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Slim Dusty AO MBE was an Australian country music singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer. He was an Australian cultural icon and one of the country's most awarded stars, with a career spanning nearly seven decades and numerous recordings. Slim Dusty was the first Australian to have a number one international hit song, with a version of Gordon Parsons' A Pub with No Beer. He received an unequalled 37 Golden Guitar awards and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and Australian Roll of Renown. During his lifetime, he was considered an Australian National Treasure.
David Gordon Kirkpatrick was born on 13th June 1927 at Homewood, Nulla Nulla Creek near Kempsey, New South Wales, Australia, the youngest child of David Kirkpatrick and Mary Partridge. Although Gordon, as he was known so as to avoid confusion with his similarly-named father, wrote his first song The Way the Cowboy Dies in 1937 and adopted the stage name Slim Dusty the following year, at eleven years of age. Fearing he was heading down the same 'road' as his father and milking the cows twice a day seven days a week, whilst a 'country boy' at heart, Gordon was looking for something else. [1]
Only after convincing his future mother-in-law that Slim Dusty was his stage name and that he had another, legal, name Gordon married fellow country singer, Joy McKean, on 22nd December 1951 in Parramatta, New South Wales. [2]
Slim Dusty singing his hit song, Duncan, on YouTube
Slim Dusty, Australian Icon. |
Slim Dusty is known for his songs that identify with Australian life, particularly of life in the 'bush', the great Aussie Outback. He also recorded many trucking songs, honouring those tireless men and women who travel Australia's highways delivering essential goods to diverse places. His country sub-genre is known as the 'bush ballad'.
He released his first record in 1945 at the age of nineteen and in 1946 signed his first recording contract. In 1954, Slim and Joy launched a full-time business career, including the Slim Dusty Travelling Show. Joy became Slim's manager for the next fifty years. [1] As well as regularly performing and touring together, Joy wrote several of Slim Dusty's most popular songs, including:
Other extremely popular songs during his career were:
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. [1]
Slim Dusty is the first artist to have music broadcast from space, when astronauts played his rendition of Waltzing Matilda from Space Shuttle Columbia as it passed over Australia on its maiden flight in 1981. [1]
Slim 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 him the first music artist in the world to record 100 albums with the same label. His final album was his 119th. [1]
Slim Dusty $1 commemmorative coin |
Centenary Medal |
'Slim Dusty' passed away after a protracted battle with lung and kidney cancer on 19th September 2003 at home at St Ives, New South Wales. He was aged just 76 years. [12] Thousands gathered at St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney a week later at a state funeral which featured tributes from Slim 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. His ashes are interred at Northern Suburbs Memorial Park, North Ryde, New South Wales.
Gordon Kirkpatrick is survived by Joy and their two children, both of whom are also accomplished singer-songwriters:
Featured German connections: Gordon is 23 degrees from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 27 degrees from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 26 degrees from Lucas Cranach, 25 degrees from Stefanie Graf, 24 degrees from Wilhelm Grimm, 24 degrees from Fanny Hensel, 31 degrees from Theodor Heuss, 22 degrees from Alexander Mack, 40 degrees from Carl Miele, 18 degrees from Nathan Rothschild, 22 degrees from Hermann Friedrich Albert von Ihering and 23 degrees from Ferdinand von Zeppelin on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.
K > Kirkpatrick > David Gordon Kirkpatrick AO MBE
Categories: Australia, Postage Stamps | Australian Roll of Renown | Country Music Awards of Australia | Australia, Featured Connections | Kempsey, New South Wales | Australia, Farmers | Australia, Singers | Songwriters | Singer-Songwriters | Officers of the Order of Australia | Members of the Order of the British Empire | Centenary Medal (Australia) | Senior Australians of the Year | Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens and Crematorium, North Ryde, New South Wales | Featured Artists | Featured Connections Archive 2021 | Australia, Notables in the Music Industries | Notables
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