MUSIC

Songs by Uncle Bob

Uncle Bob taught himself to play a handmade guitar in the 1940’s, after Herbie Laughton, also a Stolen Generations member, visited the Croker Island Methodist Mission reservation and played country music for the children. Young Bob would have been in his teens.

“As a very young man, I started to write songs that told the real-life stories of what was happening both to me and around me. It was a way to deal with the enormous sadness, frustration, and sense of injustice and hopelessness I felt about the situation my people were in. Telling stories, composing and singing story songs came naturally to me, because oral history is the way my people have always passed down knowledge of how to care for country and each other through stories, songs, dance, and art designs … I’ve always included these story songs as in our traditional way of teaching through the arts to share what I’ve learned right throughout my life.”