Summary

Billy Hyde record titled Drumbeat' in its original album cover. It was recorded in Melbourne in 1955 with Billy Hyde, the Don Harper Orchestra and the Ron Loughhead Quartette. Lindsay was good friends with Billy for several years and worked for him in Sydney.

Sylvia Boyes (a South African-born orphan) and Lindsay Motherwell (a Melbourne-born drummer) met in Cape Town, South Africa in 1967 through their theatre connections. They fell in love but due to apartheid laws were forced to leave South Africa to marry in London. They subsequently relocated permanently to Melbourne in 1970.

Physical Description

A 10" record with a 33 1/3 microgroove, inside a purple and white album cover. The front cover is purple with a black and white image of Billy Hyde playing a drum kit. On the back are the credits, information about the songs, a list of personnel involved, a blurb about Ron Loughhead and a short bio for Billy Hyde.

Significance

Statement of Historical Significance:
This collection provides a significant opportunity to represent political and personal freedom as a motivation for migrating to Australia within the international context of both apartheid in South Africa and the end of the White Australia policy in Australia. The personal narrative is well documented and the objects provide a material way to follow the lives of both Lindsay and Sylvia, both separately and where they coincide in South Africa and onwards together to Melbourne. While this is ultimately a love story, it plays out through the collection against the backdrop of apartheid South Africa, sixties London and an increasingly multicultural Australia.

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