Bruce Watson

Bruce Morrisby Watson (born February 1956, in Terang) is an Australian singer-songwriter, satirist, and children's entertainer. Watson's satires are often political in nature. His style is generally contemporary folk music, he also writes and performs children's songs, conventional folk–country music and political songs. He has issued eight solo albums Politics, Religion and Sex, Real World: Songs of Life, Love & Laughter (1994), Out My Window (1999), Are We There Yet? (2004), A Moving Feast (2004), Balance (2010), Mosaic (2017) and Year of Wonders (2022).

Early life and education

Bruce Morrisby Watson was born on 12 February 1956 at Terang, a town in rural south-western Victoria.

Bruce Watson was educated at Eltham, Brighton Road St. Kilda and Kew primary schools; for secondary education he went to Kew High and then Wesley College.

The son of a clergyman and a language teacher, Watson developed a social conscience and a love of language that have influenced his songwriting and his professional career, first as an academic (tutoring in Political Science and Linguistics) and later working in various branches of the Victorian Public Service.

Musical career

In 1990 Watson released his debut album, Politics, Religion and Sex. One of the tracks, "Amazon", was later covered by fellow folk artists Blackwood, Eric Bogle, and Zampoñistas, as well as a number of other performers in Europe and the United States. In May that year, he launched his book, Songs of a Satirical Bloke, with the Canberra Times Mike Jackson, describing him as "an academic with a wicked sense of humour". In April 1994 he performed at the National Folk Festival in Canberra, with the Canberra Times reporter, Graham McDonald, describing his work as "dreadfully funny parodies". Also that year he issued his second album, Real World: Songs of Life, Love & Laughter.

Watson has been called a "major Australian songwriter and performer in the folk tradition", and "an icon of the Australian folk scene." He has performed at over 200 folk music festivals, as well as folk clubs, coffee houses, and house concerts throughout Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. at various folk festivals and concert venues. He also performs with Zampoñistas, Melbourne’s Bolivian Panpipe marching band, which includes a panpipe-accompanied version of Amazon in its repertoire.

Watson's song Lake Pedder Again from his Balance CD has appeared on The Folk Show on Radio Adelaide, and I'm on the Train has had regular airplay on ABC's Australia All Over radio show [see Australia All Over].

Songs

The Man and the Woman and the Edison Phonograph Horace Watson recording the songs of Fanny Cochrane Smith, considered to be the last fluent speaker of a Tasmanian language, 1903.

Watson's great grandfather was Horace Watson (1862–1930), a pharmacist, who, in 1888 in Hobart, had married Louisa née Keen (died 1936) (sixth daughter of Joseph Keen, inventor of Keen's Curry) who was the recent widow of Robert Williamson. In 1899 and in 1903 Horace recorded traditional language songs by indigenous Tasmanian, Fanny Cochrane Smith. Horace and Louisa ran the Keen's Curry company.