Shane Howard to bring his music to another sacred ground

He's performed on the same bill as Dylan and Van Morrison and felt the electricity of 100,000 pumped footy fans at the MCG on AFL grand final day.

A week ago, he closed Perth's Under the Same Sun Festival with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, but it will be a very different venue this weekend for the man who penned the seminal Aboriginal land rights anthem, Solid Rock, Sacred Ground.

Under the stars in an intimate bush setting by the banks of the Glenelg River before a likely audience of hundreds rather than thousands, Howard will bring his music to another sacred ground.

In an homage to an unsung cricketing hero, the Warrnambool music legend and former Goanna frontman and his band will perform at the tiny township of Harrow on Sunday night, March 10, as part of the annual Johnny Mullagh Championship Cup program.

A good-natured cricket contest between district Indigenous and non-Indigenous sides - the Mullaghs and Glenelg - the event honours the successful indigenous First XI Australian cricket team who toured England in 1868 with local stockman Johnny Mullagh playing a starring role.

Although they earned a place in sporting history as the first Australian side to tour internationally, the names of Mullagh, whose given name was Unarrimin, and his teammates, have largely faded into obscurity, a wrong that Harrow is doing its best to set right.

As it has done for the past 29 years, the long-weekend event celebrates those early cricketing trail-blazers. Native stockmen and shearers with odd-sounding names bestowed on them by their white bosses, they learnt the game of cricket from their white work mates on the district's pastoral properties like Mullagh and Pine Hills stations.

Along with Johnny Mullagh, they included the brothers with mismatched surnames James 'Mosquito' Cousins and Johnny Cuzens, King Cole, Dick-a-Dick, Bullocky, Red Cap, Twopenny, Tiger, Shepherd, Peter, Charley, Jim Crow, Tarpot and Sundown.

Harrow Discovery Centre manager Josie Sangster says Harrow is not the only regional town to claim a Mullagh/First XI connection, but it is the one most identified with the story.

It's easy to see why. The town oval is named in Mullagh's honour and marked with an impressive obelisk, a plaque in a paddock across the road identifies the spot where he once launched the ball 138 metres from the crease, and the man himself is buried in the town cemetery.

"People identify Harrow as being the spiritual connection to the Johnny Mullagh story," she says.

The weekend has now evolved to become a multi-faceted event, this year incorporating the cricket program with Howard's headline act, the national bush billycart championships and a historic regional photo exhibit from the collection of Portland archivist Vern McCallum.

On display for Sunday only at the Harrow Hall, it will include up to 1500 never-before-seen images dating from the 1860s from the private collection of the pioneering Edgar family's Pine Hills station where Mullagh learnt to play cricket and worked much of his life.

"It's the one weekend where people are able to come and celebrate the story of the First XI, but we have other things in town for those who aren't so interested in cricket," Ms Sangster says.

"It's an opportunity for us to put on several activities to value-add to the event on the oval."

In a nod to Harrow's place in indigenous cricket history, the town has also been chosen to host the inaugural Victoria versus New South Wales clash between the states' over 50s Indigenous sides next month.

The sides will play a one-day and a T20 match in the Cricket Festival on April 13-14 in what organisers hope will be the forerunner to a national over 50s event.

For Howard, a passionate advocate of Indigenous rights since his epiphany 43 years ago that produced Solid Rock, Harrow and the Mullagh story is one that resonates deeply.

On an earlier visit with author Martin Flanagan, he spent time at the waterhole just out of town that Johnny Mullagh held sacred.

"It was a very beautiful thing to do. It was very important to him, so I guess because of that, there's a sense of attachment," he explains.

He also recalls being struck by the fact that such a small, non-Indigenous town would be so invested in its Indigenous heritage.

"It's a powerful story for a tiny regional town that has such an impact on the national narrative."

Howard acknowledges the efforts of Cricket Australia in bringing the First First XI story into the national consciousness, but stresses, that, like the struggle for Indigenous equality, there's still much work to be done. Mullagh was inducted into the CA Hall of Fame in 2018 and his name now graces the best player medal of the Boxing Day Test.

For the singer who grew up in Warrnambool and still lives in the area, the Mullagh story feels close to home.

"It's very local, it connects with home, to Framlingham and Lake Condah, but do people know about it? I don't think so. Most people who aren't local to the area don't know the story. Most people are shocked when I tell them about it."

He also credits Framlingham artist Aunty Fiona Clark with helping to raise the profile of the First First XI with her Walkabout Wickets design, the logo now widely embraced by Cricket Australia on player uniforms. As a direct descendant of the Couzens brothers, she enjoys a personal connection to the First First XI story.

Howard wrote the iconic Solid Rock in 1981 after a life-changing journey to Uluru to find himself and the real Australia.

What he found, when he woke up after falling asleep under the stars, was the realisation that he was "living on someone else's country". Solid Rock, the perennial anthem for Indigenous rights and a huge hit from Goanna's first album, Spirit of Place, became the foundation of Howard's unique voice in Australian songwriting and activism.

So disillusioned was he after the defeat of the Voice referendum last year, that he handed back his 2016 Order of Australia Medal awarded for his contribution to the performing arts.

Describing the 'No' vote as a sorry moment in Australian history, a philosophical Howard now questions whether Indigenous Australians need constitutional permission to have a voice in their future.

"I think the younger generation are ready to make changes that will make us a more fair and equitable society. Change is slow, but I have to be optimistic that we are going to get there. I just hope I live to see it," he says.

Performing Solid Rock at Harrow just might give the anthem a new spirit of place, says Howard, who appreciates every gig equally, no matter the size.

"They're all special moments, little or big. Playing Harrow is just as important as the MCG. There would be no MCG moments without the Harrows."

Along with songs from the old Goanna catalogue, the Harrow set list will also include songs of country co-written by Howard and Aunty Fiona's father, Framlingham elder the late Banjo Clark.

"This will be a joyous occasion," Howard promises.

Go to www.trybooking.com/COFYN for tickets to the Harrow show.