SHAYNA KARLIN

Shayna Karlin (nee Bracegirdle), a Queenslander who had been active in the beginnings of the Brisbane Folk Centre and on the Sydney scene, appeared regularly at Traynors Folk and Jazz Club in Melbourne around 1965-7, often in duet with Gordon McIntyre. Karlin specialised in British songs but was also a keen interpreter of American songwriters like Buffy Sainte-Marie. She appeared at the 1967 Moomba Folk Song Concert along with Gordon McIntyre, Glen Tomasetti, Danny Spooner and Dave Lumsden. Later she branched out by joining Colin Dryden, Graham Lowndes and others in a shortlived but highly innovative electric folk group Extradition, an ensemble which was favourably compared in its day to the British super-groups Pentangle and Fairport Convention.

Extradition was a phenomenon when the band first appeared on the Sydney folk-music scene in the late 1960s. They were 'indigenous' exponents of everything remarkable that was happening in the contemporary folk movement, and they carried that standard with all the magic and originality of those exciting times. Yet comparisons with other bands of the era; Pentangle, the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention and such miss the uniqueness of Extradition. They were impossible to label then and they don't fit into any established category today. Extradition happened by chance, explored music together for a few sweet months and then went their separate ways having gate-crashed a world in which they didn't belong. They left behind them a polarized Sydney folk scene which was invited to follow.

In late 1970 Richard Lockwood and Ken Firth from the band Tully contributed to Extradition's debut LP 'Hush' released in June 1971 and now a rare collector's item. Both bands had been closely associated for some time, and shared similar musical outlooks; this led to Extradition members Colin Campbell and Shayna (Karlin) Stewart joining Tully at the start of 1971. Campbell played an important role in the later career of Tully, and he wrote or co-wrote a considerable proportion of the material on both the 'Sea Of Joy' and 'Loving is Hard' albums.

Tully broke up at the end of 1971, the members scattering to various other projects, with Karlin performing in the mid-'70s with Baton Rouge, a band that included Christina Amphlett, later of the Divinyls. Shayna later contributed on albums by Jon English, Jeannie Lewis and Ross Ryan. Shayna joined the cast of the original Australian production of Jesus Christ Superstar and performed on the original Australian cast soundtrack LP. She also appeared in the stage production Betty Blockbuster Follies

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