Rare musical spirit - obituary

The sudden death of Woodford musician and teacher Peter Lucas, 48, the weekend has robbed
Warrnambool of a rare talent and a special man.

By DAVID DAWSON

The photo below shows Peter Lucas (second from left) with wife Sue and other members of Hot TamaleBaby, Brad Harrison (back), Nucky Stewart and Johnny Sycopoulis

He was the Peter Pan of the Warrnambool music and academic scene - tall and slim and never giving any hint of his 48 years. But seven years ago doctors gave Peter Lucas only six months to live after diagnosing a genetic heart defect. They warned him if he didn't have a heart bypass he would die. They also warned if he did have the operation he might die anyway. Instead, the South West Institute of Tafe arts lecturer sought alternative health treatment, practised Eastern medicine and philosophy and survived. Peter and his wife Sue Mellersh-Lucas, a draftswoman, adjusted their professional careers to allow more time for their other passions - their two daughters Sahr, 20 and Paije, 19. And music.
After more than 15 years and nearly as many bands their dreams reached fruition in January this year when their most enduring group - Hot Tamale Baby - won the best female vocal performance section at the Australian Roots Music Awards in Warrnambool. They had already been booked for the Port Fairy Folk Festival and were to be a headlining act at the seventh Apollo Bay festival next weekend. The couple agreed to give a rare interview to promote their CD and the festival on radio station 3PBSFM in St Kilda yesterday at 10.30am. But at 3.30am Peter suffered a massive heart attack in his daughters' Hawthorn flat and died before an ambulance could transport him to the Alfred Hospital. Peter, a non-drinker and vegetarian, had earlier attended the 50th birthday party of lifelong Warrnambool friend Ray Francis in Prahran.

I shook hands with Peter at midnight after giving him directions to the Fitzroy Street radio station and joking that he and Sue could sleep in and arrive for the latter part of the show at 10.30am. But at 10.40am another lifetime Lucas family friend Michael O'Donnell, unable to reach PBS by phone, arrived to break the shock news which was broadcast before the show closed with the Lucas's award winning song Blues For Tibet.

Peter's father, Robert John, died from a heart condition at 36 and his widow Dorothy, aided by Legacy, raised three children - Peter, brother Ian and sister Geraldine. "Peter worked as a lolly boy at the Liberty and Capitol theatres to breed pigeons," Koroit signwriter and fellow musician Duncan McKenzie recalled. But Mr Lucas almost didn't make it out of his teens - at 17 he lost the tops of three fingers in a car accident near the Lady Bay Hotel. The Lucas spirit enabled him to learn to play guitar like one of his mentors, Texan troubadour Billy Joe Shaver, who had suffered similar injuries as a teenager. It was that same spirit that saw the entire Lucas clan trek across the Asian and Indian continents and Europe on foot, bus and train in 1990. A funeral service will be held in Warrnambool later this week.

South West TAFE music archive