"radio, TV and film. Slim Dusty (1927–2003) was known as the ""King of Australian Country Music"" and helped to popularise the Australian bush ballad. His successful career spanned almost six decades, and his 1957 hit ""A Pub with No Beer"" was the biggest-selling record by an Australian to that time, and with over seven million record sales in Australia he is the most successful artist in Australian musical history. Dusty recorded and released his one-hundredth album in the year 2000 and was given the honour of singing ""Waltzing Matilda"" in the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Dusty's"
"of George Thomas, a resident of Creek Ridge Road, Glossodia (near Windsor in Sydney). It was performed with an extra verse that was dropped from Slim Dusty's recorded version, because it contained elements of blue humour. In 1957, ""A Pub with No Beer"" became the first Australian single to become a gold record and was the biggest-selling record by an Australian at the time. It was the first single by an Australian artist to enter the British charts, reaching number three. In 1959, Dusty wrote and recorded a sequel ""The Answer To A Pub With No Beer"", explaining the reason"
"deputy. Menzies presided over a period of sustained economic boom and the beginnings of sweeping social change—with the arrivals of rock and roll music and television in the 1950s. In 1958, Australian country music singer Slim Dusty, who would become the musical embodiment of rural Australia, had Australia's first international music chart hit with his bush ballad ""Pub With No Beer"", while rock and roller Johnny O'Keefe's ""Wild One"" became the first local recording to reach the national charts, peaking at No. 20. Australian cinema produced little of its own content in the 1950s, but British and Hollywood studios produced"
"No Beer"" was the first Australian single to go gold. Dusty's wife Joy McKean penned several of his most popular songs. Other notable Australian country music performers include John Williamson who wrote the iconic song ""True Blue"", Lee Kernaghan, Adam Brand and Kasey Chambers. Olivia Newton-John and Keith Urban have attained success in the United States. The Tamworth Country Music Festival is held annually in Tamworth, the ""Country Music Capital of Australia"". During the festival the Country Music Association of Australia holds the Country Music Awards of Australia ceremony awarding the Golden Guitar trophies. The ceremonial dances of Indigenous Australians"
"Slim Dusty, who would become the musical embodiment of rural Australia, had Australia's first international music chart hit with his bush ballad ""Pub With No Beer"", while rock and roller Johnny O'Keefe's ""Wild One"" became the first local recording to reach the national charts, peaking at #20. Before sleeping through the 1960s Australian cinema produced little of its own content in the 1950s, but British and Hollywood studios produced a string of successful epics from Australian literature, featuring home grown stars Chips Rafferty and Peter Finch. Menzies remained a staunch supporter of links to the monarchy and British Commonwealth and"
"only 78 rpm record to be awarded a gold disc. Dusty recorded and released his one-hundredth album in the year 2000 and was given the honour of singing ""Waltzing Matilda"" in the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Dusty's wife Joy McKean penned several of his most popular songs. Other popular performers of Australian country music include: John Williamson (who wrote the iconic song ""True Blue""), Lee Kernaghan, Kasey Chambers and Sara Storer. In the United States, Australian country music stars including Olivia Newton-John and Keith Urban have attained great success. Country music has also been a particularly"
"Slim Dusty Slim Dusty, AO MBE (born David Gordon Kirkpatrick; 13 June 1927 – 19 September 2003) was an Australian country music singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer. He was an Australian cultural icon and one of the country's most awarded stars, with a career spanning nearly seven decades and numerous recordings. He was known to record songs in the legacy of Australia, particularly of bush life and renowned Australian bush poets Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson that represented the lifestyle. The music genre was coined the ""bush ballad"", a style first made popular by Buddy Williams, the first artist to perform"
"songs: Dusty's ""Pub With No Beer"" (1957) and Williamson's ""Old Man Emu"" (1970). Dusty's hit was the first Australian single to reach the international pop charts. It begins with mock profundity: Williamson was influenced by Australian folk-singer, artist and broadcaster Rolf Harris and his novelty hit ""Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport"". Harris built an extraordinarily successful career in Britain as a broadcaster and entertainer. ""Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport"" is one of his many Australian themed comic hits and tells the sorry tale of a dying stockmen instructing his comrades on what to do upon his passing: Popular novelty hits"
"Lights on the Hill (song) ""Lights on the Hill"" is an Australian country music hit song written by Joy McKean and made famous by her husband, Slim Dusty. It won the first Golden Guitar in January 1973 at the Country Music Awards of Australia, held in Tamworth. It has been covered by Keith Urban and Mental as Anything. The song has a strong narrative set to verses and chorus and tells the story of a trucker carrying a heavy load down a mountainside in the rain. With the lights on the hill ""blinding"" him, the trucker fears for his life."
