Summary

'Fats' Waller record titled 'Rediscovered Fats Waller Solos', in its original album cover. The songs were recorded between 1923 and 1926, but this album was produced posthumously (Fats died in 1943). Lindsay Motherwell was a jazz drummer and enjoyed a variety of music along with his wife Sylvia.


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 RPM, in its original plastic sleeve within a cardboard album cover. The front cover is a black, brown and white cartoon of a man (Fats Waller) at a piano. The logo of "LONDON ORIGINS OF JAZZ" is in the top left-hand corner, and the 8 song titles are in the top right hand corner in yellow banners. The title of the album is also in a yellow banner on the back of the pianist's chair. On the back of the album cover is an explanation of the record and how it came to be.

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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