The Forbes Flood - A traditional song from Ebb Wren
Channel: Rob Willis
Date: 2021-11-14

John Meredith and I and recorded this song in 1990 as part of his 'Real Folk' series of films, it is part of a longer segment with Ebb (1914-1992). Forbes is no stranger to flooding and as can be seen from the vision Ebb was impacted every time. This song is a fine example of a folk song crafted by a master performer (Ebb). The tune is from an old American ballad (The Mississippi Flood) with Ebb changing the words to suit. 
Forbes is so fortunate having a number of these older performers and we are fortunate to have captured their performances for The National Library of Australia.
We shot this on super 8 FILM (not video) with audio from the camera so it is all pretty rough, but it is the best we had at the time. The film was also lost and damaged during processing but we managed to get it back.
To younger ears this may all seem pretty corny but please don't bag it, these songs are of an era when 'disaster' songs were part of the normal way of creating an awareness of a situation. The music is one of Ebb's tunes, a Schottische, played by Illawarra band, No Such Thing.
Ebb was pretty crook when we recorded this and we greatly appreciated his willingness to film for us.
Thanks for everything, Ebb.