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Clinton Walker

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Walker in 2009

Clinton Walker is an Australian writer, best known for his works on popular music. He is known for his books Highway to Hell (1994; a biography of Bon Scott), Buried Country (2000; also a film and soundtrack album), History is Made at Night (2012), and others. He has also written on other subjects, in books such as Football Life (1998) and Golden Miles (2005), and has worked extensively as a journalist and in television.

Early life

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Born in Bendigo, Victoria, in 1957, Walker dropped out of art school in Brisbane in the late 70s to start a punk fanzine with Andrew McMillan and to write for student newspapers.[1]

Career

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Walker's sixth book, Buried Country, a history of Aboriginal country music, was published in 2000. "Like many of Walker’s projects", Martin Jones wrote in Rhythms, "Buried Country was at least a decade ahead of its time". At a time when Aboriginal music still wasn't established or accepted as a fixture on the broader Australian music scene, Walker had long been one of its few media champions, and Buried Country was hailed as a pioneering and monumental work of music historiography.[2][3][4] A new updated edition of the book was released in 2015 along with a rebooted version of the CD called Buried Country 1.5, and as a result of their even greater success than the first time around,[5][6][7][8][9] a touring live stageshow adaptation premiered in 2016 and played the festival circuit for a few years.[10][11][12] In 2018, Australian singer-songwriter Darren Hanlon, in conjunction with Mississippi Records in the US, produced a vinyl iteration of the Buried Country compilation that included even more new rare tracks.[13]

In 2012, Walker published History is Made at Night, a polemic on the endangered Australian live music circuit.[14][15]

In 2018 Walker published two books. Early in the year a new edition of his 1996 title Stranded was published, and then later in the year with the all-new Suburban Songbook.[16][17][18] Suburban Songbook: Writing Hits in post-war/pre-Countdown Australia is a critical history of the early evolution of rock/pop songwriting in Australia,[19]

Deadly Woman Blues controversy

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Deadly Woman Blues, a history of black women in Australian music, was released in 2018 by a division of academic publisher UNSW Press, Each of 99 biographical entries was accompanied by a hand-drawn illustration by Walker. The book immediately garnered a few glowing reviews.[20][21][22]

There was an angry backlash from four of the artists who expressed their displeasure at being included without being spoken to, and citing factual inaccuracies.[23][24][25][26] This led to social media outrage in which Walker was criticized as a racist, misogynist, colonialist privileged white male. The book was withdrawn from sale, with the publisher promising to pulp any unsold copies and never to reprint it.[27]

Walker admitted to mistakes and apologised, saying "I didn't try to obscure what I was doing, I didn't take all the appropriate steps. I've been involved in underclass music forever, and in some ways, this is no different, but in other ways, it is very different".[24]

Works

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Bibliography

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Discography (as producer)

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Videography (as writer)

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  • Notes from Home (ABC, 1987)[34]
  • Sing it in the Music (ABC, 1989)[35]
  • Studio 22 (ABC series, also as co-presenter, 1999–2003)[36]
  • Buried Country (Film Australia, 2000)
  • Long Way to the Top (ABC, 2001)
  • Love is in the Air (ABC, 2003)[37]
  • Rare Grooves (ABC series, also as presenter, 2003)[34]

