"Delightful Rain" is a celebration of Australian surf music and our beach culture over the last five decades.
Filmed and recorded between May 13th and 27th 2006, in the Freshwater Surf Life Saving Club, right on the beach at Harbord on Sydney’s North Shore, and looking out over the water where in 1915 Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku introduced surfing to Australia, this was a unique recording project.
"Delightful Rain" gathered together some of Australia’s greatest ever surf music artists to record material, old and new, and to tell their stories and to celebrate the journey of Australian surf music.
Produced by Kerryn Tolhurst and recorded by Mick Wordley, the Freshwater sessions included The Atlantics, Les Green from The Denvermen, Richard Clapton, Robbie Hirst and Martin Rotsey of Midnight Oil fame with Backsliders’ Dom Turner, Tamam Shud, Pete Howe, Tim Gaze, Celibate Rifles, GANGgajang, Cruel Sea founder Dan Rumour and his band, The Pigram Brothers, Beau Young and Andrew Kidman.
Surf music rolled across the Pacific from California and onto Australian shores in the early 60s. About the same time, the stinging Stratocaster sound of Hank B Marvin and The Shadows was also taking hold.
This collision was to have a powerful and lasting effect on Australia.
A short time later, home-grown bands like The Atlantics , The Denvermen and a host of other local surf club bands created a distinctly Australian interpretation of that sound.
A style of music, mostly instrumental, was born that was to become the soundtrack for the lives of generation after generation of Australians.
In November / December 2007 a number of Delightful Rain artists, including The Atlantics, Dan Rumour & the Drift, Richard Clapton & The Pigram Brothers played at the Adelaide International Guitar Festival . Pictures from the event are below.