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Australian Folk Songs (Decca DL 8749, 1958) is an album by Burl Ives

Burl Ives

Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice .....

, one of the byproducts of his visit to Australia in 1952. Invited there by the Australia Broadcasting Commission, Ives met Reverend Dr. Percy Jones, a professor of music from Geelong. The two men compiled a book of Australian folk songs, and Ives recorded an album of the songs, "collected and arranged" by Percy. Those songs were later released in the U.S. as Australian Folk Songs.

The cover of the album depicts Ives in a stereotypical Australian setting, standing in front of a poster of a kangaroo and interacting with a koala.

Reception

In his Allmusic review, critic Bruce Eder highly praised the album and wrote "while a lot that's on this has been bypassed and supplanted by subsequent efforts, it's still vital listening, and even more so when one appreciates the circumstances of its recording and origins. It offers some of the most spare and authentic settings of Ives' entire career... and also some of Ives' most rousing and spirited singing... Even the seemingly familiar titles are presented in uniquely Australian incarnations that transform them into something new and wonderful to hear; and it has to be remembered that virtually everything here was being put on record for the very first time; and the record's subsequent release in America was just as special an event at the time. And of all of Ives' 1950s albums, this is the one whose absence on CD (as of 2009) is a true musical crime, as well as an affront to Ives' history and memory."

Side one

1. "Wild Rover No More "
2. "Click Go the Shears
   Click Go the Shears
   "Click Go the Shears" is a traditional Australian folk song. The song details a day's work for a sheep shearer in the days before machine shears. The enduring popularity of this song reflects the traditional role that the wool industry has played in Australian life...
   
   "
3. "The Wild Colonial Boy
   The Wild Colonial Boy
   "The Wild Colonial Boy" is a traditional Irish–Australian ballad of which there are many different versions, the most prominent being the Irish and Australian versions. The original version was about Jack Donahue, an Irish rebel who became a convict, then a bushranger , who was eventually shot down...
   
   "
4. "A Nautical Yarn"
5. "Across the Western Plains I Must Wander"
6. "Waltzing Matilda
   Waltzing Matilda
   "Waltzing Matilda" is Australia's most widely known bush ballad. A country folk song, the song has been referred to as "the unofficial national anthem of Australia"....
   
   "
7. "Pearly shells"

Side two

1. "Oh! The Springtime, It Brings on the Shearing"
2. "The Station Cook"
3. "The Dying Stockman"
4. "Botany Bay
   Botany Bay (song)
   "Botany Bay" is a song from the musical burlesque, Little Jack Sheppard, a comedy staged in London, England, in 1885 and Melbourne, Australia, in 1886. The show was written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and William Yardley, though the music for "Botany Bay" was written by Florian Pascal, a pseudonym...
   
   "
5. "The Old Bullock Dray"
6. "The Stockman's Last Bed"