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" featured Aussie boy band CDB and was a fairly faithful cover of the Motown hit first recorded by Dee Dee Warwick and made popular in the sixties by Diana Ross and The Supremes and The Temptations. Second single, "Cake and the Candle," was an Adele-worthy ballad penned by Kelly, that perfectly showcased Geyer's smoky vocal 🎵.
2003's album Tenderland was Geyer's equal-highest charting album, reaching gold status, and receiving two ARIA nominations. It was the first time she'd released an album entirely comprised of soul classics, and she honored such standards as "Midnight Train to Georgia,"🎵 "Try a Little Tenderness," " Sexual Healing," and "Love Don't Live Here Anymore." 🎵
Geyer released four more studio albums across the next decade, including the sublimely titled Renéessance, which contained acoustic reinterpretations of her 🎵 own classics.
A 2009 breast cancer diagnosis didn't halt Geyer's career – she continued to perform in city clubs like her self-described "spiritual home," Bennett's Lane. This wasn't the only health challenge she'd conquered. In her memoir, Geyer was open about her seventies and eighties struggles with heroin addiction and multiple overdoses.
In 2005, Renée Geyer was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame by industry giant, Michael Gudinski, who declared <quote> "Yes, you're a difficult woman, but you're bloody fantastic." <unquote> In 2013, Geyer was inducted into the Music Victoria Hall of Fame, and in 2018 she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement award at the inaugural Australian Women in Music awards.
Geyer continued to wow live audiences up until just a month before her death from complications following hip surgery Unfortunately now, too late, Australia is realizing the depth and breadth of her legacy, and it's my hope that her immense and exceptional body of work makes the shift from "out of time" to "timeless" in the Australian consciousness.
Marcia Hines beginnings 33:53
So, who are the other great soul and blues singers of Australia? There are a couple of other women who are frequently mentioned in the same conversation as Renée Geyer – Marcia Hines and Venetta Fields. Both were American-born, but have called Australia home for many years and are now both naturalized citizens.
🎵 Marcia Hines is well known by multiple generations of Aussies, thanks to her successful beginnings in musical theater, a string of hit singles in the seventies and seven years spent as a judge on Australian Idol in the 2000s.
Born in 🎵 1953, the same year as Reneé Geyer, in Boston, Massachusetts, Hines grew up singing in the church. She and her brother were raised by their mother after their father died in surgery when Marcia was six years old. At age 16, Hines was talent-scouted by Australian promoters for a role in the 1970 Australian production of the risqué musical Hair, and went on to play the first ever black Mary Magdalene in the Australian production of 🎵 Jesus Christ Superstar, alongside John English, Stevie Wright and John Paul Young, to name a few.
In 1974, Hines scored a record contract and her first solo single, a soulful cover of James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" made it to number 🎵 17 on the charts.
Seventies success 36:47
Between 1976 and '79, she released five top 10 singles – covers like Burt Bacharach and Hal David's 🎵 "I just don't know what to do with myself," 🎵 "What I Did For Love" from A Chorus Line, 🎵 Karen Carpenter's "Something's Missing (in My Life)," and her biggest hit, Tom Snow's bouncy pop, 🎵 "You," which made it all the way to number two on the singles chart. During this time, Hines had three top 10 albums, continuing the trend with a number seven live album in 1978.
Now, I'd like to talk about the spectacular covers of these albums. Marcia has talked in interviews about how she and her management leaned in to the fact that, as an African American woman in 1970s Australia, she was different. She stood out.
It wasn't until I was in a record store, flipping through her albums in all their 12-inch glory, that I truly appreciated how striking these cover designs were and how they must have leapt off the shelf alongside their white-bread counterparts.
For example, Ladies and Gentlemen features a 23- or 24-year-old Marsha lounging amongst dark floral cushions in a tiger striped dress and matching turban, staring straight down the barrel of the camera into your soul. Or, the previous year's Shining cover, wearing a black and white ensemble with blue eyeshadow matching the blue background, again, locking eyes with the beholder.
But is it soul? 40:18
It should be said that Marcia Hines is not a soul singer in the same way Renée Geyer was. Her music has generally been much more pop. She was seemingly not too interested in retreading ground covered by the sixties girl groups and 🎵 divas. But she also did explore the funkier side of pop, like on tracks, "Don't Let the Grass Grow," " 🎵 O-o-h Child," 🎵 and "You're So Good." 🎵 Her version of the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" sounds like it's direct from a Blacksploitation movie soundtrack, and one of my favorite Marcia tracks "Whatever Goes Around," owes plenty to those 🎵 sixties soul groups. And above all she was definitely a disco queen!
