AustLit

'Alexander Stewart Ferguson Hood (b. 1935) was born in Sydney and educated at Homebush Boys High School. He was apprenticed as an electrician and for some years had his own electrical business. In 1951 he joined the Communist Party of Australia and the Eureka Youth League. Through the League he met the singer Kris Kempster. In 1954 he joined Kempster as a member of the cast of the musical Reedy River and he subsequently performed with the Bushwhackers, the Ramblers and the Sydney Bush Music Band. From the late 1950s onwards he became a travelling musician, singing and playing a variety of instruments at clubs, pubs and theatres, and later at schools and on radio and television. In 1964 he produced a recording of Australian folk songs, The First Hundred Years. He also wrote several plays and folk operas for children.' (nla.gov.au/selected-library-collections/hood-collection)