Maryen Cairns - Femina Australis (2016) CD/Book

Presented in a little CD sized Book, fully illustrated by artist Sharon McLeod, here are the stories behind the songs & the lyrics, so you can read as you listen to the CD.

Bringing to life some of the stories of Australia’s most remarkable women - some well-known, many almost forgotten - among them Birrung, Mary Reibey, Tarenorerer, Caroline Chisholm, Grace Bussel, Elizabeth “Jessie” Hickman, Edith Cowan, Joyce Barry, Oodgeroo Noonuccal AKA poet Kath Walker and Granny Lum Loy.

UK producer Chris Kimsey produced Femina Australis, building on Maryen’s home studio recordings in his London studio with the help of some impressive musicians, among them film-score composer Hal Lindes, who had been the second guitarist in Dire Straits; American keyboards player Red Young (Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Eric Burdon) and UK musicians drummer Ash Soan (Del Amitri, Squeeze, Robbie Williams) and bass player Jennifer Maidman (Penguin Café Orchestra, Joan Armatrading, The Proclaimers), while Katherine-based Indigenous artist and Wardaman elder, Bill Yidumduma Harney brought a traditional Whirlwind Song to Maryen’s final song on the album, Australis. A proud mother of four, her youngest son, Elvis Kernaghan, even provides some wailing electric guitar licks on the track Tarenorerer.