"Dusty was considered an Australian National Treasure. He performed ""Waltzing Matilda"", Australia's national song, at the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. David Gordon Kirkpatrick was born on 13 June 1927 in Nulla Nulla Creek near Kempsey, New South Wales, the son of a cattle farmer. His childhood home, ""Homewood"", survives and is now heritage-listed. He was known by his middle name, Gordon. He wrote his first song ""The Way the Cowboy Dies"" in 1937 and adopted the stage name ""Slim Dusty"" in 1938 at age 11. His earliest musical influences included the American Jimmie Rodgers, New Zealander"
"Golden Anniversary Album"" and appeared on eight subsequent albums: ""Beer Drinking Songs of Australia"" (1986), ""91 Over 50"" (1996), ""The Very Best of Slim Dusty"" (1998), ""The Man Who Is Australia"" (2000), ""A Piece of Australia"" (2001), ""Slim Dusty Live"" (2006), ""Pubs, Trucks & Plains"" (2008) and ""The Very Best of Slim Dusty"" (2013). When Australian Labor Party politician Duncan Kerr was running for the Division of Denison in Tasmania in 1987, his advertising campaign was based on the song ""Duncan"". Kerr won the seat and remained the local member until 2010. Dusty re-recorded the song with Rolf Harris in"
"biggest-selling record by an Australian to that time, the first Australian single to go gold, and the first and only 78 rpm record to be awarded a gold disc. Dusty remains Australia's most successful and prolific performer, and won more Gold and Platinum albums than any other Australian artist. Dusty recorded and released his one-hundredth album in the year 2000 and was given the honour of singing ""Waltzing Matilda"" in the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Dusty was accorded a state funeral upon his death and with over 7 million Australian record sales he remains Australia's most"
"with his 1957 hit ""A Pub With No Beer"", and remained at the forefront of Australian country music from that time until his death in 2003. McKean was Dusty's wife and manager for over 50 years. Together the couple had two children: Anne Kirkpatrick and David Kirkpatrick who are also accomplished singer-songwriters. The family began annual round Australia tours in 1964 - encompassing a 30,000 mile, 10-month journey which was the subject of a feature film, ""The Slim Dusty Movie"" in 1984. McKean won the first ever Golden Guitar award in 1973, for writing ""Lights on the Hill"", performed by"
"national expansion of ABC youth radio station Triple J, a string of successful alternative Australian acts have emerged since the 1990s, including You Am I, Gotye, Sia and Tame Impala. Australian country music has developed a style quite distinct from its American counterpart, drawing more on Celtic folk and the Australian bush ballad tradition. Pioneers of popular Australian country music include Tex Morton in the 1930s and Smoky Dawson from the 1940s onward. Known as the ""King of Australian Country Music"", Slim Dusty released over 100 albums in a career spanning almost six decades; his 1957 hit ""A Pub With"
"verse to the Gordon Parsons song ""Pub With No Beer"". He was dubbed the ""clown prince of comedy"" by Slim Dusty. He recorded a duet with John Williamson, ""A Country Balladeer"". He has had platinum and gold album sales and is one of Australia's most popular country music artists. Morgan performed at Sydney Opera House with Slim Dusty in April 1978. An album of the concert was released three years later, as ""One & Off The Road"". It was released the same year as ""Sheilas Drongos Dills & Other Geezers"" which contained 20 of Morgan's hits from the 1950s and"
"music personalities Anne Kirkpatrick (Dusty's daughter), Jayne Kelly, and Tracy and Russell Coster. EMI Records' Australian sales of Dusty's records surpassed seven million in 2007. Slim Dusty was Australia's most successful and prolific musical artist, with more Gold and Platinum albums than any other Australian artist. He was also: Slim Dusty Slim Dusty, AO MBE (born David Gordon Kirkpatrick; 13 June 1927 – 19 September 2003) was an Australian country music singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer. He was an Australian cultural icon and one of the country's most awarded stars, with a career spanning nearly seven decades and numerous recordings. He"
"McKean agreed to the use of the name, Lights on the Hill, and to be patrons of the memorial. Lights on the Hill (song) ""Lights on the Hill"" is an Australian country music hit song written by Joy McKean and made famous by her husband, Slim Dusty. It won the first Golden Guitar in January 1973 at the Country Music Awards of Australia, held in Tamworth. It has been covered by Keith Urban and Mental as Anything. The song has a strong narrative set to verses and chorus and tells the story of a trucker carrying a heavy load down"
