| Ruby | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Studio album by | |
| Released | 1991 |
| Recorded | 1990-91 |
| Studio | Trafalgar Studios |
| Genre | Rock |
| Label | WEA Records Salt Records (reissue) |
| Producer | Peter Walker, Don Walker |
| re-release cover | |
 | |
Ruby was the second album by Australian band Catfish. Released in 1991, it spent one week in the Australian charts, peaking at number 98. [1]
Don Walker had been the main songwriter and piano player with Australian rock band Cold Chisel. He was the author of many of their hit songs, but had a lower profile than some other members of the band. When they split in 1983, Walker travelled extensively through the Soviet Union, Asia and Europe. He intended to retire from the music industry. [2] In 1988 he released his first solo album under the name Catfish. It received some critical acclaim but only reached number 50 on the Australian charts. [3]
Walker later said, "The two Catfish albums were produced by Peter Walker and even though I was feeling my way as a singer, he managed to get good performances onto those albums. And it also took me those two Catfish albums to try and figure out what I should be doing, as far as what kind of songs suit the tales that I have to tell." [4] Elsewhere, he said, "In the Catfish albums there are things that make me cringe and there are things that I think are really good. I think the song writing is very good. I think my skills were developed. The limitations on those album have to do with me trying to expand my competency." [5]
After the subject matter of Unlimited Address reflected Walker's overseas travels, Ruby was a return to an Australian setting. [6] Walker said, "I tried to make it a little more light-hearted and less personal. For instance, there's one song which is about a transvestite who picks up a US sailor and cuts him up with a straight razor and there's another which is about three young blokes from a country town who go to a Bachelors and Spinsters Ball, pick up a girl and murder her. [7]
"The Year That He Was Cool" was inspired by a man Walker knew in Grafton. When he was younger, he had been a very popular surfer. "Back then I wasn't so much uncool as invisible," Walker recalled. Meeting later in life, the man reminded Walker of how unpopular he had been. Walker said, "He was right, but he said it nasty, to remind that back in the day I couldn't catch a ball, couldn't catch a wave, couldn't catch anything." The song ends with the character drunkenly vomiting outside the local bowling club. No one recalls or wants to know about the year that he was cool. [8]
"Charleville" was written after a night as the only resident at School of Art Hotel in town. [9] It was covered by Slim Dusty on his album Ringer from the Top End and soon after recorded again as a duet with Walker. [10] It later appeared on The Very Best of Slim Dusty , which stayed in the Australian country charts for over 15 years. [11]
The Canberra Times said, "With Ruby, Walker has been able to continue his impressions of contemporary Australia, without losing the blues-based rock n roll energy, perhaps a little like Chisel would have been if they'd survived into the '90s." [12] The Sydney Morning Herald called it, "a more flowing, rootsy and colourfully textured record, with a vocal strength not evident on the debut album". [13] The Age said, "Conjuring up a bleak Australia populated by winos, prostitutes and others, and informed by a sense of violence and alienation, Ruby is a strong album, surely among the most impressive released locally this year. ". [14]
Clinton Walker said, "Catfish boasts a rumbustiously appealing, rootsy sound, it allows Walker to explore possibilities denied in rock, like extended narratives, as he does in songs on Ruby like the title-track. Then there's cuts on the album like "El Alamein Blues" (based around the fountain in Kings Cross), the laugh-in-your-beer country lament "Charleville" and "Johnny's Gone", which may be nothing more than an excuse for a rockabilly rave-up." [15]
Reviewing the re-release, Inpress said, "there's more country, blues, and rockabilly. The romping opener "Johnny's Gone" would be at home on an episode of True Blood. While it doesn't have the absolute command of its predecessor, it's a worthy entry in the cannon." [16]
In 2010, the album was re-released with new cover artwork from the original. The album was remastered by Don Bartley, and the songs "Johnny's Gone" and "See You Again" were remixed by Phil Punch. "Crooked Smile", a song about domestic violence, was partially re-recorded to be noticeably less poppy. [17] Walker said his previous record label had lost the masters for the album but, "fortunately I have the raw material in the form of original tapes - I have them very, very well stored and looked after - so I could go back to the first principles and put them together. Once I knew I had to do that I enjoyed it a lot. I redid some thing and had some fun with it." [18]
