Robert Hudson (born 1946) is an Australian singer, radio presenter and archaeologist. His satirical narrative, " The Newcastle Song" (March 1975), topped the

Kent Music Report The Kent Music Report was a weekly record chart of Australian music singles and albums which was compiled by music enthusiast David Kent from May 1974 through to January 1999. The chart was re-branded the Australian Music Report (AMR) in July ...

singles chart. He also wrote and recorded, " Girls in Our Town", which was covered by

Margret RoadKnight Margret RoadKnight (born in July 1943) is an Australian singer-guitarist. 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 releas ...

in January 1976 and

Judy Small Judith Margaret Small is a retired judge of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia and former folk singer. Small was known for her feminist, often patriotic, and political songs, usually following a traditional theme. She produced twelve albu ...

in 1982.

Biography

Robert Hudson was born in Sydney in 1946 and grew up in Grafton. Note: includes a photo of the artist. He attended Newcastle Teacher's College during the mid-1960s. He started working as a geography teacher but switched to psychiatric nursing and then general nursing. In the late 1960s he also began performing as a solo folk and comic singer. He was the lead singer in the Electric Jug Band, which played at the Star Hotel, Newcastle during the early 1970s – the site of the Star Hotel riot in September 1979. Hudson had joined the Teen Angels by 1973 with Jean Lewis and Roy Ritchie, which performed "vintage rock'n'roll and doo wop songs." He was a member of a touring revue, Rock 'N' Roll Refugees, alongside, John J. Francis, Alan Luchetti, Margret Roadknight and Glenn Cardier. With fellow folk musician Graham Lowndes, he co-wrote music for plays presented by the Australian Free Theatre Group. Hudson described his musical influences as Chad Morgan,

Phil Ochs Philip David Ochs (; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American songwriter and protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer). Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, an ...

and

Jon Hendricks John Carl Hendricks (September 16, 1921 – November 22, 2017), known professionally as Jon Hendricks, was an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and rep ...

. He teamed up with ABC musical director, record producer and songwriter

Chris Neal Christopher Michael Neal (born 23 October 1985) is an English professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for club AFC Fylde. He began his career at Preston North End, making his English Football League debut in February 2005, having p ...

to record an in-concert album, ''The Newcastle Song'', in 1974. From August 1974 he was performing a concert-drama of the same name with "actors,

Arthur Dignam Arthur Dignam (9 September 1939 – 9 May 2020) was an Australian stage and screen actor. Biography Dignam was born on Lord Howe Island. He attended Newington College in Sydney as a boarder in 1955 and 1956 and then the University of Sydney. ...

and

Jane Harders Jane may refer to: * Jane (given name), a feminine given name * Jane (surname), related to the given name Film and television * ''Jane'' (1915 film), a silent comedy film directed by Frank Lloyd * ''Jane'' (2016 film), a South Korean drama fi ...

" and "jazz pianist Judy Bailey, brilliant young composer/guitarist Roy Ritchie,... rock and orchestral bass player Dave Ellis and singers Graham Lowndes, Starlee Ford and Bobbie Gledhill." The title track, " The Newcastle Song" (March 1975), was trimmed down from the ten-minute album version for the single, which topped the Australian

Singles Chart for four weeks.McFarlane
'Bob Hudson'
entry. Archived fro
the original
on 30 September 2004. Retrieved 8 October 2018.Spencer et al., (2007), "Hudson, Bob" entry. Note: Used for Australian Singles and Albums charting from 1974 until

ARIA In music, an aria (Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompanime ...

created their own

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent t ...

in mid-1988. In 1992, Kent back calculated chart positions for 1970–1974. Hudson, with Neal, co-wrote and recorded a response song, "Rak off Normie", which was covered by Maureen Elkner and became a top ten hit for her in mid-1975. At the Australian Radio Records Awards of October 1975 Hudson won Record of the Year for ''The Newcastle Song'' and the New Talent Encouragement award. Note: Includes a photo of the artist receiving an award. Another album track, " Girls in Our Town", was a top 40 single for RoadKnight in January 1976. Other albums by Hudson are ''After Me Cat Left Home'' (1975) and ''Party Pieces'' (1980). Hudson was one of the original on-air team at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) rock radio station 2JJ (Double Jay, now

Triple J Triple J (stylised in all lowercase) is a government-funded, national Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners of alternative music, which began broadcasting in January 1975. The station also places a greater emphasis on broadc ...

) in 1975, and later presented ''Music Buffs' Talk Back Show'', with

Glenn A. Baker Glenn A. Baker (born 28 July 1952) is an Australian journalist, commentator, author, and broadcaster well known in Australia for his vast knowledge of Rock music. He has written books and magazine articles on rock music and travel, interviewed ...

, on the ABC radio station 2BL. Hudson also worked on ABC radio's international news desk. In the 1980s he was involved in the publishing of a book about Australian language Hudson completed a PhD in

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscape ...

at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's six ...

and conducts research on ancient

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

(Burma).

Discography

Albums

Singles

Other singles

Awards and nominations

Australian Record Awards

, - , rowspan="2", 1975 , Bob Hudson , New Talent Award , , - , "The Newcastle Song”" , Record of the Year ,

References

;General * Note: Archived n-linecopy has limited functionality. * Note: n-lineversion established at White Room Electronic Publishing Pty Ltd in 2007 and was expanded from the 2002 edition. ;Specific {{DEFAULTSORT:Hudson, Bob Australian musicians Living people 1946 births