Slim Dusty AO MBE 1927-2003

In 1951 Dusty married the country singer and songwriter Joy McKean, who had a double act with her sister, Heather. Dusty’s daughter Anne was born the following year, and his son David in 1958. From 1954 Dusty made show business a full-time career. After working the country show circuit in association with the legendary showman Frank Foster, Dusty mounted his own Slim Dusty Show in which he and Joy were supported by guest artists including Chad Morgan, Johnny Ashcroft and Gordon Parsons.

On April Fools’ Day 1957 Dusty recorded Parsons’ ‘A Pub with no Beer’. It changed Dusty’s life. It invaded the rock-oriented Hit Parades and Dusty found himself in the unlikely surroundings of TV’s Bandstand and Six O’Clock Rock. It was Australia’s first Gold Record and it was released in Britain, the United States and Germany. After ‘The Pub’ many of Australia’s best country music songsmiths wrote with Dusty in mind. Among them were Shorty Ranger (‘Winter Winds’), Mack Cormack (‘When the Moon Across the Bushland Beams’), Stan Coster (‘A Fire of Gidgee Coal’) and Joe Daly (‘Trumby’). Dusty’s first LP album was released in 1960.

In 1964 Dusty established an annual Australia-wide tour, a 48,000 kilometre, 10-month marathon, with a line-up that frequently supplemented country music fare with contributions from popular local rock performers like Johnny Devlin, Lucky Starr and Johnny Chester.

In 1969 The Slim Dusty Show visited Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, where it toured with the Hamilton County Bluegrass Band. It was during this tour that Dusty introduced his wife’s song ‘Lights on the Hill’. A departure from his straightforward bush ballad repertoire, it won Best Single at the inaugural Tamworth Australasian Country Music Awards and Song of the Year for McKean.

It was Australia’s first Gold Record and it was released in Britain, the United States and Germany. In 1978 he made his first appearance at the Sydney Opera House; the concert was recorded and released as an LP album, The Entertainer. By this time Dusty’s daughter, Anne Kirkpatrick, had developed a country music career of her own; she won Best Female Vocalist at Tamworth in 1979. The following year Dusty recorded one of his greatest hits, Pat Alexander’s ‘Duncan’. His 50th album was released in 1981, coinciding with the publication of his autobiography, Walk a Country Mile.