The complete list

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Browse all sounds in chronological order
Sounds available for download

2012 additions
c 1903—1910 The Black Watch — Percy Herford
1927—1932 Queenie and David Kaili – Sydney recordings
1944 onwards Grace Gibson Productions’ radio serials — Various artists
1963 Royal Telephone — Jimmy Little
1963—1997 The Luise Hercus Collection, AIATSIS Audiovisual Archive — Dr Luise A Hercus (creator)
1966 Patrol from Da Nang — Tim Bowden
1972 A Track Winding Back — Barry Humphries and Dick Bentley
1975 It’s A Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll) — AC/DC
1988 Tender Prey — Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
2001 Aether — The Necks

2011 additions
1898 – The Recordings of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits — Alfred Cort Haddon and others
1927 – The Sailors — Stiffy & Mo
1943 – The maiden parliamentary speeches of Dame Enid Lyons and Dorothy Tangney — Dame Enid Lyons (1897-1981), Dorothy Tangney (1911-1985)
1952 – Ken Howard calling the Melbourne Cup — Ken Howard MBE (1913-1976)
1960 – The Art of the Prima Donna — Dame Joan Sutherland (1926-2010)
1964 – I’ll Never Find Another You — The Seekers
1974 – Living in the 70s — Skyhooks
1974 – Cyclone Tracy, Darwin
1987 – I Should Be So Lucky — Kylie Minogue
1987 – Voss — Richard Meale

2010 additions
1928 – Hinkler’s Message to Australia/Incidents of My Flight – Bert Hinkler
1936 – Wrap Me Up In My Stockwhip and Blanket – Tex Morton
1939 – The announcement of the declaration of World War II – Prime Minister Hon. Robert Menzies
1941 – The announcement of war with Japan – Prime Minister Hon. John Curtin
1959 – Bye Bye Baby – Col Joye
1948-1962 – Pick A Box – Bob Dyer
1971 – Just the Beginning – Don Burrows Quartet
1971 – Eagle Rock – Daddy Cool
1973 – Opening concert Sydney Opera House – Sir Charles Mackerras/Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Birgit Nilsson
1980 – The 4×100 Medley Relay Final at the Moscow Olympics – Norman May
1986 – We Are Going – Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)
1987 – Rebetika Songs – Apodimi Compania
1991 – From Little Things (Big Things Grow) – Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody
1992 – Paul Keating’s 'Redfern Address’ – Paul Keating

2009 additions
1924 – London recordings – Newcastle Steelworks Band, conductor Albert Baile
1954 – The Vegemite Jingle
1955 – The Adventure of the Singing Bullet – Smoky Dawson
1958 – My Country – read by Dorothea Mackellar
1962 – Georgia Lee Sings the Blues Down Under – Georgia Lee
1966 – In the Head the Fire – Nigel Butterley
1968 – Lionel Rose Wins the World Title – Ron Casey
1972 – I Am Woman – Helen Reddy
1973 – The Loner – Vic Simms
1991 – Treaty – Yothu Yindi

2008 additions
1919 – Country Gardens – Percy Grainger
1927 – Waltzing Matilda – John Collinson
1930 – The 1930 Australian XI: Winners of the Ashes
1938 – The Aeroplane Jelly Song – Joy King
1949 – Theme from Blue Hills – New Century Orchestra
1957 – Pub With No Beer – Slim Dusty
1967 – Irkanda IV – Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
1968 – Bird and Animal Calls of Australia – Harold J Pollock
1972 – Most People I know (Think That I’m Crazy) – Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs
1981 – We Have Survived – No Fixed Address

2007 additions
1899 – Fanny Cochrane Smith’s Tasmanian Aboriginal songs – Horace Watson
1910 – My South Polar Expedition – Ernest Shackleton
1937 – Dad and Dave from Snake Gully (Radio Series) – George Edward Players
1943 – The Majestic Fanfare (ABC radio news theme) – Queen’s Hall Light Orchestra
1950 – Maranoa Lullaby – Harold Blair
1950 – Corroboree – Sydney Symphony Orchestra
1953 – Jack Luscombe – interviewed by John Meredith
1966 – Friday On My Mind – The Easybeats
1976 – (I’m) Stranded – The Saints
1983 – Jailanguru Pakarnu – The Warumpi Band

2007 Foundation List
1897 – The Hen Convention – Thomas Rome
1904 – Chant Venitien – Nellie Melba
1915 – The Landing of the Australian Troops in Egypt – Zonophone
1931 – Along the Road to Gundagai – Peter Dawson
1939 – Give A Little Credit to Your Dad; Lonesome For Your Mother Dear – Buddy Williams
1944 – Swanston St Shamble; Two Day Jag – Graeme Bell
1953 – Tribal Music of Australia – A P Elkin
1960 – She’s My Baby – Johnny O’Keefe
1975 – 'Kerr’s cur’ speech – Gough Whitlam
1981 – Down Under – Men at Work

All Sounds of Australia in chronological order

1897 The Hen Convention – JJ Villiers

This is the earliest known Australian sound recording, made by Thomas Rome of Warnambool, Victoria, some time in early 1897. It captures a novelty song featuring imitations of a chook performed by John James Villiers. Rome’s display stand at the Warrnambool Industrial and Art Exhibition in 1896 to 1897 featured an Edison cylinder recorder which Rome had imported from the USA.
NFSA Title No. 452097
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1898 The Recordings of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits — Alfred Cort Haddon and others

The Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Strait in 1898, led by Professor AC Haddon, was the first British expedition to use the phonograph for research purposes. These are the first audio recordings of the songs and music of Indigenous Australians. The collection features songs and speech from Mer / Murray Island, Mabuiag / Jervis Island, Saibai Island, Tudu Island and Iama / Yam Island.
NFSA Title No. 8879
Audio: courtesy of the British Library. Digital access version of original wax cylinder recordings held in the collections of the British Library

1899 Fanny Cochrane Smith’s Tasmanian Aboriginal Songs – Fanny Cochrane Smith

These are the only recorded example of Tasmanian Aboriginal songs and the only recorded example of any Tasmanian Aboriginal language. In late 1899 and again in 1903, Horace Watson recorded Fanny Cochrane-Smith singing all the Tasmanian songs she knew, some in Aboriginal languages, others in English. It was recorded on six wax cylinders for the Royal Society in Hobart.
NFSA Title No. 500445
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c 1903—1910 The Black Watch — Percy Herford
Australia Record No 58

Percy Herford was a well known performer in Australia from the 1890s on. The Black Watch is a black wax cylinder record and the only example from the company in the NFSA collection. The Australia Record Company operated in Glebe, Sydney, between 1903 and 1910, recording and releasing a number of Australian popular (mostly music hall) performers. It is likely that it was the first company making commercial recordings in Australia. The company had at least two addresses; one in 73 Glebe Rd, Glebe, and another at 81 St Johns Rd, Forest Lodge. It was variously called the Australia Moulded Record Co and the Australia Phono Record Co.
NFSA Title No. 778653

1904 Chant Vénitien – (Dame) Nellie Melba

Gramophone ‘Melba’ Record GC3575

This performance made by Nellie Melba in London in 1904 was among the first commercial recording sessions for the Gramophone Co. Melba recognised the gramophone’s potential as a way of bringing her music into the homes of ordinary people and she had a great natural advantage in that the quality and timbre of her voice was ideally suited for the acoustic recording techniques of the time.
NFSA Title No. 301462
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1910 My South Polar Expedition – Sir Ernest Shackleton

This is a cylinder recording made in 1910 by Shackleton on his return from the British Antarctic Expedition (1907­09), also known as the Nimrod Expedition, after the name of Shackleton’s ship. In this recorded recollection, Shackleton relates the loss of one of the party’s horses, which was one of the reasons the group turned back before reaching the Pole. In the days before radio, public appearances or recordings of this kind were often used as fund raising efforts for future expeditions.
NFSA Title No. 562537
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1915 The Landing of the Australian Troops in Egypt

Zonophone 3068

With its actual origins obscure, the recording of this fascinating concoction was probably made in London around the time of the Australian landing in Gallipoli in April 1915. Capturing a Kipling­esque spirit of ‘boys’ own adventure’ that accompanied the early years of the Great War, it is an early example of the use of sound recording for the dramatisation of historic events — far removed from reality as such inventions often were!
NFSA Title No. 229758 & No. 190559
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1919 Country Gardens – Percy Grainger

This piano roll was issued by the Duo-Art Company in May 1919, shortly after the music was published by Schott, London. These 'Aeolian’ Duo-Art rolls (Aeolian catalogue number 6149) were made in real time by a perforator that punched the holes as the musician played the piano. Dynamics were added simultaneously by a producer using two rotary controls. Grainger was one of the 'Aeolian’ Company of New York’s most popular artists: between 1920 and 1933, he cut 12 piano rolls for the company.
NFSA Title No. 510950 (piano roll)
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1924 The London Recordings – Newcastle Steelworks Band

The earliest disc recordings by an Australian brass band were made by the Newcastle Steelworks Band during their year-long visit to Great Britain in 1924. The band chose from a repertoire of some 500 pieces to make the equivalent of 18 double-sided recordings for the Aeolian Company in London, conducted by Albert Baile.
NFSA Title No. 560469
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1927—1932 Queenie and David Kaili – Sydney recordings
Parlophone

These are the formative recordings of Australian Hawaiian music. The Kailis were Hawaiian-born musicians who toured and recorded in Australia in the 1920s and early 30s, making 23 records for Parlophone between 1927 and 1932. David Kaili was one of the first generation of steel guitar players and had been recording since 1914. The music of the duo, sometimes billed as The Hawaiian Entertainers, inspired the first Australian musicians playing Hawaiian music. Their Australian recordings are rare and much of it has never been re-released.
Learn more about Hawaiian music in Australia.
NFSA Title Nos. 311199, 311409, 311351

1927 Waltzing Matilda – John Collinson

Broadcast Deluxe Series W573

This is the first known recording of Waltzing Matilda, probably by the Queensland-born tenor John Collinson in London in 1927. It was released with My Old Home Town (Mildura) on the B side but sold very few copies. At the time, the recording industry barely existed in Australia and the few releases by Australian artists were recorded and manufactured overseas. The same recording was released as Vocalion X 10021 in 1927 with The Maori Flute on the flip side.
NFSA Title No. 283469
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1927 The Sailors — Stiffy & Mo

Parlophone A2330

Comedians Nat Phillips (1883-1932) ‘Stiffy the Rabbit-o’ and Roy Rene (1891-1954) ‘Mo’ formed a comedy duo in 1916 which was highly successful on the vaudeville circuit until 1925. They were best known for their risqué or ‘blue’ comedy routines.
NFSA Title No. 253375

1928 Hinkler’s Message to Australia/Incidents of My Flight – Bert Hinkler

Columbia 0970

Bert Hinkler made the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 in a single engine, open cockpit Avro Avian biplane, taking just over 15 days to do so. Less than a month after he landed he recorded this disc in Sydney, inscribing his signature on the master disc.

