Who is Slim Dusty?
Slim Dusty, AO MBE, was an Australian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer of country music. With a career spanning nearly seven decades and innumerable albums under his belt, he was an Australian cultural icon and one of the most honored stars in the nation.
Slim Dusty bio
The son of a cattle farmer, David Gordon Kirkpatrick was born on June 13, 1927, in Nulla Nulla Creek, west of Kempsey, New South Wales. Homewood, the house he grew up in, is still standing and is now on a heritage registry. Gordon served as his middle name.
Slim Dusty career
Dusty wed the singer-songwriter Joy McKean in 1951, and with her support, he enjoyed tremendous success all around Australia. The Slim Dusty Traveling Show was one of the two’s full-time business ventures that they started in 1954. Dusty’s manager and wife for more than 50 years was McKean. David Kirkpatrick and Anne Kirkpatrick, the couple’s two children, are both excellent songwriters.
Heather McKean, Joy’s sister and the other half of the McKean Sisters, wed Reg Lindsay in February 1954, and they split up in 1985. Dianne Lindsay, the couple’s daughter, is a vocalist who performs country music.
Dusty’s most well-known songs, such as “Lights On The Hill,” “Walk a Country Mile,” “Indian Pacific,” “Kelly’s Offsider,” “The Angel of Goulburn Hill,” and “The Biggest Disappointment,” were written by Joy McKean.
Despite being a skilled songwriter himself, Dusty worked with a number of other songwriters, such as Mack Cormack, Gordon Parsons, Stan Coster, and Kelly Dixon, who often lacked formal schooling but had a wealth of firsthand knowledge of the Australian outback. Dusty documented the history of a quickly changing postwar Australian nation by drawing on his travels and such authors over a period of decades.
Despite record sales in the millions, major metropolitan music radio stations stopped supporting country musicians with the advent of rock and roll music, and after the 1950s Dusty was rarely heard on the radio outside of regional centers in Australia.
The biggest-selling Australian record up to that point was Dusty’s 1957 smash “A Pub with No Beer.” It was also the first Australian single to reach gold and the only 78 rpm record to receive a gold disc.
(The “Pub with No Beer” is a real establishment; it’s located in Taylors Arm, close to Kempsey, the town where Slim was born.)
The song’s Dutch and German covers, which were introduced by Flemish country singer-guitarist and amusement park founder Bobbejaan Schoepen, rose to the top of the charts in Belgium, Austria, and Germany in 1959 and 1960, even becoming evergreens. The 48,280-kilometer (30,000-mile) yearly Slim Dusty Australia-round tour was launched in 1964 and lasted for ten months. The Slim Dusty Movie, a 1984 feature film, focused on this common occurrence.
At the Tamworth Country Music Festival’s inaugural Country Music Awards of Australia in 1973, he won Best Single (McKean won Song of the Year as writer of “Lights on the Hill”). More than any other Australian musician, Dusty had 37 gold and two platinum records by March 1976.
In 2000, Dusty became the first artist in the annals of commercial recording to record and release his 100th album, Looking Forward, Looking Back; Cliff Richard followed in second. Dusty became the first musician in history to record 100 albums for the same record company when he signed all of them to EMI.
Then, he had the honor of singing “Waltzing Matilda” during the 2000 Summer Olympics’ closing ceremony, to the accompaniment of the stadium’s official 114,714 spectators, the largest number in Olympic history.
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Slim Dusty net worth
Wikipedia, Forbes, IMDb, and other online sites estimate that before his passing, the well-known country singer Dusty had a net worth of $60 million. He made the money performing country music professionally. He’s an Australian native.
Slim Dusty cause of death
He lost his battle with lung and kidney cancer on September 19, 2003, at the age of 76, at his home in St. Ives, New South Wales.
When he passed away, Dusty was working on his 106th record for EMI. The album Columbia Lane – the Last Sessions made its debut on March 8, 2004, reaching position five on the Australian album charts and position one on the country charts. After being on sale for less than two weeks, it was given gold status.
Slim Dusty wife and children
His marriage to fellow singer-songwriter Joy McKean resulted in two children, Anne and David Kirkpatrick, who are both musicians. Together with McKean, he co-produced the well-known Slim Dusty Traveling Show.
He lost his battle with lung and kidney cancer on September 19, 2003, at the age of 76, at his home in St. Ives, New South Wales. When he passed away, Dusty was working on his 106th record for EMI.
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