Music byJohn Stuart

Dance Band The TallowoodBush Band

Brass Band The MacksvilleTown Band

The Tallowood Bush Band is presumably the band on hand in the bush dance where a traditional sentimental ditty is sung, along with some standard bush dance music, while the Macksville Town Band turns up for the ANZAC day service, but contributes little musically apart from the bugler blowing the last post.

(Below: scenes from the film involving the bands)

Composer:

Born in 1950, composer John Stuart was a musician who possibly landed the composing chores on his first feature film, the kids' comic strip adaptation, Ginger Meggs, via a connection to writer and co-producer Michael Latimer - like Latimer, Stuart was born in the UK.

Composer Stuart is frequently confused and conflated with the British silent matinee star of the same name. For example, French Films, here, provides a short biography for the matinee idol which credits him with the score, though he died several years before the film was made. (If interested in the silent actor Stuart, he has a wiki here, with a few useful links to stories about his career).

After doing Ginger Meggs, Stuart then moved on to the 1983 romantic drama The Winds of Jarrah. While he did some other drama work, such as the 1984 telemovie The Great Gold Swindle, he seems to have settled in to being a kind of house composer for Burbank Films Australia, doing a string of scores for their animated short adaptations of the classics, which were aimed mainly at the home-minding children's tape market and at television - the 1983 David Copperfield was Stuart's first score for the animation house, followed by a number of Sherlock Holmes animations, another adaptation of Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, and other typical titles, such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Treasure Island, Westward Ho!, Peter Pan, Hiawatha, and Prisoner of Zenda.

This string of titles was only interrupted by Michael Caulfield's extremely problematic failure, Gallagher's Travels, in 1987.

There is a wiki on Burbank Films here, but it doesn't mention Stuart, being mainly concerned with the copyright status of the films. Unfortunately Stuart has been overlooked, in much the same way as some critics tend to dismiss Burbank product, though the company managed to survive the decade and generate close on 40 shows, no mean feat for an animation company in Australia. An Amazon customer has gone to the trouble of listing some 37 shows that are currently available - at time of writing, the list is here.

The score for Ginger Meggs was released as an LP, and is now very rare. Unfortunately the photos on the LP available to this site obscures Stuart and the other contributors to the music. So it goes, but here is what can be seen of them on the LP cover:

In contrast to the music for Ginger Meggs, the theme for The Winds of Jarrah is lushly romantic, and period friendly. The theme was anthologised as track 3 on an ABC CD:

More Great Australian Film & TV Themes:CDABC/Phonogram. 512 306-2. (CA 512 306-4) 1992 (Re-issued in 1995 as ABC CD/CA 4796632/4)

The Right Hand ManThe ShiraleeWinds Of JarrahFields Of FireThe DelinquentsCool ChangeShameWild DuckThe Umbrella Woman - End Title - Face At TheWindowAn Angel At My Table - Opening CreditsGP - Opening CreditsRushWe Of The Never Never - Closing ThemeThe Navigator - Forging The CrossBrides Of Christ - Closing TitlesThe Crossing - Love ThemeBushfire MoonA Fortunate LifePolice RescueMother And Son (0'47")

Rikky And Pete - Pete's ThemeProof - Walk (3'01")Roads To Xanadu - Shenzen

The main theme is also held in eleven page score form by the National Library, more details here.