Queen of Pop 43:01
🎵 The first Australian female performer to attain a platinum record, Hines was voted Queen of Pop by TV Week magazine voters every year from '76 to '78. She had another top ten hit in 🎵 1981 with the disco pop Dusty Springfield cover, "Your Love Still Brings Me to My Knees," which also made it to number six in the Netherlands. As the eighties progressed, Hines returned to her musical theater roots and took some time off to raise her daughter.
The emphatic response to her performance at the 1990 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras inspired her to relaunch her career, and Hines spent the mid-to-late nineties releasing records and touring.
2003 commenced another revival as Hines began her seven year stint as the "nice" judge on Australian Idol, 🎵 and in '06 she had a number six album, Discothèque. In 2007, she was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame, and in 2009 was appointed as Member Order of Australia for service to the entertainment industry as a performer, judge, and mentor, and to the community through a range of charitable organizations.
Hines' career has continued through the 2010s and beyond, with a tribute album to Carole King's Tapestry, an original album, starring roles in the disco musicals Velvet, and Saturday Night Fever. Across five decades, Marcia Hines has released 22 albums and sold 2.6 million copies.
Fun Facts 45:36
🎵 A few fun facts you may not know about Marcia Hines:
Venetta Fields Intro 48:07
Renée Geyer and Marcia Hines' slightly older contemporary, Venetta Fields, has had a somewhat lower profile career, but is no less credentialed as one of the queens of Australian soul.
There are also a few connection points between Geyer and Fields, the first being California, 🎵 1981, where Fields recorded backing vocals for Geyer's So Lucky album. Remember when I talked about the celebrated Motown producer, Frank Wilson, who put together a dream team for this album? Well, Venetta Fields was a part of that team.
Another connection point is Jimmy Barnes', 1984 debut solo album, Bodyswerve, which features the backing vocals of both singers 🎵. Another connection point is a delightful scene in Cold Chisel's, The Last Stand concert documentary film of the same year, where Geyer and Fields joined the Chisels on stage for a lovely, loose rendition of one of the legendary band's final hits, 🎵 "Saturday Night."
Both women were sought-after backing singers for Australian and international artists, but where Geyer found success as a solo artist, Fields seemed destined to remain "20 feet from stardom," as the saying goes. With her stellar list of credits, though, the singer whose soulful voice helped bolster Australian artists for three-plus decades is, in my opinion, vastly underappreciated and under-accoladed.
I first became aware of Venetta Fields in the eighties, 🎵 as one of John Farnham's formidable trio of backing singers: Lisa Edwards, Venetta Fields and Lindsay Field, no relation. Watching Farnham's live concerts on TV through the '80s and '90s, this trio were always in the background, providing impeccable support to one of Australia's best voices.
However, I had no idea that a long-term background singer for Farnham wasn't Fields' biggest career achievement – in fact, far from it. She'd had an entire music career before even coming to Australia in the early eighties, and once here, continued to provide vocals for some of our most iconic musical works. 🎵
Early life 51:33
🎵 Venetta Lee Fields was born in Buffalo, New York in 1941. She grew up singing gospel music at church and cited Aretha Franklin as a key inspiration. When she got the chance at age 20 to audition for the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, she in fact performed a gospel song Franklin had immortalized – "Never Grow Old" – which must have impressed Ike. Venetta became a member of the most popular iteration of the Ikettes, known for their mini dresses, long 🎵 hair, and high energy dancing as they provided backing vocals for the Turners.
During her five years with the Ikettes, Fields was regularly featured as a soloist. She released her debut solo single, the epic, "You're Still My Baby," 🎵 backed by The Ikettes on Ike Turner's label in 1963. 🎵 The Ikettes also released single including US top 40 "Peaches 'n Cream." When this song became popular, Ike Turner sent a different trio of singers on the road to promote it, keeping the stellar lineup on tour with his own revue. This annoyed The Ikettes so much they left the revue to form their own girl group, The Mirettes. Here's Venetta singing lead on first single. "He's All Right With Me."
🎵 Their 1968 version of Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" was a top 20 R&B hit and made it to number 45 on the 🎵 US pop chart. This is another fun YouTube rabbit hole to go down, by the way; spotting a young Venetta Fields in Ikettes and Mirettes performances.
Unfortunately, the Mirettes struggled a bit with consistency and didn't reach the level of stardom that fellow groups like The Supremes, the Ronettes, or the Shirelles attained. Fields left the group in 1970.
