BUDDY WILLIAMS

Harold "Buddy" Williams born in 1918 was an Australian country musician, singer and songwriter, known as "The Yodelling Jackaroo". Williams made his first recordings in 1938, a private process disk. The two songs recorded at this session were "Where The Jacarandas Bloom" and "They Call Me The Clarence River Yodeller". The latter song was re-worked, called "They Call Me The Ramblin' Yodeller" and recorded during his first EMI session on 7 September 1939. These two long-lost recordings were later released on a Kingfisher Records collection in the early 1990s as part of an early Buddy Williams catalogue re-release, which is no longer available.

Williams first sang professionally in 1936 at the Grafton Jacaranda Festival in northern NSW. He also did a guest spot on Grafton's radio station 2GF at the time. He left the town of Grafton and busked his way down the NSW coast before approaching EMI records in Sydney where he gained an audition. The Page family from Newcastle, who had befriended the young Williams, bought him a black Gibson L-00 acoustic guitar which he used on all his recordings during the 1940s. This guitar was accidentally destroyed while on tour in the late 1940s. Williams later recalled that he had spent his entire life trying to find a replacement guitar that had the same sound quality of his old Gibson, but he never found one. Some of the guitars Williams used during his career included Gibson Hummingbird, Gibson Country and Western, Gibson J-200, and Martin D 28.

On 7 September 1939, he recorded six songs for the Regal Zonophone label. In September 1939, Australia entered WWII and Williams enlisted in the army. During the war years, many of Williams' recording sessions were done while on leave from active service. In the final days of WWII he was seriously wounded during the battle of Balikpapan and was not expected to live. He was recommended for the Military Medal and carried the mass of scars from his injuries for the rest of his life. In 1948 Williams starred in a short film titled He Chased The Chicken which featured live performances of two of his recordings, "The Overlander Trail" and "The Chicken Song". The studio versions of these songs had been recorded in 1946. Another live song in the film titled "Dear Little Lady of Mine" was never recorded nor released on record. Williams was also meant to appear in the 1946 Australian movie The Overlanders with Chips Rafferty but was unable to obtain leave from the army at the time.

After the war was over and he had recovered from his injuries, he set about forming a travelling rodeo tent show. He eventually wound back his rodeo and tent show after many years and then toured for 11 months of each year with the Buddy Williams Variety Show. Though Williams performed mostly in country towns and outback communities, having once commented that during his long touring career he had performed in just about every country town in Australia, he also performed a small number of shows in major cities. During 1940 he played the Theatre Royal, Sydney alongside Roy Rene and Evie Hayes. He also did an eight-week stint at Brisbane's Theatre Royal. 

After recording many singles on Regal Zonophone he moved to the Columbia label in 1953 where he released over a dozen singles with them until his move to RCA in 1965 where he became a Gold Record recording artist and would release more than 20 albums with the label. In 1973 he played Sydney's Hordern Pavilion for the UNICEF concert alongside big-name American acts such as Tex Ritter and Wanda Jackson. 

Williams suffered the first of two massive heart attacks while on stage in the late 1970s. During one of these hospital stays, he received a call from a lifelong fan called Bert Newton, an Australian television icon. The pair became firm friends and Williams later appeared on live Australian TV on The Bert Newton Show, singing "The Overlander Trail" with guitar accompaniment. In addition to constant touring, Williams continued to record. In 1977 he was added to the Country Music Roll of Renown along with Tex Morton and Smokey Dawson and in 1980 won the first Heritage Award at the Tamworth Country Music Festival for his song "What A Dreary Old World It Would Be".

In 1978, Buddy Williams was the subject of a documentary titled The Last of the Fair Dinkum Outback Entertainers, narrated by his good friend John Singleton. It had a film crew travel with Williams during one of his far North Queensland tours. At the time, Singleton was a well-known radio station disk jockey and advertising executive. Singleton regularly featured Williams' songs on his radio shows in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Singleton also became a regular face in the crowd at many of Williams' shows. In the early 1980s, Williams did a small number of Sydney shows including shows at the Auburn Baseball Club, the Seven Hills RSL Club, and a show at the Star Hotel in the heart of China Town Sydney attended by Australian 1950s and 1960s rocker Col Joye. Williams' last recordings were made months before he died in 1986, when he was sick with terminal cancer, and released posthumously.