On the first side he encourages Australia to embrace aviation, while on the other side he recounts anecdotes about the flight. Such spoken recordings by celebrities were common in the early days of the Australian recording industry. Charles Kingsford-Smith and Charles Ulm recorded similar discs shortly afterwards.
Explore more recordings of early flight experiences and some of the aviator songs that became popular at the time.
NFSA title: 267488
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1930 The 1930 Australian XI: Winners of the Ashes

HMV EB52

Recorded in London shortly before the Australian cricket team sailed for Australia in mid-September 1930 after their triumphant Ashes series win, it features the voices of Don Bradman, Bill Woodfull, Clarrie Grimmett, Alan Kippax, Stan McCabe and Tom Wall.

Recording the voices of famous people, such as the touring Kangaroos cricket team and the transoceanic pilots of the day such as (Sir) Charles Kingsford-Smith and Bert Hinkler was quite common at this time.
NFSA Title No. 266765
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1931 Along the Road to Gundagai – Peter Dawson

HMV EA889

Jack O’Hagan wrote his popular ballad in 1922, even though he had never been near the town! It sold over 50,000 copies in the first three months after publication and was taken up by almost every singer, choir and band of note. The great Australian baritone Peter Dawson first sang it in 1924, and recorded it in London in 1931.

Does your town have its own song? Listen to more songs about towns from the collection with sound curator Graham McDonald.
NFSA Title No. 189022
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1936 Wrap Me Up In My Stockwhip and Blanket – Tex Morton

Regal Zonophone G22904

Tex Morton (born Robert Lane in New Zealand in 1916) made his first commercial records for Regal Zonophone in Sydney in 1936. Wrap Me Up In My Stockwhip and Blanket was recorded during his fourth recording session in August that year. While his earlier recordings were American hillbilly style songs, this one (and another recorded in the same session) marked the start of a shift to performing more distinctly Australian material. This was a stylistic link back to the bush ballads of the late 19th and early 20th century Australian poets and provided the basis for the ‘bush ballad’ in later Australian country music.
NFSA title: 365991
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Audio: Courtesy EMI

1937 Dad and Dave from Snake Gully – George Edwards Players

Dad and Dave from Snake Gully began its marathon run on Radio 2UW in Sydney on 31 May 1937. In 2,276 fifteen­ minute episodes, it was broadcast four nights a week and ran for 15 years. The show originated when Wrigleys, the chewing gum manufacturer, asked its advertising agent to create a serial that was Australian in character and would appeal to a national audience. Thus Dad and Dave from Snake Gully became compulsory listening and an antidote for the stresses of the War years.
NFSA Title No. 737158
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1938 The Aeroplane Jelly Song – Joy King

The words of the 'Aeroplane Jelly’ jingle were written by Albert Francis Lenertz (aka Frank Leonard of Marrickville, 1891-1943), a wholesale grocery and wines-and-spirits merchant in Sydney, who was co-partner in a company which manufactured and marketed the 'Aeroplane’ brand of jellies and other products. The best known recording was made in 1938 by the seven-year-old Joy King (later Joy Wigglesworth) and broadcast for many years as part of a very effective advertising campaign for the jelly crystals. The song has remained one of Australia’s most endearing 'sing-along’ favourites over the decades.
NFSA Title No. 402848 & 281850
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1939 The Announcement of the Declaration of World War II – Prime Minister Hon. Robert Menzies

Menzies chilling speech with its well known opening, 'It is my melancholy duty …’, committed Australia to participation in the second great conflict of the 20th century. During the full speech — almost 20 minutes long — Menzies explains the political background that lead up to the declaration of war by Britain on Germany which, by the conventions of the time, also included Australia. He broadcast the speech from the Federal government offices at 4 Treasury Place, Melbourne, and the best copy the NFSA holds is on a 20 inch acetate disc.
NFSA title: 188388
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1939 Give a Little Credit To Your Dad; Lonesome For You Mother Dear – Buddy Williams

Regal Zonophone G 23855

Buddy Williams was the first Australian-born country singer to write and record songs with a distinctive Australian flavour. These songs come from his first recording session, on 7 September 1939 with the Regal Zonophone Company. Buddy was 21 years old and continued to make records until shortly before his death in 1986. Australian country music today owes much of its character to Williams’ whistling, songs and singing.
NFSA Title No. 190438
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1941 The Announcement of War with Japan – Prime Minister Hon. John Curtin

Australia’s reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbour on Sunday 7 December 1941 was swift. The attack took place on early Monday morning Australian time and Curtin made this broadcast to the nation that evening. With the war a lot closer to home, it is a much angrier speech than Menzies’ speech announcing war on Germany a little over two years earlier. Curtin’s location when he made the speech is uncertain — it could have been the Commonwealth offices in the city or perhaps the Victoria Barracks in St Kilda Rd, Melbourne.
NFSA title: 677049-
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1943 The Majestic Fanfare (ABC News Theme) – Charles Williams

This instantly recognisable Australian icon was actually composed by an Englishman, Charles Williams, a composer of Polish extraction. Williams had written scores for several of the early films of Alfred Hitchcock and composed music for the BBC and various television networks in the UK. Williams composed 'The Majestic Fanfare’ in 1935 and recorded it in London in 1945 with the Queen’s Hall Light (Music) Orchestra.

