Heritage First came the music. Anglo-Celtic in it origin, it survived brutal transportation half-way around the world to the oldest land on Earth, already with a history of some 40,000 years of habitation. Here the music was shaped by struggles of the human spirit and the harshness of the environment. The folk songs and tunes which migrated with convicts and first settlers gradually became the unique music of the Australian bush. These early songs told of life  in the camps, on the land, on the breadline and on the run. Through the great depression and World War II this poetry of mateship and hardship underpinned our culture.   Then Australia, no longer isolated, lost its unique identity by rushing along with the rest of the world to embrace the American dream.         The musical "Reedy River" revived interest in Australian folk music during the 1950's.  Written by Helen Palmer and Doreen Bridges, the backing band for this popular stage production was "The Moreton Bay Bushwhackers". By the time of the British Pop Invasion of the 1960's the flame of our bush music heritage was barely alive.   It wasn't until the early 1970's that the massive resurgence in folk music overseas inspired such Australian bands as "The Larrikins", "The Cobbers", and "The Original Bushwhackers and Bullockies Bush Band".  Their success in those years is evidenced in part by ten albums and may gold records; the biggest selling Australian songbook ever; soundtracks for feature films and television series'; numerous awards and an entire ABC documentary devoted to the band. The Bushwackers' astounding popularity in concert peaked in the 1980's when their dances attracted crowds of 4,000 in capital cities.  One memorable night more than 1,000 people were turned away from a sell-out show at the "Birkenhead Barn" in Sydney. Even after ten years of solid touring the public just couldn't get  enough of The Bushwackers - long after most other bands formed in the same era had burned out or faded away.  However in 1984 The Bushwackers too decided to call it a day, due primarily, to the costs of keeping a band of their stature on the road but also, to the desires of long-standing members to establish a home and family of their own. Various past members of the band got together for reunion tours every year between 1984 and 1990 while record companies churned out compilations drawn from The Bushwackers earlier recordings. It wasn't until late 1993 that Roger Corbett and Dobe Newton reformed the band with some old hands and players from a younger generation.  This new outfit appeared at the "Tamworth Festival" in January 1994 as "The Range Rovers" but failed to escape the attention of several music industry heavyweights who had come to witness the band's covert debut. Within just a few months Dobe, Roger and newcomer Melanie were signed as "The Bushwackers Band" to publishing giant Warner Chappell and a new recording deal was struck with ABC/EMI. Their latest recordings are among their finest with the band as potent as it ever was, and perhaps more focused.     While the music can speak for itself, to understand The Bushwackers legend we need to visit Another Time..... Another Place.   Another Time-Another Place The Bushwackers Experience Circa 1977-1980 Fitzroy,  Melbourne On any given Friday night in Melbourne between about 1977 and 1980, before Random Breath Testing and noise regulations stifled our world-famous live music scene, you could go to the  'Dan O'Connell Hotel' in Fitzroy and experience the legendary Bushwackers at their fiery, venom-spitting and ever-endearing best. It was as hot as hell in the Dan O'Connell, even in winter, but you couldn't help being swept away by the crowd and the music.  There were moments in the show when the mob would respond by singing 'Skippy' and doing things that were equally incomprehensible to a first-timer in the audience. Somehow, 'The Bushwackers' would take you back to colonial days when a bloke was either your mate or a policeman.  Somehow it was no longer a crowded pub on a bleak night in Melbourne, but a hot, dry patch of Queensland dirt in the middle of a drought -- or even a hiding place during a shoot with the 'traps' in Victoria. You were transported to the worlds of the larrikin, the swaggie, those on the land, the grieving wife, the boy in the trenches of Gallipolli. The band would challenge your politic too, at every turn.  They forced you to take a side, preferably for the worker or the oppressed, whoever and whenever they may be. The Bushwackers were the first major Australian band to take a stand on issues such as becoming a republic, ditching the Royal Family, adopting the Eureka flag and ending the prohibition of marijuana. Although the band's passionate music and strong views no doubt combined to attract huge public support, there are simple factors more powerful than either of these which caused the Bushwackers band to become a phenomenon.