Eric Bogle is one of Australia's best known singer/songwriters. He's also something of a serial house renovator and keeps on performing in order to pay his hardware bill from Bunnings. He's currently in treatment and is slowly getting better. His best known song is _x001C_ The Band Played Waltzing Matilda_x001D_ , which confirmed its iconic status by appearing as a question in the Australian version of Trivial Pursuit! Some of his other songs, _x001C_ No Man's Land_x001D_ , _x001C_ Leaving Nancy_x001D_ , _x001C_ Now I'm Easy_x001D_ _x001C_ Shelter_x001D_ _x001C_ If Wishes were Fishes_x001D_ are now beginning to rival _x001C_ Matilda_x001D_ in the icon stakes. His songs have been recorded by Joan Baez, Mary Black, Donovan, Slim Dusty, John Williamson, Billy Bragg, The Pogues and The Furies, to name a few. He has toured internationally over the last 25 years or so. He has appeared at every major Folk and Country music festival in Australia and overseas: Port Fairy, Woodford, Tamworth, Newport, Toronto, New Orleans, Vancouver, Edinburgh, you name it, he's done them all. He has won quite a few awards along the way including the Order of Australia medal for services to the entertainment industry, and a Peace medal from the U.N. for his efforts, through music, to promote peace and racial harmony. All this makes Eric sound like a cross between U2 and Mother Theresa. Well, he's not, he's just a literate and thoughtful songwriter who can cut to the heart of the matter with some well-crafted lines. He's also a warm and engaging stage performer who, with his sharp, often self-deprecating wit and shrewd common sense view on the world, communicates well with an audience and draws them in to his performance. Mind you, all this is only our opinion, and of course is highly subjective. The Lonesome Rangers are Hal Cannon and Waddie Mitchell, two highly regarded and respected performers of American cowboy poetry and music. And you couldn't get two more authentic exponents. Hal has been a rancher (he still owns a few cows) and is the founding director of the Western Folklife Centre and The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in the USA. Waddie was a buckaroo (Australian translation: Jackaroo) for many years, and has been writing poetry most of his adult life, poetry which has garnered him much acclaim (People magazine called his 'Waddie Mitchell Live' CD "Bottom line: horse sense and humour from America's best known cowboy poet" and he's appeared on innumerable TV shows including the Tonight Show, Larry King Live and Good Morning America. American cowboy poetry and music has much in common with Australia bush poetry and music, not just in rhyme and meter, but in it's humour, it's common-sense wisdom, and it's timeless tales of the triumphs and tragedies that are part and parcel of the human existence. Anyone with a functioning heart and brain can relate to it, even if you don't know one end of a cow from the other.
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