Sat 13 June – The Dixie Chooks
The Dixie Cbooks Live at Jimmy Hornet
Wendy & Moira combine compelling tunes that blend socially conscious lyrics with down to earth, blues-folky instrumentation- and a winning sense of humour.
Wendy Ealey and Moira Tyers have been playing together in various combinations for six years and have their tuneful fingers in many musical pies.
They are proudly part of the Unsung Heroes of Australian History (UHAH) project with Bruce Watson and Neil Robertson, which has played to enthusiastic audiences at house concerts, the Boîte, Darebin Music Feast, the National, Basin, Maldon, Cygnet and Tamar Valley Folk Festivals, Newstead Live Music Festival, Words in Winter and whirlwind tours of South Australia, Canberra and Sydney earlier this year.
As a duo they are frequently heard and seen at music venues, festivals, community and corporate events entertaining audiences with their mix of original and borrowed material which often speaks to the experiences of woman kind as they wend their way through the nightmare which is galloping middle age and plain old ordinary life. But there’s nothing ordinary about this pairing of voices and musical spirits. They are equally at ease paying tongue in cheek homage to much loved ‘lurve’ ballads as they are giving songs with a bit of social bite a good airing. They’ll have you in stitches, but don’t forget to bring your tissues too!
They also work together running the Darebin Songwriters Guild fostering budding musical bards at the ‘originals only open stage’ with a range of other additional initiatives to support and encourage fellow musicians and writers. This year Moira and Wendy had the privilege in September of working with the Te Toa Matoa ‘Arts for Advocacy’ project for artists with disabilities from Kiribatis in song writing, vocal technique and recording workshops. They have just returned from Perth where they presented the Unsung Heroes project to the National History Teachers’ Association conference having ‘sung their way across the Nullabor’ on the Indian Pacific. They capped their trip off with an appearance at the Hills Folk Club in Lesmurdie. Great gig, new friends and lots of adventures.
Moira Tyers is a multi award winning singer/songwriter from West Preston. Her awards include Port Fairy Folk Festival 2005 Best song for Peace, Tolerance and Understanding for her song “‘Why Not Let a Mother” and Hot Pick Award for Pacific Song writing comp N.Z. 2005 for “Until you`re Old”. Moira plays an eclectic mix of suburban folk music that crosses the Folk/Country/Blues genre and reflects everyday issues both comical and poignant. She is a dab hand at a range of instruments, including guitar, fiddle and piano accordion.
Wendy Ealey has been chortling her way around the Melbourne folk scene and various genres and venues national and international for way too long to mention if trying to maintain the myth that she’s just a young slip of a thing. Her song writing and performing spans solo, choral, classical, instrumental and political as well as satisfying her insatiable urge to chat via a brief and terrifying flirtation with stand up comedy and more recently, regular engagements as a compere/MC. Also a multi-instrumentalist, Wendy plays guitar, mandolin, ukulele and kazoo!
Ealey & Tyers compliment each other vocally and instrumentally with tight harmonies and a huge emotional as well as musical range. Apart from performing individually, and with the UHAH project, they are preparing material for their first album as a duo. They are so glad they found each other all those years ago, and they hope you’ll be glad you found them too!
