New Release: 27th October 2025
FOLK FROM THE ARCHIVE: SALLY SLOANE
About ‘Folk From the Archive: Sally Sloane
While touring from Cobar to Broken Hill, folk duo Broken Creek stumbled across a dusty op-shop copy of Folk Songs of Australia and the Men and Women Who Sang Them by folklorist John Meredith — a moment that would spark a musical treasure hunt through the National Library archives and lead to their new EP, Folk from the Archive: Sally Sloane.
Singer and fiddler Erin Heycox remembers the first time she heard Sloane’s voice on an old field recording:
“There were a lot of men in the collection — and then suddenly there was Sally. Her voice was so clear and aching, but also full of humour. It stopped us in our tracks.”
Broken Creek (Erin and Lachlan Heycox) bring a contemporary lens to traditional material, transforming century-old songs into cinematic, emotionally charged arrangements for fiddle, banjo, voice, and double bass.
“The process of reimagining a century-old song starts with feeling it in your heart,” says Erin. “These songs resonate because they’re still about things we deal with today: love, loss, rebellion. Once I know what it’s saying, I rewrite it in my own words, mixing that beautiful old language with what I want to express for the times we live in now.”
Sloane, a singer, fiddler and accordionist born in 1894, carried hundreds of tunes and ballads learned from her Irish convict grandmother. Her repertoire brims with dark humour and drama such as murder ballads, cautionary tales, and songs of resilience.
“Sally’s body count is pretty high,” Erin laughs. “We’ve got four deaths in three songs...There’s so much drama in these songs — they’re not subtle. They start as true stories but become larger than life, a way of processing the world.”
Lachlan, who co-arranged and produced the EP, adds:
“What fascinates me is how these melodies travelled and evolved. They’re not museum pieces, they’re living things that change depending on who’s singing them.”
The EP includes the haunting Molly Baun, reimagined beneath Australian red gums; The Sally Set, a trio of dance tunes once heard in small-town halls; and The Ballad of Ben Hall, woven with the American fiddle tune Falls of Richmond — a nod to the bushranger’s dream of escape.
Recorded on Yorta Yorta Country, the album features Erin (violin, vocals), Lachlan (guitar, banjo, shruti, percussion), and Nick Henderson (double bass). It’s the first release in Broken Creek’s Folk from the Archive series — an ongoing exploration of voices and stories at risk of being lost.
“We hope this project becomes a touchstone for Australian folk music,” says Lachlan. “There’s a whole world of songs in our archives waiting to be rediscovered.”
Credits
Arranged by Erin and Lachlan Heycox
Violin, vocals and lyric wrangling: Erin Heycox
Guitar, banjo, shruti and percussion: Lachlan Heycox
Double bass: Nick Henderson
Mixed by Nick Henderson
Mastered by Myles Mumford
Recorded in Grandy’s House on Yorta Yorta Country
Logo by Kaitlyn Hickey
Photography and design by Lachlan Heycox
Digging through the National Library archives feels like a treasure hunt, and we thank those who gave us the clues along the way to find the gold.
Liner Notes
We went searching for the songs of women surviving in the bush — those tough farming women who mustered horses and lived through fire, flood and snakes.
In a dusty op shop, we picked up a book called Folk Songs of Australia and the Men and Women Who Sang Them compiled by folklorist John Meredith.
We listened through these recordings until we heard this one voice, Sally Sloane and she stopped us in our tracks. She played accordion and fiddle for the old-time dances and knew hundreds of songs and fragments of melodies learned from her Irish convict grandmother.
Here is our first Folk from the Archive. We don't want these old songs to be lost.
TRACK 1: Sally’s Lilt
NLA Bib ID 3356434
We start with Sally’s own voice, lilting a jig buried in her memory from generations ago.
TRACK 2: Molly Baun (Roud no: 166, NLA Bib ID 8556624)
Molly Baun is a ballad that has traversed the world with its cautionary tale of a man who accidentally shoots his true love. We imagine women singing this song to their sons: “Don’t go out shooting in the late setting sun.” In our version, we set the story locally, under the river red gums.
TRACK 3: The Sally Set - Dandy Jim/Blackberry Blossom/Sportin’ Paddy
NLA Bib IDs 214814898, 214819494 & 214815261
Erin Collins from Cygnet Folk Festival paired us with Chloë and Jason Roweth for a special concert, Chasing Our Tradition. We spent a ripper night practising and sharing tunes — here are three of our favourites.
TRACK 4: The Red Barn/Morning Star
Roud no: 215, NLA Bib IDs 3798139 & 214812725
A true crime murder ballad from London, carried to Australia on convict ships and now told through the women’s voices. We hear Maria Marten’s hopes in the first verse, her stepmother’s haunted visions in the second, and justice served in the third.
Erin added a new chorus to bring the verses together: “The Red Barn, the Red Barn, I dream of the old Red Barn”.
We follow with our version of Sally’s reel, Morning Star.
TRACK 5: Coming Down the Mountain/Sally’s Reel
NLA Bib IDs 214815261 & 214812725
More gems from the archive.
TRACK 6: The Ballad of Ben Hall/Falls of Richmond
Roud no: 3352, NLA Bib ID 321624
It seems every Australian folk artist has their own version of Ben Hall, but for us, Sally’s is the original. Ben Hall’s sister-in-law was the midwife at her birth, and Sally shares the lore that grew up in a generation around the infamous bushranger. She shakes her head in the introduction, “Poor Ben ‘All. Everything that was bad they pinned onto him”.
Ben wanted to escape to America, so we added the American tune ‘Falls of Richmond’ for him.
This song emerged in the streets of Forbes from a community feeling dislocated and unhappy with how “law and order” was shaping their lives. When we sing this song, we remember that we don’t have to passively endure injustice.