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Down River: The Wilcannia Mob Story
Wilcannia kids
Availability: Print
April 2008, pb, 48pp, 336x240mm, full col
RRP $24.95 incl. GST
ISBN 9780646484228
In August 2002 the song ‘Down River’ became an overnight hit. Five boys, aged 8 to 12, had recorded their own rap lines to a simple didgeridoo beat. Music lovers across Australia were rapt.
Known as the Wilcannia Mob when the song hit high rotation, the media came looking for the new ‘boy band’ from far western NSW. Till then they’d been just a bunch of passionate kids having fun at a holiday workshop.
Down River is an illustrated version of the journey taken by those five young boys, their families and their community. It traces their origins from a makeshift recording studio in a town long forgotten, to centre-stage in front of 20,000 fans at the Homebake Music Festival in December 2002. In doing so it gives us privileged insights into Barkandji country and some of the people living there.
Down River shows us how fame and success can come to anybody, anytime and that when hearts are open and people work together, anything is possible.
Melinda Collie-Holmes was the Artistic Director of Shopfront Theatre for Young People when she visited the community as part of an outreach project. The idea for the book began there. Down River contains interviews with the boys, their families and community.
