Who we are
The Alice Springs Folk Club is very active, with people of all ages and backgrounds coming together, sharing and enjoying music. Members and non-members are all welcome at our events.
The Top Half Folk Festival 2024 was a beautiful weekend of music, dance, community, learning, sharing, and merriment, and a testament to the strength of The Alice Springs Folk Club built over decades, and the generous communities of Mparntwe Alice Springs and surrounds.
We hold a monthly ‘Last Sunday Folk Up’ featuring two musical acts, usually one of them local, and often one of them visiting from interstate or abroad. There is also a Blackboard open mic session after the featured performances where attendees are invited to perform a song or two.
We run various events throughout the year, including songwriting workshops with visiting artists, fundraising events, and special concerts.
The Mparntwe String Band is a flourishing, breathing, interactive stringband that welcomes all string players and signers to join in the music making. From time to time the stringband plays bush dances in Mparntwe Alice Springs and surrounds.
The Alice Springs Folk Club is fostered by a volunteer committee, working groups, and our Patron Nerys Evans. In our numbers are folk musicians, dancers, teachers, song and tune writers, artists, music lovers.
Our Story...
The Alice Springs Folk Club had its beginnings sometime in 1968 when a few singers gathered in The Ranch coffee lounge (owner: Bob South) to “do their own thing”. A very successful concert put on to raise money for the Save The Childrens Fund in 1969 raised $200 and the hall that was hired was packed. The concert generated great interest, and more and more people came to The Ranch on Sunday nights, so a club was formed. This became The Central Australian Folk Society (C.A.F.S.) although around town everyone knew it simply as “The Folk Club”. The aims at that stage were to save for a tape recorder and start a building fund for a clubhouse. An entrance-by-donation system was started and on many nights The Ranch was packed. Many well known artists of folk and country and western came to The Ranch including Slim Dusty, Ray Rivermont, Margret Roadknight and Merle Lamb.
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Unfortunately The Ranch closed down and, after months of unsuccessfully searching for a venue, the club ended up at The Elkira Motel. Throughout the years the club used just about every pub in town as well as the CWA Hall, The Totem Theatre, and even a local restaurant.
The next chapter...
​In 1971 The Managing Director of Connair, Eddie Connelan, offered the club the use of his airline’s old caretaker’s cottage behind the town cemetery. Over the years the club members turned the cottage into a very effective club house where tapes and books were kept and functions could be held. Early members of the club included Taffy and Jan Evans, Peter Bate, Dave Spafford, and Dave Tuzewski, just to name a few.
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The clubs record of “public service” in the early days was very impressive with members singing at schools, the hospital, the Old Timers Home, School Of The Air, as well as organising concerts. It took a while to wean the town away from their Slim Dusty records, however at its height of popularity in the 70’s and 80’s the club boasted a membership of over 150 and the Sunday folk club nights often attracted upwards of 200 people.
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Locals were treated to a variety of musical styles from Traditional through to Contemporary, with Australian and Overseas songs as well as a healthy smattering of bush poetry. Visiting artists from both Australia and overseas featured on many a Sunday night, along with local performers.
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Such was the quality of some of the local performers that over the years various groups were formed, the most notable being “The Hawkers”, “Bloodwood” and “Facial Expressions”.
Festivals...
About 3,000 people attended a concert at the Telegraph Station in March 1971 held to celebrate the Centenary of Alice Springs. The following year a few Alice folkies attended a concert in Darwin, and so I suppose you could say that the Annual Top Half Festivals had started.
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Folk clubs from the Top Half of Australia had formed a Federation sometime around 1972, and it was decided to hold a festival every June Queens Birthday weekend. This alternated primarily between Mt. Isa, Darwin and Alice Springs although in later years Mt. Isa dropped out. This Festival has now run for over 40 years and is one of the longest running annual folk festivals in Australia.
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The popularity of The Alice Springs Folk Club in the 70’s along with the successful Top Half Festivals led to the club hosting two National Folk Festivals – in 1980 and 1987. The 1980 Festival was the first time “The National” had been held outside a capital city. Both festivals were considered a huge success.