My name is Clarence Sibley.
Everybody has.
I'm one of the Stalin generation.
Everybody has.
I was brought up in a home, a home for children in Brisbane.
Everybody has.
My mom was from Sherbourg.
That's about 300km northwest of Brisbane.
My father came from Palm Island up off the coast of Townsville.
I haven't met him, so I just know mum and that's it, yeah.
Some girls, some away.
Not far from the home was a seminary where people were trained to become a priest.
And the students there used to come to their home and carry various activities for us.
And one of them was guitar, learning how to play the guitar.
And I took that and that's how it started.
There was one student there.
I don't even know his name, he was 70 years back now.
I took those lessons, yeah.
So I can't remember who he was, but I just know he was a student from that seminary.
One of the songs he got us to play was a Bob Dylan song called Blowing in the Wind.
It was the first one I played and learned.
That's all I could remember playing that song.
Long after that, I left the home and lived with mum up near Townsville.
Actually, it was north of Townsville, it was on a sugar cane farm.
Yeah, so I was really out in the sticks.
I was actually playing in a pub when I was a kid.
Actually, there was still only about a little twirl.
Mum used to go to the pub on Friday after.
There was her on Fridays, you know, and she used to bring us along on Friday nights.
And that's where this other Aboriginal lady used to play the guitar in this pub on a Friday night.
And she asked me if I'd like to join her and I said, yeah, okay, yeah, for a gig on, that was it.
That's the only gig I've done in my life.
How did I start busting?
I was in Melbourne between 1996 and 2000, year 2000.
I was asked to come with another curry friend and go and play some guitar out in public and make some money.
And so I did.
And that's where that began to bust me.
But as you go along, you know, and you know, more songs by the radio, you know, when you're listening,
you can start picking up songs when you know your basic chords and all that.
You know, these markings on my fingers now, these calluses, they only come when you play consistently
and every day, like every, but I wasn't playing every day.
I was only just doing it after school and things like that.
So it didn't hurt.
I just played along even today.
They don't hurt.
You know, you just get used to it after a while.
Yep.
Today, I still, I am still busting and I've been in Sydney now for 11 years.
Some of the songs I do down at Redfern Station is by Creedence, Who Will Stop the Rain?
Bob Sieger, Night Moves, Kat Steven, Peace Train and also Son, Father and Son.
They're all great, actually. Many of the Kat Steven's ones in Bob Dylan.
Get a special place in my heart.
To see people happy, calls by me makes me happy.
Oh, yeah, I'll give you a good remark.
Man, you can sing well, man. You can play well.
They come and do a nice gesture, like give me money or Easter egg or goodness, like what, you know.
Many of your good gestures, you know, in the national way, say, whatever.
They don't come.
Have a happy day.
