Singing Jillaroo Hit High Folk, C&w Notes

The Age

Friday October 27, 2006

By MALCOLM J. TURNBULL

LENORE MILLER SOMERSET, SINGER, 17-2-1931 - 17-10-2006

LENORE Somerset, a veteran of the country and folk music industries and the golden age of television variety, has died of cancer in Caritas Christi Hospice in Kew. She was 75.

Remembered for a remarkable three-octave voice with a booming lower register, and distinctive 12-string guitar playing, she grew up in Queensland's Atherton Tablelands and Brisbane. Having first picked up a guitar at eight, she made her professional debut as Lenore Miller, a teenage singing (and yodelling) "jillaroo" on the country and western touring circuit. Her first recordings were duets with her uncle, Buddy Williams, taped in Sydney in 1945.

Advised by Gladys Moncrieff to study singing seriously, Somerset spent seven years with the Queensland National Opera. She moved to Melbourne with her husband Roy, a doctor, and infant son Stephen in 1958, and resumed voice studies and along the way became increasingly attracted to folk music.

Philip Brady, a neighbour in Kew, helped her to break into television and she became a popular fixture on shows such as Delo & Daly, In Melbourne Tonight, Patrick O'Hagan Sings, Bandstand, Penthouse Club and Reg Lindsay's Country & Western Hour.

Widely regarded as the leading female folk singer in Australia during the folk boom, Somerset was a member of the groundbreaking Four Capitals Folk Song Tour (1964), and headlined at the 1965 Newport (Sydney) Folk Festival. Along with Denis Gibbons and Marian Henderson, she played an important part in bringing an awareness of folk songs (and, in particular, Australian material) to the public.

Somerset's recordings for the W&G label included Mary's Boy Child, which reached No. 2 on the charts in Hobart, and such classics of the folk revival as Hava Nagila, The Ox Driver's Song and the LP Australia Past. Her first album, Lenore Somerset Sings, received a major award from Radio Spain. She also composed and performed the soundtrack for an innovative short film, Sculpture. For several years she was the featured model in advertising for Maton guitars - the manufacturer named one instrument the L. S. Professional in her honour.

As folk audiences declined after the mid-1960s, Somerset moved increasingly into country and popular music, appearing regularly on the hotel, leagues club and cabaret circuit. She also dabbled in acting with stints in Homicide, The Sullivans, Matlock Police and Bellbird.

But she always felt the highlights of her 40-year career were participating in three entertainers' tours of US and Australian army bases during the Vietnam War. Her oral history memories of Vietnam have been preserved by the Australian War Memorial.

Somerset retired in the late 1980s, when she and Roy moved to the outskirts of Melbourne's north-east. She re-emerged informally two years ago, following Roy's death, for a couple of low-key recording projects and some live appearances, including fund-raisers for Inner FM Radio and an impromptu duet with Vietnam veteran Normie Rowe at Weller's Restaurant.

In January, 60 years after her first outings on vinyl with Williams, she was honoured with induction into the Hands of Fame at the Tamworth Country Music Festival. Only a few months before her death, she collaborated on a new album - yet to be released - with old friend and fellow '60s veteran Doug Owen.

A versatile and skilled musician who was generous and fun-loving, Somerset is survived by her son, daughter-in-law and two grand-daughters.

Malcolm J. Turnbull is a Melbourne historian and family friend of Lenore Somerset.

© 2006 The Age

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