Having
moved around rural Victoria and Tasmania in his early years Dave
Diprose is well acquainted with the stories and struggles of those on
the land (he attended six separate primary schools). His parents were
both from the farming tradition and had moved to the city to pursue
other interests, where in his teens Dave found himself living in the
industrial suburbs of Melbourne. It was here Dave became interested
in music and like many of his peers took up guitar learning the music
of The Rolling Stones; The Beatles; Creedence Clearwater Revival and
other popular and blues artists of the time
In
the early ‘70s Dave was exposed by chance to the Blues of Robert
Johnson and
Bluegrass through the seminal Will
The Circle Be Unbroken album.
From here he immersed himself in acoustic music drawing on the rich
traditions of southern USA, working hard to become an accomplished
guitarist in bottleneck blues and bluegrass flatpicking styles. In
the early 80s Dave cut his teeth performing as a solo artist in
Melbourne’s legendry café scene, earning a reputation for his
unassuming but professional attitude and as a fine guitarist. Things
don’t last forever however and with changing liquor laws the café
scene disappeared overnight. With gigs having dried up Dave taught
himself I.T. and focused on other interests and raising a family.
Through
the years Dave increasingly delved into songwriting and in 1995
released a CD of original tunes titled Journey
Along The Road,
supported by band mates he was involved with. At the time he had a
rich stream of quality original tunes – enough for two albums,
however failing to gain traction for the album he took another short
hiatus to focus on family. In the early 2000s Dave hooked up with Doc
White,
another traditional blues enthusiast with whom he played as a duo for
a time. The regained enthusiasm inspired Dave to woodshed the
bottleneck blues style, shortly becoming known as one of Australia’s
finest exponents of old school or pre-war blues, specialising
in Robert
Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy, Blind Willie Johnson, and Charley
Patton styles.
Dave
continued to write and with songs in the styles of the music he was
performing at the time he released an album titled Train
Don’t Run in
2009, a country blues album with half the tunes being original.
Melbourne PBS FM’s Matthew Fredericks said of the album "Dave
stands out from the pack by finding the right balance. He creates
freely while remaining true to his sources."
This proved to be one of the busiest times of his life as he
performed over 1,000 gigs in pubs clubs and festivals over the
decade, all while working full time in IT. In 2015 he recorded a
follow-up blues album titled Old
School Blues again
with a split of 50% originals, 50% covers. The album was well
received and spent five months in the Australian
Blues Airplay Charts.
A
chance meeting with mandolin player Mark Pottenger in 2013 lead to a
rekindled interest in bluegrass, leading to becoming a founding
member of Nine
Mile Creek bluegrass
band which had many performances in bluegrass festivals and events.
Inspired by friend and Scottish musician Alex
Legg Dave
found another rich stream of original tunes leading to the recording
of an album of all-original bluegrass/Texas songwriter-styled
material titled Hillbilly
Radio.
The title track was awarded Bluegrass
Song of the Year by
the Tamworth
Songwriters Salute,
indicating the quality of the material on the album. COVID put a
dampener on the launch of the album and the local industry continues
to be constrained. However, Dave has used the time productively and
continues to write, record, and perform and he has had several
original tunes as finalists in song writing competitions. He is
well-advanced on another songwriter album and has a raft of blues
tunes underway for a future release. Dave has emerged from COVID in
fine form with enhanced guitar skills and a raft of fresh material.
Tags:
Country