AUSTRALIAN ROAD CREW

By Ian Peel

R.I.P Grant Jennings

Sometime in the early '70's, on the way home from work, I picked up this hitchhiker along Nepean Hwy. I was 19. He jumped in with a giant grin on his face and thanked me.

I took Grant Jennings (G.J) to Gardenvale and dropped him off. “Come in and say hi to some friends???” So I did. A long production meeting with John and Margie McKissock ensued and I was hooked on going from colour-in pigments to colour-in lighting. Wow. Off to real work… lol… Clearlight… I became a Roadie… and met Chuggi at Dallas Brooks Hall…

By Peter Noble, Festival Director of Bluesfest

“It is with a heavy heart I am writing today..... Two days ago we lost a member of the Bluesfest family, our beloved friend and associate Cliff Whyte.

Cliff was a giant of a man, literally, yet one of the most gentle, soft spoken, beautiful people you could ever meet.

By Robert Gosford

The photo above is of me with my colleague Sam Marini. We worked together for the Melbourne band Stiletto for at least a year or so. During that time we spent more time together than with any of our respective significant others. Sam always had a ready smile, worked like a bitch and could roll a perfect three-paper hash joint while driving up the Newell Highway at 100+ k’s an hour.

By Julius Grafton

In a tragic tale, ex-pat Australian sound engineer Gerry Georgettis took his own life on board a United Airlines flight from Washington to Los Angeles in early February. The flight was diverted to Denver, after crew discovered Gerry in the lavatory, where he had somehow killed himself. People who knew the 56 year old theatre manager from North Miami Beach were agog that he took his life. The story has a massive prelude...