Australian country music legend of more than 100 albums and singles, winning international fame, Gold Records, and 36 Golden Guitars, Slim Dusty toured extensively from 1954 in
The Slim Dusty Show and recorded for over 50 years with EMI.
Slim Dusty was brought up on a farm and listened to cowboy music played on the radio in the 1930s. His father played the violin and sang Irish and music hall songs and recited Lawson and Paterson. Slim Dusty left school at 12 to work on the farm. He renamed himself Slim Dusty in 1938 at the age of 11 and made his first professional appearance at the Kempsey Show in 1944. After his father died in 1945, Slim Dusty ran the farm for a year and wrote,
When the Rain Tumbles Down in July, a classic 'seen as pivotal to Australia turning from American influence and giving Australia its own country music genre' (Peter Bowers, 'The Boy Who Lived His Dream',
The Sunday Age 21 September 2003).
In 1946 Slim Dusty left the farm to try for a performing career. For a decade it was hard work before a breakthrough in 1957 with a recording of
A Pub With No Beer composed by Gordon Parsons from an original poem
A Pub Without Beer written by Dan Sheahan and first published in
The North Queensland Register in January 1944. Slim Dusty continued touring and recording for most of his life.
Sources: Peter Bowers, 'The Boy Who Lived His Dream',
The Sunday Age 21 September 2003; 'Ageless Icon was Country's Best Mate' -AAP
The Canberra Times 20 September 2003
