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Country music for all the folks

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP

They may have a politically correct name but the Sensitive New Age Cowpersons play bluegrass that is politically very dodgy indeed.

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'People get tired of mountains and God and all that stuff that bluegrass is all about,' said Jim Fisher (stage name Calamity). 'But they still like bluegrass: so we give them this.' 'This' is a mixture of original comedy and unoriginal hits blended with banjo and a spot of AC/DC a cappella campfire blues.

In other words, as bass player Fred Kuhnl (alias Stan Pede) described it, 'it's bluegrass played the way bluegrass shouldn't be played'.

I was interviewing the Australian band at the Foreign Correspondents' Club about an hour and a shower after its members had arrived at Kai Tak for the Hong Kong Folk Festival.

And the Fremantle foursome sang for me Dancing Queen done as Abba never did it, and a 'SNACs' version of the Australian national anthem - which no Aussies I've known can ever remember - which, the way they do it, includes a menagerie of Matildas, Skippies and a kookaburra or three.

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The Cowpersons started as a Cowcouple - Fisher and John Reed (fondly known as Texus T Tex), who plays cittern, a nouveau Irish instrument he describes as a 'power mandolin'.

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