My Musical History
My interest in music began as a child listening to folk groups. I was entranced by the harmonies. This developed as a teenager into a love for the music of Peter Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel and the Beatles. I taught myself how to play guitar, formed my own folk groups, and started writing my own songs. The first ones were earnest but clichéd. With more time and practice I began to turn out contemporary folk songs that I was proud of. I dreamt of being the next Paul Simon, a dream that took me from Adelaide to Sydney to London. At the same time I was earning my living as a primary school teacher. Being a musician I wanted to use music in my classroom of 9 to 11 year olds. But there was very little suitable material out there. There were a number of Nursery Rhyme CDs, and such recordings as Peter and the Wolf, but not much else, so I started to write songs myself, sometimes as a workshop with the children, sometimes alone. I wrote mini-musicals and musical reviews, which my classes performed to their parents to great acclaimation. In London in 1977 I was lucky enough to score a job with BBC TV – as a presenter on “Music Time”, a musical education program for primary school children. During the next 3 years I learned much about performing on television. It was great fun too. On my return to Adelaide I accepted the role as presenter on ABC radio’s “Lets Have Music”, which was broadcast nationally for schools. The producer of this show had an amazing talent for sourcing great songs for this age group – songs like “Dr Knickerbocker”, “My Highland Goat”, “Big Black Hat” and “The Court of King Caractacus”. He also taught me to use my voice in different ways – putting character in the voice.
Recording
It was during this time I wrote and recorded my first children’s album, which I called “Songs for Little Kids”. Luckily I used an excellent studio and engineer, and the recordings still hold their own today. I ran off copies on my cassette player, photocopied the covers, and started selling them at the concerts I was starting to do in schools. Eventually I was to play in 1000 Adelaide schools over the next 5 years. Soon I was unable to keep up with the demand so I had the cassettes commercially made. I wrote and recorded a second album, “More Songs for Little Kids”. Eventually in 1984 I persuaded ABC Music to release this (as "Spaghetti Bolognaise"). They put it into shops, without promotion, with minor success. In 1986 I returned with my family to England for 8 months. We lived in Gloucestershire, and besides loving exploring the Cotswolds, I wrote my next album, “Toffee Apple”. Back in Australia I recorded the new album, which was again licensed by ABC Music and released in 1987. But something special happened. I was convinced that if only children’s music could be marketed, its potential for success was great. Unlike pop music, it never made it on to the radio, and of course did not benefit from the exposure of TV videoclip programs. I managed to persuade the head of ABC Music to make a video clip of the song Toffee Apple. It was played on morning time ABC TV, and sales took off. I became Australia's fist popstar for kids. It was such a successful model that a whole new department was created – ABC for Kids Music – and other artists were taken onto the label, all promoted with videoclips. For me more successful albums followed – Newspaper Mama, Chopsticks, Absolutely Best of Live, and my Christmas Album, which went gold in 5 weeks in 1990. By now I had sold hundreds of thousands of albums and videos. I was playing to sell out concerts in theatres all over Australia. These included sellouts at the Sydney Opera House where I went on stage with my guitar and my keyboard player, no sets, props or gimmicks, not a stuffed animal in sight, and sang all my songs while the 2000 strong audience sang, clapped and danced along. They were responding to the songs. I was being a musician through and through, without the benefit of visual gimmicks or theatrics.
Eventually though, in !992 at the height of my fame, due to a series of unfortunate events, the ABC dropped me from their label. Since then I have continued to write and record new albums of music for children, and am still always performing. In the last few years I have returned to school performances, where teachers are still my best fans as they clamour for good music to use with their students. I continue to sell large quantities of albums, but I am totally ignored by the music industry, who tend to think I don’t exist (or have retired!) because I don’t have my own TV show. The internet is a new way of reaching an audience, and I find now interest in my music coming from the States and the UK.
New beginnings
But in the last couple of years a new phase in my career has started. It’s the most rewarding, uplifting thing that’s ever happened to me. I started to be invited to play at 18th and 21st birthday parties, and at late evening pub venues. These young adults actually wanted to hear and sing along with the songs of their childhood. They came and chatted to me afterwards. They would tell me how much my music had meant to them as a child. Some of the stories were inspiring – they had been inspired to take up the violin or cello, to form a rock band, become a music teacher – some were poignant – like the girl struggling with abuse at home who played it for solace and comfort – stories of family fun, where the whole family would sing along during long car trips. The young adult concerts have been getting bigger – Adelaide Uni O Ball, Enchanted, Melbourne Uni lunch time concert, Lord Mayor’s New Years Eve Party. And then there have been the pubs – up to 800 at the best band pubs around the country. 800 jubilant young adults singing along to every word, dancing, doing all the remembered movements, wearing newspaper hats and clothing, waving Toffee Apples and cheering. From the stage I see sheer joy on their faces as they sing with their friends and I find this incredibly moving and very powerful. So many have said this is the best concert they have ever been to, and they are comparing it with some big name rock acts. Surprisingly they have also bought in droves, new copies of the CDs they knew and loved as children.
I have thought about why this reaction is so strong. There are probably a lot of reasons. One is that because of the sheer volume of albums I sold over a period of 10 years (approx. 750,000) when these kids were growing up, and also because teachers saw the intrinsic value of the music and so used it widely in their classrooms, and I did so many live concerts, that the critical mass of that generation who know my music is enough to make it a commonality between them. They are perhaps even surprised themselves when they come along and discover that everyone else there also knows all the words and tunes. How often can you join in a giant singalong where everyone knows all the songs from memory?
It seems that for this generation, when they were growing up music was an integral part of their lives. And I don’t think this would have happened if all they had been exposed to was nursery rhymes and banal ditties of inferior musical quality.
I have started doing a matinee concert in the pub for those young adults who now have children of their own which they wish to bring along. And other concerts for children in theatres, halls and festivals.There is another whole generation of children now growing up who deserve something more in their musical education than what the business is dishing up to them.
I'm still writing, recording and performing new songs for children. Its a labour of love.
Facts and figures
Peter has released 12 albums of childrens songs and 6 DVDs. His albums received 7 Gold and 3 Platnum awards while with ABC Music. He has won 3 ARIA awards. His radio show "Ticklepot" won an award for best childrens radio program (New York).