DUTCH TILDERS
Melbourne/Sydney 1960s - present
Singer, guitarist, harmonica player and songwriter Matthew "Dutch"
Tilders (b.1939) has
been one of Australia's foremost blues and roots performers
since the 1960s. He is one of the many prominent Australian
musicians who came to this country during the era of post-WWII migration; as his nickname implies, Dutch was born in the
Netherlands in 1941, and came to Australia with his parents,
four brothers and a sister in 1955. At
the age of ten, he joined a church choir, but by the time he
was twelve, his alto voice had broken and become a baritone. When he
was thirteen, he joined a boys choir at a
secondary school by tricking sing the choir master into believing he was
an alto when in fact he was singing falsetto (he can still produce
those high falsetto notes to
this day).
Dutch's first year in Australia was spent in the Brooklyn
Migrant Hostel in Victoria, and it was here
that he gained his
first experience as a performer in an amateur Black and White
Minstrel Show. His first paid gig, aged only fifteen, was at the
Collingwood Town Hall, where he played the harmonica. On the same bill
were IMT
veteran Joff Ellen and Johnny O'Keefe. Dutch was paid
£2/7s/6d, which at the time equivalent to half his weeks
wages at
Broons timberyard in Brooklyn. It only cost two pounds and sixpence for
the taxi home. He
bought his first guitar in 1959 and by 1960 he was playing on
Melbourne's coffee lounge folk scene. According to Noel
McGrath, Dutch's first recording was made in 1961 when he cut a 10"
album of songs at a friend's home studio.
Making up most of his
songs as he
went along, he quickly settled on blues as the style
that best suited his expression, and with no one to teach him, he
developed his own distinctive
style. In 1962 he teamed up with Shane Duckham and they became
a
popular fixture on the Sydney folk circuit, but in the late Sixties
he performed only occasionally. However in September 1970
Dutch decided to try his luck on
the popular TV talent quest New
Faces, and this lighthearted decision
was to change the course of his life:
"I
never decided to become a professional musician. It all just developed
from playing parties and the occasional coffee lounges. I went on a TV
talent quest (Channel 9's New
Faces) just for a laugh. Won
the heat and got a record contract with Ron Tudor. Things got out of
hand and I had to give up my day job."
Tudor (owner of Fable Records) was so impressed with
Dutch that he subsequently signed him to his new Bootleg
subsidiary. With producer Brian
Cadd at the controls,
Dutch recorded his self-titled debut album in late
1972 and it was released in
early 1973. His musical collaborators included Cadd, Phil Manning,
Barry Sullivan and Barry
Harvey (Chain), Laurie Pryor (The Twilights) and Broderick Smith (The
Dingoes). On Side 1 he performed Delta-style acoustic blues, while Side
2 featured Dutch(backed by members of Chain) performing Chicago-style
electric blues.
Over the next few years Dutch became a fixture on Australian
live scene and performed at the Sunbury Festival in both 1973 and 1974. In 1974
Dutch toured as the support for John Mayall and he shared an LP release
with Margret RoadKnight, Australian
Jazz of the 70s, Vol. 5: The Blues
Singers, released on the Jazznote label; this was
re-released in 1980
on Larrikin under the title Bluesmakers. Towards
the end of year he featured as part of the all-star
lineup that for the final concerts at Melbourne venue Garrison, which were
recorded and released on two LPs by Mushroom Records; Dutch's
performance of the song "Sweet Marie" was included on the second disc, Garrison: The Final Blow, Unit 2.
Dutch's second LP, Break,
was recorded live to 2-track and released on the Eureka label in 1975.
His backing group featured Foreday Riders members Phil Colson
(guitar) and Rick Lock (drums) plus Don Reid (sax), Keith Dubber
(trumpet, flugelhorn) and John Power (bass, ex-Co. Caine
and later of Jo Jo
Zep & The Falcons). The album mixed blues standards with
several
originals by Dutch, and a single, "I'm a mean mistreater / "21st
Birthday Rag", was also issued. In 1976, having only heard
Dutch's recordings, B.B. King assumed that he was black. Dutch and
Brownie McGee became good friends simply because Browney believed that
the Dutchman was a
genuine bluesman, regardless of his racial origins. Dutch's third LP, Working Man
(Eureka, 1977) featured another all-star backing group -- blues harp
maestro Jim
Conway (Captain Matchbox), Kerryn Tolhurst and John Bois (Country
Radio, Dingoes), Ray Arnott (Spectrum), and Jeff King (Foreday
Riders).
During the late seventies, Dutch fronted renowned
blues and
boogie bands including The Elks,
the Cyril B. Bunter Band and Mickey Finn. In 1979 Dutch
made Australian recording
history with his next LP, which was recorded using the direct-to-disc
process. It featured Jim Conway, saxophonist Bob Bertles (The
Meteors) and bassist Peter Howell. In 1980 he formed the
'R&B Six', a band that included Charley Elul (drums), Peter
Frazer
(sax), Suzanne Petersen (flute and vocals), Mick Eliot (guitar) and
Dave Murray (bass and vocals). This band toured Australia
extensively. Dutch also worked solo and toured as support for
visiting
greats like John Mayall, Taj
Mahal, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. Also in 1980 Dutch cut his
second
direct-to-disc LP, The
Blues Had A Baby, recorded with The Kevin Borich Express,
plus Bob Bertles;
the single "Bad books / "The blues had a baby" was released in April
1981.
