SEAN AND SONJA

Sean Cullip and Sonja Tallis made their debut early in 1964, playing one night a week at a folk lounge in Market Street in Sydney’s central business district. “Sean was still working”, Tallis later recalled, “but I was living on that one night’s earnings”. They also tried out (on unpaid come-all-ye nights) at the Troubadour, hoping to impress the management enough to land a paid spot. A Folk meets Jazz evening staged by Suzie Wong’s Chinese Restaurant helped augment the budget as did a few nights at a pizzeria at beachside Newport, although little of the fee was usually left by the time the duo had paid for bus fares, cigarettes and pizza. The gig proved productive, even so. Margaret Kitamura, who heard Sean & Sonja play at the pizzeria, was sufficiently impressed to recommend them to the management of El Toro in Missenden Road, Camperdown.

That one night a week at El Toro turned out to be the duo’s big break. Around the same time, Betty Douglas, the coffee-maker at the Troubadour, tackled Jim Carter, and insisted he sit down and listen to the pair. As a result Sean & Sonja were hired (at two pounds a night) and added to Carter’s regular roster. After less than a year performing together, they effectively stole the show when Carter organised a major Town Hall folk concert in August 1964. With Sonja clad in a stunning purple thai-silk shift, they opened the program and mesmerised the audience singing a capella a stark, perfectly harmonised version of the ancient British ballad ‘The Greenwood Sidie’. A number of TV appearances followed, and (via guitarist Andy Sundstrom, with whom Sean shared a colonial cottage in Barker’s Lane for a short period) the offer of a recording contract with the prestigious CBS.

For Cullip the CBS offer was one of the undoubted highlights of the duo’s career. Where most of the Australian folksingers would be more than happy to record for small, home-grown companies like W&G, East, Crest or Score, CBS was a mainstream, international mega-player. Its folk catalogue alone boasted American greats like Carolyn Hester, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, The Brothers Four and Pete Seeger; it was even the local distributor for Warner Bros and Peter Paul & Mary. In 1965 they supported The New Lost City Ramblers tour of Australia.

Sean & Sonja’s first album (self-titled) elicited critical hurrahs (albeit amidst claims by Edgar Waters, Craig McGregor, etc, that the duo was unacceptably commercial in its approach), and sold extremely well (10,000 copies in Japan alone). Two others followed: 'A Very Good Year' and 'Sometime Lovin', all within less than twelve months. By the time 'Sometime Lovin’ was in the record stores, Sean & Sonja were seriously reconsidering their future: Sean was conscripted into the army at the beginning of 1966, and for two years Sonja attempted to re-establish herself as a solo act, then in a duo with actor Tony Bonner and a trio called The Newtones. Neither of these recaptured the old magic, however, and in 1968, Sean & Sonja reunited, playing a mix of folksongs and more commercial light rock and folk-pop material.

Although they soldiered on for a few more years as a duo, they never did release another album. In August 1972, they also performed as cast members of the biblical stage rock musical, Man of Sorrows. They finally disbanded 11 years after their first meeting, in 1974. In the 70s Tallis moved into acting with small parts before going onto her best-known role, as top dog Nora Flynn in Prisoner which she played for six months between May and November 1985. She went on to a regular role in the short-lived Crawford's series Prime Time in 1986 and has also appeared in Home and Away and McLeod's Daughters.

SINGLES

''Tomorrow Is A Long Time / Blow The Candles Out'' 1965 CBS
''Sometime Lovin' / The Bells Of Rhymney'' 1965 CBS
''You Rang / I've Got Plenty Of Nothing'' 1966 CBS
''Back In Time / Where Does That Leave Me'' 1968 CBS

ALBUMS

'Sean & Sonja' 1964 CBS

'A Very Good Year' 1965 CBS

'Sometime Lovin' 1966 CBS

References

http://www.warrenfahey.com.au/early-sydney-part2/