The SA Songwriters Event
HistoryThe South Australian Songwriters Event (sometimes also known as the SA Songwriting Event) was founded in 1979 by Judith Crossley who was the coordinator of the first SA Folk Festival at Burra (in South Australia's mid-North). The Event was originally called "The Real Connection". As Judith explains:
Soon after this I gave up running the competition but continued my mania for researching the next area and pressuring possible songwriters.... After each Festival I put together a file about the next area we featured. Then I would haunt the folk venues flourishing my X file (sorry - Clare Connection) and pressuring every conceivable songwriting embryo of my acquaintance. This may have helped develop a core of local songwriters. Following SCALA's formation in 1987, the Folk Federation approached us to assist in the organisation of the Event. They wanted to broaden the nature of the Event in keeping with the evolving musical trend in the Festival as a whole. They were also keen to encourage the recording and release of winning songs from the Event and give a higher profile to songwriters at the Festival with a songwriters concert. SCALA agreed and helped organise all the subsequent Songwriters Events from 1988 with winning songs released on SCALA produced albums. There were a number of changes to the Event over the years when SCALA was involved. In those early "SCALA" Events a significant number of songs as well as the winners were selected for recording. In fact the chances of getting recorded in the Songwriters Events from 1988 to 1993 were about 1 in 3 (not bad odds). A dozen or so of the 36 or more songs entered were selected for recording. You'd imagine then that subsequent recording of such a large number of songs each year posed some logistical problems - and you'd be right! - see Before The CDs In 1994 a couple of changes affected the Songwriters Event. In that year SCALA commenced its own FOOM (Festival of Original Music) Song Competition. FOOM was intended to provide opportunities where the Songwriters Event couldn't (such as more categories especially for non performers) and we saw a need to bring out the winning songs on CD (necessitating more production time for the songs) rather than on cassette. It meant fewer songs from the Songwriters Event would get recorded. However, the Labour Day Celebrations Committee stepped in to offer funding for a "Labour Issues" song prize as part of the Songwriters Event. So from 1994 to 1998 the Songwriters Event ran with an "Open" or "Australian" Category and a "Working Life" Category. The Songwriters Event was discontinued when the Folk Federation of SA decided to no longer run a State Festival after the one at Victor Harbour in 2001. This page celebrates those award winning songwriters from "the SCALA years". We would be happy to also include winners from the years before 1988 if someone can tell us who they were!
Extracted and adapted from:
The Real Connection by Judith Crossley (SCALA News # 72, November/December 1999) |
