Margret RoadKnight

Margret RoadKnight was born in July 1943 in Melbourne.{{cite web | url = http://members.iinet.net.au/~margretr/biomain.htm | title = Biography | publisher = Margret RoadKnight Official Website | access-date = 25 June 2016 }} She had no formal singing lessons, "harmonizing with my mother and sister while we did the housework that sort of thing and the usual school choir and church choir."{{cite web | url = http://www.milesago.com/interviews/roadknight-interview.htm | title = Interviews – Margret RoadKnight – Transcription | last = Broughton | first = John | work = Retrospectives | via = Milesago: Australasian Music and Popular Culture 1964–1975. Ice Productions | year = 2003 | access-date = 26 June 2016 }} For her secondary education RoadKnight attended Santa Maria Ladies College, Northcote.{{cite web | url = http://www.folkrag.org/profiles/margrk.html | title = Margret RoadKnight Profile | last = RoadKnight | first = Margret | work = The Folk Rag | year = 2001 | access-date = 26 June 2016 }} She became a recreation worker in East Melbourne and "taught art and craft, games and sport to kids from 3 to 17 years old for two and an half years." RoadKnight's early inspirations were Harry Belafonte, Odetta and Nina Simone.{{cite book | last1 = McFarlane | first1 = Ian | author-link1 = Ian McFarlane | title = Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop | chapter = Encyclopedia entry for 'Margret RoadKnight' | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20040803170407/http://www.whammo.com.au/encyclopedia.asp?articleid=693 | chapter-url = http://www.whammo.com.au/encyclopedia.asp?articleid=693 | year = 1999 | publisher = Allen & Unwin | location = St Leonards, NSW | archive-date = 3 August 2004 | isbn = 1-86508-072-1 }} Her first performance was on Mother's Day, May 1963 at the Emerald Hill Theatre.{{cite web | url = http://www.theage.com.au/news/music/feeling-blue-come-to-mama/2008/05/15/1210765052405.html | title = Feeling blue? Come to Mama – Music – Entertainment | last = Jackson | first = Andra | work = The Age | date = 17 May 2008 | access-date = 25 June 2016 }} Her mother was in attendance at the debut gig, but she died in the following year. RoadKnight replaced Judith Durham (who was joining rising folk quartet The Seekers) as lead singer of the trad jazz band Frank Traynor's Jazz Preachers at Frank Traynor's Folk and Jazz Club, for a weekly residency.{{cite web | url = http://www.cv.vic.gov.au/stories/creative-life/victorian-jazz-stories/women-in-jazz/ | title = Women in Jazz – Victorian Jazz Stories | last = Barnard | first = Rebecca | publisher = Culture Victoria | access-date = 25 June 2016 }}{{cite web | archive-url = https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20090314203800/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/35967/20090315-0738/www.milesago.com/artists/Seekers-4.html | url = http://www.milesago.com/Artists/seekers.htm | title = The Seekers | last1 = Kimball | first1 = Duncan | publisher = Milesago: Australasian Music and Popular Culture 1964–1975. Ice Productions | year = 2002 | archive-date = 14 March 2009 | access-date = 25 June 2016 }}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}

In the 1960s and 1970s, RoadKnight appeared on numerous television programmes including Folkmoot, hosted by Leonard Teale, Dave's Place, hosted by the Kingston Trio's Dave Guard, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's national weekly current affairs program, Open-End. RoadKnight's debut album was a live set, People Get Ready (November 1973), which was recorded at Frank Traynor's Folk Club. Her backing band for the night were Ian Clarke on drums and percussion; Martin Doley on guitars and backing vocals; Peter Doley on flute, kazoo, maracas and backing vocals; Peter Howell on bass guitar; and Bob Vinnard on piano, organ and backing vocals. According to Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, she provided "covers of material by the likes of Curtis Mayfield, Duke Ellington, Joni Mitchell and Malvina Reynolds."

