[1][2][3] Hughes earned two ARIA Award nominations for Best Jazz Album, in 1987 for The Last Train For Casablanca Leaves Once In A Blue Moon and in 2010 alongside his daughter Christa Hughes with Twenty First Century Blues.
He also contributed a track (with Dick Hughes' Famous Five) to Jazz Live At Soup Plus which was nominated for the same award in 1989.
He developed an interest in jazz early in life and became president of the Melbourne University Rhythm Club in 1950.
Hughes was a pianist and singer and played regularly around Sydney's jazz scene and played in multiple bands such as The Port Jackson Jazz Band and Ray price Quartet before first performing solo in 1973.
In 1997 Hughes started presenting a jazz show, Speak Easy and Swing Hard, on 2MBS-FM.