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Hello again from the Briskey’s, been quite a while since we gave you an update on what we are doing.
We have been working on a new album and hope to have it out by end of April, if not before. We are most excited about the new album as it will have some great new songs on it. Four of the songs are by famed songwriter, Ray Rose, "Half the Man" “The Busker”,  “The Story of Camooweal”, and "My Christmas Song", will be sung by our Granddaughter Alexandra who is Gina’s daughter. Our good friend and local songwriter Shelly Postle has three co-writes being added, including “The Battlers” co-written with Marc Lea.

“It wasn’t Just a Legend” is a very moving and emotionally charged Anzac song, co-written with our granddaughter Gemma Doyle and a great bluesy track co-written with Hughie Stone, “Key to My Door”.

While staying at the Gem fields we met a lovely talented lady, Glad Leijen who has been writing all her life. She is an excellent writer and five of her tracks have made it to the final cut. I have managed to have two of mine added as well, songs that are true to us and our way of life. Three covers are going onto the album, including one of our favourites, “One Tree Plain”. Seventeen great songs in all, a mixture of true bush ballads, a little bit of blues but all excellent Australian music. Really looking forward to getting it out there, I know Marc Lea at Regency Sound will do a great job as always.

Reg has been doing a lot of charity work which he enjoys and both he and  Gina will be performing at a Heritage Tractor day at Toowoomba show grounds on the 3^rd, 4^th & 5^th March. Come early May we will be off to the Gem fields at Rubyvale again for the winter. Reg and another good friend of ours, Allan Menelly do community gigs and some entertaining in the Parks there. Between them a lot of fun is had and they have quite a few followers in the area.

Anyway bye for now………….Merle   

Background: Reg recorded the album with his youngest daughter Gina Briskey who also only started singing and performing a couple of years ago. Their interest in performing country music came about when a couple of Reg's granddaughters started singing at some of the local country music festivals.
One of those granddaughters is Gemma Doyle who has just released her first album also. Gemma is a talented teenager who is a terrific songwriter. Reg and Merle who have been married for over fifty years have eight children and 30 grandchildren with daughter Gina being the only one who sings at Festivals.

Songwriting; Merle wrote at least five of the tracks for the album, a talent which has only just emerged. It is wonderful to see such great people beginning a career at such a late stage in their lives. Reg first picked the guitar up at sixty-nine and has taken lessons from Hughie Stone, a local who is a popular identity at the Tamworth Country Music festival. The title track off the album is a song written about a ghost town in SouthEast Queensland called Kooroongarra. Like so many early townships, it was once a thriving community, but now the streets lie silent and still. Merle was born there in a farmhouse at Koonangarra, and it holds many fond memories for her and Reg.
Musical genes run strongly through this family with Reg's mother being an entertainer during the war years.

She sang with the 'Glen Miller Band' up in northern Queensland. Reg and Merle have always farmed and you could often hear him singing whilst on the tractor out in the paddock.

Kooroongarra; There are fifteen tracks on the album, many Australian songs and some overseas classics "Crazy", and the gospel song "How Great Thou Art". The tracks that Merle wrote have come from many of their life experiences.

Sapphire Mining; The song 'Anakie' was written about the small sapphire mining town in northwest Queensland, where Merle and Reg spend most of their winter months at their bush hideaway, working their underground sapphire mine. Reg and Merle with elder daughter Linda and the two youngest Kym and Gina, travelled around Australia in the winter months in the eighties from one gemfield to another, different gemstones at each place. They would set up camp in the bush and spend their days on pick and shovel, sieving the gravels for the elusive gem stone. It was a good way to keep fit and the girls saw alot of Australia and learnt about the simple things in life. The girls are long grown up and Reg and Merle both in their seventies and have their own sapphire mine, in Rubyvale, and are fifty feet underground, a ladder straight down a shaft and Reg works the tunnels down underground and sends the soil up to the top to process it. Sand goes one way, big rocks another and out of the gravel, hopefully they'll get a sapphire. 'If not maybe next time.' They do their mining in the winter, as it is too hot in summer and lead a very good, simple life in Rubyvale and meet alot of interesting people from time-to-time hence the two songs- "North we go" and "Anakie" from our Kooroongarra CD.
They love the bush and look forward to their time in Rubyvale every year.

Broxburn Music Club; They are all members of the local Broxburn Music Club, which holds it's own Country Music Festival called the Broxburn Bash.It is held annually near the small town of Pittsworth on the Darling Downs, on the Mayday long weekend. It is a great festival being set in bush atmosphere and running over two days.People have been known to come from as far afield as Victoria, to attend the weekend.
The new album was produced by Marc Lea at Regency Sound and Marc was a great help to Reg and Gina listening their ideas. Merle is already working on new songs for another album, which is sure, to be one to look forward to. Photo top right; Gina and Reg. Photo top left; Reg tending the campfire. Photo top right; Reg in their mine. Photo top bottom; - Gina and her family

Product

"The Old Dance Hall"

Reg & Gina Briskey
TRACK LIST: 

Roll On Summer – The Storm – The Old Dance Hall – The Shelter Of The Cross – From The Lambing To The Wool – Our Gullies Will Run Again – That’s Our Town – If I Believe – Old House Of My Dreams – Winter Is Coming –  No Guarantee – The Old Windmill – Voice From The Bush – Plain Old Country Girl – Time To Get My Own Back – Old Wonk.

**Purchase direct from; Reg and Gina Briskey. M/S 150, Pittsworth Qld 4356 Australia.

>>If you wish to purchase this album with credit card please go to the Brisbane Country Music Store
- direct to "The Old Dance Hall"
COUNTRY MUSIC STORE LINK

Debut Album - "Kooroongarra"
Featuring the popular title track - "Kooroongarra" released as a single on the A.B.B.A. "Bush Balladeers Vol 4"
Track Listing
1. Fire of Gidgee Coals (S.Coster), 2. Kooroongarra (M. Briskey/H.Stone), 3. Drovers Boy (Ted Egan),4. North we Go (M.Briskey/H.Stone), 5. Somethings a Man Just Can't fight (S.Coster), 6. When Will the Gullies Run Again (M.Briskey/G.Doyle), 7. Sitting on my Varandah (M.Briskey/H.Stone), 8. Anakie (M.Briskey/H.Stone), 9. Bushman Can't Survive (John Williamson), 10. MacQuarie River (H.Stone/D.Hynde), 11. Power of the Land (K.Chambers), 12. Daddies Girl (H.Stone), 13. Care of the Blues (Millar.Stevenson), 14. Crazy (W.Nelson), 15. How Great Thou Art (S.K. Hine).
Available on Cd Only - $25 posted
Postal Address; R. Briskey, M/S 150, Pittsworth Qld 4356 Australia.
Phone; (07) 4 693 8138.

» CREDIT CARD?
>>If you wish to purchase this album with credit card please go to the Brisbane Country Music Store
- direct to "Koorangarra"
COUNTRY MUSIC STORE LINK

 Postal Address;
  Reg & Gina Briskey, M/S 150, Pittsworth Qld 4356 Australia.
  Phone; (07) 4 693 8138.

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