All songs written and composed by Don Walker [19]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Johnny's Gone" | 2:48 |
| 2. | "Ruby" | 3:29 |
| 3. | "Jericho Road" | 4:35 |
| 4. | "Too Long" | 4:47 |
| 5. | "Crooked Smile" | 4:28 |
| 6. | "Charleville" | 3:17 |
| 7. | "El Alamein Blues" | 4:24 |
| 8. | "The Year That He Was Cool" | 5:48 |
| 9. | "See You Again" | 4:25 |
Cold Chisel are an Australian pub rock band, which formed in Adelaide in 1973 by mainstay members Ian Moss on guitar and vocals, Steve Prestwich on drums and Don Walker on piano and keyboards. They were soon joined by Jimmy Barnes on lead vocals and, in 1975, Phil Small became their bass guitarist. The group disbanded in late 1983 but subsequently reformed several times. Musicologist Ian McFarlane wrote that they became "one of Australia's best-loved groups" as well as "one of the best live bands", fusing "a combination of rockabilly, hard rock and rough-house soul'n'blues that was defiantly Australian in outlook."
Ian Richard Moss is an Australian rock musician from Alice Springs. He is the founding mainstay guitarist and occasional singer of Cold Chisel. In that group's initial eleven year phase from 1973 to 1984, Moss was recorded on all five studio albums, three of which reached number one on the national Kent Music Report Albums Chart. In August 1989 he released his debut solo album, Matchbook, which peaked at number one on the ARIA Albums Chart. It was preceded by his debut single, "Tucker's Daughter", which reached number two on the related ARIA Singles Chart in March. The track was co-written by Moss with Don Walker, also from Cold Chisel. Moss had another top ten hit with "Telephone Booth" in June 1989.
The Last Wave of Summer is the sixth studio album by Australian pub rock band, Cold Chisel. It was released in October 1998 and reached number-one on The Australian ARIA Charts. It was the band's first studio album in 14 years.
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Cold Chisel is the debut album of Australian pub rock band Cold Chisel. Released in April 1978, it spent 23 weeks in the Australian charts, peaking at number 38.
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Circus Animals is the fourth studio album by Australian band Cold Chisel, released on 8 March 1982. It was recorded and mixed at Paradise Studios and EMI Studios 301, Sydney, between September and December 1981. It reached number one on the Australian charts, remaining in the charts for 40 weeks, and also topped the New Zealand charts. The working title for the album was "Tunnel Cunts".
Swingshift is a live album released by Australian band Cold Chisel in 1981. It was their first album to reach No. 1 on the Australian chart, debuting there in its first week. It peaked at number 9 in New Zealand. A press release said the title referred to, "the midnight to dawn shift that the staff in asylums dread: the hours when the crazies go crazy."
"Tucker's Daughter" is the debut single by Australian rock singer and guitarist, Ian Moss. It was released in November 1988 almost five years after his group, Cold Chisel, had disbanded for the first time. It is co-written by Moss and Don Walker. The song was the lead single from Moss' debut studio album, Matchbook (1989).
"Saturday Night" is a 1984 single from Australian rock band Cold Chisel, the second released from the album Twentieth Century and the first to be issued after the band's official break-up. The vocals are shared between Ian Moss and Jimmy Barnes. It just missed out on becoming the band's third Top 10 single, stalling at number 11 on the Australian chart for two weeks, but it remains one of Cold Chisel's highest charting songs.
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Donald Hugh Walker is an Australian musician and songwriter who wrote many of the hits for Australian pub rock band Cold Chisel. Walker is considered to be one of Australia's best songwriters. In 2012 he was inducted into the Australian Songwriter's Hall of Fame.
"Choirgirl" is a song by Australian rock band Cold Chisel, released as the lead single from their third studio album East (1980) in November 1979. A ballad written by Don Walker with an R&B influenced melody, the song marked the first time the band had recorded with producer Mark Opitz. It peaked at No. 14 in Australia on the Kent Music Report.
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