Doctor hit a high note with festival

Andrew Mathieson
HE insists neurosurgeons are still uncovering the wonders of the brain, yet one Geelong doctor believes soothing tones not only heal the soul but also the mind.
Dr Jamie McKew was the brainchild behind Port Fairy Folk Festival back when $640 was just enough to throw together a couple of makeshift stages and half dozen random performers to entertain about 300 hippies.
A weekend ticket then was $3 to cover the costs but the music festival’s budget 32 years on has blown out to more than $2.5 million – or “something like that”, Jamie flippantly estimates.
What was once impromptu now demands planning to begin for the next event the week after the last.
So to try and relax, the festival’s 61-year-old founder likes nothing better than to grab his iPod and chill out to the Rolling Stones – especially in the chair at the dentist.
“I know music heals me that way,” Jamie smiles.
“If I’m ever stressed out or even under pressure putting the festival together, I can put on a nice piece of music and within seconds I feel a different person.
“It’s that powerful.”
At first he wasn’t so certain about the appeal of the festival, which now attracts more than 50,000, among the 3000 residents of the tranquil fishing port for the other 361 days of the year.
A Geelong folk music club had wanted to run an event, so Jamie suggested Port Fairy, a place full of authentic Cornish and Celtic cottages where he used to visit his nanna.
“We didn’t know whether people were going to come or not,” he remembers.
“The first impression was that I was pretty amazed we got a good roll-up.
“Right from the start, there was lots of songs about sheep and sailing and those sorts of country activities.”
The stages that were formerly draped under tarpaulins have been replaced by 10 big and 10 small stages, many bigger than some concert halls, for 125 musical acts of a combined 540 artists.
Jamie also points out that 24 local organisations and 300 of the town’s residents are active volunteers, more than 10 per cent of the population.
He can compare Port Fairy favourably to Canada’s folk music circuit in urban centres after having visited Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg.
“We’re right up there with them,” Jamie says.
“That did surprise me because you always have this idea we’re a tiny little country town just down under.”
Back in 1978 Jamie ran Geelong Folk Festival for five years until balancing both festivals and running a Corio medical practice became “too much work”.
Jamie’s love for folk music came out of a bunch of medicos who were eager to form a band in the tradition of The Bushwhackers.
“We were called the Murrumbidgee River Rattlers,” he chirps.
“We used to rattle the beer tops on a stick.
“We first got booked by nurses, the AMA and other people for parties.
“Then schools wanted to book us, so the band kept going but the medicos started to leave one by one.”
One of the replacements was a 16-year-old Mick Thomas, who later became lead singer of legendary Australian band Weddings Parties Anything.
The rattlers continued to entertain at Geelong bush dances and bullocky balls, with the income from performances funding the early years of the Port Fairy festival, now synonymous with Australia’s mainstream music circles.
“Of course, there are only two types of music: good music and bad music,” Jamie laughs.
“The style of music is not that important.”