Kate Ceberano
Fronting pop funk band I’M TALKING, Kate notched up 5 consecutive hit singles and a Platinum debut album ‘Bear Witness’ (The 100 Best Australian Albums). The year was 1986 and Kate won Most Popular Female Artist at the Countdown Awards.
Barely drawing breath since, Kate’s racked up 28 albums over 35 years whilst effortlessly moving around genres. 13 X Platinum status, 8 X Gold, 3 x ARIA awards and 7 nominations for Best Female Artist, Kate is Australian entertainment royalty. She performed across the country in the legendary Australian Made tour with INXS, Barnesy & Divinyls, starred in Jesus Christ Superstar with John Farnham, had her own hit tonight show ‘Kate Ceberano & Friends’ on the ABC TV, won Dancing With The Stars, awarded an Order of Australia for services to arts and charity (2017), first Australian woman inducted into the Australian Songwriters Association (ASA) Hall of Fame in 2014, just to name a few of her milestones.
Kate Ceberano is a most diverse and creative tour-de-force, possessing one of the great voices of her generation.
Kate’s latest album SWEET INSPIRATION (ARIA Top 5), places Kate in the pantheon of acts who have achieved Top 10 ARIA albums over 5 decades; 80’s / 90’s / 00’s / 10’s and now 2010’s; joining AC/DC, Kylie Minogue, Midnight Oil and Queen.
Jack Howard
Best-known for playing trumpet with Hunters and Collectors, Jack Howard is also a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Along the way, he’s also played with The Living End, The Violent Femmes, Rodriguez, The Break, You Am I, Little Red, Pete Murray and a host of others.
Jack has been described as “one of the great quiet achievers of Australian music” and is the only trumpeter in the ARIA Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. He is also in high demand as session muso and he is an instigator of, and a creative force behind many varied musical projects. From his own band The Long Lost Brothers and his very successful Epic Brass and Bacharach shows to his smaller duos and trios, Jack is a driver and employer for many working musicians in Melbourne. He has also been the musical director of independent musicals, and he produced a Live ‘n’ Local St. Kilda charity CD in 2014. He is a great supporter of the local St. Kilda music scene and has been a generous and selfless contributor to the recordings and live performances of many acts.
In 2009 Jack performed with Hunters and Collectors at the Sound Relief Concert which was held at the MCG in Melbourne, and in 2017, he toured the world with Midnight Oil as their trumpeter/multi-instrumentalist. Over the last fifteen years he has recorded and released a number of albums including the 2018 release, Lightheavyweight, a solo recording featuring songs about the cities he visited on the Midnight Oil world tour.
Jack also teaches trumpet at Wesley College in Melbourne, and he has just written his first book released late 2020 along with a new album Dog Songs.
“I was first involved in Make Music Day in our unholy COVID year of 2020. It fell between Melbourne lockdowns and my school band, Wesley Jazz Ensemble, had an opportunity to record and film one of our original charts (https://youtu.be/jNi1G3MXLuE) For all of us, the sheer relief of getting back to the simple pleasure of making music with others was very powerful. And I think it encaptulated everything that Make Music Day stands for. The fundamental love and joy joy of making music away from all the big ambitions and dreams of the music business. Make Music Day provides and inspires that notion and reminds us all of why we stuck at this lije in the first place”.
Lee Kernaghan
Lee Kernaghan is Australia’s most loved country music identity and an outback icon. He reinvigorated Australian Country Music in the 1990’s, synthesising traditional country themes with his own brand of rural rock and images of an evolving regional culture.
Songs like The Outback Club, Boys From The Bush, Hat Town, She’s My Ute and Australian Boy are now modern day anthems for a generation of Australian’s living and working on the land.
In 2015 Lee released the epic work Spirit Of The Anzacs, based on a collection of letters and diary records from Australian servicemen and women, some dating back to the landings at Gallipoli. On its release the album struck a chord with the Australian people holding the number 1 position on the Australian ARIA Album Chart for four consecutive weeks and was the highest selling album by an Australian artist (all genres) for 2015.