The original music was just under a minute long, but in 1952 the ABC opted for a compressed version of 18 seconds as the theme music for its radio news broadcasts.
NFSA Title No. 737182
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1943 The maiden parliamentary speeches of Dame Enid Lyons and Dorothy Tangney — Dame Enid Lyons (1897-1981), Dorothy Tangney (1911-1985)

The General Election of 1943 saw the first two women elected to the Australian Parliament, Edith Lyons for the United Australia Party in the seat of Darwin in north-west Tasmania, and Dorothy Tangney as a Labor Party Senator from Western Australia.
View Dame Enid Lyons and Dorothy Tangney on ASO.
NFSA Title No. 483102 (Tangney)
NFSA Title No. 483285 (Lyons)

1944 Swanston St Shamble/Two Day Jag – Graeme Bell

Ampersand 2

In the late 1930s, pianist Graeme Bell and other Australian musicians were inspired by the jazz of New Orleans, and this music provided inspiration for such Bell jazz tunes as 'Swanston Street Shamble’ and 'Two Day Jag’. The titles refer to traffic conditions and celebratory hang­overs in war-time Melbourne. These track were among the first recordings made by the band and the first to be commercially released. For over sixty years, Graeme Bell has been central to the history and development of Australian jazz.
NFSA Title No. 232811
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1944 onwards Grace Gibson Productions’ radio serials — Various artists

In 1934, Texas-born Grace Gibson was brought to Australia by Sydney radio station 2GB’s general manager, AE Bennett, to help sell American radio programs within Australia. Within ten years she had formed Grace Gibson Radio Productions, one of the most successful radio production companies in the world. Gibson’s company specialised in soap operas and serials, ranging from long-running family dramas Dr Paul and Portia Faces Life, to crime serials Night Beat and Dossier on Dumetrius. Scripts were often imported from the United States and adapted for Australian audiences, produced using local actors and then syndicated to radio stations across Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong and Canada. Many shows were so popular that they were still produced for up to 14 years after the original American scripts ran out, employing local writers to take over. When Gibson sold the business in 1978, Grace Gibson Productions had produced and sold around 40,000 quarter-hour episodes.

NFSA Title Nos. 205962, 224303, 202616

1948-1962 Pick A Box – Bob Dyer

Pick A Box ran for 10 years on the radio before becoming a TV program in 1957. As far as the NFSA can tell, the quiz show was the only regular program to broadcast on both radio and TV. While the radio show ran until 1962, the TV version of Pick A Box continued its popularity until it compere, Bob Dyer, retired in 1971. Dyer was one of the few radio stars of the pre-television era to successfully make the shift to TV.
NFSA title no 143426
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1949 Theme from Blue Hills – New Century Orchestra

There are few pieces of music in Australia as instantly recognisable as Ronald Hanmer’s Pastorale – the theme music to ABC radio’s serial Blue Hills, by Gwen Meredith, which ran for 5,795 episodes from 1949 to 1976. Best known for his light orchestral and brass band compositions, Hanmer was an English composer who emigrated to Australia in 1975. The original recording of his Pastorale was made by the New Century Orchestra, conducted by Sidney Torch, and was released on a 10” 78rpm disc (FDH023) by the mood-music company Francis Day and Hunter.
NFSA Title No. 503205
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1950 Maranoa Lullaby – Harold Blair

Traditional Aboriginal song, arranged by Arthur Steadman Loam (1898­1976)

Tenor Harold Blair was the first Aboriginal Australian to achieve international recognition as a singer on the opera and concert stage. This recording is one of two unreleased songs on a lacquer disc and is perhaps an early version of a five-­song EP disc that Blair recorded in 1950. This comprises Westernised settings for voice and piano of five traditional 'Australian Aboriginal Songs: Melodies, Rhythms and Words Truly and Authentically Aboriginal’.
NFSA Title No. 245797
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1950 Corroboree (suite from the ballet) – Sydney Symphony Orchestra

HMV ED1193-4

This is the first of several recordings of John Antill’s 'Corroboree’, the first Australian ballet work by an Australian composer on an Australian subject to become internationally performed and recorded. It was also the first Australian recorded orchestral work to draw on Indigenous references and the first work performed by an Australian orchestra to be released internationally.
NFSA Title No. 297286
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1952 Ken Howard calling the Melbourne Cup — Ken Howard MBE (1913-1976)

Australia’s best known race caller described 32 Melbourne Cups in a career that spanned from 1936 until 1973. Some of his colourful phrases, such as ‘London to a brick on …’ have become part of the Australian vernacular.
NFSA Title No. 455550

1953 Sam Griffiths – sung by Jack Luscombe from the John Meredith Folklore Collection

As part of an oral history recorded by pioneering oral and folk historian John Meredith, Jack Luscombe sings ‘Sam Griffiths’, a satirical political song about a Queensland politician of the late 19th century. This is one of three songs captured in the 1953 recording of Jack Luscombe and is the formative item in the John Meredith Folklore Collection housed with the National Library of Australia. This collection (1920­2001) is the most important of its kind in Australia.
NFSA Title No. 737269
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1953 Tribal Music of Australia – A P Elkin

Folkways FE4439

This was the first publicly available LP recording of traditional Aboriginal music, released by the Ethnic Folkways label in the United States. It consisted of recordings made by Dr A.P. Elkin between 1949 and 1952 in Arnhem Land and contained a wide variety of previously unheard material: sacred songs, corroboree music, even several versions of the same song ­text.
NFSA Title No. 242999
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1954 The Vegemite Jingle – the Happy Little Vegemites

This was the first radio jingle for Vegemite, appearing in 1954 and performed by the Happy Little Vegemites. With the advent of television in 1956, the jingle became a television commercial and has been used in advertising campaigns for Vegemite ever since.
NFSA Title No. 416113
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1955 Smoky Dawson and the Adventure of the Singing Bullet – Smoky Dawson

