It’s been a big week for NSW south coast band the Country Pumpkins with the official launch of their new album, Fresh Picked, at Moruya Markets on 4 Dec, the arrival of new drummer Peter Poole and having 4 songs scoring semi-final spots on the Tamworth Songwriters Association Awards.
Redbank Creek by Rick Bamford is a finalist in the Country Blues section. Graham Scobie has 3 songs in line for a gong with A Cultivated Man about the death of his father at the age of 95 in Traditional Country, Johnny Dozer Driver about the fire at Yankee’s Gap near Bemboka in Local Hero and Yarri of Gundagai in the Lyrics Only section.
Yarri was an Indigenous man who saved 69 people in his bark canoe in the Murrumbidgee flood of 1852.
The band has 5 appearances in Tamworth in January and will also be playing at the Bodalla Dairy Shed this Sunday from 12.30pm as a trio as Peter Poole will be playing at Eurobodalla Live Music at Moruya Golf Club. Peter is a legend of the south coast music scene having arrived in the Eurobodalla in 1993. Prior to that he was in the Army Band at Duntroon having started his music career in Brisbane in 1977.
Although Peter mainly plays drums in the Country Pumpkins, local music fans will know him also as a player of the trumpet, trombone, saxophone, bass guitar and euphonium. He has been a member of many local bands including the Bay Showband, Moruya and District Brass Band and was conductor of both Moruya and Batemans Bay Sing Australia Choirs.
The band would like to pay tribute to former drummer, Daniel “Rampage” Ostrosko who played with the Country Pumpkins for over a decade and appears on both the band’s albums, Pat the Possum in 2017 and Fresh Picked.
You can find out more about the Country Pumpkins at www.scobie.com.au or www.facebook.com/countrypumpkinsband
Country Pumpkins are, from left to right: Rick Bamford, Michelle Scobie, Graham Scobie and Peter Poole
