Barefoot musician back on home soil

Renowned harmonica player and former Coalcliff lad Ian ‘‘Barefoot Iano’’ Giddey – who now lives in Grenoble, France – has returned to Wollongong to play a Three O’Clock Sunset reunion gig on Saturday. 

 He will be joined by some old friends – local musicians who formed the Northern Suburbs Music Association and also performed on the 1995 album: Bede Ritchie, Dave Wright, Claire Roberts, Brett Cartwright, Pete Jordan, Russ Heriot, Andrew Jackson, Trevor White, Brad McNally and Clarrie Bouma.

In three years, the association held functions and gave 67 local musicians the chance to record their songs on three CDs – Three O’Clock Sunset was followed by the albums Coaltown Tracks and Black Diamond.

The free concert will be held at the Scarborough Wombarra Bowling Club’s middle green starting at 5pm. 

Touching base with Ian Giddey

I was born in Coledale in 1964. I’ve  got three brothers. I grew up in Coalcliff till I was 12. My mother, Judie, was part of the first women’s march past teams at Coalcliff Surf Life Saving Club. They had us in the nippers at Stanwell Park Surf Club because the Coalcliff clubhouse got washed away in ’74 by the storms. In the early ’80s the Coalcliff surf club members called all the residents together because a lot of young people came into the village at that time. They said ‘we’re the old guard, if the surf club’s going to keep going it needs a new guard’.  Those are the people I grew up playing music with and surfing with.  I spent a year at Bulli High.  We moved to Wollongong in 1977 and I went to Wollongong High School.   Every weekend I’d go back up to Coalcliff to stay with my grandmother. In the 1980s I was the live-in caretaker for the surf club.

 I started playing guitar and harmonica in 1978.  It started off as a social thing. Real early in the piece, I had strapped on a harmonica and guitar together. I got a harmonica for my 13th birthday and I met Richard Steele, who went on to form blues band Whose Muddy Shoes. I bought a guitar off a teacher from Bulli High. From then on I always had a guitar on my back and the boys were playing at Coalcliff. There was a good crew of musicians. Coalcliff was the social scene  – we had surf club parties  and we’d play to fund-raise for the surf club.  We had a band called Stony Creek in about ’81 or ’82.  My first proper band was Bluesberry Jam. Richard Steele was the instigator, we used to play at Headlands Hotel and Northern Suburbs Leagues Club in Coledale. I  got into blues   after hearing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. I never had a good ear so I got discouraged pretty quick because I couldn’t get it sounding like it did on the records. I  always felt the best music I heard was somewhere inside my head and I wanted to get that to come out, so I had to work on my technique.

I quit school at 16 and I did an electrical apprenticeship at MM Port Kembla. In early ’86 I went travelling with my buddy Clarrie Bouma, the patron saint of the Northern Suburbs Music Association.  We went surfing in Sri Lanka, spent time in India and Nepal. It was a blast. We played music everywhere.  I drank some water in India and, because I’d been abusing certain substances too much, my immune system was right down and I got hepatitis. I was in hospital in Munich for two weeks. Back in Australia, I mowed  lawns and became caretaker for the surf club.

 In 1990 I went to Tamworth for the first time and participated in the Australian Harmonica Championships. I took second place in the professional category and won the audience award.  In 1993 I won the professional category. Shortly after that I left with a round-the-world ticket with a girlfriend of 10 years. I put her on  a plane in New Orleans so she could visit her parents in Cornwall. When I went back to the guesthouse in New Orleans where we’d been staying I met my wife, Carole. She was French and I had to follow her back to France. It was scary  – I didn’t know any French.  It took me three years before I was comfortable speaking French. 

We live in Grenoble with our two kids, a boy and a girl, 13 and 16.  We’ve come over to Wollongong for my dad’s 80th birthday. Mountain Men is a duo I started with Matt Guillou after a meeting in a bar/restaurant where I was doing a solo gig in 2005. It’s grown into some sort of monster. We brought out an album, Hope, on October 12 and we’ve sold 6500 hard copies.  Matt, the singer and guitar player, is the most amazing musician. We play all over France. It blows me away.  In 1995 I came back with my wife for nine months to introduce her to family and friends.  We  recorded an album called Three OClock Sunset with Clarrie Bouma, Brett Cartwright, Dave Wright, the Seaton brothers – Grant and Roger – and others. My wife sang back-up, along with Bede Ritchie and Andy O’Donnell. 

Reunion gig at Scarborough Wombarra Bowling Club this Saturday, January 18, from 5pm.