Columbia KO 1026

In a career spanning six decades, Smoky Dawson was Australia’s first cowboy musician and a pioneer of Australian country music. Smoky and his horse Flash were legendary figures to an entire generation of young Australians who grew up listening to his radio show, The Adventures of Smoky Dawson from 1952 to 1962. Around 1955, Smoky produced a series of 10” 78pm recordings for Columbia Children’s Records including Smoky Dawson and the Adventure of the Singing Bullet.
NFSA Title No. 281755
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Audio: Courtesy EMI

1957 Pub With No Beer – Slim Dusty

Regal Zonophone G25498

This is perhaps Slim Dusty’s best known song and one that created several milestones in Australian recordings. It was the first gold record awarded to an Australian performer and the biggest selling Australian record to that time. Released on a single 78rpm side at a time when that format was rapidly disappearing, this recording effectively marks the end of the 78rpm era in the Australian music industry.
NFSA Title No. 190647
Audio: Courtesy of EMI Music Australia
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1958 My Country – read by Dorothea Mackellar

Dorothea Mackellar’s My Country was created by a homesick 19 year old Australian girl travelling through Europe with her father, Sir Charles Mackellar, the noted parliamentarian and physician. She had laboured over her poem for almost three years before it was published in The London Spectator in 1908 with the title Core of My Heart.

Reprinted in several Australian newspapers, it was warmly greeted as the quintessential evocation of post-colonial rural Australia. In 1958 Mackellar recorded a reading of three of her poems with oral historian, Hazel de Berg.
NFSA Title No. 328116
Audio: Courtesy National Library of Australia
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1959 Bye Bye Baby – Col Joye

Festival FK 3075

Col Joye was Australia’s first home grown rock ‘n’ roll star and 'Bye Bye Baby’ was his first big hit. It reached number one on the Sydney charts after first entering the charts in May 1959 and number three nationally. In 1959, Col had three songs in the listing of the top 25 national hits that year, a feat not repeated until 1965 by The Seekers. For the next few years Col Joye was a major star in Australia, promoting live shows and appearing on numerous TV shows such as Bandstand where he appeared regularly, though he was not able to repeat his early chart success.
NFSA title: 271642
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Audio: Courtesy Warner Music

1960 She’s My Baby – Johnny O’Keefe

Leedon / Lee Gordon LS 582

'She’s My Baby’ was the first number one hit for Australia’s first big rock’n’roll star, Johnny O’Keefe. While on an Australian tour with Tommy Sands in March 1959, American Scotty Turner (aka Graham Turnbull) played the newly written song to Johnny O’Keefe. Touring the USA in late 1959, O’Keefe recorded the song in Los Angeles with Scotty Turner playing lead guitar and the legendary Barney Kessell on rhythm guitar. It was released on 7 January 1960 on Lee Gordon’s own label, and remained at number one in Australia for an unprecedented 19 weeks.
NFSA Title No. 291386
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1960 The Art of the Prima Donna — Dame Joan Sutherland (1926-2010)

Decca AUS 1003/4

In 1951 Joan Sutherland moved to England to pursue an operatic career after she won the Sun Aria Competition in Sydney. Based in London through the 1950s she and her husband Richard Bonynge refined her singing style to that of a dramatic coloratura soprano singing the bel canto repertoire. The recording of The Art of the Prima Donna with the Royal Opera House Orchestra conducted by Francesco Molinari-Pradelli is still considered one of the great opera recordings.
NFSA Title No. 321750

1962 Georgia Lee Sings the Blues Down Under – Georgia Lee

Crest CRT 12-LP004

After a career that started entertaining troop in Cairns in the 1940s, and included fronting Geraldo and his Orchestra in London clubs, Georgia Lee recorded Georgia Lee Sings the Blues Down Under for the Crest label in Melbourne, becoming only the second female artist to release an LP in Australia and the first Indigenous female singer to do so. The album was also one of the first Australian albums to be recorded in stereo.
NFSA Title No. 511557
Audio: Courtesy Marcus Herman
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1963 Royal Telephone — Jimmy Little
Festival FK453

While Jimmy Little had been recording since the mid 1950s, it wasn’t until the release of Royal Telephone in 1963 that he became better known outside the country music genre. This was the first recording by an Indigenous Australian to achieve mainstream chart success, reaching no.1 on the Sydney charts and no.10 nationally. The song established him as a star in Australian popular music and his career continued for over 40 years.

NFSA Title No. 319442

1963—1997 The Luise Hercus Collection, AIATSIS Audiovisual Archive — Dr Luise A Hercus (creator)

Linguist Luise Hercus has spent over 50 years recording and studying Australian Aboriginal languages. She produced over 1,000 hours of unpublished recordings documenting Aboriginal languages from Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. This invaluable collection includes recordings of more than 40 Aboriginal languages which are endangered or no longer spoken, including Arabana, Birladapa, Diyari, Kuyani, Madhi Madhi, Malyangapa, Ngarigu, Wangkangurru, Wergaia, Wirangu, Yardliyawarra, Yarluyandi and many others. It contains the only known recordings of some of these languages.

1964 I’ll Never Find Another You — The Seekers

W&G WG-S 2334

After some success in the Melbourne folk clubs and an LP on W&G Records, The Seekers set sail on a cruise ship (employed as entertainers) in early 1964 as a way of getting to the UK. Within a few months they had been signed to Columbia Records and recording at Abbey Road Studios. Their first single for Columbia was I’ll Never Find Another You, written by Tom Springfield (brother of Dusty) released in December 1964.
NFSA Title No. 261815

1966 Patrol from Da Nang — Tim Bowden
ABC

There are not many radio field recordings made by on-the-ground reporters in the ABC’s archival collection. Even if there were, this recording would stand out in the crowd. Bowden’s 1966 documentary is part reflection on the Vietnam war and part field recording. Made for the ABC radio program Fact & Opinion, it is comprehensive at 40 minutes. The content ranges from graphic recordings of mortar attacks to US Marine banter as they carry out their patrol and interviews with the soldiers about what they think they are doing there. It is an amazing historical document and a riveting radio documentary.