Another session superstar 56:19
Around this time, Fields began working as a session vocalist. She often worked with singers Clydie King and Sherlie Matthews, and the three formed the Blackberries around 1971. In '72, they were actually hired to bolster the background vocals on a 🎵 Supremes album. During this period, Fields lent her voice to some seminal recordings and tours, 🎵 like the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St., Pink Floyd's 🎵 Dark Side of the Moon tour and Wish You Were Here album, and the soundtrack of the 1976 musical film A Star Is Born, yes, one of the precursors to the Bradley Cooper / Lady Gaga version – in which Fields also appears as one of the 🎵 backing singers for Barbra Streisand's character.
In fact, Fields had recorded with Streisand before on her 1971 top 40 version of Carole King's, "Where You Lead." This track is well known to Carole King fans as part of the fabric of her iconic 1970 album Tapestry and 🎵 dear to me and many others around my age, thanks to the version recorded later by King and her daughter Louise, which served as the theme song to the beloved 2000s mother-daughter dramedy, Gilmore Girls. By the way, Marcia Hines also recorded a version of "Where You Lead" much later, as part of her 2010 Marcia Sings Tapestry album.
Venetta Fields also recorded with, amongst others, 🎵 Quincy Jones, 🎵 Tim Buckley, 🎵 Steely Dan, 🎵 Humble Pie, 🎵 The Doors, 🎵 Diana Ross, 🎵 Joe Cocker, 🎵 Bonnie Raitt, 🎵 Neil Diamond, 🎵 Leonard Cohen, 🎵 the Jacksons, 🎵 Bob Seger 🎵 and Thelma Houston.
In the early seventies, she also lent her voice to a track well known to listeners of 🎵 this podcast. Yes, that's Venetta in the background of Helen Reddy's, "I Am Woman."
Meeting her hero 01:05:27
During the early seventies Fields also got to work 🎵 with her hero, Aretha Franklin. After the two met on the set of the Johnny Carson Show, Franklin asked Fields to perform with her in Boston. Fields was <quote unquote>, "gobsmacked" to be invited and found it exhilarating to be in the presence of someone who was so incredibly focused on her craft and who <quote> " when she'd hit the stage, she'd sing the roof off the place. Every time." <Unquote>. Fields toured with Franklin on and off for about two years, always making herself available whenever her idol called.
In 1976, Fields took a more spotlighted role fronting the disco funk outfit, The Dupars 🎵 on the EP, Love Cookin' / We Rockin'. She continued to accept backing vocal gigs, including a Saturday night session she almost knocked back. When she learned it was for a film soundtrack, which usually paid extra she took the job. The gig sure did pay with residuals checks for many years to come – the film was a hit! Now if I thought my mind was blown learning that the Bee 🎵 Gees wrote Frankie Valli's theme to the 1978 movie musical Grease, imagine my surprise in learning Ms. Fields contributed to those signature background harmonies.
Fields in Oz 01:07:59
🎵 Fields toured Australia as a member of the Boz Scaggs backing band in 1978 and '80, and while in the country contributed backing vocals to New Zealand rock band Dragon's former frontman Mark Hunter's solo 🎵 album, Big City Talk.
In 1982, Fields decided to relocate to Australia as a sort of reinvention. She continued to work with American artists when they toured Australia, and recorded and or toured with Australian artists like, as mentioned, Jimmy Barnes and Cold Chisel, 🎵 plus, Richard Clapton (and yes, your ears aren't deceiving you – that's Jimmy Barnes, she's harmonizing with), 🎵 Australian Crawl, 🎵 and the Black Sorrows. By the way, Vika Bull credits Venetta with teaching her and sister Linda a great deal about singing harmonies during the Hold Onto Me album sessions.
And, as we discussed, Fields became a long-term member 🎵 of John Farnham's band from 1986 to '95. Some of the Farnsey hits she burnished with her vocals include: "Age of Reason," 🎵 "Two Strong Hearts," 🎵 " That's Freedom," 🎵 "Chain Reaction," and "Have a Little Faith." 🎵
And of course, Fields was featured in all of Farnham's live performances and concert recordings for almost 10 years beginning October 1986, when she joined him on the tour supporting the monster album, Whispering Jack. Just think about 🎵 how many whoa-ohhh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohs 🎵 she sang.
But is it soul? 01:13:15
Of course, we're talking about Venetta Fields as a titan of soul music. John Farnham's music wasn't exactly in the soul genre, unless you count his exceptional 1991 duet with Jimmy Barnes covering the 1967 Sam and Dave classic, "When Something is Wrong With My Baby," 🎵 which I do, but sadly, this track did not feature Venetta Fields. What it did do, however, is demonstrate Farnham's ability with this musical style. But Fields' presence in Farnham's band brought a further element of soul and gospel to his repertoire. Here's a great example from the National Film and Sound Archive, a goosebump-inducing live rendition of "Amazing Grace" performed by John Farnham, 🎵 Venetta Fields and Lindsay Field in 1987. Simply heavenly.