Lee has sold over two million albums in Australia with releases including Outback Club, Three Chain Road,, 1959, Hat Town, Rules Of The Road, Electric Rodeo, New Bush, Ultimate Hits, Spirit Of The Bush, Planet Country, Beautiful Noise, Spirit Of The Anzacs, all achieving gold, platinum or multi-platinum status. Lee is a four-time ARIA award winning artist and in 2015 he was presented with the Australian Record Industry Award for Outstanding Achievement. In 2017 Lee was named alongside the all-time greats of Australian Country Music with his inclusion into the Australian Country Music Roll Of Renown for his lasting and significant contribution to country music, and in 2018 he was was inducted into into the CMC Hall of Fame. Lee also received the CMC/ARIA Award for Highest Selling Australian Album of 2018 for his 25th Anniversary Album.
Lee is a long-time passionate supporter of rural and regional Australia. His Pass The Hat Around Australia Tours, Spirit of the Bush Tour and Farmhand concert have raised millions of dollars for drought, flood and bushfire relief, hospitals, schools, ambulance and volunteer organisations nation-wide. In 2004 Lee was the recipient of an Order of Australia Medal and was named the 2008 Australian of the Year for his service outback and regional communities.
Lee has achieved a staggering 39 #1 chart hit songs over his career and has been awarded 37 Golden Guitars. He has been named Hit Maker of the Decade twice, in 2001 and 2011. This accolade is in recognition of Lee having more chart hits in Australia than any other country music artist in the world.
Andy Baylor
Andy Baylor is one of Australia’s most respected and influential independent musicians. Known for his multi-instrumental skills, songwriting and versatility, he has released 12 independent albums and continues to produce a range of diverse musical projects which showcase his unique style.
As a guitarist, Andy combines a deep knowledge of blues, jazz, folk and country music. As a violinist, he has honed a unique Australian sound with elements of swing, Celtic, Cajun, classical and country fiddle styles. He has drawn on America’s great 20th century legacy of popular music and his own Australian roots to create an individual voice.
His 2018 album ‘Blues From The Irene Building’ topped the independent blues and roots airplay charts over the Summer of 2018/19. In late 2019 Andy released his most recent album of original music ‘The Old Southern Line’ with his Banksia Band. He will be hosting his next special show ‘Reel of Joy – A Celebration of Roots Music’ at Memo Music Hall in June, featuring an all-star line-up including Tim Rogers, Sarah Carroll, Kerri Simpson, Sophia Dunn and Kate Connor.
“Melbourne, my hometown, has since the 1970’s become one of the most vibrant and diverse musical cities of the world. We hear about New Orleans, Nashville, Austin, the great capitals of American music culture, but we have our own music capital here in Australia. Pre-Covid, Melbourne could boast a level of musical activity that made it talked about all over the world. It has produced the talent and the aesthetic to do great things and over the years has matured into a vibrant, diverse musical meeting place. After a year in which we saw musical culture forcibly come to a sudden halt, we are seeing the sleeping beauty now emerging again and bringing people together in a deep appreciation of our own culture. Music has the power to express inner emotional states in ways which words cannot. It offers immediate sharing of the personal and the public and is accessible to all. Music is one of the most joyous and deepest of all arts and I am constantly looking for new ways to present it to the public.”
Sarah Carroll
Sarah Carroll has performed at most of Australia’s high-profile festivals and a good many of its pubs over a 30 year career, and is noted for her work with GIT, The Pirates Of Beer, The Junes and The Cartridge Family. Her songs chime with sincerity and come straight from her big, brave heart.
She launched her epic progressive country album Star Parade, out on Sugarrush Music, with a national tour in 2017 and her 6th trip to the USA, where she appeared at Americanafest as part of the Australian contingent. Star Parade reached the top 5 on the Airit regional radio charts and has received golden reviews in the press as well as strong support from public radio and the ABC across the country. Sarah and Chris’ long-time sideman Shannon Bourne have just released a 6 track album entitled Medicine which deals with the heartbreak and loss of the past year.
During the lockdown this year, Sarah and her sons Fenn and George have been performing online as Los Mariachis El Clifto! covering some of their favourite songs and streaming them from the couch at their family home in Clifton Springs.
One of our much loved artists is Sarah Carroll.