Stuffed Olive & Straight Shot II

June 24, 2023

Stuffed Olive & Straight Shot II

by Jessica Foot

I wrote these tunes for the wonderful Gus Downing. I remember one night he gave me a lift home and told me about his family and their croquet tradition. Straight Shot II was the name of his mallet (after Straight Shot had to be remade in the family woodshed), and it proved to be a winning combination with the ball ‘Stuffed Olive’.

Stuffed Olive was the first tune I wrote on my 5 string fiddle. I tried to make it easier for my partner-in-crime, cellist Louise Goodwin and avoid using the ‘E’ string, but it turns out there’s more to making cello-friendly tunes than that.

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Jessica Foot, Straight Shot II, Stuffed Olive

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melbournetunecollection

About Melbourne Tune collection

Melbourne Tune Collection records and publishes original folk tunes and songs from around Australia.

I started this project after realising that I barely knew any Australian folk tunes, even though I’ve been playing the fiddle for almost two decades. It wasn’t that Australians weren’t writing tunes, it’s just that there was limited publishing opportunities for them.

I thought maybe if I collect these tunes and put them together, they would have a better chance of getting played. So in early 2019 I set off with my camera and recorder, first around Melbourne, then across Australia.

This site is the result of these travels. Its purpose is to make Australian folk music as accessible as possible and promote the incredible music that’s being written today. I genuinely believe that there’s something special happening in the Melbourne and Australian folk music scenes right now.

I hope you enjoy playing through these tunes as much as I have!

Katherine Oleinikov