Hugh McDonald - Guitar

Hugh has enjoyed a successful career as a singer, guitarist and violinist touring Australia and the world with one of Australia's leading bands of the 1980's, Redgum. Before joining Redgum in 1981, he played and recorded with The Bushwackers Band, The Sundowners, Moving Cloud and The Colonials.

Hugh currently performs solo or with an acoustic trio. He has a vast knowledge of Irish song and dance tunes and plays fiddle, guitar, mandolin and mandocello.

Hugh wrote some of Redgum's most popular songs, notably The Diamantina Drover, which has been recorded by a variety artists including Lee Kernigan, John Williamson and Christy Moore, Ireland's most popular singer and songwriter.

Hugh has released three solo albums: Where's the Party, a collection of cover versions of popular Jazz Standards, Irish songs and an acoustic version of The Diamantina Drover, The Lawson Album, a collection of Henry Lawson poems set to music by Hugh and Garth Porter, released by ABC Music and The Spirit of The Land, a collection of Irish folk songs and tunes with James Clark on double bass and Michael McClintock on violin.

Hugh continues to perform throughout Australia, currently with John Schumann and the Vagabond Crew, and has recently returned from a trip to the USA where he performed in Delaware, New York and Nantucket at folk clubs, bars and universities.