[SHEET MUSIC] Along the road to Gundagai : song.

/ Words and music by Jack O’Hagan. Melbourne : Allan, 1922. Publisher’s number “B558”. Folio (315 x 240 mm), disbound, original pictorial wrappers (light printing flaws front and back) with inset portrait of “The Big Four” singers, and the early ownership signature of Grace Ward; 4 pp music notation (arrangement for voice and piano, with ukulele chords); inner wrappers with some pale foxing, but a good copy.

Scarce first edition sheet music to one of Australia’s most iconic songs.

Legendary baritone Peter Dawson made the first recording of Jack O’Hagan’s song Along the road to Gundagai in 1924, but O’Hagan actually wrote the song in 1922. Its debut public perfomance was given by Ernest Lauri, “The Singing Anzac”, who sang it as an encore at the end of a concert at the Sydney Town Hall that year. The song was rapturously received, and before the end of 1922 Allan & Co. had published the sheet music in several printings that differed slightly in the design of the front cover, the constant feature of the design being the marvellous sepia half tone photographic image of a stockman and his dog herding sheep across a bridge. The very first printing of the first edition featured a portrait of Ernest Lauri as the inset on the front cover. The present copy is a later printing of the first edition with an inset of “The Big Four” (a quartet that included Harry Grunden and Frank Wignall, who performed the song on the Sydney stage).