SLIM DUSTY

David Gordon Kirkpatrick was born on 13 June 1927 in Kempsey, New South Wales, the son of a cattle farmer. Kirkpatrick adopted the stage name Slim Dusty in 1938 at eleven years of age. His earliest musical influences included Jimmie Rodgers.  In 1946, he signed his first recording contract with Columbia Graphophone for the Regal Zonophone label. His first single in 1947 ''When the Rain Tumbles Down in July' became one of his best-known songs. In 1951, Dusty married singer-songwriter Joy McKean and, with her help, achieved great success around Australia. In 1954, the two launched a full-time business career, including the Slim Dusty Travelling Show. McKean was Dusty's wife and manager for over 50 years. Together the couple had two children, Anne Kirkpatrick and David Kirkpatrick, who are also accomplished singer-songwriters. McKean wrote several of Dusty's most popular songs, including: "Walk A Country Mile", "Indian Pacific", "Kelly's Offsider", "The Angel of Goulburn Hill" and "The Biggest Disappointment".

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. Drawing on his travels and such writers over a span of decades, Dusty chronicled the story of a rapidly changing postwar Australian nation. Nevertheless, the arrival of rock and roll music saw major metropolitan music radio stations abandon support for country artists, and despite record sales in the multimillions, after the 1950s, Dusty was rarely heard on-air outside regional centres in Australia.

Dusty's 1958 hit "A Pub with No Beer" was the biggest-selling record by an Australian to that time and was released in Canada, Ireland, NZ, Norway, South Africa, UK and the USA. Over the course of his career, he collected more gold and platinum albums than any other Australian artist. (The "Pub with No Beer" is a real place, in Taylors Arm, not far from Kempsey where Slim was born). In 1959 and 1960, Dutch and German cover versions of the song became number one hits (even evergreens) in Belgium, Austria and Germany, brought by the Flemish country singer-guitarist and amusement park founder Bobbejaan Schoepen.

1964 saw the establishment of the annual Slim Dusty Australia-round tour, a 48,280 kilometres (30,000 mi) journey that went on for ten months. This regular event was the subject of a feature film,The Slim Dusty Movie, in 1984. Dusty recorded not only songs written by himself and other fellow Australian performers but also classic Australian poems by Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, with new tunes to call attention to the old 'Bush Ballads.' An example is 'The Man from Snowy River' by Paterson. In 1970, he was made a member of the Order of the British Empire for services to music. In 1973, he won Best Single at the inaugural Country Music Awards of Australia at the Tamworth Country Music Festival (McKean won Song of the Year as writer of "Lights on the Hill").

In all, he won a record 35 "Golden Guitars" over the years. Slim Dusty and his wife were patrons of the National Truck Drivers' Memorial located at Tarcutta, New South Wales. The General Manager of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, invited him and his wife to perform in 1997, recognising 50 years contributing to Country Music. The following January, he was awarded an officer of the Order of Australia for his service to the entertainment industry. Dusty recorded and released his one hundredth album, 'Looking Forward, Looking Back', in 2000.

All 100 albums had been recorded with the same record label, EMI, making Dusty the very first music artist in the world to record 100 albums with the same label. He was then given the honour of singing ''Waltzing Matilda'' in the Closing Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, with the whole stadium (officially 114,714 in attendance, the largest in Olympic history) singing along with him. Dusty died at his home in St Ives, New South Wales, on 19 September 2003 at the age of 76 after a protracted battle with cancer.

Thousands gathered at St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, on 26 September 2003 at a state funeral attended by the Prime Minister of Australia John Howard, and the federal opposition leader Simon Crean. Anglican Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen's tribute included leading the congregation of family, statesmen, fans, and musicians in the singing of "A Pub With No Beer". The funeral featured tributes from Slim's children as well as words from other national music stars (Peter Garrett and John Williamson) and music from Graeme Connors, Kasey Chambers, and Troy Cassar-Daley. Thousands of fans travelled from around Australia to stand outside the cathedral. He was cremated at Northern Suburbs Crematorium, Sydney.

SINGLES

A Pub With No Beer

and His Bushlanders

11 JAN '58

#1

The Answer to a Pub With Beer

and His Bushlanders

24 MAY '58

#12

Sequel to a Pub With No Beer

22 NOV '58

#23

Boomerang

25 NOV '61

#79

Darwin (Big Heart of the North)

1 FEB '71

#71

The Lights on the Hill

29 JAN '73

#100

The Biggest Disappointment

21 OCT '74

#57

The Melbourne Cup

10 NOV '75

#91

Duncan

1 DEC '80

#1

Country Revival

4 MAY '81

#99

The Pub That Doesn't Sell Beer

24 JAN '83

#94

We've Done Us Proud

14 DEC '87

#80

G'Day G'Day

29 AUG '88

#37

References

http://self.gutenberg.org/article/WHEBN0000321623/Slim%20Dusty

http://top100singles.blogspot.com.au/