"as the ""grand lady"" of Australian country music. By the age of 18 she was performing with her sister Heather on their own radio show as the McKean Sisters, noted for their yodeling harmonies. Mckean performed with her husband Slim Dusty till his death in 2003. Slim, a singer-songwriter and yodeler as well, wrote his first song, ""The Way the Cowboy Dies"" when he was only 10 years old. He received 37 Golden Guitar and two ARIA awards and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. Mary Schneider is an Australian singer and performer who yodels the works of"
"of patrons of his own local pub, the Cosmopolitan Hotel at the tiny settlement of Taylors Arm, about 25 km inland from Macksville, New South Wales. Slim Dusty heard the song while touring with Parsons, and he asked if he could record it as a novelty filler for his upcoming 1957 recording date, as he was one song short of the required four. Dusty's recording was released as the B-side of his 78 rpm release, ""Saddle Boy"", and much to Slim's surprise, the B-side was soon getting huge air-play, particularly on Sydney radio station 2UE. In 1958 it became a"
"the song in 1959. In 1983 country-and-western singer Slim Dusty's rendition became the first song to be broadcast to Earth by astronauts. Versions of the song have been featured in a number of mainly Australian films and television programs. Ernest Gold used the song and variations of it extensively in the 1959 film ""On the Beach"". In the American television show ""JAG"", as Trevor Goddard's character Mic Brumby (a former officer in the Royal Australian Navy) leaves to return to Australia, the cast, gathered in the bar, sing the song to him in farewell. The episode is titled ""Life or"
"do this, in 1952. Until the late 1950s, Australian music was limited to jazz, country (with Slim Dusty being the biggest country star) and the music of its Indigenous peoples. Television was introduced to Australia in 1956, but because many people could not afford one at the time, the main medium for music was radio. Those who could not attend the concerts thus relied on the radio to hear the newest and most popular music. Nearly all the singles released in Australia at the time were recorded by Americans. The original 'rock and roll', popularised by Buddy Holly and Chuck"
"exponent of camp humour. Elliot Goblet delivers quirky deadpan stand up. Representatives of the ""bawdy"" strain of Australian comedy include Rodney Rude and Austen Tayshus. Tayshus' first single ""Australiana"" became the biggest selling single in Australian recording history. A spoken word piece, it is filled with Australian puns: Chad Morgan (The Sheik of Scrubby Creek) has been a popular exponent of vaudeville Australian country music for several decades. His songs are peppered with Australian slang: sheilas, drongos, dills and geezers. The breakthrough hits of leading Australian country music stars Slim Dusty and John Williamson might both be considered comic novelty"
"Wales in 1945. In 1947, Dusty signed his first recording contract with the Columbia Graphophone Co. for the Regal Zonophone label and recorded six titles including ""When The Rain Tumbles Down In July"". The song remained a standard for Dusty until his death in 2003. The song is a bush ballad, evocative of the tradition of Australian bush poetry. It concerns the flood season in the mountainous Macleay Valley where Slim Dusty grew up in the 1930s and early 1940s. When the Rain Tumbles Down in July ""When the Rain Tumbles Down in July"" is an Australian country music song"
"the song became number one hits (even evergreens) in Belgium, Austria and Germany, brought by the Flemish country singer-guitarist and amusement park founder Bobbejaan Schoepen. In 1964 the annual Slim Dusty Australia-round tour, a journey that went on for ten months, was started. This regular event was the subject of a feature film, ""The Slim Dusty Movie"", in 1984. Dusty recorded not only songs written by himself and other fellow Australian performers but also classic Australian poems by Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, with new tunes to call attention to the old ""bush ballads"". An example is ""The Man from"
"Gordon Parsons (singer-songwriter) Gordon Parsons was an Australian country music singer-songwriter, best known as the composer of Slim Dusty's 1957 hit song ""A Pub With No Beer"". In 1982, Parsons was inducted into the Australian Roll of Renown. He was born in Paddington, an Eastern suburb of Sydney in 1926, and moved with his parents to Cooks Creek near Bellingen, New South Wales in 1929. At age 14 he left his parents' farm and subsequently worked as a sleeper-cutter. Around this time he entered a well-known radio talent quest, ""Terry Dear’s Australian Amateur Hour"", and was awarded second prize. Regal"