1966 Friday On My Mind – The Easybeats

Parlophone A8234

The Easybeats are widely regarded as the greatest Australian pop band of the 1960s and were the first Australian rock and roll act to score an international pop hit with their classic 1966 single 'Friday On My Mind’. The songwriting team of Harry Vanda and George Young went on to become one of the most successful songwriting forces in Australian music, writing hits for John Paul Young and the early AC/DC, who included two of Young’s brothers.
NFSA Title No. 492436
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Audio: Courtesy J Albert and Son.

1966 In the Head the Fire – Nigel Butterley

WRC S/2495 In 1966, the ABC entered Nigel Butterley’s radiophonic work In the Head the Fire in the Italia Prize, the pre-eminent international competition amongst broadcasting organisations. One of 16 entries, it won the award against some stiff competition. Over several months, nearly 100 separate recordings were made in Sydney and Adelaide, supervised by conductor John Hopkins and the cream of the ABC’s technical engineers at the time. Although scored for vocal soloists, a small chorus and 23 instrumentalists, the effect of vast multitudes is achieved by multi-layering of tapes. Although originally released in mono, the tape was re-mastered in stereo and issued for commercial release in 1968.
NFSA Title No. 323123
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Audio: Courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

1967 Irkanda IV – composed by Peter Sculthorpe, performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

WRC A 601 / Odyssey 32 16 0150

Irkanda IV is the first major work by Australia’s leading composer Peter Sculthorpe (b. 1929) to be commercially recorded and to reach a national and international audience. The fourth in a series of works sharing the title Irkanda (which the composer explains as 'a remote and lonely place’), it is scored for solo violin, string orchestra and percussion. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was conducted by John Hopkins with Leonard Dommett the violin soloist.
NFSA Title No. 332275
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Audio: Courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

1968 Bird and Animal Calls of Australia – Harold J Pollock

Harold J Pollock was a well known film maker and nature photographer in Australia during the 50s and 60s. The NFSA holds numerous Pollock films of Australia fauna as well as this 7” EP, released by Jacaranda Press, which came in a 24 page book with detailed information and photographs of each bird and animal. This recording is one of only a few to be commercially released.
NFSA Title No. 255276
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1968 Lionel Rose Wins the World Title – Ron Casey

In Tokyo, on 26 February 1968, the twenty year old Indigenous boxer Lionel Rose took the World Bantamweight Championship from defending champion, Japanese boxer Masahiko ‘Fighting’ Harada. The fight was broadcast in Australia from ringside in Tokyo via telephone by 3DB broadcaster Ron Casey.
NFSA Title No. 283495
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Audio: Courtesy Australian Radio Network

1971 Just the Beginning – Don Burrows Quartet

Cherry Pie CPS 1009

'Just the Beginning’ was the first Australian jazz recording to earn a gold record. Burrows was performing from the 1940s around the Sydney jazz scene, but his combination with guitarist George Golla in the Don Burrows Quartet in the 1960s and 1970s defined a cool, Latin influenced Australian jazz built around Burrow’s flute and Golla’s electric guitar. Cherry Pie Records was set up by Burrows and Graeme Rule to act as an outlet for Australian jazz musicians.
NFSA title: 263853
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Audio: Courtesy Don Burrows (Passing the Bach)

1971 Eagle Rock – Daddy Cool

Sparmac SPR008

'Eagle Rock’ hit the charts in May 1971 and stayed at number one in Melbourne for 13 weeks and in Sydney for six weeks. It was the best selling single ever in Melbourne. Its infectious guitar riff and the cheery, good natured feel of the record, harking back to the doo-wop bands of the 1950s has ensured its enduring popularity. It provided an entry to the US market for the band, which had eluded Australian acts until then. While not a major hit, the band toured the West Coast three times over the next year and perhaps laid the groundwork for Australian performers later in the decade.
NFSA title: 300956
Audio: Courtesy Sony Music bandit.fm
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1972 A Track Winding Back — Barry Humphries and Dick Bentley
Philips 6205 019

Barry Humphries’ recording career has paralleled his stage and screen activities. On the A side he is joined by Australian actor Dick Bentley (who appeared with Humphries in the first two Barry McKenzie films) for Along the Road to Gundagai and Is’e an Aussie is’e Lizzie. The B side is Edna Everage singing True British Spunk, originally written for a BBC TV series in 1969 but excised before broadcast. One Humphries biographer has noted that his best songs are written for Edna.

1972 Most People I Know (Think That I’m Crazy) – Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs

Havoc H1012

Billy Thorpe (29 March 1946 – 28 February 2008) was a major pop star in the mid 1960s, but reinvented himself a few years later by embracing a more hard-edged British blues/rock style. 'Most People I Know (Think That I’m Crazy)’ became what Thorpe called his 'personal anthem’, reaching number two on the national charts. This recording of Thorpie’s live performance at the 1972 Sunbury Festival in Victoria captures one of the most powerful moments in Australian music.
NFSA Title No. 291714
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1972 I Am Woman – Helen Reddy

Capitol CP9953

'I Am Woman’ has become the enduring anthem of the women’s liberation movement. It was written by Helen Reddy and Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist Ray Burton. In December 1972, it reached the top of the Billboard charts, the first song by an Australian artist or composer to do so. It was also the first Australian song to win a Grammy Award.
NFSA Title No. 619633
Audio: Courtesy EMI
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1973 Opening concert Sydney Opera House – Sir Charles Mackerras/Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Birgit Nilsson