RoadKnight and Dutch Tilders issued a split album, Australian Jazz of the 70s Vol. 5: The Blues Singers (1974). The Canberra Times{{'}}s Michael Foster described her as a "big, big-voiced and big-hearted woman" and she "sings with that same gut-tearing intensity but tends to give more prominence to the traditional blues, the songs which blossomed in the dusty earth of the plantations."{{cite news | url = http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article110631716 | title = Turntable: Two Accomplished Blues Singers | last = Foster | first = Michael | newspaper = The Canberra Times | date = 6 January 1975 | access-date = 5 October 2013 | page = 11 | via = National Library of Australia }} He felt that "Of all the women I have heard singing the blues Miss Roadknight comes closest to the sound of-the great: exponents... of another generation, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith." At the end of that year, she received a government travel grant to study contemporary music in the United States.

In January 1976 she released a cover version of Bob Hudson's album track, "Girls in Our Town", as a single, which reached the Kent Music Report Singles Chart Top{{nbsp}}40.{{Cite book | title = Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 | last1 = Kent | first1 = David | author-link1 = David Kent (historian) | publisher = Australian Chart Book Ltd | location = St Ives, NSW | year = 1993 | isbn = 0-646-11917-6 }} Note: Used for Australian Singles and Albums charting from 1974 until Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) created their own charts in mid-1988. In 1992, Kent back calculated chart positions for 1970–1974.{{cite web|url=http://www.pbsfm.org.au/Documents.asp?Action=Playlist&ID=5336&Title=Callin+All+Cats&PlaylistID=3702 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303201134/http://www.pbsfm.org.au/Documents.asp?Action=Playlist&ID=5336&Title=Callin%2BAll%2BCats&PlaylistID=3702 |url-status=dead |archive-date=3 March 2016 |title=PBS 106.7FM - Real Radio - Callin All Cats |access-date=2007-11-17 }} According to Rachael Lucas of Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Open the track "painted a cruel trajectory for teenage girls living in country towns; teenage school drop outs, lonely cashiers and factory workers, with nothing to keep them entertained but vanity and promiscuity."{{cite web | url = https://open.abc.net.au/explore/47455 | title = 'Girls in our Town' | last = Lucas | first = Rachel | work = Open | publisher = Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) | date = 30 April 2013 | access-date = 26 June 2016 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160809025245/https://open.abc.net.au/explore/47455 | archive-date = 9 August 2016 | url-status = dead }} RoadKnight included the single on her third album, Margret RoadKnight, which was issued in October 1976.{{Citation | author1 = RoadKnight, Margret | title = Margret RoadKnight | publication-date = 1976 | publisher = Infinity | url = http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/11793159 | access-date = 26 June 2016 | via = National Library of Australia }}{{cite news | title = Margret Packs Jazz & Blues Punch | work = The Age | date = 4 November 1976 | page = 44 }} It appeared on the Infinity label via Festival Records and was co-produced by Russell Dunlop (of Ayers Rock), Simon Heath and Wahanui Wynyard. Her second single from the album is "Love Tastes Like Strawberries".

From August 1977 the singer travelled and performed across Europe and the US for six months. Her fourth album, Ice, appeared in 1978; it included material written by fellow Australians. Also in that year she issued "Raw Deal" as a non-album single – the theme song for a feature film of the same name from the previous year. Foster's colleague, Brownwyn Watson, caught RoadKnight's gig in July 1978: the singer had "a striking presence on stage and her folk-blues combination of songs were sometimes amusing, sometimes sad."{{cite news | url = http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article110897217 | title = Music: Martyn stylish but low-key | last = Watson | first = Bronwyn | newspaper = The Canberra Times | volume = 52 | issue = 15,637 | date = 15 July 1978 | access-date = 25 June 2016 | page = 14 | via = National Library of Australia }} Late that year she performed in China as a member of the Australian Theatre People's Group.

In 1980 RoadKnight and two friends formed the promotional group Honky Tonk Angels (which also became the name of her record label) to mount the first Australian solo tour by the acclaimed American singer-songwriter and slide guitarist Ellen McIlwaine, who toured Australian capital cities in November 1980 (with RoadKnight as the support act) to great critical acclaim.

