If you aren't Australia you won't have any clue who this guy is probably ... It's really sad ..

Australia loses Slim Dusty


Slim Dusty has left us - a nation morbid and drear.

The country music legend, whose hits included The Pub With No Beer and Duncan, died in Sydney after a long battle with kidney cancer. He was 76.

By his side as she had been throughout their 51-year marriage was wife and soul mate Joy McKean, his singer-daughter Anne Kirkpatrick, and son David.

Dusty was born David Gordon Kirkpatrick near Kempsey, on the NSW mid-north coast and wrote his first song The Way the Cowboy Dies aged just 10 years old.

What followed was 60 years of recording - 106 albums in all, notching up worldwide sales of more than six million.




It's an achievement unmatched by any other Australian artist.

His most famous song, The Pub With No Beer, was at the time the biggest selling record by an Australian.

Dusty was the first Australian to receive a Gold Record, the first to have an international record hit, and the first singer in the world to have his voice beamed to earth from space.

Tributes soon began flooding in, most agreeing with music historian Glenn A Baker that "(Slim Dusty) wasn't just an Australian, he was Australia".

Baker led the testimonials, describing his friend as "intrinsically and unapologetically Australian".

He said Dusty would be greatly missed by every Australian, particularly Indigenous communities who relished his dedication to taking his music to some of the most remote parts of the country.

"He was still making albums that won awards, he was still making albums that were selling large numbers of copies he was still a very active and competitive country music performer," Mr Baker told AAP.

Many of Australia's younger country music stars would mourn his passing like the death of their own father, he said.

"So many of the other rising stars of Australian music, they all considered it the most enormous honour to be given the opportunity to record a duet with him or perform on stage with him," he said.

Country music singer Adam Harvey said when he first began singing he had wanted to be Slim Dusty.

"I was a young kid getting around I remember with my moleskin jeans and my Akubra on, trying to be like Slim - I think every kid at one stage or another that sings country music has looked up to Slim and wanted to follow in the path that Slim's taken," he told ABC Radio.

Prime Minister John Howard also paid tribute to "a one-off, a great bloke in the proper sense of that expression and a great Australian figure and icon".

Possibly Dusty's oldest friend, Edwin "Shorty Ranger" Haberfield, said he was shocked and saddened to hear of his friend's death on Friday morning.

The pair had lived on neighbouring farms and shared a passion for music, spending many hours together learning how to play the guitar and learning how to yodel and sing.

John Williamson paid an emotional tribute to his old mate, saying Dusty's passing marked the end of an era in Australian folklore.

"Slim was the voice that kept the link with 'Banjo' and Henry Lawson," Mr Williamson said.

"Slim showed me the strength of a simple Aussie ballad.

"No frills - as pure and as straight to the point as the characters he sang about."

Perhaps the title of one of his last albums - Travellin' Still ... Always Will - recorded with his daughter Anne Kirkpatrick, epitomised how Australians feel about Dusty.



Last drinks for country legend
By Iain Shedden
September 20, 2003

IN town and country they drank to his memory and listened one more time to the songs that defined another Australia.


Slim Dusty - Australia's greatest country music performer.


Slim Dusty, the nation's greatest country performer, died at 9.10am yesterday, book-ending a week that began with the loss of American country icon Johnny Cash.

Dusty was born David Gordon Kirkpatrick on June 13, 1927, wrote his first song as a 10-year-old in 1937, and performed on radio for the first time in 1942. He had his first big hit in 1957 with A Pub With No Beer and his last in 1980 with I Love to Have a Beer With Duncan, although he never stopped touring or recording. He released his 104th studio album last year.

Dusty, 76, died at his Sydney home after a long battle with cancer.

The country legend had been undergoing hospital treatment in recent months after the removal of a kidney last year and a cancerous growth in 2001.

His wife Joy, daughter Anne Kirkpatrick and son David were at his bedside when he died. They accepted last night the NSW Government's offer of a state funeral for the nation's most prolific recording star.

Tributes came from all sides of the political fence and every facet of the music industry.

"Australian country music can never be quite the same again," Deputy Prime Minister and National Party leader John Anderson said.

"I am saddened we will no longer have the quintessential Australian bushman with us."

Simon Crean said he was "deeply saddened" by the death of the singer.

Dusty was "an Australian icon" who told the Australian story longer and better than anyone, the Opposition Leader have the quintessential Australian bushman with us."

Simon Crean said he was "deeply saddened" by the death of the singer.

Dusty was "an Australian icon" who told the country's story longer and better than anyone, the Opposition Leader said.

"With humour, and a great ear for a story, he recounted the story of this land to the rest of Australia, and indeed the world."

Dusty celebrated his 60th anniversary as a recording artist this year and had sold more than 6 million records in that time.

He was the first Australian to receive a golden record when his hit song Pub With No Beer was the fastest-selling single of the year in 1957. It went on to be an international success.

Despite his ill-health, Dusty had been working on his 106th album at his home studio in St Ives on Sydney's north shore in the weeks leading up to his death.

He had been with the same record label, EMI, for his entire career and it was often said in the industry he was "the man who built EMI".

"It's an incredibly sad day for us," EMI chief executive John O'Donnell said.

"He was the embodiment of what Australia is."

Dusty, born in the small town of Nulla Nulla, near Kempsey in northern NSW, became a cultural icon through his music, celebrating the common man with the bush ballads that he took to all corners of Australia.

His storytelling style appealed to country Australians and to the many indigenous communities in which he performed.

"He articulated the very essence of Australia to a great many Australians," said music historian Glenn A. Baker.

"His view of this country was a reliable and comfortable one that was shared by the people he played to for more than 50 years. He was never scared of a country town. He took his music out there and he did it."

Dusty was the undisputed king of country music, lauded by his peers and collecting countless music awards along the way.

He began his career travelling in tent shows around NSW in the late 1940s. In 1951 he married Joy McKean, also a country singer, and their partnership became a successful personal and professional one for the next 52 years.

Dusty was one of the stars of the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics, when he walked the track singing Waltzing Matilda.

Alistair Jones, associate arts editor for The Australian, wrote songs for Dusty and toured as keyboards player in Dusty's band for some years.

"Once Slim sang one of your songs it became the definitive version," Jones said. "He was such a strong, direct storyteller. He was even more entertaining off-stage - a great mate to drink beer with around the barbecue and play up."

The Australian
[This message was edited Fri Sep 19 9:24:02 PDT 2003 by FunkyStrange]

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