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The Webb Brothers, Fabian, Marius and Berard, have lived their whole lives in and around Thornside, a cattle property in the farming community of Widgee ? about thirty-two kilometers west of Gympie, Queensland, Australia. The have been successful in combining life on the land with life in the music industry.

Their parents, William and Hilda (nee Scally) were married in 1921 and had eight children. Fabian (born 1930), Marius (born 1932) and Berard (born 1934) were the fifth, sixth and seventh born of the family.

Music

Music played an important role in the Webb family as one would expect with both parents having Irish roots. According to Fabian, his father was a good listener and could sing in tune. He loved to hear the children making music. Hilda, like many young females of the day, had learned to play the piano as a child. She maintained an association with the instrument into adulthood, even to the point of teaching piano to other children. She was also a strong singer both as a child and an adult and regularly sang and played with the family. So music was a strong influence on the children in their formative years.

While two of the girls in the family learned the piano formally, none of the boys did so. Fabian started learning guitar Hawaiian style while he was attending St Patricks College in Gympie as a boarder but changed to learning chord style so that he could accompany himself while singing. This all worked well enough for him to teach next brother Marius some of the chords he had learned so the two of them could play together.

When it was Berard's turn to come into school in town, he started learning the violin. When he left school, Berard purchased a Samson's ? piano course. Because it was a chordal approach to playing the piano, Berard was able to fit in with what Fabian and Marius were playing on their guitars. Berard didn't play piano all that much in the family band, preferring to stay on violin and mouth organ. As the group developed, Berard began playing guitar and mandolin.

Singing

Singing, led by mother Hilda, was clearly important in the Webb family right from the very beginning and so it is reasonable to expect that singing would play an important role in anything musical the boys would do as they formed bands. They recognised that they had an ability to sing harmony from their early teens. They were never taught harmony and according to Berary, their ability to sing harmonies naturally was a gift. Most of what they learned with regards harmony as learned by listening to groups like the Carter Family, The Statler Brothers and the Hawking Brothers.

The family band started off as a quintet but the two older boys, Bill and Claver, did not wish to carry on with the music so the group became a trio. The only way the brothers had to learn songs in those days was via the radio and living in the bush with no mains electricity did not make things any easier. Thornside did not get connected to the electricity grid until the 1960s.

The radio in these early days was most often a furniture piece holding pride of place in the lounge room. In many cases, its use was strictly controlled by by the father of the house, and the Webb house hold was not different. Berard remembers the first battery the family had was a wet cell unit that was closely controlled by his father. 7.00pm was news time and there was to be strict silence while the news was on. Fabian remembers an old wind up gramaphone on which they used to play Tex Morton and Buddy Williams 78s. When television came to Brisbane, Thornside still depended on a generator for their electricity so steps were taken to increase electricity to 240 volts so the TV signals could be picked up.

Tape recorder

The next invention to make a difference for the Webbs was the reel to reel tape recorder. It was set up beside the radio, which was often tuned to Brisbane station 4BH. The boys left instruction with their mother that if certain songs or artists were played on the radio, she was to turn on the recorder to they would have a permanent copy of the song so they could learn it. Artists such as Gordon Parsons ?, Chad Morgan ?, Slim Dusty ?, Buddy Williams ?, Smoky Dawson ? and Tex Morton ? we favourites for the boys at this time.

4GY

Early on in their career, the Webb Brothers made it on to the Gympie radio station, 4GY. They had a 15 minute segment during which they would sing four songs. Listeners would write to the station requesting a song and the Webbs would select four of the requests each week, practise the songs frantically and present them during the next program. Accompaniment for the vocals was just the guitars, mouth organ and the background harmonies.

Staff at 4GY began exchanging material with Neville Pellitt at radio station 3SR in Shepparton in Victoria and this exchange led to the Webbs being invited to be part of the Harmony Trail run by Pellitt at a time prior to the introduction of TV in Queensland.

The Amateur Hour

Australia's Amateur Hour played an very important role in the lives of many of the musicians in the popular field in Australia and the Webbs did not miss their opportunity to be part of that program. They traveled to Brisbane to be part of the heat and when they won that, they had to return to compete in the semi-final. At the time of the semi-final, Berard was required for duty with the Australian Army for National Service. The semi-final was on his first day in the army so he went awol to compete. They did not win, being beaten by an aspiring opera singer. Terry Dear, who was the compere of the Amateur Hour at that time introduced the boys as the "bodgies from Widgee", a reference to the public concern associated by the public with young people (bodgies and widgies) who identified themselves with the newly released rock 'n' roll music.

Early Recording

In 1956, the boys were offered a recording contract with the Australian Record Company ?. This required that they travel to Brisbane in the FJ, a half day journey because there were still some unsealed roads between Widgee and Gympie and between Gympie and Brisbane. They had to record an acetate demo of original songs to be sent to Sydney. It was a one microphone, one take and on to disk - no second chance.

They were invited to Sydney to record and four songs were put down in one session. One microphone was used and to vary the mix, the boys were asked to move closer to the mic at time when more harmony was required. The Call of the Bellbird and The Little Green Valley were record for one record and Just Sing Sing Sing and The Louisiana Swing for another were the four songs recorded.

The FJ

The Webb Brothers used to travel to their early gigs in an FJ Holden, a vehicle that is not very big by todays standard, but the standard of the time. So into the FJ they were able to fit their instruments (three guitars), their PA system and themselves. They used to have a Phillips PA and one microphone around which they used to gather to perform to three to four hundred people on a regular basis. People used to just sit there and listen in those days.

Recording

Even though the Webb Brothers traveled widely and performed regularly, the recording industry was not initially all that lucrative for them. The Call of the Bellbird ? for instance, even though it was widely accepted at their live performances, did not sell well in the early days. They stayed with Rodeo ? for a couple of years and changed to W&G in 1959. Their first LP with W&G, Clancy of the Overflow, produced a number 3 hit on the pop charts for the Purple Petrol Eater in the early 1960s.

Their next success was not till 1976 when the Palmer River Song won them a Golden Guitar ? for Vocal Group or Duo of the Year. A Golden Guitar was theirs again in 1982 courtesy of the beef substitution scandal that occurred in 1981. Who put the Roo in the Stew was the biggest selling country song of 1981 and changed the brothers lifestyle for some time. It also changed the the lifestyle of many Gympie residents, especially those who belong(ed) to the local Apex Club. As a result of a bus trip to Tamworth in January 1982 organised in support of the Webb Brothers and their Golden Guitar award, the Gympie Muster became a reality.

Submitted by Geoff Walden