For their second album Redgum added a bass player and drummer and produced four driving folk-rock classics: Michael's"Virgin Ground" and"Ted", and John's"Long Run" and"The Money's No Good"."Ted" in particular was one of the finest songs the band was to produce:"He did his bit in the First World War, took the shilling to fight the Hun/ Mud up to his crotch in Flanders fields and the gas eating out his lungs/ He said"Me best mate died hangin' on the barbed wire and when the attack was through/ We took some prisoners to HQ, shared a fag and a yarn or two/ they were the same as me and you.'"In their songwriting both John and Michael wrote melodies which held the same note over strings of syllables, producing a direct, urgent sound which really gave their music bite. (Try humming The Beatles'"Help!" and"We Can Work It Out" and you'll hear what I mean.) It was a style which was to prove perfect for the more electric approach. The pure acoustic sound was retained however, for two beautiful cuts on this set, John's moving and compassionate portrait of the hard-working interstate truck driver"Stewie", with the rich addition of 'cello from one Bronwyn Tupper, and Verity's debut on composing and lead vocal, the gentle, haunting"Women In Change". With Virgin Ground, Redgum painted a colourful gallery of portraits, of struggling, ordinary people who'd been short-changed by capitalist society; in the process developing a truly contemporary Australian folk music. Production on the album remained relatively no-frills, respectfully preserving that raw folk"authenticity" of their live sound. Good stuff, if you can ever find it!