Renowned entertainer, writer, actor and folk singer Alex Hood began performing at the age of ten years. He wrote his first book The Green Emerald at the age of eight and began writing short plays at the age of nine. Hood was a promising and talented cricket player at school and enjoyed acting and singing on stage. He attended Homebush Boys High School until the age of 15, when his father persuaded him to become an apprentice electrician. In 1953 Hood joined the Eureka Youth League, a communist organisation for young people. Here he learnt folk songs and dances from Australia and around the world. It was through the League that Hood befriended Chris Kempster who taught him to play the guitar.

Kempster and Hood were invited by pioneer folklore collector John Meredith to join the Bushwhackers, Australia's first bush band. Hood performed in the musical Reedy River and toured with the Bushwhackers intermittently until they disbanded in 1957. Alex Hood with Chris Kempster and Harry Kay, all strongly influenced by the music and songs of English folklorist A.L. Lloyd, immediately decided to form another band featuring Australian folk music, the Rambleers. The Rambleers were very successful and recorded two records with Wattle Recordings in Sydney. Hood played the banjo, guitar and sang with the band until they parted in the early 1960s. As well as continuing to perform in revivals of Reedy River, Hood was asked by Kevon Kemp, a Sydney Morning Herald theatre critic, to play the lead role in a production of Fisher's Ghost by Douglas Stewart. The band also appeared in the production.

Throughout the 1960s Hood continued to record and perform both as a solo act and with various musicians. He also began to collect folk songs and yarns from bush singers and musicians living around Sydney and to write children's songs and plays. By the early 1970s he had performed a large number of children's shows, many of them with Annette Hood. The duo continued to present children's shows based on Australian folklore to audiences throughout Australia. Hood continued to collect folkloric material for the National Library of Australia. He is regarded as one of Australia's most prolific writers and entertainers.

Information from

• National Union Catalogues - Music Australia

Record number

987271

Other names

• Alexander Stewart Ferguson Hood
• Alexander Hood (1935-)
• Alec Hood (1935-)

Born

• 06 April 1936, Blacktown, Sydney, NSW

Gender

male

Activities

• musician
• collector
• interviewer
• folklorist
• folk musician
• dramatist
• entertainer
• singer
• songwriter
• performer

References

• Alex Hood and Keith McKenry (interviewer), Interview with Alex Hood, entertainer, writer and folk musician [sound recording], National Library of Australia Oral History Collection, 2002

Updated

12 August 2004

To cite this page

http://nla.gov.au/nla.cs-ma-ANL%3AMA~987271

Alex Hood (1935-)

Information from

• National Library of Australia

Record number

000000427895

Born

• 1935

Updated

18 October 1984

Alex Hood (1935-)

Information from

• National Library of Australia

Record number

000000987271

Other names

• Alexander Hood (1935-)
• Alec Hood (1935-)

Born

• 1935

Updated

06 September 2002