Fred Pilcher

Australian musician and engineer/producer, based in Canberra, ACT, and owner of Yurt Studio Fred started playing the 12-string acoustic guitar in Sydney in the late 1960s, mentored by the likes of Doug Ashdown, Mike McLellan, Marion Henderson, Buddy Wilson and Phil Cuneen. He was a regular at PACT Folk, Sydney’s premier folk club. He was a member of Pat Drummond’s Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom Band, regulars in the Sydney music scene at the time and headlining at many of the university and protest movement concerts in aid of the anti-Viet Nam war movement. Pat’s web site retrospective refers to Fred as a “12-string guitar whiz kid”. Iva Davies (Icehouse) cites the band as a major influence. After moving to Canberra in the mid-1970s, Fred played alongside a wide range of Canberra’s folk, rock and bluegrass luminaries including Mike Hayes (the Pricklefarmer), Donal Baylor, Dave O’Neill, and others. He appeared on Eric Bogle’s 2000 CD, Endangered Species as well as on Gary Luck’s iconic CD tribute to the Darwin bombing “Blood on The Frangipani”. Fred’s playing and singing have appeared on a variety of ads and soundtracks and he was a regular, with a variety of bands and performers, at the National Folk Festival for many years. He played at one of the first National Folk Festivals in Adelaide in 1971. Recently he was a member of award-winning Craig Dawson’s spectacular tribute to Lord Byron, the Lord Byron Five. Fred has recorded and produced songs and CDs for well known Celtic band Humbug and Irish/Australian guitar virtuoso Johnny Reynolds (a member of Fred’s own band, So Far So Good). He’s working on a 2-CD set with his old band with Pat Drummond and his brothers.