Stephen ‘Baamba’ Albert

A native of Broome, Western Australia, Albert is best known for appearing in the stage musicals Bran Nue DaeandCorrugation Road, as well as his ongoing efforts to provide training in music, media and events management for people in the Kimberley region. He’s also been a keen musician since his youth, and Baad sees him covering a collection of songs that have taken on significance at various times during his 65 years.

“It tells a story, and while I’m onstage I can tell that story and I can bring people on a journey,” says Albert. “So by the end of the day they get a story of how I got into music, how I used music to do different things and how I got into acting and theatre. It’s a compilation of songs that my elders – my uncles and brothers who passed away – never had a chance to record. And so one of my mates, Stephen Pigram, said, ‘Look, we better record you because you’re one of the last guys from that era – from the ’50s and ’60s.’ So I said, ‘Yeah, no worries.’ It took me 50 years, but it’s done,” he laughs.

Albert began playing music when he was a boy, and went on to form his first band, The Broome Beats, when he was just a teenager. However, as a young man, he didn’t dare dream of releasing a record. “Never in the whole wide world did I think I’d make an album,” he says. “When I first heard records it was – you know the old gramophone, you have to wind it up and put the old 78 on? That’s the music I grew up with.”

However, gramophone records weren’t his only access to music. Performance was a central focus in the community where he was raised, which allowed the young Albert to gain a unique education. “My uncles and aunties, they were very proficient musicians,” Albert says. “About 40ks out of Derby there’s a place called Bungarun. It used to be a place for people with leprosy, and for therapy the nuns taught the people how to play music, but classical music. So in the bush in the ’30s they had a 42-piece orchestra, indigenous orchestra. They had violins and cellos and the old squeezebox and guitars and all sorts of stuff. They used to have parties every second night and I used to watch them. So I grew up with that – I thought every kid had that same thing.”

It wasn’t long until Albert decided to have a crack at performing music himself. “There was a talent quest when I was about nine or ten at the old racecourse,” he says. “The Rotary Club used to give us a picnic day, and we had a talent quest. I came second – I sang ‘A Sunburnt Country’, Dorothea Mackellar’s old song. I got ten pounds for that. That was big money in the ’50s.”

Baad includes such golden oldies as Cole Porter’s ‘Begin The Beguine’, Engelbert Humperdinck’s ‘Ten Guitars’ and Louis Armstrong’s ‘What A Wonderful World’. Performing these songs live never fails to transport Albert back to an earlier time in his life. “I don’t think you can sing a song without thinking of where it came from and what it’s done to you. I tell stories before about the song – how I first heard it, and who was with me.”

He first discovered Porter’s ‘Begin The Beguine’ when travelling around Western Australia with his close friend, musician and playwright Jimmy Chi (the writer of Bran Nue Dae). “We had to fly down to Perth for secondary schooling. I was in my last year of school and Jimmy Chi was in his first year of university. So him and I, we decided to come back [to Broome] on a ship, and every night they’d play that song. I just fell in love with it, but I never knew where it came from, who wrote it or whatever, until about 20 years later when I saw a movie about Cole Porter. And then I did a bit more research and found out ‘Beguine’ was terminology for a white lady in the Caribbean. And then they turned it into a dance, and they’d play that song for the dance.”

Along with the cherished standards, the album includes a few songs written by Albert’s close friends. There’s ‘Nothing I Would Rather Be’, ‘Town By The Bay’ and ‘Fishing’ by Kuckles – a band that originally featured Chi, Pigram and Mick Manolis – plus ‘Saltwater Cowboy’ by The Pigram Brothers.

“Stephen and Mickey, that’s their songs,” Albert says. “I said, ‘Look, I’d like to sing a couple you guys’ songs too,’ and their answer to me was, ‘Look bro, you sing, we are the storytellers. We are the songwriters, you are the singer.’”

Releasing an album at the age of 65 is an impressive feat, and Albert isn’t discounting the prospect of more records in the future. “It’s like when you’re onstage for the first time in theatre. At the end of the theatre, everybody gives you a standing ovation. That feeling is different from, you know, having a birthday party. So when the CD goes out, then you think, ‘Oh yeah, I can do it better and I can do another album.’ So yes, probably in the future there will be another one.”