Slim Dusty AO MBE 1927-2003

In 1984 Dusty’s life and his annual Australia-wide tour were the basis for a feature film,
The Slim Dusty Movie. Naturally all the Dusty clan appeared, while young Slim was portrayed by actor Jon Blake. The film included cameos from two travelling show legends, Frank Foster and Jimmy Sharman.

To celebrate Australia’s Bicentennial Year, 1988, Dusty organised the biggest country show ever to tour the nation. The following year he recorded an album with his daughter, Anne. In 1993 he toured the Northern Territory as guest artist with the Aboriginal band Yothu Yindi. In 1997 he appeared at the Grand Ol’ Opry in Nashville at the invitation of the Country Music Association of America. In 2000 he led a crowd of 100,000 in an emotional rendition of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ to close the Sydney Olympics. In 2001 he was featured on an Australia Post ‘Legend’ stamp and performed with fellow ‘national treasures’ Richard Tognetti and Roger Woodward at a National Trust dinner to honour Australia’s living national treasures and to raise funds for the Trust.

Countless awards and honours continued to roll in: Father of the Year; Senior Australian of the Year; Artist of the Decade; the Australia Council’s Achiever of the Year; a centrepiece exhibition at the Australian Country Music Foundation museum in Tamworth; a Special Achievement Award from the Australasian Record Industry Association; and, of course, his 100 albums won numerous Golden Guitars and gold and platinum records. He was made an Officer of the Order in Australia in 1998.

Slim Dusty died on 19 September 2003. ‘He traversed generations,’ said ex-Midnight Oil front man Peter Garrett. ‘He crossed over musical genres with his distinctive and authentically Australian voice. In pioneering terms, first he made country a musical form that was viable in Australia – it was Australian country music; and, second, he laid some of the foundations of building and sustaining a career for all who followed, by heading out and playing to people all over the country.’

The Federal Government has committed $6 million towards a Slim Dusty Centre at Kempsey, his home town.

Frank Van Straten, 2007