"When the Rain Tumbles Down in July ""When the Rain Tumbles Down in July"" is an Australian country music song written by Slim Dusty. It has been covered by several other artists including Lee Kernaghan, Graeme Connors as well as Dusty's daughter Anne Kirkpatrick. The song was recorded in November 1946 and it is recognised as being Dusty's first commercial recording. ""When the Rain Tumbles Down in July"" is one of the earliest compositions of Australian country music singer Slim Dusty, Australia's most prolific musical artist. He wrote the song aged 18, while living at Nulla Nulla Creek, New South"
"the Patterson River. In 1983 a rendition of ""Waltzing Matilda"" by country-and-western singer Slim Dusty was the first song broadcast by astronauts to Earth. He topped the list of [[The Greatest of All - Our 50 Top Australians]] published in ""[[The Australian]]"" on 27 June 2013. [[Category:1864 births]] [[Category:1941 deaths]] [[Category:Australian journalists]] [[Category:Australian rugby league journalists]] [[Category:People from Sydney]] [[Category:Writers from New South Wales]] [[Category:Australian people of Scottish descent]] [[Category:People of the Second Boer War]] [[Category:Australian war correspondents]] [[Category:Australian Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees]] [[Category:Australian Commanders of the Order of the British Empire]] [[Category:People educated at Sydney Grammar School]]"
"Australian-born to record country music in Australia in the late 1930s and was the pioneer of a distinctly Australian style of country music called the bush ballad that others such as Slim Dusty would make popular in later years. During the Second World War, many of Buddy Williams recording sessions were done whilst on leave from the Army. At the end of the war, Williams would go on to operate some of the largest travelling tent rodeo shows Australia has ever seen. In 1952, Dawson began a radio show and went on to national stardom as a singing cowboy of"
"and Smoky Dawson. Dusty married singer-songwriter Joy McKean in 1951 and went on to become Australia's biggest selling domestic music artist with more than 7 million record sales. British-born country singer and yodeller, Frank Ifield, was one of the first Australian post-war performers to gain widespread international recognition. After returning to the UK in 1959 Ifield was successful in the early 1960s, becoming the first performer to have three consecutive number-one hits on the UK charts: ""I Remember You"", ""Lovesick Blues"" (both 1962) and ""The Wayward Wind"" (1963). ""I Remember You"" was also a Top 5 hit in the US."
"The song won for Joy McKean the first ever Golden Guitar Award for ""Song of the Year"" at the first Tamworth Country Music Festival in January 1973, and Slim Dusty's rendition won the award for Best EP or Single. A memorial which bears the name of the song was erected in Gatton, Queensland, in remembrance of truck and coach drivers and other members of the transport industry who have lost their lives in accidents or in other ways. It is located at Lake Apex Park on the outskirts of the town. Before Slim Dusty died, he and his wife Joy"
"Joy McKean Joy McKean OAM, born January 14, 1930, is an Australian country music singer-songwriter and wife of the late Slim Dusty. Known as the ""grand lady"" of Australian country music, McKean is recognised as one of Australia's leading songwriters and bush balladeers and wrote several of Dusty's most popular songs. In 1983, McKean was inducted into the Australian Roll of Renown. Joy McKean was born in Singleton in the Hunter Region, New South Wales on 14 January 1930. As an infant, McKean lived on the dairy farm belonging to her mother's family. Her father was a country school teacher"
"where gold was discovered. An instrumental of the song is also played at the saloon on a piano when Sam and Angel arrive in Nome. The song lyrics were written by Mike Phillips, and it was released on 22 August 1960 . It proved to be a success when it topped the Billboard country charts for five weeks in Jan./Feb. 1961 and crossed over to peak at #4 on the pop charts. However, Horton didn't live to see its success, as he died in a traffic collision 5 November 1960 (eight days before the film release), and his death may"
"Australian country music Australian country music is a part of the music of Australia. There is a broad range of styles, from bluegrass, to yodeling to folk to the more popular. The genre has been influenced by Celtic and English folk music, the Australian bush ballad tradition, as well as by popular American country music. Themes include: outback life, the lives of stockmen, truckers and outlaws, songs of romance and of political protest; and songs about the ""beauty and the terror"" of the Australian bush. Early pioneers included Slim Dusty, Smoky Dawson (MBE), (OAM), Tex Morton and Buddy Williams, all"