A SONG started in Tamworth and inspired by the city’s military history has meant a visit to Gallipoli in 2015 for one country singer.
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Multi-award-winning country artist James Blundell has enjoyed success on the country and mainstream music charts, but one of the most special projects he has worked on came from his Tamworth links.
In 2007, former 12th/16th Hunter River Lancers recruiting officer and now Defence Reserve Support Council central north and New England regional manager Captain Shane Green approached Blundell to write a song about the Charge of Beersheba.
The charge was led by the 4th and 12th Australian Light Horse brigades in World War I, and Tamworth’s army reserve unit traces its history directly from the 12th Light Horse.
The resulting song, Riding Into Town, led Blundell to be invited to perform aboard the 2015 Gallipoli Cruise.
Blundell will give six performances over the three weeks he’ll spend on board and will perform the full unedited version of Riding Into Town while the sun sets during the cruise up the Suez Canal.
Other performers will include John Williamson, Ross Wilson, Daryl Braithwaite and Kate Ceberano.
Blundell said being a slightly different artist worked in his favour this time, because an organiser said he chose him before they wanted something different.
“When he heard about the Sinai and the importance of the Beersheba Charge, which goes straight back to the Lancers, that’s what made the decision,” he said.
Blundell said the ship would follow the route of the troop ships that left from Albany, WA, and travelled to Gallipoli for the landing on April 25, 1915, via the Cocos Islands, Colombo in Sri Lanka and Egypt.
The cruise continues to Greece and finishes in Italy.
“The troops all embarked in Albany and we’ll follow the route that they took to land in Anzac Cove,” he said.
The cruise anchors off Anzac Cove for two nights a week before Anzac Day and on the special day, they’ll mark the centenary of the landing with a service in the cove.
“Our family historian, my father’s mother, had the diary of one of (her relatives), who was a naval surgeon anchored off Gallipoli, and he wrote: ‘I never thought I’d see the day I’d be ashamed to be English, but what we’re doing to these colonials is reprehensible’,” Blundell said.
“Having family there and now having the chance to do this is like retracing family footsteps.”
The cruise leaves Perth on March 26.
