Margret RoadKnight
| Margret RoadKnight | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 1943 (age 73–74) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | Singer |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Years active | 1963–present |
| Labels |
|
Margret RoadKnight (born July 1943) is an Australian singer. In a career spanning more than five decades, she has sung in a wide variety of styles including blues, jazz, gospel, comedy, cabaret, and folk. In January 1976 she released a cover version of Bob Hudson's album track, "Girls in Our Town", as a single, which reached the Kent Music Report Singles Chart Top 40.
Margret RoadKnight was born in July 1943 in Melbourne. She had no formal singing lessons, "harmonizing with my mother and sister while we did the housework that sort of thing and the usual school choir and church choir." For her secondary education RoadKnight attended Santa Maria Ladies College, Northcote. She became a recreation worker in East Melbourne and "taught art and craft, games and sport to kids from 3 to 17 years old for two and an half years." RoadKnight's early inspirations were Harry Belafonte, Odetta and Nina Simone. Her first performance was on Mother's Day, May 1963 at the Emerald Hill Theatre. Her mother was in attendance at the debut gig, but she died in the following year. RoadKnight replaced Judith Durham at Traynor's, a jazz club, for a weekly residency.
In the 1960s and 1970s, RoadKnight appeared on numerous television programmes including Folkmoot, hosted by Leonard Teale, Dave's Place, hosted by the Kingston Trio's Dave Guard, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's national weekly current affairs program, Open-End. RoadKnight's debut album was a live set, People Get Ready (November 1973), which was recorded at Frank Traynor's Folk Club. Her backing band for the night were Ian Clarke on drums and percussion; Martin Doley on guitars and backing vocals; Peter Doley on flute, kazoo, maracas and backing vocals; Peter Howell on bass guitar; and Bob Vinnard on piano, organ and backing vocals. According to Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, she provided "covers of material by the likes of Curtis Mayfield, Duke Ellington, Joni Mitchell and Malvina Reynolds."
RoadKnight and Dutch Tilders issued a split album, Australian Jazz of the 70s Vol. 5: The Blues Singers (1974).The Canberra Times's Michael Foster described her as a "big, big-voiced and big-hearted woman" and she "sings with that same gut-tearing intensity but tends to give more prominence to the traditional blues, the songs which blossomed in the dusty earth of the plantations." He felt that "Of all the women I have heard singing the blues Miss Roadknight comes closest to the sound of-the great: exponents... of another generation, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith." At the end of that year, she received a government travel grant to study contemporary music in the United States.
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