Her next album, Out of Fashion... Not Out of Style (1981) included another single, "I'll Be Gone" – a cover version of Spectrum's 1971 number-one hit. The album was co-produced by RoadKnight with Warren Barnett. Her backing group were Judy Bailey on keyboards; Bob Hudson on harmonica; Sandy Kogan on Jew's harp and washboard; Graham Lowndes on vocals and acoustic guitar; Ellen McIllwaine on vocals, slide guitar and organ; Steve Murphy on guitar; Chris Qua on bass guitar and Willie Qua on drums. Garry Raffaele, another The Canberra Times reporter, saw her at a Sydney show where "she moves from traditional blues to traditional Australian to Miles Davis, then to Evita. Such eclecticism is admirable for its intent... [she] almost carries it off... Her strength is in the blues – Ma Rainey stuff; this is what she docs best. She is not Evita nor is she Elkie Brookes."{{cite news | url = http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article125654087 | title = Of the Streets | newspaper = The Canberra Times | volume = 55 | issue = 16,586 | date = 23 February 1981 | access-date = 26 June 2016 | page = 9 | via = National Library of Australia }}

RoadKnight's first compilation album, Living in the Land of Oz, appeared in 1984, which included her version of the title track – a cover of Ross Wilson's track for the 1976 film, Oz. Robert Christgau rated the album as B+ and felt that "she musters an impressively gruff blues timbre and on occasion some rudimentary swing, I'm not convinced she always goes flat on purpose, and when she emotes she may strain the credulity even of those who set their standards by Nick Cave and Olivia Newton-John."{{cite web | url = http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_album.php?id=8289 | title = Album: Margaret Roadknight: Living in the Land of Oz | last = Christgau | first = Robert | author-link = Robert Christgau | publisher = Robert Christgau | access-date = 26 June 2016 }} During 1984 RoadKnight also acted as promoter for the second Australian tour by Ellen Mcilwaine.

In February 1987 she was a member of Je Ne Sais Choir, along with Jarnie Birmingham, Mara Kiek and Moya Simpson.{{cite news | url = http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article118117342 | title = The Good Times: Singing with special insight | last = Hefner | first = Richard | newspaper = The Canberra Times | date = 5 February 1987 | access-date = 9 September 2015 | page = 2 Supplement | via = National Library of Australia }} That choir supported Frankie Armstrong's tour of Australia. Also in 1987 and 1988 RoadKnight, as well as performing, was the musical director of Deep Bells Ring, a musical theatre presentation of Paul Robeson's songs and biography.{{cite web | url = https://ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/169 | title = Event: Deep Bells Ring | publisher = AusStage | access-date = 26 June 2016 }}{{cite web | url = https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/53e344cc2162f108a4d0139b | title = Theatre Program – Deep Bells Ring (musical) by Nancy Wills with the Songs of Paul Robeson performed at the Athenaeum Theatre commencing 21 March 1988 | publisher = Victorian Collections: Melbourne Athenaeum Archives | date = 27 March 2015 | access-date = 26 June 2016 }}

By October 1993 Je Ne Sais Choir were renamed as Girls in Your Town and they undertook their own tour.{{cite news | url = http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article127514249 | title = Roadknight's Tilleys fundraiser | newspaper = The Canberra Times | volume = 68 | issue = 21,380 | date = 28 October 1993 | access-date = 9 September 2015 | page = 11 | via = National Library of Australia }} According to Foster the a cappella quartet sing "songs of the '50s and '60s along with gospel, jazz, drinking, and barbershop songs and African chants."{{cite news | url = http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article126923790 | title = Good Times: The girls in your town are coming to our town soon | volume = 68 | issue = 21,463 | author = Foster, Michael | newspaper = The Canberra Times | date = 20 January 1994 | access-date = 9 September 2015 | page = 22 | via = National Library of Australia }}

The Australian Women in Music Awards is an annual event that celebrates outstanding women in the Australian Music Industry who have made significant and lasting contributions in their chosen field. They commenced in 2018.

{{awards table}}

|-

| 2018{{cite web |url=https://womeninmusicawards.com.au/2018-recipients-finalists/|title=2018 Recipients Finalists|website=women in Music Awards|date=October 2018|access-date=19 March 2021}}

| Margret RoadKnight

| Lifetime Achievement Award

| {{yes2|awarded}}

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{{Reflist|30em}}

• [http://members.iinet.net.au/~margretr/intro.htm/ Official website]

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Category:1943 births

Category:Living people

Category:Australian women singers

Category:Australian folk singers

Category:Singers from Melbourne

Category:Australian women folk singers