GLEN TOMASETTI

Glen Tomasetti was born in Melbourne in 1929. She bought a guitar in 1956 and set up the Emerald Hill folk concert sessions in South Melbourne in the 1960s. By the late '60s she had cut many albums and EPs and had become a household name with a spot-on Channel Seven each week in which she performed a song on such topical issues as equal pay for women.

Australia entered the war in Vietnam in 1962 in support of the USA, and in 1965 began sending conscripted servicemen to Vietnam. Tomasetti became involved in the Save Our Sons organisation, a group of women opposed to military conscription, and in December 1965 she helped to organise the "Songs of Peace and Love" protest concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, described as "the first major response of the folk scene" to Australia's military involvement in Vietnam. 

She made headlines in 1967 when she was taken to court after withholding one-sixth of her tax on the grounds that a sixth of the federal budget was used to finance Australia's role in the Vietnam War. Former Victorian premier Joan Kirner met Tomasetti when she was singing at Vietnam War protests. "She became a real figure in the anti-Vietnam War movement. Her songs against the war, and Eric Bogle's, were the music of the movement," Mrs Kirner said. ''Tomasetti was a great promoter of women's rights and her song written about the first equal pay case in 1969 is still sung by the trade union choir'', Mrs Kirner said. 

In 1976 her first novel, Thoroughly Decent People, was published. It dealt with "typical Australianness". It was the first book handled by local publishers McPhee Gribble. Melbourne University academic and poet Chris Wallace-Crabb said ''Tomasetti was a woman of extraordinary diversity and originality." Her novel was one of the break-through novels in portraying ordinary suburban life without a supercilious sneer," he said. "It entered the life of middle Australia with a generosity and imagination." Tomasetti's other published works included Man of Letters and poems, and she had a number of recordings released. She died in 2003 aged 74.

SINGLES

''The Ballad Of Bill White / Do Not Sing The Old Songs / The Army's Appeal To Mothers'' 1968

EPs

'Songs For Christmas' 1963 W&G
'Nursery Rhymes Sung By Glen Tomasetti' 1966 W&G
'The Future Is In Your Hands' 1966 W&G

ALBUMS

'Folk Songs With Guitar' 1963 W&G
'Glen Tomasetti Sings' 1964 East
' Will Ye Go Lassie Go?' [with Brian Mooney and Martyn Wyndham-Read] 1965 W&G
'Gold Rush Songs' 1975 Science Museum Of Victoria
'Labels for Ladies' date unknown WEL

References

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/30/1056825338016.html