ABC Classics 476 6440

On 29 September 1973, the first public concert was held in the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras with soprano Birgit Nilsson, the program featured Wagner orchestral and vocal works. Mackerras was an Australian conductor with an international reputation and returned home to conduct the orchestra he had started with (as an oboist) many years before. The concert — and the concert hall — were judged a great success. The choice of an all-Wagner program, with a visiting Swedish soprano, is curious and one might wonder how such a concert might be conceived of today.
NFSA title: 766280
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Audio: courtesy ABC Classics

1973 The Loner – Vic Simms

RCA Camden CAMS 156

The Loner has been described as Australia’s great lost classic album of black protest music. The guitar and vocals of ten songs were recorded while Simms was a prisoner in Bathurst Jail with the rhythm section and other backing added in a Sydney studio. The original LP is exceedingly rare and few copies are known to exist.
NFSA Title No. 757646
Audio: Courtesy Sony Music
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1974 Living in the 70s — Skyhooks

Mushroom L35299

Skyhooks’ debut album was notable for having six of the ten tracks banned on commercial radio for drug and sex references, however You Just Like Me 'Cos I’m Good In Bed was the first song broadcast on the ABC’s new youth station 2JJ in January 1975. The album entered the charts in October 1974, where it stayed in the top 100 for 54 weeks and was the best selling album in Australia in 1975.
NFSA Title No. 263933

1974 Cyclone Tracy, Darwin

Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin on Christmas Eve 1974. It is estimated that Cyclone Tracy killed 71 people, with at least 22 people lost at sea. Between 80 to 90 per cent of housing was destroyed and tens of thousands were left homeless. Mike Hayes was the senior ABC journalist in Darwin at the time and his report, probably sent by ham radio a few days later, gives a touching picture of conditions in Darwin in the cyclone’s aftermath.

1975 It’s A Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll) — AC/DC
Albert AP 10990

T.N.T. was the second studio album from AC/DC and defined their style of hard edged, riff-based rock music. The first track on the LP, It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n’ Roll) has become an anthem of this genre of music, and the phrase has become part of the Australian language. It is also notable for the use of highland bagpipes in rock music. T.N.T. was an Australian-only release with most of the tracks being released overseas on High Voltage (Atlantic Records) which included a slightly shorter version of It’s a Long Way to the Top.
NFSA Title No. 291607

1975 'Kerr’s Cur’ speech – Gough Whitlam

On 11 November 1975, Gough Whitlam’s Labor government was dismissed by Sir John Kerr, the Governor-General. On the steps of Parliament House Whitlam gave this brief, but impassioned speech to the media. Press photographs of the moment show at least seven microphones recording the official announcement by David (now Sir David) Smith, the Governor­ General’s official secretary, of what has come to be known as ‘the dismissal’, and Whitlam’s outraged riposte, so it is almost impossible to know the precise origins of this particular recording.
NFSA Title No. 156392
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1976 (I’m) Stranded – The Saints

Fatal Records MA7186 / EMI 11346

This song has been cited in The Rough Guide to Punk as ‘one of the iconic singles of the era’, and predated most of the English punk recordings. Written by guitarist Ed Kuepper and vocalist Chris Bailey, the track was originally released on the band’s own Fatal Records label, with an initial pressing of 500 copies; on the strength of this first release the band was signed to EMI Records. In a survey conducted by APRA in 2001, it was voted among the top 30 Australian songs of all time.
NFSA Title No. 322350
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1980 The 4 × 100 Men’s Medley Relay Final at the Moscow Olympics – Norman May

Norman May has described this as the highlight of his broadcasting career. The Australian Olympic team had not done well at the previous Olympics in Montreal, and the Moscow games were clouded by boycotts due to the recent Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. There was national pride on the line for the Australian Olympians who had not won a gold medal for eight long years. May’s excitement comes through in the last lap, though the well-known phrase 'Gold, Gold, Gold’ May is meant to call out at the end of the race is actually a misquote.
NFSA title: 750967
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Audio: Courtesy ABC

1981 Down Under – Men At Work

CBS BA 222891

Men At Work’s first single release was a number one single in Australia (1981), the USA (1982) and the UK (1983), making Men At Work one of only five groups to achieve simultaneous number one chart success on both sides of the Atlantic. The song’s catchy melody and cheeky lyrics attracted worldwide attention when Australia won the America’s Cup in 1983, and again some years later when the song featured in the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
NFSA Title No. 406936
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1981 We Have Survived – No Fixed Address

Rough Diamond Records RDS 3511

Aboriginal rock-reggae band No Fixed Address came together at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies (CASM) in Adelaide in 1978. Composed by Bart Willoughby, 'We Have Survived’ appeared initially on the sound track album for the award winning film Wrong Side of the Road. In 1982 the track appeared on the EP From My Eyes. This composition is viewed by many as an anthem of the Aboriginal land rights movement in the 1980s and since that time it has grown in significance as an iconic Aboriginal protest song. Bart went on to become the first Aboriginal musician to score a feature film and the first to sign a record deal. He was also leader of the first overseas tour by an Aboriginal rock band.
NFSA Title No. 244118
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1983 Jailanguru Pakarnu – The Warumpi Band

Hot Records HOT703

The Warumpi Band originated in the Aboriginal settlement of Papunya in the Central Desert region of the Northern Territory. They toured the Northern Territory and Kimberley region playing to communities, outback stations and isolated townships and developed their distinctive sound whilst writing much of their material on the road. 'Jailanguru Pakarnu’ (Out from Jail), the first rock song in an Aboriginal language -– Luritja — was written, recorded and released by the band in 1983.
NFSA Title No. 244115
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1986 We Are Going – Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)

Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920-1993) is one of Australia’s most respected poets. We Are Going was published in her first collection in 1964, which was the first book of poetry published by an Aboriginal writer. This rare example of Oodgeroo reading her own work was recorded by the ABC in 1986 at the Harold Park Hotel in Sydney.
NFSA title: 699094
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Audio: Courtesy ABC

1987 Rebetika Songs – Apodimi Compania

Brunswick 003

Rebetika is a music which became popular in the urban underclass of Athens and Piraeus from the 1930s through to the ‘50s. A revival in Greece started in the early 1970s and was taken up by a group of young musicians of Greek descent in Melbourne, who became Apodimi Compania. Their first LP, Rebetika Songs, was recorded in Melbourne in 1987. In recent years they have based themselves in Greece where they play an important role in the continuity of Rebetika music.
NFSA title: 138939
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Audio: Courtesy Brunswick records (Mother send the doctor away)

1987 I Should Be So Lucky — Kylie Minogue

Mushroom K485

Recorded in London in October 1987, I Should Be So Lucky was the first of her hits with English producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman. The song debuted at No. 90 on 9 January 1987, and went on to become one of the biggest selling singles of the year with sales of over 675 000.
NFSA Title No. 376096 (original Australian 7” release)
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1987 Voss — Richard Meale

Marilyn Richardson, Geoffrey Chard, Australian Opera Chorus, Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Stuart Challender
Philips 420928 2

Patrick White’s 1957 novel Voss was inspired by the tragedy of the German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt who disappeared in 1848 attempting to cross Australia from the Darling Downs to the Swan River. Composer Richard Meale and librettist David Malouf were commissioned to write an opera based on White’s novel, which was produced by The Australian Opera, directed by Jim Sharman, and staged at the Adelaide Festival in 1986.
NFSA Title No. 230032

1988 Tender Prey — Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Mute STUMM 52

This is the fifth studio album from the band and was recorded and mixed over eight months in various studios in Berlin, London and Melbourne between late 1987 and early 1988. Well reviewed on release, chart success came only in the UK, although it has since been recognised as an important stage in the group’s artistic development. The album is notable for its approach to the recording process, being built up from layered-over fragments and ideas rather than being based on a solid rhythmic foundation. The best known track is The Mercy Seat, a mainstay of Cave’s live shows ever since, and covered by Johnny Cash.
NFSA Title No. 425260

1991 From Little Things (Big Things Grow) – Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody

Festival D 30954

'From Little Things (Big Things Grow)’ was written by Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody to honour the work of Vincent Lingiari (1908-1988) who led the strike by Gurindji stockmen at Wave Hill Station in the Northern Territory. The strike began in 1966, lasted eight years and was the catalyst for the Aboriginal land rights movement. While Kelly had recorded the song in 1991, Carmody held off doing so in respect for the mourning period after Lingiari’s death. This version, from Carmody’s CD Bloodlines in 1993, was never meant to be on the album and was recorded very basically (in mono) as a demo for the soundtrack of a film documentary about Carmody’s life and music.
NFSA Title No. 244410
Audio: Courtesy Kev Carmody/Songcycles Pty Ltd
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1991 Treaty – Yothu Yindi

Aboriginal pop song from the 1990s with a powerful political message.

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1992 Paul Keating’s ‘Redfern Address’ – Paul Keating

The Redfern Address was given by Prime Minister Paul Keating at the launch of Australia’s celebration of the 1993 International Year of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, in Redfern Park on 10 December 1992. In the wake of the Mabo case in the High Court, which specifically recognised prior Indigenous ownership of land in Australia, Keating used this speech to call for reconciliation with Indigenous Australians. In 2007, ABC listeners voted it the third most unforgettable speech of all time (behind Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ and Jesus’ ‘Sermon on the Mount’).
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2001 Aether — The Necks
Fish of Milk FOM0007

The Necks are a unique and widely admired three-piece band who play distinctive improvised music. The group is Chris Abrahams on piano and Hammond organ, Tony Buck on drums, percussion and electric guitar and Lloyd Swanton on bass guitar and double bass. Their music is improvised around rhythmic or melodic patterns and one piece can be an entire CD. Aether is a masterpiece of their style.
NFSA Title No. 567489

Sounds you can download

Follow the links below to australianscreen where you can download an audio file and read curator’s notes.

Prime Minister John Curtin speech: Japan Enters Second World War (1941)
Cyclone Tracy, Darwin (1974)
Dame Enid Lyons maiden speech (1943)
Senator Dorothy Tangney’s maiden speech (1943)
Pilot Bert Hinkler’s message to Australia: 'Incidents of My Flight’ (1928). Audio clip 1
Pilot Bert Hinkler’s message to Australia: 'Incidents of My Flight’ (1928). Audio clip 2
Prime Minister Paul Keating speech: The Redfern Address (1992). Audio clip 1
Prime Minister Paul Keating speech: The Redfern Address (1992). Audio clip 2
Prime Minister Paul Keating speech: The Redfern Address (1992). Audio clip 3
Ken Howard Calls the Melbourne Cup (1952)
Prime Minister Hon. Robert Menzies speech: Declaration of WWII (1939)
Bob Dyer’s Pick a Box – Episode 170 (1963). Audio clip 1
Bob Dyer’s Pick a Box – Episode 170 (1963). Audio clip 2
Bob Dyer’s Pick a Box – Episode 170 (1963). Audio clip 3
Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker) reads her poem We Are Going (1986)
No Fixed Address: We Have Survived (1981)