Australian country music
Notable musicians include: Adam Brand, Adam Harvey, Amber Lawrence, Caitlyn Shadbolt, Christie Lamb, Jasmine Rae, Troy Cassar-Daley, Davidson Brothers, Slim Dusty, Steve Forde, Joy McKean (Australia’s Grand Lady Of Country Music), Jean Stafford (Australia’s Queen Of Country Music), Olivia Newton-John, Lionel Long, John Williamson, Chad Morgan, Keith Urban, O'Shea, Lee Kernaghan, Melinda Schneider, Kasey Chambers and Beccy Cole.
Popular songs include When the Rain Tumbles Down in July (1946), Waltzing Matilda (1895), Pub With No Beer (1957), Lights on the Hill (1973), I Honestly Love You (1974), True Blue (1981), Boys From the Bush (1992), and Not Pretty Enough (2002).
Exemplars of the traditional bush ballad style include Slim Dusty's "When the Rain Tumbles Down in July" or "Leave Him in the Long Yard" which have strong narrative in verses plus choruses set to a pick n' strum beat.
Contemporary bush ballads may employ finger picking and strumming rock styles as in Lee Kernaghan's later version of "Leave Him in the Long Yard", or in Keith Urban reworking of the Slim Dusty/Joy McKean classic "Lights on the Hill".
Early Australian ballads sing of the harsh ways of life of the epoch and of such people and events as bushrangers, swagmen, drovers, stockmen and shearers.
[3] Later themes which endure to the present include the experiences of war, of droughts and flooding rains, of Aboriginal identity and of the railways and trucking routes which link Australia's vast distances.
[3] Country and folk artists such as Gary Shearston, Lionel Long, Margaret Roadknight, Tex Morton, Slim Dusty, Rolf Harris, The Bushwackers, John Williamson, and John Schumann of the band Redgum have continued to record and popularise the old bush ballads of Australia through the 20th and into the 21st century – and contemporary artists including Pat Drummond, Sara Storer and Lee Kernaghan draw heavily on this heritage.
In 1949 he travelled to North America and Europe enjoying great success as a stage hypnotist, working in film and with artists such as Hank Williams.
[5] Known as "Canada's Yodelling Cowboy", Donn Reynolds (1921–1997) began a 40-year international career upon cutting several popular sides in 1947 on the Regal Zonophone label including "Old Bush Shanty of Mine" and "Stockman's Lullaby".
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 successful domestic music artist.
[9] Slim Dusty's wife Joy McKean penned several of his most popular songs including "Indian Pacific", "The Biggest Disappointment" and "Lights on the Hill".
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.
Although himself an accomplished writer of songs, Dusty had a number of other songwriters including Mack Cormack, Gordon Parsons, Stan Coster and Kelly Dixon who were typically short on formal education but big on personal experience of the Australian bush.
Coster wrote popular Dusty bush ballads including "Cunnamulla Fella" and "Three Rivers Hotel" based on his own experience of working as a sheep hand and railway construction worker.
Nevertheless, the arrival of rock and roll music saw major metropolitan music radio stations abandon support for country artists like Dusty and despite record sales in the multi millions, he and other successful Australian country artists were rarely heard on air outside regional centres in Australia until the new cross-over pop-country styles of the 1990s began to be heard again on city airwaves.
Eric Bogle's 1972 folk lament to the Gallipoli campaign "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" recalled the Celtic origins of Australian folk-country.
Singer-songwriter John Williamson began to build his reputation as an iconic Australian entertainer with his 1970 performance of his first song "Old Man Emu" on New Faces (influenced by novelty works of Rolf Harris such as "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport").
[14][15] In 1970, Tamworth's Radio 2TM organised the landmark Bicentennial Concert to mark the 200th anniversary of the voyage of Captain James Cook along the coast of Eastern Australia.
[32] Popular and emerging contemporary performers of Australian country include: Lee Kernaghan (whose hits include the contemporary country classic "Boys From the Bush") and sister Tania Kernaghan, Melinda Schneider, Gina Jeffreys, Beccy Cole, Felicity Urquhart, Shannon Noll, Tracy Coster, Sara Storer, and brother Doug Storer.
Sara Storer's award-winning second album Beautiful Circle prompted Melbourne's The Age newspaper to report that "As we lament the death of Slim Dusty, here is evidence that authentic, yet contemporary Australian bush country has not died with his passing".
In the United States, Australian country music stars including Sherrié Austin and Keith Urban have attained great success.