Dutch continued to perform regularly throughout the late
1980s, but regrettably he did not release any new recordings in this
period. In 1980 he formed The Blues Club with Geoff Achison (guitar),
Martin Corcoran and Terry (Jerry?) Noone (sax), Barry Hills (bass), and
Winston Galea (drums). They recorded two albums, The Blues Is My Life
(Apr. 1990) and Live
(1993). The Holey Soles also contributed one track to the
compilation album Real
Australian Blues (Blues Club, 1992); his best Eureka
recordings were compiled for the "best Of' album Eureka Files
1975-1980 (Blues Club/Empire, 1992) and the next year he
recorded a live album, Live at the Station
(Blues Club/Empire Records, 1993). Dutch's next band was The Holey Soles; the original lineup was
Anthony Harkin (harmonica), Barry Hills (bass) and Ian Clarke (drums);
the second lineup featured Clarke, Luke Keogh (harp), and Peter Howell
(bass). This was followed by The Dutch Tilders Band (ca. 1996) with
Greg Dodd (guitar), Barry Hills and Winston Galea.
Over the last decade Dutch has continued to perform and record -- in 1998 he released the album I'm a Bluesman (Empire Records, 1998), followed by One More Time - Live at St Andrews (Rob Harwood Archives/MBAS/Standrooze, 2001) and he also featured on Highlights of Bob Barnard's Jazz Party (Nif Nuf Jazz No. 43/017, 2003). In 2004 his 1970s albums Direct and Blues Had A Baby
were remastered and reissued in a two-for-one package by Black Market
Music. Dutch's most recent album, Mine & Some I Adopted, was
released by Black Market Music in 2005.
Dutch has
been honoured with many awards, most notably for his performances
with The Blues Club. Nowadays
he mainly performs as a solo artist, though he still gets
together with ace guitarist and longtime collaborator Geoff Achison,
who with Ken Hatton and Rob O'Toole form Dutch Tilders 'Blusicians'. Among his many
honours and awards, Dutch is official patron of
the Melbourne Blues Appreciation Society, he has received the Allan
Stafford Award for Services to the Blues, he won the
Victorian/Tasmanian Blues Music Awards 'Best Song of the Year' with
"Imagination Blues" and its 'Artist of the Year', he has been inducted
into the Australian Blues Music Awards Hall of Fame, and he has
received the CFA (Country Fire Authority) Recognition Award
for Outstanding Achievement, the Australian Blues Music Heritage Award,
the Australian Blues Music Awards Male Artist of the Year, the
Australian Blues Artist Critics’ Award, the Blues On
Air Australian Blues Performer Award, the Australian Blues Artist
Critics Award, the Blues On Air 'Australian Blues Performer' Award and
the Blues On Air Australian Blues Recording Award with "The
Blues is My Life".
Discography
|
Singles
1975
"I'm a mean mistreater / "21st
Birthday Rag" (Eureka)
Feb. 1977
"Goodnight Irene" / ""Working Man" (Eureka)
1980
"Blues Had A Baby" (Eureka/RCA)
April 1981
"Bad Books / "The Blues Had A Baby" (Eureka)
EPs
1976
I'm A Mean
Mistreater (Eureka demo EP)
1976
Working Man (Eureka
demo EP)
|
|
Albums
1972
Dutch Tilders
(Fable / Bootleg BLA-021)
Side
1:
1. "That's Alright Mama"
2. "I'm Gonna Move to the
Outskirts of Town"
3. "Cryin' Won't Make Me
Stay"
4. "Chimney-Sweep Blues"
5. "Wee Wee Baby"
6. "Nobody Knows You When You're
Down and Out"
7. "Whispering"
Side
2:
1. "It Hurts Me Too"
2. "Southbound Train
Blues"
3. "Kansas City Blues"
4. "In the Evening When the Sun
Goes Down"
5. "Hard to Love a
Woman"
6. "Keys to the Highway"
7. "Walk Right In"
Produced
by Brian Cadd
1974
Australian Jazz
Singers - The Blues Singers (Jazznote/Larrikin)
Shared release with Margret RoadKnight
reissued 1980 as Bluesmakers
(Larrikin)
1975
Break
(Eureka E-101)
1975
Garrison: The Final Blow, Unit 2 (Mushroom)
Various artists live album, incl. the Dutch Tilders track "Sweet Marie"
1976
Working Man
(Eureka)
1979
Direct
(Eureka)
1980
The Blues Had A
Baby (Eureka/RCA)
1989
The Blues Is My
Life (Blues Club/Empire Records)
1992
Eureka Files
1975-1980 (Blues Club/Empire)
1993
Live at the Station
(Blues Club/Empire Records)
1998
I'm a Bluesman
(Empire Records)
2001
One More Time -
Live at St Andrews
(Rob Harwood Archives/MBAS/Standrooze)
2003
Highlights of Bob
Barnard's Jazz Party (Nif Nuf Jazz No. 43/017)
2004
Dutch Direct /
Blues Had A Baby (Remastered) (Black Market Music)
2005
Mine &
Some I Adopted (Black Market Music)
|
References / Links
Dutch Tilders official website
http://www.dutchtilders.com.au/
Ian McFarlane
Encyclopedia of Australian Rock & Pop (Allen & Unwin, 1999)
Noel McGrath
Australian Encylopedia of Rock (Outback Press, 1979)
Dutch Tilders
videos and film-clips on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/tilders1
Australian Music
Online - Dutch Tilders interview
http://www.amo.org.au/qa_interview.asp?id=972