Slim Dusty

David Gordon Kirkpatrick was born on 13 June 1927 in Nulla Nulla Creek west of Kempsey, New South Wales, the son of a cattle farmer. His childhood home, "Homewood", survives and is now heritage-listed. He was known by his middle name, Gordon. He wrote his first song, "The Way the Cowboy Dies", in 1937 and adopted the stage name "Slim Dusty" in 1938 at age 11.[3] His earliest musical influences included the American Jimmie Rodgers, New Zealander Tex Morton, and Australia's own Buddy Williams. In 1945, Dusty wrote "When the Rain Tumbles Down in July" and released his first record that year at the age of 19. In 1946, he signed his first recording contract with Columbia Graphophone for the Regal Zonophone label.[4]

Statue of "The Cunnamulla Fella" erected as a tribute to songwriter Stan Coster and Slim Dusty

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.[5]

Joy's sister Heather McKean (the other half of the McKean Sisters) married Reg Lindsay in February 1954 and divorced in 1985. The couple had a daughter, Dianne Lindsay, who is also a country music singer.

Joy McKean wrote several of Dusty's most popular songs, including "Lights On The Hill", "Walk a Country Mile", "Indian Pacific", "Kelly's Offsider", "The Angel of Goulburn Hill" and "The Biggest Disappointment".[6]

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.[7]

Dusty's 1957 hit "A Pub with No Beer" was the biggest-selling record by an Australian to that time, the first Australian single to go gold and the first and only 78 rpm record to be awarded a gold disc.[8] (The "Pub with No Beer" is a real place, in Taylors Arm, not far from Kempsey, where Slim was born.)[9] 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. In 1964 the annual Slim Dusty Australia-round tour, a 48,280 kilometres (30,000 mi) journey that went on for ten months, was started. 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. The 1980 album and songs The Man Who Steadies the Lead and The Pearl of Them All were the works of Paterson's rival for the title of Australia's bush balladeer, Scottish-Australian poet Will H. Ogilvie (1869–1963). In 1970, Dusty was made a member of the Order of the British Empire for services to music.[10]

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"). By March 1976, Dusty had achieved 37 gold and two platinum records, more than any other Australian artist.[11]

Dusty and his wife were patrons of the National Truck Drivers' Memorial, located in Tarcutta, New South Wales.

The general manager of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, Bob Whitaker, invited Dusty and his wife to perform in 1997, recognising 50 years of contributing to country music. The following January, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his service to the entertainment industry.[12]

Dusty recorded and released his 100th album, Looking Forward, Looking Back, in 2000 and became the first artist in worldwide commercial recording history to do so; second was Cliff Richard. All 100 albums had been recorded with the same record label, EMI, making Dusty the first music artist in the world to record 100 albums with the same label.[13] He was then given the honour of singing "Waltzing Matilda" in the closing ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics, with the whole stadium (officially 114,714 in attendance, the largest in Olympic history) singing along with him.[14][15]

Slim's repertoire included country gospel music, with which he liked to finish his shows.[16] His live albums usually carried the theme, and in 1971 he released the Gospel album Glory Bound Train featuring the eponymous hit Glory Bound Train and other songs of a Christian theme. Glory Bound Train was in turn the song selected to conclude the tribute concert held at Tamworth after his death. The "Concert for Slim" was recorded live on 20 January 2004, at the Tamworth Regional Entertainment Centre, and an all-star cast of Australian musicians sang out the show with Slim's Glory Bound Train. The DVD was certified 3× Platinum in Australia.[17]

He died at his home in St Ives, New South Wales, on 19 September 2003 at the age of 76 after a protracted battle with lung and kidney cancer.[18]

Eulogistic 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. In the funeral, the Anglican Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen paid tribute by leading the congregation of family, statesmen, fans and musicians in the singing of "A Pub With No Beer". Several tributes were featured from Dusty's children as well as words from other national musicians (Peter Garrett and John Williamson) and music from Graeme Connors, Kasey Chambers and Troy Cassar-Daley. Around Australia, thousands of fans had gathered to stand outside the cathedral; Dusty was later cremated at Northern Suburbs Crematorium, Sydney.[19][20]

Dusty had been working on his 106th album for EMI at the time of his death. On 8 March 2004 the album, Columbia Lane – the Last Sessions, debuted at number five in the Australian album charts and number one on the country charts. Gold status was achieved after being on sale for less than two weeks.

Columbia Lane is a tribute to the laneway juxtaposed to Parramatta Road in Strathfield (near the railway bridge link), where the EMI studios once stood (now Kennards Hire), and where he began his music career.

In 2004, Tamworth hosted the "Concert for Slim" as a memorial tribute featuring more than 30 Australian musical artists including Joy McKean, Paul Kelly, Keith Urban, Lee Kernaghan and Kasey Chambers.[21]

In 2005, a statue of the "Cunnamulla Fella" was unveiled in Cunnamulla, Queensland, in tribute to Dusty and Stan Coster and to the iconic song of that name performed by Dusty with lyrics by Coster.[22] The song recalls Coster's days working as a sheep-shearing "ringer" around Cunnamulla in the 1950s. Dusty recorded the song and it became an enduring country music hit, later covered by Lee Kernaghan. The statue was unveiled by country music personalities Anne Kirkpatrick (Dusty's daughter), Jayne Kelly, and Tracy and Russell Coster.[23][24]

EMI Records' Australian sales of Dusty's records surpassed seven million in 2007.[25]

Slim Dusty was Australia's most successful and prolific musical artist, with more Gold and Platinum albums than any other Australian artist.[26] He was also:[13]

• The first Australian to receive a Gold Record.
• Made a Member of the Order of the British Empire and an Officer of the Order of Australia for services to entertainment.
• On 14 April 1981, on Space Shuttle Columbia's first mission, Dusty's rendition of "Waltzing Matilda" was broadcast to Earth.[27][28]
• The Royal Australian Mint issued a coin celebrating his life.[29]
• Dusty's image was featured on an Australia Post postage stamp.
• In December 2020, Slim Dusty was listed at number 40 in Rolling Stone Australia's "50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time" issue.[30]

• Dusty's life was the subject of a 1984 feature film: The Slim Dusty Movie.
• "Pub With No Beer" was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry in 2008.
• The 2010 book 100 Best Australian Albums by Toby Creswell, Craig Mathieson and John O'Donnell ranked The Very Best of Slim Dusty as the 24th best Australian album of the previous 50 years.[42]
• The Slim Dusty Centre was built in Kempsey, NSW, Dusty's home town, and opened in October 2015.[43]

EMI Records' Australian sales of Slim Dusty records surpassed 7 million in 2007.[25]

• Official website Archived 27 January 2008 at the Wayback Machine (includes a more thorough discography)
• Slim Dusty discography at Discogs
• Slim Dusty at the National Film and Sound Archive Archived 18 October 2015 at the Wayback Machine
• Slim Dusty Centre Project
• Listen to a clip from "Pub With No Beer" and read more about it on australianscreen online.
• Slim Dusty at IMDb