References

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  1. ^ Walker, Clinton. "Narrative biography". Clinton Walker. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  2. ^ "News Store". Newsstore.fairfax.com.au. 19 August 2000.
  3. ^ "Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network". Api-network.com. Archived from the original on 15 December 2013.
  4. ^ "Howe-written...BURIED COUNTRY (2002)...Four Decades of Country Music Journalism". Bobhowe.com.
  5. ^ Rothwell, Nicholas (10 April 2015). "Buried Country celebrates indigenous music's wayward dreamers" (PDF). The Australian. Archived from the original on 11 April 2015.
  6. ^ Hughes, Annette (2 April 2015). "Clinton Walker: Buried Country: The story of Aboriginal country music". The Newtown Review of Books. Archived from the original on 6 May 2018.
  7. ^ "'Buried Country' by Clinton Walker". The Monthly. 1 May 2015.
  8. ^ "Undiscovered heart of our own country". NewsComAu. 13 November 2015.
  9. ^ Byron, Tim (8 December 2015). "No longer a buried country: the blossoming of Indigenous music". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  10. ^ "Buried Country". 12 October 2016.
  11. ^ "Melbourne Festival 2016: Buried Country concert unearths canon of Aboriginal music". 11 October 2016.
  12. ^ "Review: Buried Country, the Beginning of Nature & Baker Boy, Darwin Festival". 11 August 2018.
  13. ^ "Even on the streets of Melbourne, country music was the soundtrack to my soul | Jack Latimore". TheGuardian.com. 5 December 2018.
  14. ^ Currency House Plus (7 August 2012). "Clinton Walker 'HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT' on Vimeo". Vimeo.com.
  15. ^ "History is Made at Night: The Importance of Live Venues". 30 October 2012.
  16. ^ "Clinton Walker's Stranded Gets Reboot". 3 February 2021.
  17. ^ "Stranded: Australian Independent Music 1976-1992, Revised & Expanded Edition. Clinton Walker | Loud Mouth - the Music Trust Ezine". 29 August 2021.
  18. ^ "Voice of the exiles".
  19. ^ "The Naked City: The Hits and Misses of Oz Music". 30 November 2021..
  20. ^ Capp, Fiona (16 February 2018). "Deadly Woman Blues review: Clinton Walker on Australia's black women singers". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 12 February 2020.
  21. ^ Mem: 35841056. "Deadly Woman Blues (Clinton Walker, NewSouth) | Books+Publishing". Retrieved 12 February 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  22. ^ "DWB CM feat". Clinton Walker. Retrieved 12 February 2020.
  23. ^ "Book on black women musicians dumped after explosive claims author didn't interview artists". NITV. 6 March 2018. Retrieved 12 February 2020.
  24. ^ a b Quinn, Michael Lallo, Karl (6 March 2018). "Deadly Woman Blues book to be pulped following backlash over 'distressing' errors". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 12 February 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  25. ^ Corn, Aaron; Langton, Professor Marcia (7 March 2018). "What writers and publishers must learn from the Deadly Woman Blues fiasco". The Conversation. Retrieved 12 February 2020.
  26. ^ "Book-burnings of our times. Clinton Walker's Deadly Woman Blues gets pulped ... – The Northern Myth". blogs.crikey.com.au. Retrieved 12 February 2020.
  27. ^ "Deadly Woman Blues". Clinton Walker. 6 March 2018. Retrieved 12 February 2020.
  28. ^ rortydog's channel (26 February 2008). "Clinton Walker interview". YouTube.
  29. ^ Walker, Clinton. "Golden miles : sex, speed and the Australian muscle car". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  30. ^ Quinn, Michael Lallo, Karl (6 March 2018). "Deadly Woman Blues book to be pulped following backlash over 'distressing' errors". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 21 December 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  31. ^ "GOLDENTONE". Clinton Walker. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  32. ^ Various - Highlights From The ABC TV Series Studio 22, retrieved 21 December 2022
  33. ^ "Inner City Soundtrack". Clinton Walker. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  34. ^ a b Hogan, Trevor; Beilharz, Peter (April 2012). "Writing Oz pop: An insider's account of Australian popular culture making and historiography: An interview with Clinton J Walker". Thesis Eleven. 109 (1): 89–114. doi:10.1177/0725513612447233. ISSN 0725-5136. S2CID 144141621.
  35. ^ "Clinton Walker". IMDb. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  36. ^ "Studio 22". Shadow Cabinet. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  37. ^ "Love is in the air". Macquarie Library. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
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