Mid and late career 01:15:14
In the mid-eighties, Fields formed a group called Venetta's Taxi. Unfortunately, there's little evidence remaining of this group's existence, save for one or two Hey, Hey, It's Saturday performances. Here's the track, "Breakdown," demonstrating a kind of '80s rock interpretation of her 🎵 '60s roots. That's fellow Blackberries member, Shirley Matthews, on background vocals.
It wasn't as polished or successful as Fields' former colleague, Tina Turner's 1984 number one smash hit Grammy winner, "What's Love Got to Do With It," that kicked off an incredible new phase of the superstar's 🎵 career. Or Aretha 🎵 Franklin's 1985 pop moment and Aussie top 10, "Freeway of Love." 🎵 Or Diana Ross' sparkling '80s reinvention, "Chain Reaction." By the way, did I mention in our Bee Gees deep dive that this was another hit they penned? Maybe that's why it was the number one single in Australia for 1986.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that Venetta's Taxi set the charts on fire and it appears to have been a short-lived venture. Relaunching a music career as a middle-aged woman with a huge voice in the time of Madonna, Cyndi Lauper and Bananarama was not easy.
🎵 In the late '80s and beyond, Fields lent her talents to musical theater, performing in Big River: the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the concert version of the ABBA-Tim Rice jaunt Chess, and the Buddy Holly bio, Buddy the Musical. She also staged and toured her own show, Gospel Jubilee.
In 1999, she finally released her first true solo album, fittingly titled At Last. Sadly, there's little evidence available online of these mid and late career works – once again albums, cast recordings, and videos are relegated to dusty bookcases or boxes under beds instead of populating playlists of Aussie greats.
The National Film and Sound Archive has thankfully preserved one recording of Fields from the mid-nineties – a lush version of one of my holiday favorites, "The Christmas Song," beautifully backed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, recorded for department store Myer-Grace Brothers' annual charity compilation album, The Spirit of Christmas. 🎵 By the way, this series was executive produced by her fellow John Farnham backing singer Lindsay Field, with different Australian musicians donating tracks each year for 25 years, raising over $5 million for the Salvation Army and the Starlight Foundation. It's an absolute treasure trove of Australian artists interpreting Christmas classics, and another connection point between Venetta Fields 🎵 and Renée Geyer. That's right! Ms. Geyer also contributed a quintessential rendition of a holiday favorite for the 2002 compilation.
If this podcast ever reaches the ears of whoever at Myer, or Sony, or Universal Music holds the rights to the masters – please, I'm begging you! Make these albums available on streaming services so we can continue to enjoy them for years to come. And in the meantime, thank goodness for second-hand CD stores!
Buffalo's Music Hall of Fame 01:21:32
🎵 In 2005, dual-citizen Venetta Fields was inducted into her US hometown Buffalo's Music Hall of Fame for her work with the Ikettes and Mirettes this is her out front of the Ikettes – as well as for her work as a background vocalist with so many artists. She has not received the same recognition in Australia, save for being the recipient of the Australian Gospel Singer of the Year Award in 2002. ARIA and Australian Women in Music Awards voters – if you're listening, we have a living national treasure – no, an international treasure – here, going unrecognized. It's past time to give Venetta Fields her due.
For me, learning about Renée Geyer, Marcia Hines and Venetta Fields has been a little bit like learning about Prince. You're familiar with the "Purple Rain" and "Raspberry Beret" of it all, but when you start to discover how far the Purple One's tentacles spread, It's pretty mind blowing. The Bangles' Manic Monday was written by Prince?! Of course it was! That's how I've felt researching this episode. "She sang on that?!" She toured with them?!" These women have injected their distinct, soulful voices into so many beloved Australian and international recordings and concerts, in addition to forging their own multi-decade careers.
Outro 01:23:58
🎵 I hope this deep dive into the original queens of Australian soul has fed your soul as much as it has mine. If you want to hear the songs we played again, check out the Cara Diaria page on Spotify – you'll find a playlist featuring all the tunes, plus playlists from previous My Kind Of Scene episodes.
Join me next time to explore how this legacy has evolved in recent years, and imagine where it might go in the future.
Who's your favorite Aussie soul singer? Send me an email at MyKindOfScenePod @ gmail.com.
Thanks for listening to My Kind Of Scene. This episode was written, recorded, and produced by Cara Diaria. Theme music by Cara Diaria. Source links are in the episode description. If you enjoyed it, please rate and review us, and tell your friends.