SINGLES
''Flynn Of The Island / My Dream Of Hank And Jimmie'' 1958 Columbia
''I'll Stroll Down Memory Lane With You / Don't Forget Me, Little Darlin' 1959 Columbia
''Missing In Action / The Death Of Hank Williams'' 1959 Columbia
''Rockin' Alone In An Old Rockin' Chair / The Rhythm Of The Round-Up'' 1959 Columbia
''The Flying Doctor / A Mother As Lovely As You'' 1959 Columbia
''The Prisoner's Song / On An Ocean Of Broken Dreams'' 1959 Columbia
''In The Doghouse / The Bow-Legged Stockman'' 1959 Columbia
''Polling Day / Dave Sands'' 1960 Columbia
''The Panther / The Spice Of Life'' 1960 Columbia
''Roley / My Sleepy Valley Home'' 1960 Columbia
''Crazy / Mother Went A-Walking'' 1960 Columbia
''Anybody's Lover / The Nightmare'' 1960 Columbia
''The Snowy Mountains / Ten Years'' 1960 Columbia
''Christmas Blues / What's The Use'' 1960 Columbia
''Teardrops / I Went Home To Mother'' 1961 Columbia
''Journey's End / Gonna Ride Till The Sun Goes Down'' 1961 Columbia
''Under Western Skies / When The Cactus Is In Bloom'' 1961 Columbia
''Please Light The Darkness For Me / I've Forgotten How To Cry'' 1963 Columbia
''When Jesus Calls / The Cross Of Jesus'' 1963 Columbia
''Snow On The Mountain / Back To Alice Springs'' 1963 Columbia
''Rockin' Cowboy / True Friends Are So Few'' 1963 Columbia
''Pal Of My Heart / Way Up North'' 1964 Columbia
''I'm Moving Out / Pretty Girl'' 1964 Columbia
''I've Been Around / A Letter To Slim'' 1964 Columbia
''Wild River / This Particular Baby'' 1965 RCA
''Chapel Bells / We're Both Sorry Now [with Kay Williams] 1965 RCA
''That Old Gum Tree / Diamond'' 1965 RCA
''Lofty / My Wildflower State'' 1966 RCA
''Les Dingo / Lucky Horseshoe'' 1966 RCA
''The Sounds Of The Bush At Night / The Sad Eyed Zebu Steer'' 1969 RCA
''The Big Banana Land / Who Can Make A Flower'' 1969 RCA
''Back O'Bourke / The Spider From Gwydir'' 1972 RCA
''Mighty Moonbi Range / Buddy Williams At The Opera House'' 1979 RCA
''Headin' For The Warwick Rodeo / The Bushmen's Rodeo'' 1981 EMI

EPs

'The Kelly Gang' 1960 Columbia
'Cattle Train' 1966 RCA
'The Old North Queensland Line' 1968 RCA

ALBUMS

'Outback Ballads' 1963 Columbia
'Buddy Williams Sings Jimmie Rodgers' 1963 Columbia
'Buddy Williams Remembers Vol.1' 1965 RCA
'Family Album' 1966 RCA
'Buddy Williams Remembers Vol. '" 1967 RCA
'Buddy Sings Hank' 1967 RCA
'This Cowboy's Life Is Good Enough For Me' 1968 RCA
'Sentimental Buddy' 1969 RCA
'Buddy And Shorty' 1969 RCA
'Hard Times' 1969 RCA
'Buddy Kay And Harold' 1969 RCA
'A Family Affair' 1969 RCA
'Country Style With Buddy Williams' 1970 Camden
'Along The Outback Trails' 1972 RCA
'Aussie On My Mind" 1973 RCA
"The Big Banana Land' 1973 Camden
'Help Me Understand' 1973 Camden
'Where The White Faced Cattle Roam' 1974 RCA
'35 Wonderful Years' 1974 RCA
'Headin' For The Warwick Rodeo' 1974 RCA
'Country Touch' 1975 RCA
'Hittin' The Road Again' 1975 RCA
'Thanks To You' 1976 RCA
'Happiest Days Of My Life' 1976 RCA
'Aussie On My Mind' 1976 RCA
'Ramblin' Around' 1977 RCA
'Farming '77' 1977 RCA
Trucks And Trains 1977 RCA
'I'll Stroll Down Memory Lane With You' 1978 Columbia
'Bushland Of My Dreams' 1979
'Without Friends- What A Dreary Old World It Would Be' 1979 RCA
'Wonder Valley' 1981 RCA
'An Old Hillbilly From Way Back' 1981 RCA
'A Man And His Guitar' 1982 RCA
'Blazin' The Trail' 1983 Columbia
'Big Country Muster' 1984 RCA
'The Immortal Buddy Williams- Away Out On The Plain' 1984 Axis
'Take My Hand' 1985 RCA
'Over Hilltop And Hollow' 1985 Axis
'Our Buddy' 1986 RCA
'The Bushland That I Love' 1987 RCA

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Williams_%28country_musician%29