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Husky Gawenda has been involved in a lot of different musical projects over the years, from his eponymous band Husky to his solo work, to the Yiddish ensembles Yid, The Bashevis Singers and the Hidden Group. But none of them has landed with an audience in quite the same way as Songs From the Canyon.
“The response has been much bigger and more enthusiastic than anything I’ve ever done,” he says.
And no wonder; it’s a hell of a playlist. The Mamas and the Papas, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Beach Boys, Carole King, The Byrds – all of them united by the simple fact that the songs emerged from the same place, Laurel Canyon, a mountainous neighbourhood of Los Angeles, in the 1960s.
“We’re playing some of the greatest music of all time in these beautiful venues,” Gawenda says on a sunny afternoon in the Royal Botanic Gardens, which will host a one-off performance on Sunday night. “The people coming to these shows, it’s often the music that has meant the most to them, in the most important time of their life, in their youth. And I think they’re really transported back to that time.”
The Mamas & the Papas in London, 1967 (left to right): Denny Doherty, Cass Elliot, Michele Phillips, John Phillips.Credit: Peter Kemp
It’s not a pure exercise in nostalgia, though. These original fans are often bringing their kids, and their grandkids, to share in the experience.
“The music is universal, and the people who don’t know it yet and come and discover it are blown away,” says Gawenda. “People want to hear this music done live, which is something you just don’t get anymore because most of those artists are not touring or they’re not around anymore.”
The guiding principles for the show are both loose and rigid: it’s songs from a fairly tight time frame – “between 1966 and 1970”, says Gawenda – composed and recorded by artists who lived or hung out in the Canyon at the time (the house occupied by Cass Elliot, aka Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas, was a particular hub of counter-cultural creativity).
And they need to fit the vibe, man. That means there’s no place for Frank Zappa or for KISS (Gene Simmons owned a house in the Canyon, and the band members often partied there). But The Doors are OK, even if Gawenda is more focused on the music than the attitude. “I’d like to channel Jim Morrison,” he says. “But I don’t think I can pull that off.”
The first Songs From the Canyon shows were at Chapel off Chapel in 2022, and there’s been a run of shows each year since. Sunday’s concert, though, will be the biggest yet.
The line-up has been the same throughout, with Gawenda sharing vocal duties with Charm of Finches (sisters Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes), Hannah Cameron, Stephen Grady, Dan Challis and Dan Kelly, with Jules Pascoe on bass and Bree Hartley on drums. This time around, Davey Lane of You Am I is sitting in for Kelly, who is currently on tour with RockWiz.
The show itself, though, “keeps evolving”, says Gawenda. “There’s an almost bottomless well of material.”
For Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes, there’s a lovely sense of homecoming in performing this music, written long before they were born.
“We grew up listening to lots of The Beach Boys and Carole King,” says Mabel, 25. “They were the two main artists out of this body of music, just singing along a lot at home when we were kids.”
“The harmonies of The Beach Boys definitely come into our performances and were super inspiring for us,” says Ivy, 22.
Taking it all in their stride: Charm of Finches performed their first show at the Gardens when the sisters were just 11 and 14. Credit: Simon Schluter
There’s a homecoming aspect to performing in the Gardens, too.
“We did our first gig here,” says Mabel. “It was with a guy called Michael Johnson, a harp player. We were 11 and 14 at the time.”
Music runs in the family for these sisters. “Our mum was in bands in the ’90s,” says Ivy. “She was in an electronic band, quite different to what we do, called Femo. She used to stand on her head and sing.”
There won’t be any such theatrics on Sunday, though Gawenda does promise plenty of yarning in amongst the sweet harmonies. “There’s a wealth of awesome, funny, dirty, crazy stories,” he says.
And if we can indulge in a little bit of California Dreaming, what about the prospect of one day taking these songs back to where they were born?
“On the one hand, it seems impossible, a bunch of little Australians taking this music to the US,” Gawenda says. “On the other hand, because I think the show is so great, it’d be a bold move and I think we could pull it off. I’d be up for taking the chance.”
Songs From the Canyon is at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne as part of Live at the Gardens on Sunday, November 30.
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