Many recording artists release a second album, but few do it at 97. For Noel Balfour, his love of music keeps him going. Well, not just going: he looks 25 years younger than his age when we meet at Andy Busuttil’s Hazelbrook studio, Blue Mountains Sound, where Balfour has just finished his new album.
He’s not done yet, either; is still writing songs. “I wake up with a song these days,” he says. “I’ll wake up with a melody, and I’ll just put it down on a little recorder I’ve got. Then later on a lyric just comes up, and I write the lyric in about 10 minutes. They’re the good ones.”
Born in Melbourne in 1927, Balfour initially just listened to the radio for his music, until his father bought him a guitar, and he wrote his first song at 19. After a three-month stint touring with a rodeo (without injury – “There must have been glue in the saddle,” he quips), Balfour moved to Sydney. There he wandered into a country music club and heard the Barry Sisters – Lorna Whiteside and Dorothy Davidson. “I was watching them sing,” he recalls, “and when they’d finished, I walked up to them and just suggested couple of harmony things. So then Lorna invited me to her house. I was quite surprised! And it started from there.”
A life-long romance and marriage followed, with him describing Lorna, who died in2014, as “my one and only love”. It also a professional partnership, with Noel becoming their guitar accompanist and de facto musical director. As well as recording and performing live, the Barry sisters made regular TV appearances, including on Nine’s Bandstand, hosted by Brian Henderson, and the ABC’s Six O’Clock Rock, hosted by Johnny O’Keefe.
In 1963 Lorna suffered a permanent medical condition that afflicted her hearing and prevented her singing. “We then decided to write songs together,” says Balfour, “and had a lot of stuff recorded by well-known artists. I was lucky to have a song, Too Many Times, done by [Irish crooner] Val Doonican, which had been done by Jimmy Little originally, and his producer sent it to England. Doonican picked it up, put out a single, and it did pretty well.”
He last played a gig two years ago, preferring to record and have a YouTube presence. Now he’s recorded some songs in memory of Lorna. The album, called Blue Mountain Moon, will be released on April 25 via Bandcamp. Each session required Balfour to drive 90 minutes from Normanhurst to Hazelbrook, record for three hours, and then drive home again. “Didn’t worry me,” he shrugs.
Outside of music he’s been a panel beater restoring classic Ferraris, Maseratis and Lamborghinis. “But I suppose music’s the big thing in my life that’s keeping me alive” he says, “especially doing the songs that we wrote together. And I just stay healthy and stay here as long as I can, I suppose.”
https://bluemountainsound.bandcamp.com/track/blue-mountain-moon